File: We Went to the Dells!

So, our weekend was quite the adventure. Who knew that Wisconsin was going to get 15 inches of snow? Certainly not me.

The drive in was fun. We talked the whole way and the roads weren’t bad. Despite getting lost in search of an Arby’s, we made it there in one piece.

Our first stop was the Wollersheim Winery. This place looked beautiful, even with all the snow. We were going to take a winery tour, but we were running late, so we decided to do the wine tasting instead. We had only tasted wine at one other time, on our second anniversary when we went out to Starved Rock, so we were still excited about it. There was less presentation than we had the previous time. It was pretty much, “Here’s your wine. Now what?” Despite the slightly rude service, the wine tasted awesome. They had cranberry wine. Yum! We bought five bottles.

Then, we traveled to the Sundara Spa and Suites. I picked it because of the reviews. It was rated in almost every magazine as the best spa in the Midwest. While it was certainly a fun experience, I don’t think I would agree with that statement. Maybe normal spa goers don’t expect much, but when I’m spending a chunk of change on a room, I expect a certain level of detail that was lacking. Matt summed it up: this would have been the perfect experience had it been a hundred dollars cheaper.

We got there a little late, so we were told to go right upstairs and change into our swimsuits and robes and come down for a tour. (They’re sort of demanding about the robe thing. Their measure if you’re enjoying yourself is if you stay in your robe during your entire stay, which I don’t think counts if they sort of force you to wear your robe.) We changed and came downstairs, but there was nobody waiting to give us a tour. I didn’t know where to go and was told to go through a set of doors. Through the set of doors was another set of doors (confused yet?). I wandered in and walked around in circles until someone found me and took pity on me.

They then took me to meet my treatment provider, Andrei. He was a giant of man who only spoke in a whisper. (It was a fun dichotomy.) He took me to the room, which was nicely appointed, and explained what was going to happen. It was called an herbal infusion, which meant that he first exfoliated my skin, then wrapped me in hot towels, then wrapped me in an herb and tea soaked sheet, then wrapped me in a silver space blanket until I was a Brandi/herb taco. As I had to stew in my taco wrapping for awhile, he massaged my face, head, neck, and shoulders. Then, he unwrapped the taco blanket and massaged my back, legs, and feet. It was awesome. I felt comfortable with him immediately and he did a really good job. Talk about attention to details – he got it.

After my massage, I went back upstairs to our room. Matt was still running (thus using the time to pamper himself), so I got to sit down and enjoy our room. Our room was incredible. It had a feathersoft bed, a fireplace, this really comfy leather chair and ottoman (perfect for reading), and a great view. It had bay windows that looked out onto the pine trees. They lit them at night, so it was especially beautiful to watch the snow come down. Our bathroom was also gigantic. It had its own shower section. This shower was a work of art. It had two giant rain showerheads and little moveable showerheads so there was always enough water on you. If we ever make it big, I’m going to get one of those puppies put in our bathroom.

Matt came up and we got ready for dinner. We decided to dress up because it was fun, and hey, why not? He had called the front desk and asked if there were any fondue restaurants in the area. He was told yes and they made a reservation for us. The spa offered a Lincoln Town Car service, which meant that they would drive you around for free in this swanky car. We took them up on the offer and scheduled the car. We got into the car and told the driver, John, with whom we shared a wedding anniversary, where we were going. He was surprised that it had fondue and offered to stay and wait while we made sure. Being the brave idiots we are, we didn’t want to waste his time, so we told him to go ahead without us.

Boy, were we wrong. No fondue. Ribs, underdone steak, orders that would be completely wrong, yes, fondue, no. People in hoodies and screaming babies for a 9pm seating, yes, fondue, no. British waiters from Ballaboo and “romantic” Humphrey Bogart rooms that we weren’t sat in despite having reservations for our WEDDING ANNIVERSARY, yes, fondue, no. Eh, we make our own fun.

We slept in the next day and ordered breakfast in bed. The food was much better than the previous night. It was fun to just lounge for most of the morning. Then, we headed downstairs for the Purifying Bath Ritual.

This ritual was one spoken of with reverence in all of the literature about the spa. I was disappointed the previous night because the room looked so small (and so spacious on the web site), but once I talked Matt into partaking, found it to be a highlight of the trip. There’s a shower (which felt awesome – all of their showers rocked) and you’re supposed to exfoliate yourself with herbs (big into herbs, this place). Then, you spray yourself with this refreshing body mist (dunno what it was, it smelled sort of like processed roses). Then, you enter the steam room. There was so much steam that you couldn’t see in front of you. Then you hop into another shower (to regulate your body temperature). Finally, you alternate between the hot tub and the cold plunge pool. Matt liked the cold plunge pool a lot, while I was more of a fan of the hot tub. The neat thing was that my limbs tingled after going between the two.

We then got our stuff together and checked out. We got wristbands to go to the indoor waterpark, the Wilderness. This was an adventure, too. The first door opened onto such a deluge of screaming that we immediately closed the door and shot each other the warning look. We were scared. Door number two proved more promising with some water slides, a hot tub, and a lazy river. We hung out the most behind door number three: the wave pool. After a hearty lunch at Survivor’s (again, not great food, but heavy on irony), I learned something new about my spouse: he loves wave pools as much as I do. We had a blast splashing around. It was especially great to be in a bathing suit and watch the snow fall outside.

We ended our weekend with a drive home with a stop in Madison at this awesome hibatchi-style Japanese restaurant. Big thumbs up to the GPS navigation system my folks got us for the holidays for picking the best restaurant in all of Wisconsin. It was a great end to a super-fun weekend.

Yay for love!