Wisconsin Dells in the Winter

In this residency, during intern year, each of the residents has four months where they do not have to take call and can take vacation time. Scott took some vacation time around his birthday and we had a week visiting family for Thanksgiving. We've discovered that with all the long hours at the hospital and general lack of sleep for Scott, the best way for him to take vacation days is to have long weekends throughout his vacation months. A whole week off is nice, but it seems like you take the time off for granted when you have a full week. One extra day or a long weekend to sleep in, exercise, and get caught up on his work is surprisingly more effective and valued.

So when Scott had vacation time available in February after two intense rotations, he elected to have Fridays off throughout the month and a long weekend at the end for us to get out of town. Knowing that Scott wanted to get away, we arranged with a couple a friends to drive a couple of hours to Wisconsin Dells, which according to the tourism site "may be known as the waterpark capital of the world."

When I was five, my family lived in Minnesota (this was before we moved to Alaska) and we visited Noah's Arc in Wisconsin Dells for some summer waterpark fun. The Dells draws a crowd in the summer, but the resorts that are full in the summer also offer indoor waterpark and indoor theme park fun. We just missed the best rates of the winter season. When we booked at Mt. Olympus for the last weekend in February, we were told that was when Spring Break rates began.

It was fun to get away and spend time pretending to be warmer. I wouldn't choose to go to Mt. Olympus again. There wasn't enough to keep us entertained for more than one winter day - two water slides, two tube slides, one small lazy river, one small pool, a kiddy pool with pirate ship, and a hot tub - but my disdain was more likely caused by the impromptu party SLASH drunken volleyball game that was allowed to happen in the hotel hallway Friday night.

To their credit though, the indoor theme park at Mt. Olympus had the best ball pit I've ever seen. No joke!

We could have spent the whole afternoon having nerf ball fights in there with the kids. There were two levels with air blowers to send balls up to the second level and air blowers on the second level to shoot the balls back down.