big pool
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Two identically named cities, 2,857 miles apart, one East Coast, the other West Coast. One day in August, husband and I spent time in both, traveling from Richmond, VA, to Richmond, CA, and ultimately hanging my swim cap in Berkeley. The trip took less than 12 hours and would have been faster if we hadn’t…
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“Look! There it is,” My husband exclaimed as we continued our hike from his conference at the Marriott Marquis. Two flags extended from the elegant Italian Renaissance edifice, with its white columns, dark brick, and Beaux Arts details. My heart leaped, a combination of exertion, excitement, and nerves. I adjusted my bag, straightened my dress,…
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Crossing all our fingers and toes, on our way south from Ontario, we pulled our packed van up to the Stony Brook State Park entrance on a warm summer Sunday. Hopefully, our second attempt to leap into the park’s river-fed Depression-era swimming pool would end in a splash. Two weeks beforehand, our first attempt (while…
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September 8-9, 1954: Your arms churn through the frigid, black depths of Lake Ontario like a propeller, strong, efficient, and devoid of sensation. Your legs… you haven’t felt them for hours…You lift your head and search your surroundings … Where is everyone?… Ahead, a lone light appears, dimly illuminating your boat’s hull… There’s Coach Ryder……
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“Everybody get in the pool!” That’s what my favorite shirt says. My husband gave it to me for my birthday pool party a couple years ago. I’m mentioning it here because that’s the atmosphere at the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables, Florida. During our 2023 trip to “The City Beautiful,” we experienced first-hand the energetic…
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The picture seduced me. What looked like a Spanish castle rose from a grove of lush tropical greenery. A massive pool stretched across the foreground, beckoning me to plunge into its vibrant blue water. “Is this heaven?” I wondered. No, it’s Florida. Specifically, it’s the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, “The City Beautiful.” In the…
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Next stop: Cincinnati! Not for a Reds game, although they had a homestand against the Tigers so the Queen City ran red with fans. But we weren’t there for baseball, although we’d thoroughly enjoyed The Great American Ballpark three years ago, when the home team won against the Pirates and my husband gobbled five hotdogs. …
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Toeing the water of my home pool in Williamsburg, Virginia, I grumbled that today’s swim would be hot as a nuclear reactor. Well, maybe not quite 10 times hotter than the sun, which according to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is what occurs in a fusion reactor. Still, the 94F water I was about to…
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Public domain imageSunlite Pool, the enormous blue gem of Cincinnati’s Coney Island amusement park, was built in 1925. An engineering marvel even today, this 3-million-gallon tank remains the world’s largest recirculating pool. But it won’t be for long if rapid community action doesn’t work. I’ve never been there, but I feel compelled to write this…
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DOE-Oakridge (1961). Overall View of Oak Ridge Pool DOE Photo by Ed Westcott Oak Ridge Tennessee July 1961. https://www.flickr.com/photos/doe-oakridge Accessed 10 January 2024. Public domain. In the summer of 2021, after more than a year of quarantine and masks and “safer at home,” we fled. We packed up Stickers, our trusty van, and hit the…
swim history girl 