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Continuation of a previous post

Note: Most pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Breakfast

This was our last day in Wisconsin Dells. Check-out was 11:00, so we had to do everything we wanted by 11.

We started by going out to breakfast. Not just any place, but a touristy place: Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Meals. Paul Bunyan seems to be a popular tourist attraction all over the US.

And anything with the name Paul Bunyan is required by zoning laws to have a giant statue out front. The blue ox is optional. This restaurant has its blue ox inside the building. If I remember correctly, it was just the head mounted on the wall. Apparently some hunters mistook it for game.

I really liked this place. Why?

• First of all, you pay ahead of time. The cashier takes your money and then you get seated. They can do that because
• there are no menus. It’s all-you-can-eat breakfast. They bring out doughnuts, eggs, ham, pancakes, potatoes, and sausage. That’s what you get, and that means
• there is no waiting. The waiter (I should be calling him a server because, like I said, there was no waiting) just started bringing out food once we were seated. No orders to take, no problems with mixed up plates. It must be a nice place to be a server. And because there were no orders,
• there is no bill. Since you paid up front, once you’re done you just get up and leave. You don’t have to wait for the guy to come around, bring you your bill, take the bill back, and bring you your change (or credit card back). This is especially helpful for families with children. Okaaaay. We’re all done… where is the bill? We are ready to leeeaaaave. None of that here.
• And for the engineer in me: The price involves a formula. Kids are charged $0.75 per year of age. I appreciated the fact that Beta did not cost as much as Alpha, since Beta is smaller. I think Gamma was free.

Pool

After breakfast, we had an hour or two to play at the pool. My very organized wife had arranged the packing the night before, so the suitcases were all ready to be loaded in the van. All we had to do this morning was change into swimsuits, go swimming, and then change back into civilians clothes by 11:00.

The slides were fun, then Alpha wanted to ride the Hurricane again before we left.

Okay, I thought, we should have time to do that.

There were a lot more people today than any of the other days. That meant that there were a lot more people who wanted to ride the Hurricane today. We spent a lot of time in line. By the time we got out of the Hurricane the first time, it was 11:05.

Oh boy, we’re late.

“Sorry, but we don’t have time to go a second time.” I told Alpha. We hurried over to our table, where I was glad to see that the rest of the family was not still waiting for us. That meant that they went back to the room and handled check-out so that we were not charged another day.

The hotel has a policy of unlocking the room doors and leaving the doors wide open at check-out time. My wife said that she got back to the room right at 11:00 and the door was open and all our stuff was available for the taking.

They don’t mess around there.

Everyone was frustrated for the next 15 minutes as we were trying to get everything out the door but things kept happening like kids’ losing their shoes and forgetting what they were supposed to be doing.

But we eventually made it out to the van and I think we did not leave anything behind. Then we drove to Chicago, but I’ll save that for the next blog post.

Lessons

We learned a couple of things on this vacation to Wisconsin Dells.

• Always go through the camera after a young child has been handling it. Otherwise you end up with a lot of space occupied by odd photos. Mostly just whatever happens to be at his eye level. Of course, we knew this before, but this gives me a chance to actually use one of the photos, as evidence.
• Do not let your toddler take anything out on the balcony. We were on the third floor, and I had to go rescue some socks that ended up on the ground, thanks to Gamma.
• The balcony railings are narrow enough to prevent most heads from squeezing between them. Gamma, on a couple of occasions, felt like demonstrating that he could fit his head between the rails. He could not so easily bring his head back out though. No permanent damage, and I think he learned his lesson.

Continuation of a previous post

Note: Most pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Duck Races

The pools at the hotel didn’t open right away in the morning. But at the middle pool, Klondike Kavern, they had a duck race (the “Ken-Ducky Derby”) for the kids a half hour before the pool opened. Klondike Kavern had the race because it has the lazy river feature, which the other pools do not have.

The duck race works like this:

• Each child chooses a small rubber ducky and a staff member writes his name on it
• The starter staff member dumps all the ducks at once in the lazy river
• The finish-line staff member waits about 30 feet down the lazy river and grabs the first 3 ducks to reach him. Those are the winners.

They ran about four races, and each of our kids had a duck, so we ended up winning twice. The prizes were all the same, I think – plastic duck calls.

