Last year it was The Black Hills....this year...it was The Dells.
Every summer for the past nine summers, Jake's parents have rented a cabin for a week or two on Rush Lake near Ottertail, Minnesota. We've made the trip up a few times. More than a few times, I guess. It's kind of become our tradition...our annual vacation.
However...we don't get the opportunity to go on many full-fledged family vacations. We get the occasional long weekend, but we get only ONE week-long trip each year. So, spending our one week in the same place every year, no matter how fun, was a concern for us. We wanted to be able to show the girls more.
So two summers ago, we took a little detour on the way to the lake and stopped at De Smet, South Dakota to see Laura Ingalls Wilder's home. I read all of her books when I was younger, and wanted to go to De Smet for years, so I was nerdily excited. If you ask the girls about that detour, they'll tell you they found kittens in the barn...that's what they remember...
Last year, we decided to head to The Black Hills for a few days before heading to the lake. This time, it was definitely a LONG detour. In fact, it was 7 hours in the wrong direction. It was 7 hours of amazing. The girls loved that cold, wet vacation so much they wanted to go back again this summer. We loved it so much, too, that we were really considering it!
But we wanted to check out another part of the country this summer, and made plans to go to Wisconsin Dells. Jake had driven through The Dells for work at some point fairly recently, and thought it would be great for the fam. He said there were waterparks everywhere, and he thought I'd appreciate their downtown area.
There are SO many places to stay in The Dells. It was hard to choose. But we knew it would be early June, and probably chilly, so we wanted to stay where there would be an indoor waterpark in case it was too cold for outdoor swimming.
We finally decided to book one of the Glacier Canyon Lodge condos at the Wilderness Waterpark Resort - Sunday through Wednesday.
With the resort booked, we needed to schedule the rest of our trip. We planned to leave on Saturday, and coincidentally, the Saturday we planned to leave, was also the same day as a benefit for one of Jake's co-workers in Sioux City. It was going to work out great. We could go to the benefit, and then head towards the Dells from there.
But leaving Sioux City later in the day, meant we weren't going to make that long drive to the Dells that night. We decided to take a minor detour to Winona, Minnesota. After YEARS of hearing about how neat Winona was (Jake played football in Winona during college, and I didn't make the journey for that game), I was happy to finally see what the fuss was all about.
Winona isn't a huge city - but it is big enough, and there were a few hotel options. One hotel quickly stood out - Express Suites Riverport - Conference and Event Center. There were two suites that had an old Chevy convertible in them...REAL car beds. We knew that we had to do it. We didn't tell the girls. It was going to be a surprise.
It was a busy week leading up to the vacation. It was month end for me at work (non-stop working). Kamryn and Kindrey had a game that week. Jake was in Lake Charles, Louisiana for a quick trip. It was our 14th Wedding Anniversary. Busy busy.
The night before we left, we spent the evening packing and cleaning. We even spent Saturday morning cleaning the house. It can get a bit hairy when it's month end for me...when all I do is work, little cleaning takes place. So we cleaned, and let me tell you...that is going to be something I will try to do from now on before we leave for vacation. It's usually such a rat race, I know it might be difficult to accomplish, but coming home to a fairly clean home was awesome!
VACATION - DAY 1
After a quick lunch at home, and a morning of loading the truck and home-cleaning we set-off for Sioux City to grab "snacks"...I highly recommend getting individual snack size treats for the family (Cheez-its, Nilla Wafers, Beef Sticks, Popcorn, Mini Muffins, etc). A big container of nuts and a giant container of Red Licorice were fixtures on this trip, too!
Then we were officially on vacation.
Pistachio Ice Cream for Mom, Mint Chip for Dad and Cotton Candy for Kam and Kin! So charming!
Then it was for realsies vacation time....down the road we went for hours and hours. We took a few pitstops along the way - one with a babbling brook.
We played the license plate game the entire trip.."Do you have Indiana?" "Yes, Mom. We have Indiana!" :)
Then there was the "I heart milk" moment....Kamryn was chewing on her hair, and I asked her how it tasted. She said, "It tastes delicious." Jake didn't hear her response, and asked "What?" And Kindrey responded, "She said it tastes delicious I HEART MILK!" Kindrey read a sign on a dairy barn, "I heart milk" without even taking a breath...we were all terribly confused, and once we figured out what had happened, we laughed and laughed...
Then we finally arrived in Winona. We couldn't wait to get to our room to see the girls' reactions to the car bed. As we pulled up to the hotel...we were not quite sure it was where we wanted to stay...it was a bit rundown. But Jake checked in, parked, and we unloaded the truck and found our way to the third floor...
Aside from the outside and our car bed...the hotel was quite updated. Thank goodness! The indoor pool was pretty nice, and there was a bar attached to the hotel, so Jake snagged one of the local brews. Poolside booze while the girls swam and swam = perfect start to our vacation!
Amenities or not, I think it was safe to say, no one had a good night's sleep! Kamryn refused to sleep in the same bed as Kindrey because "Kindrey kicks and sleeps sideways". Kindrey totally does. So Jake slept in the car bed with Kindrey, and Kamryn slept on the sofa bed with me...Ugh. It was one of the most memorable nights though!
VACATION - DAY 2 / DAY 3
After eating breakfast at the hotel, we drove around Winona.
Naturally there was a triathlon going on that morning. People running all over.
We went to the park by the lake, and sat on a bench while people ran by and an angry Red-Winged Blackbird attacked them. I wish we had gotten that on video. Hilarious.
We stopped at the football field that Jake played on, but I didn't get the privilege to see....
