Monday, November 19, 2007

Lake Dolores

From my sister, I received this post from the Retroland SoCal list...

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Where on earth is (was?) Lake Dolores?

When I was a kid in the '70's I used to see TV commercials all the time about buying property to build your dream retirement home on in "beautiful Lake Dolores". The ad's had images of people boating and water skiing on a lake somewhere. The ad's ran for years so plenty of people must've bought property. But I've never been able to find anything about Lake Dolores on any map or by Googling. Nobody seems to have ever heard of it.

You folks here must remember those commercials. DO ANY OF YOU KNOW WHERE LAKE DOLORES IS OR WAS????
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Being a native, I somehow cannot remember this at all. I think I must have blocked it from my memory as my parents were obviously smart enough to keep me away from an obviously dangerous waterpark (but obviously also truly amazing park).

It sounds totally irresponsible, but, man, would I have loved it.

5 comments:

Danielle said...

It's off the 15 outside of Barstow on the way to Vegas. Near the "Early Man" site. I believe it's still there, waterslides and all....
Danielle

Danielle said...

Also, Google this:

Lake Dolores, California

Several articles pop up.

Unknown said...

Yes...it was on the 15 on the way to Vegas...used to go there as a kid.

The place was awesome...with rides that you'd NEVER get away with these days. Stand up aluminum slides (yes...STAND UP), high dives, a zip line (that made you go INSANELY fast), and a trapeze.

I'd DIE to have a place like that available today...but only in Mexico can stuff like this exist anymore.

Here's a link to a site I found...read all the comments from some of the old employees.

http://www.quartzcity.net/2006/05/21/rock-a-hoola-water-park-in-stasis/#comment-33432

Jeff Howe said...

So I'm responding to a blog entry that's a few months over a year old. No problem. Lake Dolores can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/dz8939

We went to Lake Dolores in 1984 after spending two weeks doing desert training at nearby Fort Irwin. Back then, it was a couple manmade ponds with some swings, a large slide and a few other things. It hadn't become a large waterpark yet.

Jeff Howe said...

Yeah, the blog posting is well over a year old. Here is Lake Dolores:

http://tinyurl.com/dz8939

We went there in 1984 after a two week desert training scenario at nearby Fort Irwin. It was a hoot swimming in the manmade ponds after eating desert dirt for two weeks.