Duck Tour 1

We decided the night before that we should go on the duck tour. Otherwise, our trip to Wisconsin Dells would not be complete. The Tommy Bartlett show would have been fun to watch, but they hadn’t opened for the season yet. There were some other things, but we were planning on stopping at the museum and aquarium in Chicago on our way back home, so we didn’t look at anything museumish or aquariumish (or zooish).

That left waterparks (been there) or hiking (done that) or the duck tours. The first one we saw, brochure-wise, was the Original WWII Dells Army Ducks. So we decided to go there. I pulled into the parking lot. It looked rather sparse, but it was the off-peak season. My wife got out and asked the ticket booth about times and availability.

She came back shaking her head. “They are running only at noon and 3:00“. If I were running a place with the word “Army” in it, then all times would be in military format: 1200 and 1500, not noon and 3. It was only 10:10. We didn’t have any other plans to fill almost two hours of waiting, so we drove to the other duck tour place.

Duck Tour 2

It turns out that they are also original – the Original Wisconsin Ducks. It was my turn to get out and walk to the ticket booth and ask about times and availabilities. So that’s what I did.

The lady there said they ran every half hour. Every half hour? No waiting? By the time we got the kids out of the van and loaded into the duck, that would use most of that half hour. “I’ll be right back, with the family” I told her.

Now they said they ran every half hour. The key part of that is “said”. They didn’t start for about 45 minutes. I think they meant that the tours are scheduled for every half hour, or they would like to run every half hour, or they’ll run every half hour that there are enough people. But it was a little misleading to say they ran every half hour. Because I’m sure if no one was on board, they would not take out the duck.

The duck tour itself was 1 hour long. It was a nice warm day, the breeze was blowing gently in our faces and the engine was humming along. It was a good way to spend an hour. Gamma napped for about 50 of the 60 minutes. It’s okay because his ticket was free.

Here is my view during the land part of the tour:

And here is my view during the water part of the tour:

Of course, that was the straight-ahead view. Most of the time I was looking out one side or the other.

Note: take a few dollars cash because the drivers do take (and ask for in a roundabout way) tips. I did not bring any cash on the duck tour, otherwise I probably would have given him a tip. So, Pat, the duck tour driver who attends University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse and plays football there, don’t take it personally that I didn’t leave you a tip. You did a fine job, but all I had was my credit card and you were not getting that.

Side Note: the duck tour place is across the street from Mt. Olympus. That is a water park/theme park/resort thingy. It is noteworthy because of the Trojan horse. It is about 5 or 6 stories high and is a fairly accurate replica, at least if all the drawings I’ve seen are close. It is, I think, the one item that represents how touristy the area is.

The website’s description of the horse is amusing: “the horse, where brave men once lay in wait to attack the Trojans“. Makes it sound like they have the original.

Duck!

The afternoon and evening were spent in the pools and playland. I already posted some pictures of the pools, so this post will contain pictures of the playland.

The playland was next to the arcade and was in the section close to our room. The playland was a large version of the play areas that are not uncommon in certain restaurants or as stand-alone businesses – kids climb up stairs and cushioned passageways and everything has netting around it to prevent escapes.

But this one had a large open area in the middle. And that area contained hundreds of foam balls. And it contained hoses and blowers and compressed air and switches.

The kids could load the balls into a cannon and shoot them across the room. The second story of this place had several air cannons, spaced around a circle. And you could aim them. Put a ball in the side, aim the cannon, press the red button on the end, and the ball would fly fairly accurately across the structure. Some of the cannons were larger and could handle multiple balls at once, if you wanted to get all MIRV-y on people.

Most of the foam balls were on the ground floor. The kids started by picking up as many as they could and taking them up to the second story (there were no “shooters” on the ground floor – only fixed cannons that aimed up) Eventually they discovered that there were a few “stoves” that just blew the foam balls up to the second story. But it kept them busy and they were usually upset only when we had to leave.

The playland was nice because the kids didn’t require constant attention, like they did at the pool. We could sit and watch them. We could relax (and not worry about swimming skills) and they could have fun.

Devil’s Lake

We hit the pools in the morning and then, after Gamma’s nap and lunch in the room, headed out to Devil’s Lake State Park for the afternoon.