Then we tried to find Sugar Loaf (the big rock in the pic we took from the balcony from our hotel room). We realized we would have to actually climb up the "mountain" to get there. Nope. That wasn't happening. So we found our way to Garvin Heights and took in a neat view of the city.
But the sites were seen, and on the road we went...to Wisconsin Dells.
We were going to arrive much too early, so Jake mentioned that he'd like to show us the downtown area before we went to the hotel anyway. I joked about having "our own private tour guide". Of course Kamryn was eavesdropping as usual, and asked what we meant by a tour guide. I jokingly said, "Yah. We're going on a tour, and we're going to have our own private tour guide called 'your dad'." And Jake chimed in, "Yah...like 'your dad' but his first name is actually 'yourdad'."
We thought the convo was over until five minutes later, Kamryn asks from the backseat, "So...are we going to be the only ones on the tour?"
I lost it. Tears...rolling down my face...I couldn't breathe. Kamryn is so smart, and she can tell a great joke and be just as sarcastic as her parents, but she takes everything anyone else says so literally.
It was perfect.
Our "tour guide" drove us around Wisconsin Dells when we arrived. We saw the downtown area Jake thought I would like - it reminded me an awful lot of Deadwood and Keystone - but even more tourist-trappy.
So we also saw HUGE waterslides lining the highways. Mount Olympus was massive. Noah's Ark was massive. And our resort was massive.
Jake checked into the resort (we were early - as mentioned before - so they were going to text us to let us know when our room was ready). It was lunch time, so we went to Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty. It was "okay". But quaint just the same.
Buzz...our room was ready! Time to check into our sweet condo.
Sweet suite. We booked a two bedroom condo - full kitchen, 1 1/2 baths, fire place, balcony. It was really really nice. I'm glad we decided to stay just outside of Wisconsin Dells to get a nicer place. The girls LOVED it. They had their own room with bunk beds and their own tv.
We were in a pretty decent location, too...we were right by the entrance into our "zone". You would think that would mean there was a lot of foot traffic...but there wasn't. It was easy to get to our room, and it was easy to get to the outdoor waterpark in our area...some of the hallways were the "path" to the other parts of the resort and were heavily traveled! We were happy ours wasn't one of them.
Our resort had 4 outdoor waterparks, 3 indoor waterparks, an arcade area, go-carts, golf, spa, restaurants, zip-lines...we really had no reason to leave. The girls had an absolute blast...swimming and swimming and swimming some more. Kam was so brave and went down the big waterslides...Kindrey tried...and was not a fan. She preferred the smaller slides in the little kid areas.
Jake even went down the slides and braved the big tube slide where you go upside down. :)
We took advantage of the resort dining/bars. We bought a souvenir cup (The Great Wave) filled with a Raspberry Mojito, and then later it was filled with a margarita. Deeeeelightful. We had dinner the first night at the Thirsty Buffalo Saloon. The next night we ordered pizza from Sarento's. Delivered right to our room. So their Mac n Cheese pizza is the bomb diggity. We had the left over's for lunch on Tuesday. It was really nice to have a full kitchen in our room!
As far as The Dells are concerned, I really wasn't that impressed. Sure the girls had a blast at the resort, but I don't know that it had much to do with The Dells. Everything we did really had very little to do with The Dells...it was just located there. Does that make sense? I don't know. I expected there to be more Delly stuff.
Monday morning, we decided to have breakfast at Denny's Diner - where they sell their famous cinnamon rolls. It was an old fashioned diner. It was perfect. Kamryn was creeped out by the bear riding a bike on a wire across the restaurant. Again. It was perfect. We left the diner with cinnamon rolls for the next morning.
Then we went into the touristy trap area and bought the girls their sweatshirts....since I forgot their jackets...they wore those sweatshirts every single day of the rest of our vacation!
We cruised the shops, and then decided to take the girls to Wizard Quest. It was really fun. The girls had to find four dragons hidden in the different worlds. The scenery/sets/decorations were really cool. Very well done, and way more challenging than we thought (since we chose the easiest level!). We definitely recommend this experience!
Next door to Wizard Quest is Ripley's Believe It or Not. We could have skipped this, but we purchased our tickets for both attractions at the same time. Did I mention we could have skipped this?
For lunch we decided to get off of the main drag and pull into the first place we saw. Half a block later, we found Rivers Edge Pub & Grill, just above the Riverwalk.
We wanted to eat outside...tried...but it was too cold and windy, and we just couldn't tough it out. So we decided to just sit at the bar.
We had considered for a brief second having lunch at the Macaroni and Cheese Shop, and I reminded Jake that the girls wouldn't eat Mac n Cheese if it didn't have "Kraft" in front of it. Guess what the Kid's Menu had on it at Rivers Edge...Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. It was destiny.
I had the Steakhouse Salad (DELICIOUS!), and Jake had a Steak Sandwich or something. You can take the Robinsons out of Nebraska, but you can't take Nebraska out of the Robinsons. Where's the beef?!
We took a stroll along the Riverwalk - one of the few Dell specific things we did in the Dells. Very pretty.
After our walk, we went to the Timbavati Wildlife Park. I believe they could have called this a zoo? Anyway, it was pretty nice. they had a variety of animals, and the buildings were new and clean, and the landscaping was current and well kept.
We bought some animal food so we could feed the camels and the giraffe, and a handful of other animals. The giraffe was in the middle of his area - not the least bit interested in being fed. But the camels were hungry. So that was cool.
Then we stopped at Goody Goody Gumdrop on the way out of the zoo. Holy candy! I would recommend going to both the zoo and the candy store there if you happen to be in The Dells. What kid and Jake doesn't like a zoo with a candy store??Then it was back to the hotel for swimming and swimming and swimming.
