This past weekend we travelled to the land of cheese, packer backers and cheap beer for a wedding of an old friend. He decided to have his ceremony in the national forest at Devil's Lake which is in or around Baraboo, WI. We hadn't been back to Wisconsin since Christmas time so we thought it might be nice to head back. The grandparents agreed to watch Ace for the weekend so we could travel unencubumbered by reality. They don't get to see him very often so they were excited.
We started the trip off by choosing a 6:45 am flight on Midwest. Not the greatest decision just due to the fact that we had to be up at 4am to make sure we were all up and out of the house to catch the flight. We were all so beat on the flight it was pathetic. Ace slept for most of it but eventually woke up and started his "I'm going to barf in the near future" gag cough and moaning. I thought we might avoid it since he hadn't barfed by the time we landed. However the plane sat on the runway for some bullshit reason for an extra 10-15 mins and that was all he needed to get over the upchuck hump and spew forth a torrent of apple juice, grapes and yogurt pretzels. I was next to him at the time so I can verify the contents of his stomach. It wasn't too bad....
After we nade our way to Jodi's folks house we unloaded and prepared to head out. We got roped into having lunch with them which included the surprise inculsion of Jodi's brother and their family/business co-workeer mark who just happened to be at the Greek place they wanted to go to. It was called the "Open Flame" and was pretty standard by the style of fare. Maybe a little classier as far as decor. I had some serious gut issues after the meal but I think they may have been travel related rather than the food. During the drive to and fro I had the delightful
experience of listening to Rush Limbaugh in the car with Jodi's dad. He always says that he is "educating me" when we do this. All it does it does is make me angry. I can't believe that guy is still allowed to speak. He said some shit about Ceasar Hugo Chavez being emboldened to say what he did about Bush being the devil bcause of a culture of permissivness enabled by the liberals or some such nonsense. How about the guy doesn't like Bush and we need his oil and he knows it so he doesn't mind giving Bush a hard time? I said something to that effect which led to the revelation that America has more oil that all of Saudi Arabia in the Gulf but people won't let us drill for it because it might kill a handful of birds. Now if that isn't total glossing over of the issue I don't know what it.
ANYWAY we soon said our goodbyes and headed out towards Madison and beyond. I forgot how close Madison was to Milwaukee. I an't believe I didn't go there more often when I had a car. Back in the day and what not.
We arrived at the Devils Head Resort and checked into our room. We had reserved the last king-sized bed in the hotel a few month earlier. The only problem being that it was in a smoking room. We were assured that this area of the hotel had been recently remodeled so iit shouldn't stink too bad. This was not the case. The room stank heavily of ashtray. We opened the window and lit a candle to air it out but that only kind of cleared the air. The window hadn't been open 30 minutes when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. There was something crawling on the screen. On the inside of the screen. On closer inspection I realized that there were 3 wasps crawling on the screen. Slammed the window shut hoping that they'd go away or die or something.
The groom was the only other person at the hotel that we knew and he called our room randomly to see if we wanted to go get something to eat. So we saddled up with him and drove to Baraboo. Baraboo is a classic Wisconsin town. Small town square/city hall type place and then squat houses and stripmalls as far as the eye can see. We strolled around the mostly closed downtown area and decided to stop in at Monk's. Jodi and the groom both got fishfry. It was Friday after all. I got a burger. It was all very satisfying. After our meal we got directions to the Ho-Chunk Casino. I hadn't been at Ho-Chunk since I worked as a PA on a commercial for it in like 1995. It's kind of shitty as far as casinos go. It's mainly a GIANT bingo hall, a TON of slot machines and the only table game is black jack. Luckily I like blackjack. Jodi played some slots unsuccessfully and I sat down at the $5 blackjack table and proceeded to win $45. I am the kind of gambler who likes to tke his meager winnings and move along so I took my chips and headed straight to the cash-out table. Now here is a weird thing: When you cash your winnings there is a tips box. Now I understand tipping the dealer if you've had a nice run of luck with the cards he's giving you. You tip the dealer in thanks. Now why the hell would you tip the person who counts your chips and gives you $? Thats bullshit.
After all that excitment we headed back to the hotel. Jodi and I went to change into some warmer clothes so we could hang out around the fire pit that the hotel has going out behind it. I opened the window to air it out some more. Within 20 minutes I noticed that there were Wasps on the inside of the screen again. And now there were also wasps crawling around in room. So I slammed the window closed and killed the interlopers. We spent the rest of the time out at the fire until like 1am. It was a really good day.
