The Wilderness Resort at Wisconsin Dells

 

The Wilderness Resort at Wisconsin Dells

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for December 12, 2021

We had tickets to Thursday Night Football and were excited to see our Minnesota Vikings take on the Pittsburgh Steelers.  The Vikings had lost to the winless Detroit Lions a few days earlier so we were still reeling a bit from that disappointment.  We were hopeful they'd come out fired up for a victory, but really had no idea of what to expect.

 

It was Avery's turn to join me for a game.  Technically, he traded his tickets with Miss Sheri.  He was supposed to go to see the Dallas Cowboys on Halloween night which ended up being a disaster when the Vikings were beat by their backup quarterback, Cooper Rush.  All the Vikings needed to do was get a win and he would end up with the better part of the bargain.

The team was wearing my favorite uniforms with the purple jerseys and gold letters so I figured that had to be a sign for something good.  But I've been tricked by those pretty colors before, so I was still bracing myself for anything.

We had some good news before the game started when we heard that Dalvin Cook was going to return from injury and play in the game.  He tore his labrum only 11 days before and was expected to miss several weeks so this was good news indeed.

Minnesota came out like gangbusters.  Dalvin Cook was on fire and looked like he was never injured as he racked up 205 yards rushing in the game with a couple of touchdowns.  

Adam Thielen was out with an injury, but KJ Osborn filled in admirably in his absence.  He had 3 receptions for 83 yards and a touchdown, while Justin Jefferson caught another 7 balls for 79 yards and a touchdown.  The score was 29-0 in the third quarter and Avery and I wondered if we might have a safe lead for a change.

Then again, we realized this is the Vikings where no lead is too big to be safe.  Big Ben Roethlisberger finally woke up and led his team to score 4 touchdowns and bring them back into the game.  The NFL record for a comeback was 28 points and these guys were on the brink of making history!

Lucky for us, the Vikings held on for a change and won the game by a score of 36 to 28.  Of course, it came down to the very last play again when the Steelers were able to get the ball all the way to the 12 yard line to potentially hit a game-tying touchdown.  Lucky for us, the Vikings defense held firm and we had our 6th victory of the season.  It would have been such a bummer if they'd have lost that one.

 We had a special treat at halftime when Flo Rida came out to perform a few of his hits.  I like Flo Rida!

On Friday, we drove to Wisconsin Dells and the Wilderness Resort for a couple nights of frolicking at the water parks.

Our good friends, Karl & Tina Zitzewitz, joined us for the trip along with their daughter, Ana, and one of her friends, Alexa.  When I heard that was her name, of course I had to ask her questions throughout the weekend.  Alexa, what is the weather like outside?  Alexa, what song is this playing?  I'm sure she found it hilarious and has never heard any of those kinds of jokes before.  

You can't really tell from this photo, but we were sitting in the outside hot tub while it snowed and sleeted on our heads.  We actually were avoiding a pretty major blizzard back home which dropped about a foot of snow on our house.   I think we made the right choice to be here rather than at home getting buried in snow.

The Wilderness Resort has 3 large indoor water parks with a wide range of attractions including a large wave pool, a Hurricane slide, a toilet bowl slide, a lazy river, and a bunch of other stuff.  We did pretty much all of them and had quite a bit of fun while doing it.

We ate at some nice restaurants including HuHot Mongolian Grill and Sarento's which was a great Italian place.  We even talked and had fun with each other while we ate which was another plus.

On our last night there, we participated in a new attraction they have called the "Take Flight Theater".  It's basically a big bowl shaped theater and they dangle us over the edge so it looks like we were flying over the movie they were showing.  In this case, it was the Polar Express.  I was a bit nervous that my strap wasn't going to be strong enough as I leaned forward pretending I was a bird flying over Tom Hanks' crazy train, but lucky for me it held.