Devil’s Lake is a lake surrounded by hills and rocks and trees. Very scenic. The local DNR has done a good job renovating the lake, as there was no trace of any fire or brimstone. Not even any scorch marks anywhere. “Devil’s Lake” is quite the misnomer in this case.

We started with a hike down one of the easier trails. It’s hard to push a stroller on rough paths. Then the boys decided they wanted to try one of the steep paths (Pothole Trail, in case you have a trail map). Wife and Gamma hiked it for a minute, then decided against it and went back down. Alpha and Beta (and I) made it about 2/3 of the way up.

Then they gave up and went back down, where all 3 of them played on the rocks as we walked back to the lake.

My wife, always thinking ahead, had packed water and granola bars, so we sat by the lake and enjoyed a snack. The boys enjoyed seeing some minnows, and it was all rather peaceful.

Dinner

Then we went back into the Dells. Some more hotel and some down time, then out to eat! Dinner that night was at a restaurant. The wife had planned ahead and we brought a cooler full of food. So until this point in the vacation, we had not set foot in a restaurant (or gone through a drive-through place either) (or drive-thru). She had seen an ad or something for Buffalo Phil’s. She thought it would be a fun place because the ad said that a train delivers your food. We got in there and, sure enough, there was a model train (of a larger scale) that went from next to the kitchen, past a few tables, and back to the kitchen.

However, the tables that were next to the train were full, so we sat at a table that was served by a plain ol’ waiter guy. I’m pretty sure the train does not expect tips, so it should be slightly cheaper to sit there.

The food was plentiful, as evidenced by my meal:

That was a buffalo burger, which had buffalo meat for the burger part, and bacon, and pulled pork. I don’t know why they needed pulled pork on it, but I didn’t mind.

We learned something at the restaurant: restaurant cups with lids and without straws are an acceptable substitute for sippy cups. Albeit slightly messier.

Then back to the hotel, another round of waterpark fun, and then to bed.

Coming soon…Day 3

Continuation of a previous post

Note: Most pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Arrival

After running the gauntlet of tollbooths that stood between us and Wisconsin Dells, we were ready to be done driving. It was a little over 7 hours of driving; with stops it took a little over 9 hours total. We arrived in the late afternoon or early evening. It’s hard to tell which was which because of the time change.

Our destination was The Wilderness. Orwell would be proud of this place (officially called Wilderness Resort), because there was not much in the way of wilderness at this self-proclaimed “America’s largest waterpark resort”.

If you look up “wilderness” in the dictionary (which I did not do), you should not see that it means waterparks, arcades, golf courses, laser tag, and a spa. But they tried to have some rustic decor.

Check-In

The person at the front desk did all the check-in stuff and we thought we were all set. Then he said “But wait, there’s one more thing. You need a parking pass.” Makes sense, so give us the parking pass then. But no, we needed to see the concierge for that.

The concierge did give us our parking pass, but not before she told about the local outlet mall, a couple local restaurants, and the condos available for sale. And to entice us to hear more about the condos for sale, she told us how we could get a few hundred dollars worth of gift cards and coupons. The real estate office is right next to the children’s activity area, so they can be occupied while the adults have the opportunity to listen to a sales pitch.

That’s right, the sales pitch for the sales pitch meeting is part of the check-in process at the hotel. Note: if your hotel/resort has a “real estate” section of its website, be wary.

Waterpark

After a quick tour of our area (there were 3 areas in our hotel and about 3 hotels in the resort), we had time to play in the pool (for which the kids were quite eager).

We were closest to the Wild West Waterpark, but Alpha’s favorite was Klondike Kavern. That was because Klondike Kavern has the Hurricane.

What is the Hurricane?

Let’s start with the view out our window:

And then let’s zoom in:

Do you see that 4-story green and white funnel? That’s the Hurricane. You walk up 4 flights of stairs, get in a raft, and then slide down 4 flights of adrenaline.

And then you repeat, because Alpha wants to go again. He hasn’t been on a roller coaster yet, but the Hurricane provides the exact same pit-of-your-stomach sensation, so I’m sure he’s ready.

Here’s the inside of the Hurricane. See that small yellow thing? That’s a 4-person raft.

Cost

Our room was nice. It had two queen beds plus a pull-out couch, plus various other amenities. We got the room for under $100 each night. You may wonder how the resort can do that.
The answer has a few parts:

• the “resort fee” is not included in that price. What is the resort fee? It is about $10 a day and helps cover expenses and keeps the listed room rates low (kind of like shipping and handling charges on eBay),
• the outdoor pools and waterparks were not open, because the outdoor season does not start until Memorial Day. That meant we could use only half of America’s largest waterpark resort, which was good enough for the 3 nights we were there, and
• the Wild Waterdome was closed for cleaning/sealing. That didn’t have much, other than America’s largest indoor wave pool and indoor tanning. But the kids don’t like wave pools, so we wouldn’t have been in there a lot anyway.

Then we went to bed – a bit of a struggle with the kids all excited and everyone in the same room – and got ready for day 2.

To be continued…

Really it should be “To Wisconsin” but “On Wisconsin” is more recognizable.

We already had our spring break trip to Idaho, and we have our summer trip planned and booked. But both of those involve visiting other families. When would we get a chance to go on a vacation with just our own family?

In the middle of May, during school, of course.

Alpha’s in kindergarten. No one is going to notice if he misses a couple of days. It is not going to affect his graduation or choice of college, so we told the school that he will be gone for a little bit and we went to Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Dells, to be specific – very high on the list of top tourist-traps in the nation.

We left early in the morning, which in our house is about 9:30 AM. Our route went through Chicago, and we were prepared for the toll roads – we had dimes and quarters and dollar bills. We went through a couple of toll booths with no problems.

Then we came to one that said “Cars: $.50” I know we were in a minivan, but I consider that a car. It was an unattended tollbooth, and I thought it was taking a while. “Do those people not know how to put coins in a slot?” I wondered to myself. “And why are they gesturing at the machine? Just pay the toll and go on.” I got my $0.50 (pronounced “fitty cent”) ready, so I wouldn’t be that guy went it was my turn.
(more…)

This post is a continuation of a previous post.
Please start with that if you need some background information.

I’m done with all the pictures – now I have some stories about the trip to Idaho.

Cart Wheels

I will relay one incident on the flight over. We were sitting peacefully, nibbling on some pretzels and watching people. The airplane was not huge – there were three seats on each side of the one aisle. A lady, probably in her late 70s, was making her way back to her seat and was a few rows in front of us, facing away from us. The airplane wasn’t getting ready to land, but it was going through a bit of a descent, and we heard “Look out!” from behind us.

If that ever happens to you, make sure you turn to look without leaning your head into the aisle. Because the warning was to let us know a beverage cart – a metal, heavily-laden cart – was freely rolling down the aisle. As it passed me, I put out my hand and foot to slow it down, as did the guy in front of me. It ended up stopping a couple rows before the row where the lady was standing.

If the cart hadn’t stopped before reaching the lady, I think the cart would have won that confrontation.

It’s Not a Cookie

If you have a young child, do not opt for the “cookie” that they offer as the complimentary snack on the plane. It is a thinly-disguised teething biscuit. As many parents know, teething biscuits are just dried paste. Sure they taste fine, but the child’s saliva turns the biscuit into a goo that gets on any surface near the child. I was trying to clean biscuit paste off my shirt for the rest of the flight. Go for the pretzels instead.

And I know I could have titled this section “Snacks on a Plane” but I already used that heading in a picture post.

During the Flight

Beta: “What are clouds made of? Are they made of fluff?”

How could I tell him they weren’t?

I couldn’t. But I may have said something about fluff being made of water vapor.

One Side of a Conversation

Overheard on the way to Boise, during the flight:
“This is the plane that Captain Sullenberger landed in the Hudson River.”
(garble garble from the other person)
“No, not the actual plane, just the same model.”

Solid, Liquid, or Gel

We inadvertently found a way to stump the TSA. As a general rule, you are not allowed to bring liquids onto the plane. Liquids are not allowed, but solids are.

My wife likes cold water, so she stuck a water bottle in the freezer the night before the flight, and it was still frozen when we went through security. The TSA lady saw that bottle (since we had it with the other liquids to help keep them cold) and said she had to test it since it was more than 3 oz. When she picked it up and saw it was not liquid, she didn’t know what to do. She conferred with some other TSA people, then she walked off with our bottle. She came back a few minutes later and said it was good.

Oh, and yogurt counts as a liquid. In case you were wondering. Or maybe it’s a gel. Either way, they don’t like it.

Sharing

Our hosts were very nice. The daughter relinquished her room for the few days we were there, and all five of us stayed in that one room. Apparently they grow houses a bit bigger over there. Gamma stayed in a pack-n-play, which our hosts borrowed from their neighbors. The morning of our departure, we stripped the sheets off the beds, packed up the pack-n-play, and tried to restore things to how they were before we arrived.

I was thankful that we did not have to return the pack-n-play to the neighbors because they’re a little weird. Friendly people, and gracious to let us borrow their stuff, but weird. Phone first before stopping by their house.

This post is a continuation of a previous post. Please start with that if you need some background information.

Scenic Soccer

We had a variety of things planned for our third day [insert musical reference here, such as “Consuming Fire”]. The day started off with our cousin/nephew’s soccer game, which consisted mostly of viewing the scenery and chortling at the coach’s comments. We arrived at the soccer park too early, mainly because the kids needed to expend some energy, so we explored the part of the park that was not soccer fields.

As I noted earlier, there aren’t many real trees in Idaho. The soccer park was one of the few places that had trees, although it was too early in the season for leaves.

And here’s the scenery at the soccer game:

Rock, Table, Scissors

After the soccer game, we went back to the house to pick up the rest of the family. The boys wanted to hike a mountain since we don’t have that opportunity very much otherwise. So we went into Boise, grabbed lunch, found the old penitentiary, and hiked up Table Rock.

We chose the less-strenuous path because of the small children. It was longer but less steep, at least that’s what the sign said. Some people aren’t convinced that it was less strenuous. Much of it was flat, albeit winding.

The view from the top was great.

No, that’s no one we know. I just thought it would make a great picture.

Boise Zoo

Beta had a great time the whole time during the hike. Some other children, however, were done at the top and did not want to hike back down. We had planned to stop by the zoo before heading back to the house, but considered dropping it due to the crankiness factor. Once we were back in the car and the kids had some water and suckers, everyone was happy again and ready to hit the zoo.

The kids liked watching the tiger

Beta and the lion are watching the same thing, although I do not know what it is.

When it was time to leave the zoo, we received many protests. So put Zoo Boise on the list of things that kids like to do. The playground and prairie dog exhibit were the highlights for the kids. Mine was the bird that sounded like an elephant.

Bouncy Boise

The next day we just stayed around the local area (Boise is the nearest big city, local area is not). We broke out the bounce house. You don’t need to tell kids when to stop playing on the bounce house because they gradually stop as they become hurt or tired.

And I’ll put this picture in here, even though it is not bouncy. The kids didn’t play in the bouncy castle all day – we did send them outside too. They gravitated to the sandbox, so they could get dirty and need cleaning when they came back inside.

Not-So-Scenic Drive

The next day was our final full day. Since tomorrow would be travelling all day, we decided to stay around the house again. Well, almost. The boys had seen the snow-capped peaks of the distant mountains and wanted to visit them. I think they wanted to go hiking again and hike up to the snow. So in the afternoon I packed up the older boys and drove about a half hour east into the mountains.

The speed limit on the 2-lane road was 65 mph, and it wound through the mountains.

It was snowing in the mountains.

And it was cloudy.

I did not always go 65. That particular 2-lane road does not have many options – no intersecting roads and no shoulders. I didn’t want to keep driving, so I finally found a turn-around spot and pulled over.

Alpha and Beta got out of the minivan, but it was cold so they didn’t want to go anywhere. Well, they wanted to go hiking but they also wanted to be warm.

So we were there about 5 minutes; then we got back in the van and went back to the house. My nephew never even got out of the vehicle. He fell asleep on the way back to his house, as did Beta.

Going Home

Then came cleaning and packing. That meant we had to say goodbye to the bounce house.

The next morning we were up at 7:00 and out the door around 8:30, after some final packing and cleaning. We arrived in Boise without any delays or problems, which was good because they started the boarding process as we were walking to our gate. That’s too close for how I like to plan things, but I am glad we didn’t have to wait long with small children.

Now we’re back home, and the kids have fond memories of their trip to see relatives out west. And tumbleweeds.