New Years Eve 2008... Wisconsin Dells - A parade in awesomeness

We here at SomePeopleKnit, every now and then, feel the need to take a break from judging people and mocking reality television to provide some sort of social service for our loyal reader(s?). Today’s contribution to the world = party planning. Enjoy.

Q: Hey Some people knit, You are the wittiest blog ever. I wish I could be just like you. I have a question for your imminent wisdom, Where should I spend my next New Year?
A: WISCONSIN DELLS

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Wisconsin Dells = the new December 31 hotspot. One of Smurftastic’s best college buddies organized a ski trip over the holiday to Cascade Mountain where we were to stay at the Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells.

First, for those of you who are not from the Midwest, Wisconsin Dells is something of an institution. Smurftastic had never before been to Wisconsin Dells, but spent summers in her first 22 years of life watching commercials about the allegedly super fun water parks and golf courses that the town a few hours north of Chicago has to offer. But even after going on Chula Vista’s website to look at the resort and discovering that they had an INDOOR water park, she still was grossly un-prepared for the awesomeness that would await her as she drove into the city. Waterparks = EVERYWHERE. Indoor. Outdoor. Indoor-Outdoor combos. More waterparks seen in a 2 mile drive than she has seen in her entire life. Clearly, buying the new swimsuit from Target’s limited winter holiday selection was a good call.

Next, Smurftastic turns onto main street of Wisconsin Dells. Cut to theme restaurants and advertisements. Her hypothesis that Wisconsin Dells might turn out to be the poor man’s Branson, Missouri -- which for those who don’t know, is like (in Smurftastic’s best guess, she’s never been there) the poor man’s Vegas, but for families… so like Atlantic City, for families -- , is rapidly validated. Family restaurants, buffets, kitschy shops, you name it. Smurftastic’s personal favorite (where her friends refused to go to with her) was Crabby’s. Crabby’s was pirate themed, and would have been a worthwhile trip with Smurftastic just for the intense amount of STD jokes which would have surely made it into the conversation. Plus they served all you can eat crab and prime rib for a super low price. Everyone loves explosive diarrhea, right?

Now we are off the main road and heading to the resort. What should we see but the local strip club of Wisconsin Dells. Named Wisconsin Dolls. Please take a moment to let the creative naming sink in…….
After Smurftastic slows the car down to laugh hysterically, she and her passenger evaluate the establishment to the best of their ability at 9pm in a snowstorm. It looks like two doublewide trailers attached to each other. Smurftastic thinks this is where our group should go after a delish dinner at Crabby’s (her friends also let her down on this one – apparently they don’t appreciate STD jokes to the same extent as Smurftastic).

We pull into Chula Vista resort. Looks intense (-ly awesome). I mean this place is HUGE (that’s what she said). The indoor waterpark is ginormous, and includes enclosed slides which veer outside and then back in. We finally figure out where our friends are staying, since they had to move to a smaller suite after the first night. Instead of a private condo with its own hot tub (Smurftastic was told that it was only big enough to fit 3 people, and even that would be snug. This is clearly a sex hot tub), we were in a suite with enough beds for everyone. That’s pretty much all we were worried about. And when we walked in it smelled a lot less like booze than it did when we left two nights later. No hot tub though. Don’t worry, the resort also had a 50 person outdoor hot tub. (Insert orgy joke here). The friends had already checked it out, said it was nice, but they were forced to sit uncomfortably close to some Europeans. J and Smurftastic tried it out the next night (after the water park, which was awesome, btw), and it was actually classier than Smurftastic expected. Not too crowded, and there were towels warming by the huge fireplace at one end, with a waitress taking bar orders. And no gross hot tub people touched her. Bonus.

The rest of the first night we just chilled in the room, so not much funny stuff there. The following day (actually New Year’s Eve), we drove out to the ski resort. We checked out Wisconsin Dolls in the harsh light of day, and realized our 2 double-wide estimate was surprisingly accurate. Smurftastic still wants to go, but the friends are frightened.

Here’s the good part. The resort had a huge New Year’s Eve party with a band, a DJ, a kid’s carnival, and several hours of open bars for a low price of 50 bucks. The name of this party was Chula Fest ’08. In case you didn’t figure it out, Chula Fest = hilarious name. Several comparisons to a newly discovered pretend disease are made, and Smurftastic spends a significant amount of the evening running up to her friends, yelling “CHULA FEST” in a creepy voice and fist-pumping. She is happy.

