Renting an inflatable water slide

Renting an inflatable water slide for a kid’s birthday party.

This year for her kid’s birthday party, Jennifer decided to do something different. Since her two boys have birthdays just a few days apart, she always has one party and makes it a big event. In the past she has rented a recreation center with a swimming pool. However; keeping track of a bunch of kids at a public pool gets to be a big chore.

She put out a call for inflatable toys and found one of my friends had an inflatable water slide for rent. I really did not know what to expect when I offered to help pick it up and set it up in her mom’s back yard. I was kind of expecting a little backyard toy.

I have known Dave for years but I had never been to his house. I just see him a few times a year at various sports car events. We found his house on the side of Fort Mountain after only one turn around. We made it up his steep winding drive way to the site of a former amusement park called Frontier land. His workshop now occupies the concrete slab where the old dance hall was located.

He had to move his Bulldog Mack fire truck from in front of the door so I could back up and get the water slide. He has a lot of cool big boy toys.

When I saw, the size of the package, I was glad we had brought the Suburban and not the Jeep. It took three of us to work the heavy roll of fabric and vinyl into the back of the truck. Then we had to find places for the blower, water hose, power cord and stakes needed to make it work.

We made it down off the mountain at dark and I decided to store the slide in the Suburban overnight and set it up the next day. Dave had told us it would take about 45 minutes to set up. I decide to allow a couple of hours.

We got to the site a couple of house before the party was to begin. I found I could not back the Suburban all the way to where the slide was to be set up. Jennifer’s step father however did have a large wheel barrow that was strong enough to carry the slide. We slid it out of the truck and onto the cart.

It took a while to unroll the huge slide. I was amazed at how big it actually was. Once we had it rolled out and power cords run to it, I fired up the blower. The structure soon towered over the yard. I then realized we needed to install the steps which Velcro in place. Dave had explained the procedure but without having seen the device, I did not really comprehend what he had said. I am pretty sure we should have installed the steps before we aired it up. It turned out the piece was not just the steps but the sliding surface as well. We eventually worked it into position but we could never really secure the Velcro properly.

We also learned that the plastic got very hot in the sun very quickly. We hooked up the water spray and the slide cooled right off.

The kids started playing on it right away not waiting for the official start of the party. They did not care if the pool at the end was not full or that the steps still needed to be adjusted. I eventually had to run the kids off to reattach the steps and slide surface. I switched off the blower and let it sag so I could get the parts to line up better. However since the yard was not exactly level, we lost most of the water from the pool when I shut of the blower.

The kids loved it anyway. “Best Birthday party ever!” was the cry repeated over and over as they climbed and slid tirelessly. The only way to get the off the slide nearly an hour after the party was over was to shut off the blower and let it collapse under them.

I elected to let it drain and dry overnight before picking it back up. Thankfully Dave offer to come and help pick it up. He dropped his pickup near my house and we took my little red trailer to load it.

We were able to work the trailer back through the flower garden near the site of the slide. Dave showed the proper way to fold and roll up the slide and with three of us working together we got it collected pretty quickly. I am sure without his help it would have taken much longer and not been in nearly as nice a roll when we got done. That thing is heavy.

We loaded it on the tilt bed trailer and I was able to back my Jeep through the maze and hook to it. We loaded all the parts on the trailer and took it back to his waiting pickup.

It was easy to back the trailer up to his tailgate and flip the roll over into the truck bed. That was much easier than trying to slide the roll into the back of the Suburban.

I was sure glad that I had my little trailer back and with new tires to carry the load. It really saved the day.