Tonight's update comes to you live from the fabulous Hilton Garden Inn in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. Well, the hotel is nice, but I wouldn't call it fabulous. Very nice even, but not fabulous. Then again, if you grade on the curve then this place is the Taj Mahal. What's with the dive motels you find at any tourist trap location? Think the most low rent tourist spots in Florida or Niagara Falls or something similar. Names like "The Lucky Star Inn" or "Motel Magique" or any combo of words that sound exotic to only the least worldly of citizens.

The funniest part is that the rate here at the Hilton Garden was comparable (or lower) than many of these motels. We were driving around checking out the area this afternoon and made at turnaround at one of these places today. In the 15 seconds it took to circle the lot and get out we saw the motel had outdoor entry (duh, it's a motel - but still) with luxurious in-the-window air conditioner units. There was a guy sitting in front of his room on a plastic lawn chair with no shirt on and his room door propped open with a shoe, a kid strugging to unlock his door with an actual key (not the little credit card 'keys' that hotels have been using for 20 years, but an actual, honest to goodness, made of metal, grooves moving tumblers key) and a 60-something lady sitting in a swimsuit and sunglasses smoking a 3 foot long cigarette next to the pool (which was cleverly located in what was essentially the front corner of the parking lot and only a sidewalk's width away from the main road) who's voice would have undoubtedly rang out in a raspy tone, "Come over heah an' talk to me sweetie."

But I digress, my goal isn't to belittle the folks who do choose to frequent these locations, but rather to question the motives. It's something I guess I'll never understand.

We ended up leaving Minnesota this morning (afternoon, actually) around 12:45 and making a solid drive to the Dells with no stops carefully keeping an eye out for the seemingly ultra-anal Wisconsin police force. Along the way we counted no less then 6 vehicles pulled over by unmarked cars. I've heard horror stories about Wisconsin and speeding vehicles (especially with shiny out of town plates) and knew it was best to lay low and keep an open eye in order to keep my lifetime record at three speeding tickets. All went well and while the drive felt excruciatingly slow at times, we got here in decent time rolling in well before 4pm and stopping at the first McDonalds we saw. (which happened to be a big fake log building with dormers, a large stone fireplace and stuffed animal trophies all over the place) We decided to sit inside to eat and enjoy the atmosphere (and by atmosphere, I mean air conditioning) as the thermometer on the Walgreen's sign next door repeatedly informed us of the opressive 97 degree temperature outside.

From there we made our way down the main strip to the hotel and got into the room. After getting the trunk unloaded and everyone generally settled in for the 3 day stay, we started on a game plan. It was just after 5 and we figured we were good for a few activites this evening. We decided to do Avalanche at Timberfalls and the kiddie credit at Paul Bunyan's and then explore the side strip of tourst shops and B-grade attractions that line Highway 13.

Timberfalls was much smaller than I expected - even knowing they had just 5 attractions and I loved how Avalanche circles the area. We scored a couple laps on the agressive airtime machine and left satisfied. Remember how I raved about Shivering Timbers a few days back? Avalanche took it to the same level but in a much more agressive manner. There was a dude there riding repeatedly and I made a comment about how many times I had seen him ride and was informed that he had done 29 consecutive laps and only stopped at that point to visit the restroom. Sure enough he was back on in a few moments. That's hardcore!

We skipped over to Paul Bunyan's to find what looked like a failed, abandoned amusement spot. There was no one around and it looked like the area had zero upkeep (maybe it was a motel in disguise?) I'm not sure if it was open (and by open, I mean operating, not closed for the day)

We never did find out either. I did see a sign in the main booth stating that a ride on Forest Express ran $4 - hell, at those prices they might just have been out of business. Who knows? We'll check back sometime over the next couple of days.

We moved up Highway 13 to the main area of shops and attractions, parked and headed out. Nothing much of note. Mostly overpriced, low quality crap that my kids thought they needed every last piece of. The highlight for me was stopping by Tommy Bartlett's Gyrotron Arcade Thingy and finding (and I swear I'm not making this up) and big plastic cow with a sign on it's back proclaiming that I could "Win Tickets! Milk Bessie!" I'm not sure if Bessie was the plastic cow with rubber glove udders or the woman working behind the prize counter (she may have had rubber glove udders herself, I didn't check), but either way I wasn't milking.

On down the line, my son ended up picking up a plastic toy submarine that he thinks should fly and not go in water while my daughter couldn't resist the "Grab Bag" at a toy store we were forced to check out. The grab bag had a brain teaser puzzle, a little doll with a keychain clip, a Baby Bottle Pop thingy of candy and what I consider the real prize - something called the "Icky Yicky Scented Ball"

It's a fist-sized thick flexible rubber mass filled with a clear goo and super balls of various sizes and colors and it smells like someone sprayed it with lemon Pledge. It's mezmerizing as hell to play with a feels like an ogre scrotum containing 30-some different sized testicles.

I feel dirty for just playing with it, but after rolling it on everything in the hotel room, the furnishings now has a brilliant shine. It cleans and protects your finest wood furniture.

We finished off with a stop at the Dells Mining Company. There are various geodes and other rock based knick-knacks and jewelery for sale in one half of the shop and the other half is set up to look like a mine where you can buy a bucket of sand and sift through it in a trough for precious stones. The kicker is that there's two levels of buckets - white or red. White ones are $12 and there's no guarantee you'll find anything of signifcant size or value and the red ones were $28 with the promise of a much better chance of finding stones of size and value. I couldn't help but imagine some guy in the back filling a bucket with sand and droppin a few rocks into it then charging the saps who visit $12 to look in it.

So of course the kids each got a white bucket. This amused my son for approximately 28 seconds and soon he was off flying his submarine around the shop precariously close to lots of shiny rocks perched on high, flimsy shelves lined with "you break it, you buy it" signs levaing my wife to look in his bucket of dirt. My daughter on the other hand is thoroughly amused with all things nature and would've died happy if we drove the 1300 miles to just do this as she treated the experience like brain surgery and carefully rooted out the smallest of rocks as keepers.

The whole process took about a half hour or so and after they we done the guy working the buckets gave us little plastic bags to put out findings in and informed us that we could go up to the counter and the girl there would tell us what we found. She told us, and then turned it into a sales pitch for having them cut, polish and mount the stones. Brilliant!

We politely declined and moved along. We stopped in a few more faceless shops all offering the same useless crap, had a laugh and decided that before we left the Dells we had to buy about 20 of the $2.99 T-shirts that read "If You Can Read This The Bitch Fell Off" on the back and give them out as Christmas gifts this year.

We were back at the hotel between 9 and 10 and spent some time playing with the "Icky Yicky Scented Ball" before heading over to Subway for a quick bite and calling it a night.

No real plans for tomorrow, just playing it by ear...but my son never did get a bath tonight because he refused to put his submarine down and dammit, this submarine didn't go in water - this submarine flies!