Ray's Again

Headed back to Ray's again on Monday.  This time with Patrick, our nine year old.  Patrick has always been pretty timid when it comes to trying things out of his comfort zone.  Doesn't like roller coasters or any water park ride that is remotely foreign or scary, so I wasn't sure how he'd do at Rays.  But we looked at a lot of pictures, watched some videos, and he really wanted to go.  So Monday we headed over.

I couldn't have been more impressed with the kid.  Still very timid, but he worked through some different mental obstacles of his at his own pace and ended up having a great time.

First obstacle, getting him to go up the little hill to the top of the beginners skill area.  I'll bet it was almost two hours before he attempted to go up it.  I got off my bike and stood near the top of the hill, trying to assure him that I would catch him if something happened.  Still took about 5 runs before he made an attempt, which he cleared easily.  It was funny because you could see in his face how much he wanted to ride up, then at the last second slow down.

Next obstacle, going back down the hill.  After that it was pretty much off to the races.  We jumped around from the beginner skills area to the street park to the cross country loop and back again.  There were a couple spots on the cross country loop he walked, but I was very impressed he rode any of the hills at all.

Second biggest accomplishment in my eyes, him not quitting after a couple to tear inducing falls, one in the street park, one in the skills area.  Either one of which I was sure was the end of our day. But he recouped, again at his own pace, and kept riding.

Riding the teeter totters, one of his favorite features.

The teeter line has one big rock he couldn't ride over, but he'd stop walk over it, get back on and keep riding.  Probably rode this line 40 times.

At one point he wanted me to jump into the foam pit.  I told him I'd go right after he did.  He very quickly dropped the issue.  Which leads us the next big wow.  I watched him succumb to peer pressure, or maybe he just really wanted to jump into the foam pit and needed a push. 

Somewhere mid afternoon he met another kid with a similar skill level as his and they rode together off and on the rest of the day.  At one point the other kid wanted to go to the foam pit and P wanted to go as well.  Off we went.

We get there and I tell him, leave your bike here, walk over to the top of the ramp, and decide if you really want to do this.  He does, watches several others, comes back and gets his bike.  At this point I'm still pretty confident there is no way he is doing this.  The lower starting point is maybe 7' up, ride down a steep hill then back up probably a 5' ramp with a 60ish degree launch angle.  No way.

P and his new friend at the top of the ramp.

Picture pretty much says it all.  He started to get mad when he couldn't get out from under his bike.  But he did it.  I'm still kind of amazed.

Which of course meant I had to do it.  Went from the top deck (to the left in the picture above).  Fun, I just wish I could defy gravity like some of the other kids riding here.  I maybe got 3-feet of air.  I watched kids that had to be 9-10-feet up.  The more I ride here, and the more I watch other people ride, the more I feel like I have no idea how to ride a bike.

We stayed from when they opened at noon until almost 7 pm, when I had to drag him out of there.  I was super impressed and very proud of P for overcoming some of his fears, taking on challenges that he was initially very uncomfortable with, and getting back on the horse after some bad dismounts.  All without much of any push from me.  The only thing I really encouraged him to tackle was that first hill, everything else was his doing. 

We'll be back, I don't know when, with his basketball schedule taking up most weekend days, but we will definitely return.  It'll be interesting to see what he'll attempt on the next go round.