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Family attraction

Lindsay Brown, 5, leads the way to the top of the hill with her mom, Stephanie, and her sister, Lacey, 8, at SplashDown Family Waterpark. The three were headed for a ride down Cannon Bowl. (Liz Kishimoto Photos / The Spokesman-Review)
Steve Christilaw Correspondent
Lindsay Brown, 5, leads the way to the top of the hill with her mom, Stephanie, and her sister, Lacey, 8, at SplashDown Family Waterpark. The three were headed for a ride down Cannon Bowl. (Liz Kishimoto Photos / The Spokesman-Review)

Summer will go out with a splash this Labor Day weekend in Spokane.

Although SplashDown Family Waterpark, 11127 E. Mission Ave., closes after the holiday, the weather is expected to be hot and sunny, bringing out crowds of late-season thrill-seekers for one last slide and scream.

“There’s something about sunshine and water and splashing that bring out the kid in everybody,” said Melissa Kellogg, who purchased the park three years ago with her husband, Geoff. “We have people come into the park saying they’re only going to watch, but they always seem to end up going down the slides and having fun.”

The park welcomes between 300 and 500 people per day.

The Kelloggs spent their first season polling customers and looking for a way to expand the four 400-foot-long slides that make up the park’s main attractions, dubbed Spokane Falls, which received a facelift before the start of the 2006 season, and the popular kiddie area known as Petey’s Little Puffer Fish Lagoon.

“The kiddie area is really popular,” Kellogg said. “My 18-month old’s favorite part of the day is when her 12-year-old sister takes her out to play in the pool.

“It’s the kind of area where the kids can have fun and ride the slides, but the older kids actually find enjoyable for hanging out.”

But it’s the long, winding main attraction that has sustained the park for more than two decades.

“If you look around at the new parks, you don’t see slides that long,” Kellogg said. “They just don’t build them like that anymore.”

But the couple weren’t satisfied.

“We just felt that it needed something more,” Kellogg said. “We wanted to add something new.”

The couple were determined to maintain the family-friendly environment while expanding the thrill quotient.

“That was one of the big factors that went into our decision to expand with the Cannon Bowl last year,” she said of the new slide that sends riders through a tube and shooting out into a pool.

“We wanted to make sure that we were fun for the whole family – not just the little ones and not just the kids.

“We wanted something that mom could take a little one on but that dad and the older kids would find fun, too. And I think we were right on the mark.

“Everyone comes up and says, ‘Wow – I thought that would be fun, but I had no idea it would be so much fun.’ “