Soak or Swim?

So this weekend I used a free night at the local Sheraton and 4 water park passes that I had won at a winetasting over the holidays. The Sheraton is the largest hotel in the area and located right next to the Arlington International Racetrack. A year or so ago they added on an enormous indoor water park so I grabbed my kid and a friend of his and off we went. We checked in Saturday night, watched a movie and then went home (the hotel hallways were full of guests who treat their cheap overnight stay at the Sheraton like a week long vacation at Disney World, packing all the fun in one 24 hour period)). We drove back the next morning and my son and his buddy spent about 6 hours in the water park while I hunkered down in the lobby with free WI-Fi to complete my online final. Traveling with my family as often as we did when I was a child, it was all about what hotel we were staying at and how good the pool was. Ah how things change as you get older. I will venture into a nice pool in the Caribbean or the Riviera while traveling, but I won't touch a public pool at a chain hotel. Masses of people, warehouse size building, no windows, chlorine bathtubs, babies in "waterproof" diapers, gag...so I happily hunkered down in the non chlorine smelling lobby for the afternoon. The kids at the park seemed to have found their idea of heaven and I'm glad my own kid had such a great time acting like a stunt man on the slides. I grew up on the beaches and in pools and love to swim so I started looking though the library for some books on pools and found a couple with great pictures of the ultimate status symbol for your backyard (minus the cesspool hazards hotel pools are). Don't get me started on public hot tubs...shudder....