School's out for summer, and if you're like me and Alice Cooper, you're more ready for a summer vacation then your kids are. Certainly, by now they have mentioned those giant mega-parks like the ones you'll find in Wisconsin Dells, and while it's undeniable that taking your kids there will earn you big points on the coolest parent meter, what will you have taught them in the end? Sure, White Wolf River Lodge, or one of its counterparts, is decorated in the outdoors style, but it's really just an expensive inauthentic, bogus version of the real thing. So this year, I've made a deal with my kids, one night at the Madison Holiday Inn's Cypress Cove, which for $115 bucks got me free admission to the tamed down waterpark, a themed children's suite with bunkbeds and all their meals included, in exchange for 4 more days of authentic adventure, learning and history in Devil's Lake State Park. After we leave Madison (a great place in it's own right), via Route 113, where we'll cross Lake Wisconsin / Wisconsin River on the Merrimac Car Ferry, the Colsac III http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/travel/water/merrimac-history.htm ( it and it's predecessors have carried people across the river since 1844), we'll spend our time camping, hiking, swimming and exploring one of the most unique geologically, ecologically and biologically diverse areas in our region, if not our nation.
Give your kid's some good material for their "What I did this Summer" back to school report!
Did you know that there are thriving numbers of Black Bears, or that there are even Rattlesnakes and some of the country's best Rock Climbing and Bouldering all within 3 hours drive of Chicago? I bet not, but my kids have already started to learn about it, and in a few weeks, will get to experience it-even if my wise and safety-orientated 10-year old daughter rightly questions my logic that includes taking children to such dangerous environs. We'll sleep in an authentic plains style Tepee, learn about the forces of the last Ice Age and swim on a near pristine beach and in a lake with real sand and fish, not plastic tubes and fake palm trees. Sure, I'll probably give in and take them to Circus World (historically important, by the way) and even spend some time in the tourist trap called Wisconsin Dells (less the 30 minutes from Devil's Lake), but I guarantee what my kids remember most will be the life-lessons and things they experience in the great outdoors.
There are so many natural wonders and encounters to be had for a lot less then you'll spend at Great America, Crystal Cove or Grizzley Jack's Water Resorts all within a few hours of Chicago (or any metropolitan area) that it would be a complete and total shame not to take advantage of true summer fun and indelible lifelong learning experiences. If you're not ready to give up the mega-park addiction, try to balance it with, at minimum, a day trip to encounter at least one natural, historic or geological site on your next road trip.
I wonder if I can convince my Little Princess and Mickey-loving 6-year old daughter to eschew her dreams of Disney World for a trip to the Everglades? My son is already down with the idea...are you?
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