The Cheesiest State of them all

We made it to Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, a place I’ve wanted to go since I saw it listed on The Travel Channel’s Top Ten Waterparks. Granted, it’s off-season, so it may be the water park capital of the USA, but most of the waterparks are closed aside from a few indoor ones.

We woke up in Skokie to a sky filled with lake effect snow. Lake effect snow is sort of scary. It’s basically blizzard-like conditions that last for a few minutes,then suddenly stop, and somehow deposits inches of snow in a relatively short amount of time.

We drove through lake effect snow for awhile, Justin was not a fan. I was just glad I wasn’t driving.Once we got some way past the Wisconsin border, the lake effect snow basically stopped.

We took a detour to the jelly belly warehouse in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. The entire parking lot was basically covered in a few inches of snow. The tour was cute. You got to wear a paper hat and ride a train around a giant warehouse and learn all about jelly belly art, jelly belly fashion design,and how to make jelly beans, it’s actually a pretty intense process. I learned it takes 21 days to make one jelly bean.  The tour definitely wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but the gift shop was totally worth it. You can buy all sorts of deformed jelly beans [called belly flops] for very cheap, they have a sample bar with every possible flavor you can imagine to try, and then you can make your own jelly bean mixes with every flavor they have… My mix consisted of bubble gum, cotton candy, watermelon, tutti fruity, green apple, red apple, lemon, pina colada, and very cherry flavors. It’s delicious.

In conclusion, the tour probably isn’t worth it during tourist season… I mean you could wait up to 2 hrs just to ride a train and watch some videos, but why bother? But if there’s snow on the ground, the parking lot is empty, totally worth checking out, especially if you love jelly belly jelly beans as much as I do.

 

 

 

 

The drive to Wisconsin was boring. Highways in Wisconsin are weird. They’re named after letters… there’s like highway Z, highway V, highway S, Highway CS… and I don’t understand it and it’s very confusing. There was a noteworthy exit called Bong Recreation Area, which I’m sure is popular with stoners everywhere, but that’s really it. The highways were slightly reminiscent to Houston highways for me, sort of like 45 with snow, they just loop through cities and there aren’t enough lanes.

We did stop at a rest area and I bought some Wisconsin cheese since Wisconsin is such a cheesy state. The cheese was good. I especially liked their cheddar, but the pepper jack was good too, and so was the colby… I wonder if there’s a way to bring a wheel of Wisconsin Cheddar back to Texas with us.

We’ve somehow managed to listen to every single song on my iPod shuffle… do you know how hard it is to do that? But I guess, when you’ve done nothing but drive for three days, it just sort of happens.

Wisconsin does seem pretty though, especially with snow on the ground. There were a lot of farms, forests, lakes, and rivers.

We made it to Kalahari Resort and Indoor Water Park by like 3:30, and as soon as we brought our luggage up, we changed into our swinsuits and headed to the waterpark.

It was sort of like a not-crowded Schlitterbahn. We rode almost all of the rides.

Here are my ratings:

Victoria Falls was a family raft ride sort of like The Wolf-pack at Schlitterbahn Galveston.  It’s a twisty raft ride that actually goes outside [it’s covered though, but you can still feel the cold through the cover], We really enjoyed that one, I’d rate it 5/5.

The Lazy River was kind of lame. The water is really shallow, and you can’t swim the lazy river like you can in other places, you’re forced to ride in a tube. And for some reason only a small portion of the lazy river was open. I’d give it a 2/5.

The Master Blaster was fun [and had a much shorter wait than the one at Schlitterbahn New Braunfels]. It seemed longer than the one at Schlitterbahn too and had some nifty tunnels and uphill blasts. I’d give it a 5/5.

Elephants Trunk was a dark tube ride, it was pretty awesome, mainly because it was so dark, and you had no idea what to expect or when it would end. So 5/5.

The Tanzanian Twister aka the toilet ride [because it spins you like a toilet flushes] was Justin’s favorite. It’s a tube slide that shoots you out really fast and than you spin and drop into nine foot deep water. I rode it just because I wanted to say I did, but I’m not really a body slide fan. it was fun, but not really my cup of tea, though Justin would’ve ridden it over and over again. I guess I’ll give it a 5/5 because it was fun, but again, it’s not a ride I’d choose for myself.

My favorite thing at the park was the outdoor hot tub.. YES OUTDOOR, though you entered it from inside, went under a curtain and went outside… I mean, it was like 12 degrees out, and I was just sitting in a hot tub. The water felt amazing,.. The combination of the cold air and then the super hotness of the water, it was such a relaxing feeling. We even climbed out of the hot tub, in our swimsuits, grabbed ice cold snow, and jumped back into the hot tub because we’re weird like that.

There were also basketball nets, and you could throw basketballs into the hoops from the water, Justin and I did that for awhile and I even made some shots, but I think Justin’s favorite thing of all were these lily pad like things under a cargo net, and you used the net and the pads to get from one side of the pool to the other,and Justin was so proud of himself for making it to the other side.

After waterpark time, we went back to our rooms, put on some dry clothes, and went out for dinner. We wound up at this German place called The Brat House Grill, which was really good. I had a cheese steak and Justin had some sort of brat thing with bacon. The food was really delicious. Google hasn’t failed us with food recommendations yet.

 

 

Tomorrow will be a long day, we need to make it through Iowa,to Nebraska, and it starts our slow descent back to Texas. It’s sad that in a week, spring break will be over, and we’ll both be teaching again.

Today is also our second wedding anniversary, and we spent it at a waterpark because we’re cool like that.

Overall, it was a fun day 🙂 I’m glad I finally made it to Wisconsin Dells and I enjoyed the waterpark, especially the outdoor water park, and getting personalized jelly bean mixes was fun too 🙂

It’s hard to believe it’s Day 3, we started in NJ, and now we’re in Wisconsin, it just shows how small the US is when you think about it. It’s so easy to get from one place to another, if you’re just willing to drive the distance, which is more than I can say for other countries.

Anyways, off to bed because tomorrow will be a long day! Thanks for reading 🙂