What an Adventure!

There's nothing like an adventurous weekend getaway to clear your mind.

Back in November, we planned a journey to the Wisconsin Dells with our neighbors. For a moment, I had considered postponing the trip but the Mrs. thought it would be best for the kids if we try to keep things as normal as possible during the job search. Now that the weekend is over, I'm glad she talked me into going because it was an eventful weekend... one we'll be talking about for a long time to come. And it definitely distracted me from my current employment situation.

The trip up was relatively quiet. The only unexpected event was that we ran across a woman whose car had broken down a few miles out of town, and we gave her a ride to her destination. That was fortunate for her, because it was cold, the wind was blowing, and she would have had a long, cold walk. As we dropped her off, the kids said "Well, that was an adventure." I think that was a little bit of foreshadowing on their part.

We arrived in the Dells after about four hours on the road. Our neighbors had taken care of the reservations, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. They said it was a condo, so I envisioned a couple of small bedrooms, a kitchenette and a living room. The accomodations far exceeded my expectations, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a full kitchen, a living room and a jacuzzi in a four-season porch. After a quick beer run, we settled in for the evening.

We spent the next full day at the water park, which was almost exactly as I pictured it. Lots of slides and rides, lots of chlorine and lots of people. There's a lot of outdoor activity, even in the winter. In order to get outside, all you had to do was swim under a weather barrier. Though it was cold and snowing, the water was circulated with the indoor water, leaving it quite comfortable despite the fact that wet hair would begin freezing in a matter of minutes.

After returning to the condo for some dinner (spaghetti a la me) and cocktails for the adults, we played several rounds of tag in the hotel. This went on for an hour or two, and was probably the kids' favorite activity. I enjoyed it tremendously as well, but it was really about the kids.

As we retired from our game of tag, we watched the weather and found out that we were in for some rough weather. We figured that the best course of action was to wait and see if the blizzard actually came to be before making plans.

We woke up the next morning to find that everything outside was white, and more snow was falling. Since we were on vacation, we procrastinated a bit more and went back to the water park for more chlorinated fun. Four hours later, it was still snowing heavily, but we decided to brave the elements and try to get home so that nobody would miss work or school. We covered a little over 50 miles over three hours, when we finally got stuck going up a hill.

We were about 2/3 of the way to the hilltop when we lost traction and couldn't go forward any further. Mother nature said enough's enough and we couldn't argue with her. The adventure was ratcheted up another notch or two when the kids started panicking and screamed about how they wanted out of the car. They panicked even more when the adults decided that the only course of action was to slowly coast back down the hill -- in reverse, since there wasn't enough space to turn around.

We made it safely to the bottom of the hill, where we turned the van around and returned to the nearest town... a village with a population of about 1400, and three Bates Motels. We chose the one that advertised a pool and had indoor corridors, but quickly found out that the pool was drained for repairs. Fortunately there was a pool table, so we shot a few games of stick.

We all went to Subway for dinner, except for sexy wife, who figured that she'd microwave one of our leftover pizzas. After eating about half of it, she began making frequent trips to the restroom; she eventually told us that she thought she had food poisoning, because the pizza was coming back up. Fortunately, we had adjoining rooms and three adults who weren't sick, and three kids who were content to quietly watch TV. The Mrs. wasn't exactly comfortable, but I think we accommodated her to the best of our ability.

The snow finally stopped the next morning, and we jumped back on the road. The wind was still blowing, the snow was still drifting and the roads were still slick, but we took it slow and made it home in about four hours, passing several abandoned cars on our trek... including one semi and two vehicles that had flipped.

The weekend gave me a great opportunity to get my mind off of life's little stresses, and has put me in a much better place. It's amazing what a weekend away can do for the soul. I'll be putting up some pictures soon, and if you'd like I could do a full review of the Wisconsin Dells.