Kool Park Pool + The Quarry at Carrigan Farms: Two Final Summer Break Adventures

What a good weekend. From start to finish this weekend was filled with summer fun. We were determined to sneak in two final summer break adventures and both were quintessential summer fun involving swimming and sunshine: Kool Park Pool and the Quarry at Carrigan Farms! For my local friends, both of these spots are 100 percent worth a day trip from Charlotte!

Kool Park Pool

On Friday, the boys and I drove about an hour away to Hickory, North Carolina. I recently heard about a local community pool in the area that was open to the public for a small fee. What really piqued my interest was the fact that this pool had a number of diving boards which seem to be almost an anomaly these days. As a former diver, I LOVE diving boards and knew jumping from high heights would thrill the boys so we made a visit to Kool Park Pool happen.

The pool itself isn’t anything fancy by any means but that is part of its charm. Kool Park Pool has been open for 90+ years and took me right back to my days of lifeguarding at Birchwood Community Pool in Palatine, Illinois in the early 2000s. There was concrete everywhere, four diving boards, a not-too-fast-but-still-really-fun slide built into the side of the pool and lifeguards who were keeping everyone safe but not overcorrecting if that makes sense? Kids were allowed to jump and play and just be kids and I felt like for the afternoon the boys and I were transported back to a simple ’90s summer. It was one of my absolute favorite days I’ve had with them all year!

When we arrived at Kool Park Pool, the high dive — a 15-foot monstrosity — caught our eyes immediately and I had to laugh when 5-year-old Rhett of all the kids was the first to make a beeline for it!

He didn’t hesitate for one second and jumped right off, emerging from the water exclaiming, “It felt like jumping into outerspace!” We all followed suit and jumped off the high dive before trying out the low dive, a medium dive and a traditional 3-meter diving board (a typical “high dive” that was dwarfed by the 15 foot high dive).

Fun fact: The high dive at Kool Park Pool was once a metal tower dignitaries used to watch rocket launches at Cape Canaveral. Apparently in the 1960s the son of the man who originally opened the pool submitted a bid on metal items from Cape Canaveral not knowing what all it included. His bid won and when the metal items arrived, he discovered he had purchased a 15-foot tower and had it transformed into the diving tower.

The pool has a smal amount of food and treats for sale, bathrooms and showers but they were 100 percent fine with people bringing outside food into the pool which we appreciated since we packed a picnic lunch to enjoy during our afternoon visit.

Carrigan Farms Quarry

Our second adventure of the weekend took us to the Quarry at Carrigan Farms in Mooresville, North Carolina. Carrigan Farms is a fifth-generation family farm our family loves visiting at different times of the year for different reasons.

Flashback family pic at Carrigan Farms! 

In the spring, Carrigan Farms is a hot spot for strawberry picking. In the late summer/early fall, it’s a must-visit for apple picking in our area. In October, they offer pumpkin picking and hayrides to their pumpkin patch. Despite our many visits to Carrigan Farms over the years, we’ve never visited the quarry on their property for summertime swimming. We knew we wanted to make it happen this year now that our boys are older and all proficient swimmers.

Our tickets gave us access to the quarry for swimming as well as catch-and-release fishing at two ponds on the farm’s property. Absolutely no one else was fishing in the ponds — the quarry is for sure the main attraction — but you know we couldn’t resist!

The boys caught a bunch of sunnies and we all got the biggest kick out of the three farm geese that were next-level friendly and hung out with us the whole time.

We never fed them but you would’ve thought we had their favorite meal on hand the way they were glued to us and nibbled our fingers. They even followed us out to the parking lot as we left the ponds and headed toward the quarry!

Once we were sufficiently hot and ready for swimming, we walked to the quarry and were blown away that a place like this exists only 35 minutes from our house.

Beautiful teal water is surrounded by jagged rock and we wasted no time jumping right in!

While we’ve never been to the quarry before, I cannot help but wonder if the timing of our visit was during some sort of a sweet spot. It was busy but not too crowed and the water was cool and refreshing without feeling freezing. Lines were never too long for high jumps and the rope swing.

(Hat: Target / Swim top: Skatie / Swim bottoms: Skatie / Swim boyshorts: Skatie — I got these based on one of your recs and slipped them on over my bottoms. I thought they were so helpful to wear when I was running around and jumping from high heights. / Mesh skirt: Skatie / Bag: Amazon) 

Soon after we arrived, Ryan and I completed the swim test required by anyone age 12+ who wishes to swim in the quarry without a life jacket. (Everyone under 12 must wear a life jacket.) The swim test was not long as we just had jump off a tall rock, swim out to a dock, tread water for one minute and swim back to a ladder. We saw plenty of adults and big kids wearing life jackets and lots who passed the swim test grabbed them anyway because the water was 30 feet deep and life jackets made it easier to just relax and float. I was fine but next time I’ll pack floats for our family to make chilling in the water a little more comfortable!

We spent the vast majority of our time at the quarry jumping from the rocks into the water and watching people tackle the somewhat intimidating rope swing! Rope swing antics thoroughly entertained all of us because you’d hear collective cheers from the water whenever anyone would do a particularly cool trick and a giant “owwww-awww” if someone would belly or back flop. Ryan and I both tried it and it was a lot of fun!

At one point we took a break for lunch and since no outside food or drink is allowed, we ordered an assortment of burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, corn on the cob and watermelon for our crew.

We thought the food was really good and loved that the meat was all being grilled on large grills outside that we could see; it gave lunchtime major family cookout vibes!

After lunch, we returned to the water for more rock jumping and swimming and left feeling sufficiently waterlogged and happy after our final summer break family adventure! It’s back to school for our big kids later this week and then Rhett officially begins kindergarten the following week. Summer, you went by a little too fast!