Epic Highs and Devastating Lows

Today was wildly up and down.

Our first stop today was a miniature golf place outside of Chicago called Par-King. It was amazing. There were two courses, a black and a red, and some excellent holes on each. We actually videotaped ourselves on the black side so there may be a video podcast of that a bit later. This minigolf place had all the classic stuff and more: rotating holes, loop-de-loops, creepy clown statues, water traps, etc. Amazing.

We had lunch nearby at a Big Bowl because I thought mom had mentioned that the one near us had been a fairly cheap, yet delicious place to eat. It was tasty, but it took a while and it wasn't cheap. I was pleased with my meal (mmm, homemade ginger ale!) but Jim was a little disappointed by the vegetarian options. And, as I said, we kind of took a while.

Back on the road we continued to be harassed by the Illinois toll system. It is really a very frustrating system for people from out of town. Poorly labeled toll amounts and oddly situated toll plazas. On the whole it was just another mark against Illinois. We were real pleased with the stuff that we did do there and the KOA folks were real nice, but Illinois on the whole was sort of disappointing.

When we finally got into Wisconsin it was amazing. Hopefully Jim got the welcome sign because it was the best one yet. Wisconsin is an awesome place for a roadtrip like the one that we are on so wee got pretty excited driving past all sorts of awesome sounding things. Jim had told me about a place called the House on the Rock and we decided that it sounded amazing enough to go the hour and a half or so out of the way to get there. They close at 7pm. That is, they kick everyone out at 7pm, the last tickets are available for purchase at 6pm. We called around 5 to make sure they were still open and get some other details. At 5:55pm we were about 4 miles from the House and Jim called to see if they could get us in if we were a little late. They not only told him no but that they were really strict about the close time. We barreled along anyway. I blasted through the driveway, dropped Jim as close to the enttrance as possible and went to park the car. No luck. I think we got there ata 6pm. Maybe 6:01. We could see people working at the desk in the visitor center. They were laughing. Man, we were depressed. The place looks awesome from the outside and I can only imagine that it is even more amazing inside. I don't think the information counter women were laughing at us but no one in the vicinity should have been at all jovial after the blow we had just received. Angry and bummed we left the grounds.

Trying to find my way back to the main highway I somehow got off on a completely wrong road. We pulled in to a Culver's to ask directions. Well, that and they advertised butterburgers and frozen custard. I didn't know what a butterburger was but I wanted to find out. I ordered one for dinner, Jim had a salad (one of only two vegetarian options in the place), and we split an order of deep fried cheese curds (the other vegetarian option). It was delicious. Well, the burger was anyway. A butterburger is a burger on a bum that has been toasted and then buttered. Awesome.

We ordered plain vanilla custards in waffle bowls for dessert. We took them outside, ran back to the car and got the green apple hotsauce purchased back at the hot sauce festival in Ohio and applied the delicious. It was excellent. It was the perfect meal to help us on our way after the devestation of missing the House on the Rock by seconds. Also, the staff at the Culver's were extremely friendly and helpful. They even gave us directions to the next place we were going.

The next place we were going was Wisconsin Dells. Imagine the biggest boardwalk you have been to. Now build a boardwalk around that and then, tucked away in the background, enough of a town to run the thing. That is Wisconsin Dells. There were water parks and museums and weird museums (something called Top Secret caught Jim's eye, it was the White House but upside down, we still don't know anything about it...). There was a thing called Wizard Quest that was a 90 minute long game were you have to answer trivia questions and riddles that looked amazing (we didn't go because we were short on time). Overall it looked like a place you could easily spend several days. Did I mention that Pirate show and the magic show and Noah's Ark (the largest water park in the country)? Because those were all there too. Only disappointment? Not enough time there to actually do anything. It was maybe 9pm when we got there and we still had about four hours of driving to get up to St Paul.

I had Jim drive the rest of the way up. As we left the Dells there was an incredible rainstorm with huge arcs of lightning. But after that I just conked out. We got in at like 1.30 or so. So thanks again to our gracious hosts. Well, enough blog, to bed.