We start off in the DJ room, but decide it’s a little too dance-party-intense to start the evening, so we decide to check out the band. Let the magic begin. The band’s name was Spicy Thai Band. FYI, there was no one of Asian descent in said band. Apparently the state of Wisconsin is really good at naming things cleverly. The lead-singing duties were split by a woman whose other skills seemed to be dancing and playing the tambourine, a guy who just sang, and a bald male guitar player. This bald man will become Smurftastic’s enemy of the evening. He is douchey, but she’s not sure why.. He rubs Smurftastic the wrong way early on, so she immediately begins to hate him and everything he stands for… completely randomly and probably completely baselessly.

We enter the band area, and there is a dance floor. Populated by old/middle aged people slow-dancing. This seems awkward, but there is a shorter line for the bar, so we hang out for a while. Thank goodness. The band starts to play some more fast music, and hilarity begins to ensue. We spot some rat tails, and completely hilarious outfits, including a woman bringing in her kids whilst wearing a backless shirt. You could barely tell, because her entire back was covered in tattoos. Hot. We decide to hang for a while just to judge people. The only other female in our group comes up with what may be the best idea ever, “We need to look for Mom Jeans.” We have a new mission. Mom Jeans. (for those of you who don't know, here's a good Mom Jeans explanation: http://www.funnyhub.com/videos/pages/mom-jeans.html). I mean this is Wisconsin. It’s like Mom Jeans breeding grounds. The first pair of Mom Jeans spotted was less than 10 minutes later. These beauties weren’t just your every day Mom Jeans. This was New Year’s Eve after all. This was Chula Fest. You gotta get fancy with it. These Mom jeans were silver. Not just gray. Shiny silver. With a red shirt tucked into it. These Mom Jeans were out to party. It was at this moment I decided to write the blog which you read today.

A few more words about Spicy Thai Band. They played every kind of music you could imagine. Country, punk, oldies, Buffett, adult comtemporary (of course). At one point, we were hanging in a bar where some of our party could smoke, and we heard Nelly’s Country Grammar coming from the band room. Smurftastic gets excited and immediately runs in. Her excitement was noticeably dampened when she saw that the “rapper” was Douchey McBald. Her happy moment is ruined, but not for too long. Our crew returned then to our normal spot sitting in the back on a speaker and mocking the middle-aged. At this point, it has been open bar for about 2.5 hours, and the middle-aged are starting to get intoxicated.

A bald man (not the one in the band) is a dancing machine. He has cleared a space on the floor for himself that is probably bigger than the living room in our suite so that he can gesture wildly (to the beat…ish). Every now and then we see him dancing with a woman, but each woman is wearing the same combination look of wonderment, confusion, amusement, and a touch of fear. They don’t last long.

One particularly awesome grown-up drunk sighting was the pair of drunken late 50 year old women. First spotted whilst in line for booze, running up to their respective husbands and making out with them. YIKES. Immediately after this, the pair of them are running/stumbling/dancing around the dance floor with their arms around each other and just presenting themselves to people around them. At this point our crew decides to speculate about which of them will vomit tonight. Then their husbands join them on the dance floor. One couple (the woman is the one Smurftastic picked to yarf… she was smaller and stumbling more), starts hard core going at it on the dance floor. We're talking face eating makeout and butt grabbing. Smurftastic is disgusted, yet we are all still enthralled. Until… the planner of this little road trip runs up excitedly to inform us that he has spotted a man dressed as a woman sitting by the bar. We all go up to have a look (discreetly… except for J who went up to take a picture). This is one grumpy cross-dresser. She is sitting by herself, in all black, at a table near the bar. We never see her talk to anyone or get up. She’s just drinking. Hope she had a better night later on.

At this point, we have had enough of the band, and it is almost midnight, so we decide to head to the DJ room to ring in the New Year, and hopefully hear Soulja Boy (a personal goal for Smurftastic). We hang there for a few hours, and it’s your average DJ party. Except there’s little kids hanging around. At this point it is WELL after midnight, and these kids appear to have minimal supervision. That’s good parenting. No wonder these people grow up to be Packer’s fans. Suddenly, a group of wannabe fratty boys rip their shirts off on the dance floor and start going to the magical land of dance party. We watch for a short period of time with amusement and disdain, and then we spot a boy wearing a furry hat with ear flaps. With a “happy New Year” headband on top. Awesome. Then we spot tattoo lady in the backless shirt. Inappropriately grinding on a boy. Aged 19 max. I feel like I should be seeing this on Cinemax. It seems that her children are the ones running around unattended. If we DON’T see them on Jerry Springer in a few years, I will be sorely disappointed.

We then decided to head to bed, but not without deciding that this trip should become an annual occurrence. All are invited to join in the judging of others, and if I have forgotten anything hilarious we saw, I apologize. On the way out the next morning, despite my best arguments that I wanted to kick off 2008 with Bloody Marys at Wisconsin Dolls… we drove right to IL to watch the Fighting Illini get destroyed in the Rose Bowl.

I CAN’T WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR!