Katie by the Jetty/Fountainy Things.

See previous post.

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Prairie Athletic Club Indoor Pool

Katie and I are here today, the last day of her brother's weeklong stint at Wander Wisconsin (great program through Wisconsin Youth Company). The Club includes a sizeable outdoor proto-water park with the requisite pounding pop music blasting through over-driven public address speakers, but it's cloudy and chilly today, so here we are. At 22 dollars a pop. Inside, kicking it old ... um, pool.

Still, fun is being had here in the immaculate, warren-like Club confines. It's nice. It's close. There's no big audio dynamite indoors. The restaurant got double points for not even offering fries AND a full bar. Sorry, sports fans, Mommy likes the option of pretending she's on vacation when she spends 60+ semolians for two people's afternoon amusement.

Hey! Somebody just turned on the jetty/fountainy things. Now it's officially a waterpark.

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Katie Dressed Up

In the Montgomery Wards Window at the Madison Children's Museum.

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At Governor Dodge State Park

Cooperative sand castle building occurred!

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Summer's First Week

Thus far we have cleaned rooms (complaaaaaiiiiiiints, but it got done), vacuum the basement (John), made sugar cookies (Katie & Mom), played at Yahara Park and gone to the library (with Quinn).

Wednesday it rained, so we journeyed to Menards to acquire Father's Day gifts, then had a really quite edible and delightful lunch at Fazoli's, an Italian chain restaurant near East Towne. I always forget or overlook this place, but it's worth visiting with kids. The piece de resistance, however, was our visit to the UW-Madison Geology Museum

In the course of the week we also checked out Midwest Pottery Works, and Madison Sourdough, both on Willy Street.

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On the Plot to Compel Families With Young Children to Frequent Waterparks

The rant that begins a few paragraphs down was the result of a protracted effort to arrange a spring break getaway for myself and my two children (ages 6 and 9), and another parent with two kids of the same age. I spent literally five hours trying to find a family-friendly lodging in southern Wisconsin that a) was not a waterpark, b) had a pool, c) did not demand that we sell some of the children in order to finance our visit, d) had been renovated within the recent memory of humankind, and e) was not a waterpark. 

Did I mention I do not actually LIKE waterparks? No? I don't. Actually, I hate, loathe, abhor, despise, execrate and otherwise am repelled by these grotesque, energy devouring monstrosities that are bloated, failed simulacrae of anything to do with real water, nature, culture, joy or food. Waterparks are a Tea Party endgame: they destroy the world they purport to celebrate, charge extortionate rates while underpaying their workers, feed you awful "food," and reduce your kids to mindless, insatiable consumers of crap and noise.

But I digress, kind of. The rant mentions a number of establishments by name, some of them favorably. In the interests of fairness, I must divulge that 99% of what I say is based on these places' websites. Only the Pfister  and the American Club have had the dubious pleasure of my patronage.

• I lamented that there wasn't a place where you can just click on a map of Wisconsin and SEE where to freaking stay without pop-ups and blinking, scintillating stuff? It turns out there IS such a place, the lovely site http://www.travelwisconsin.com Thank heavens for them.
• The American Club in Kohler can just bite my butt. Don't they have a FREAKING POOL? Why won't they tell me whether they have a POOL? It must be in some separate building they charge you extra to enter. Also, I think we have to maim grouse if we stay there.
  
• The Hyatt in Milwaukee looks lovely. Perfect rooms. But NO FREAKING POOL. Why? Don't people LIKE pools anymore? Have we become a nation of pool haters? I guess that would explain all the waterparks. Anyway, if we forgo the whole pool thing, the Hyatt might be nice.
• The Pfister has a pool; however, after you give up that arm and leg they'll charge you, there wouldn't be much you could do in their tiny, swanky pool but bob around and flail a lot. At the Pfister you either get to look at the lake or stay in a suite. You cannot do both. No. You cannot. Neither can I. Also, I don't want to stay in anything called the "Governor's Suite." Bleah. Hasn't he taken enough already?
• The word "chic" when it is used to describe an accommodation actually means "We hate children, although we encourage you to visit us and screw yourselves silly in our in-room jacuzzi. Oh, and by the way, WE HAVE NO POOL." Please see Milwaukee's Ironhorse Hotel and Hotel Metro if you doubt me on this one. Chic THIS, you posers.
• There is a Hilton on the Milwaukee River that appears 1) to be sinking into the river, and 2) to have last been remodeled during the Reagan era. THEY have a pool. And a kids' menu. Ew.
• And the award for "Best Impersonation of a Swanky Hotel by a Cut Rate Hotel" goes to The Hotel of the Arts Days Inn. No, I did not make it up. I am not that inventive. It has pretensions to actual swankyness. Rooms look good. In-house restaurant and bar. Newer. Arty. AND IT DOES NOT HAVE A FREAKING P.O.O.L.
• The word "amenity" can be used to mean anything from a plastic shoehorn to eschewing valet parking in favor of parking for free in a dimly lit, dope-head-haunted ramp adjacent to one's chic accommodation.

All right, enough about our neighbors to the east and their pool-hatin' ways. Here's the skinny on Lake Geneva.

• At the bottom of this rant, please find a list of rejected Lake Geneva lodgings along with the reasons they didn't get a look.
• The Cove at Lake Geneva has condo style units and purports to have a pool. There is no picture of this pool, and the place has a time-share look to it. Might be cheap though. And there's the pool.
• The Abbey Resort is not, I believe the ultra-upscale one in Lake Geneva. But what would I know? Anyway, pool, claustrophobic rooms, and a complete absence of the grouse maiming requirements. You know what gets ME? I'll tell you! It's how most descriptions of a property's "suites" do not divulge whether there's a door you can close on the children once they have sunk into blissful slumber.
• The Geneva Inn says we "deserve the quiet solitude." By now you know that means "NO POOL." Still, looks very nice . . . probably much too nice for our rag-tag bunch.
• And last but not least, The Grand Geneva. Stay there on one of their packages and you get passes to . . . sigh . . . a waterpark associated with the property. Also, hilariously, their beautiful and newly remodeled suites feature doors that close the bedroom off from the living area. One catch: THEY ALSO CLOSE OFF THE BATHROOM.

What a ride. Gosh, what I wouldn't do for a refreshing dip in a pool.
Anna

The Lake Geneva Rejected Lodging List

1. Beachview Motel/Lounge  - Lounge = “Volare” and sketchy cleaning. I speak as one who knows.
2. Boulevard Motel – I want to stay on the lake, not the Boulevard
3. Budget Host Diplomat Motel – If they need to be diplomatic . .  .
4. Coachman's Terrace – Sounds like motorhome spot to me.
5. Covenant Harbor Bible Camp/ Geneva Bay Center – Just . . . No.
6. Duffys Pub & Cottages – If the pub is mentioned first, that’s because you need to be blind drunk before you’d sleep in the cottages
7. Endless Summer Nites of Lake Geneva – It’s not summer, and I can’t abide misspelling
8. Lazy Cloud Bed & Breakfast  - In my world, a lazy cloud is the miasma of a sauerkraut fart.
9. Maria's Bed & Breakfast  - MaREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! No.
10. Schwarzkopf's Retreat – Look, if HE left, why would WE stay?
11. SevenOaks Boutique Country Inn – Not to be confused with the SevenOaks Convenience Store Suburban Motel.
12. Sheldon House Bed & Breakfast – Sheldon? Where’s the poetry, darn it?
13. Snug Harbor Inn Campground on Turtle Lake – I find the conflation of snugness and turtles very, very disturbing.
14. Thomas Motel  - If they are too poor or cheap to afford an apostrophe, I do not want to stay there.
15. Wyatt's Bunkhouse Inn – I am not leaving the comforts of home and husband to sleep in a gol durn bunk.
16. Ye Olde Manor House Bed & Breakfast – Perchance includething ye olde chamber potte?

And so it goes. Lordy.