Super water slide makes a splash in Ann Arbor

As he climbed over the inflatable walls, 6-year-old Odin Shellnut was ready to go again. He tugged at his mom's arm, urging her in vain to hurry up and get to the top of the hill so he could flop on a tube and slide his way down the long, watery path.

But Odin and his mom, Carrie, both of Northville, faced a two-and-a-half-minute hike back up Ann Arbor's State Street before they could hop back on the 600-foot water slide set up by Slide the City and covering most of the two lanes of the normally traffic laden street running through the University of Michigan campus today.

The long blue slide featured green inflatable walls that made three different channels — including a middle one big enough for multiple people to slide down together — and several arches at intervals starting at the top on down. The sprinklers in the arches sprayed water down onto the tarp-like plastic. Workers used big squeegees to help the water flow down.

The slide ran down the hill, past U-M's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, past the Coach and Four barbershop and ended just before the Packard Road intersection. Slide the City has listed a possible Detroit stop on their website, but hasn't attached a date to it.

A group of Ann Arbor firefighters stood around the bottom, making sure no one was injured in the long slide.

Participants paid for either unlimited or a set number of rides. They could bring their own inflatable ride, or get a green or pink tube from the event.

"I'm pretty excited to go down," Marshall Wilson, 13, of Ann Arbor, said while working on blowing up his tube. "It's going to be pretty fun."

After holding their tubes under the sprayers mounted on the top of the first arch, riders plopped the tubes down and went for a slide.

"It's not bad once you get going," Tim Martin, 25, of Ann Arbor, said after his second run. "I think it's going to get faster as more people go down."

There was a huge turnout for the event. A half-hour after it opened, there was a 20-minute or so wait to slide down. By midday that wait was approaching an hour. It was set to close down at 6 p.m.

While much of the crowd was going down the slide, others draped themselves over security fences, watching all the festivities. Music played all the while, giving the crowd a party feel.

Mary Coleman, 46, of Ypsilanti, was among those watching.

"Actually, my son and daughter are going down," she said. "They gave me their phones to get photos of them coming past. It's a great way to spend the morning. It's certainly unique."

Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or djesse@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @reporterdavidj