ART & DESIGN
FUN FOR ALL One AirTrack plus water and soap is the ultimate recipe for a good summer. BY J E N N I F E R A S H TO N RYA N
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ack Payne, the 24-year-old backflipping YouTuber with nearly 2 million subscribers, runs across his backyard lawn, jumps onto an inflatable white unicorn, and slides across his AirTrack into a swimming pool. It’s raining, so the pool float glides easily across the vinylcoated double-wall fabric (imagine a bounce house) before Payne sails onto the water and pumps his fist with the triumph of a bull rider. Dutch 23-year-old world traveler Jesse Heffels and friends take a more traditional path: the arms-forward belly slide. Armed with a loaded squirt gun of dish soap, they hose their track down with water and then spray the suds. Two young men stand spaced out on the AirTrack
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waiting. Then, as the slippery projectile that is Heffels’ body rockets forward onto the mat, each guy jumps up and successfully lands a backflip without wrecking Heffels’ slide. But don’t try this at home. The part to try at home is everything but the backflips. The traditional Slip ’N Slide hails from a 1960s front yard in Lakewood, Calif. As the story goes, a dad accidentally invented it after watching his kid turn the hose on and try to slide down a painted concrete driveway. Ouch! The dad, Robert Carrier, came up with a better idea and brought home a 50-foot piece of waterproof fabric. Riding that impromptu slide proved
