Every year, fewer people seem to be at work between Christmas and New Year's. With school out of session, it's a time geared to family getaways - but since it's one of the busiest times of the year to fly, you might want to look close to home for relaxation and a little adventure.
Inside
The Dells has successfully reinvented itself as a winter travel destination. This year, of course, winter can only be an improvement over the flood-ravaged summer season. As sure as snowfall, the indoor water parks are busy.
The Kalahari is often the first spot that springs to mind when people think "indoor waterpark," and with good reason: at 125,000 square feet, it's ostensibly the largest in the country. There's an uphill water roller coaster, a lazy river, whirlpool spas, a tidal pool and a children's play area with lots of stuff that involves splashing, spraying and squirting.
The Kalahari has many special resort activities throughout the holidays. While the complete holiday schedule is not yet set, there will be "Elf Tuck-ins" by request, cookie decorating on Saturdays in December, and it seems Santa and Mrs. Claus will be stopping by from time to time as well.
The Kalahari's new indoor theme park opens on Dec. 19. Just in case you're pruny from all that time in the water, now there's over 100,000 square feet of dry fun, including a six-story Ferris wheel, a carousel, 24 lanes of bowling, go-carts, laser tag, a ropes course, indoor mini-golf and golf simulators and more than 200 arcade games. Water? Who needs water?
It's probably a dangerous combo with the immediate need to wear one's swimming suit, but the Kalahari lays out a Christmas buffet on Dec. 25 with roast turkey, ham, cider pork loin, sea bass and more. (Open to guests and the public; reservations are suggested.)
The African-themed party scheduled for New Year's Eve is really three parties: a formal dance for adults, a teen party with DJ and a family party for everyone. A buffet with African entrees and the West African drum and dance group Xaalat Africa from Senegal, plus games, champagne and a balloon drop will help you bid farewell to 2008.
Great Wolf Lodge, with 100,000 square feet of waterpark and a 20,000-square-foot, four-story indoor play area known as Wiley's Woods, arranges holiday events in December. The Grand Lobby goes all "Snowland," Santa hangs out, there's caroling and a Santa's Workshop in the kids' craft area.
The Snowball ushers in 2009 on New Year's Eve, with a DJ, a buffet, a scavenger hunt and, of course, champagne. Oh, yes - and a Rubber Duckie race down the Lookout Mountain Waterslide. Can't do that at home.
Outside
Boundary Country Trekking embraces winter in a big way. It's in Minnesota, a state full of people who are into the outdoors. This adventure travel organization offers yurt-to-yurt cross-country skiing vacations in the Boundary Waters area.
First things first: Since you already know that a yurt is a round tent with a conical roof, originated by the nomads who crossed the tundra of Mongolia, I'll just tell you that these modern-day versions are covered with canvas rather than goatskin, are insulated, heated by wood stove, and come with fully equipped kitchens (LP gas stove with oven), sleeping bags and bunk beds. The privvy, however, is outside. To make up for that, one yurt has a wood-fired Finnish sauna.
If you go, you'll ski the Banadad, a 17.4-mile (29 K) tracked ski trail through the Boundary Waters, with your food and gear toted for you to the next yurt via snowmobile and your car shuttled to the end of the trail.
"We have an inch of snow on the ground right now," Boundary Country Trekking proprietor Ted Young tells me on Nov. 11, and he's expecting a bout of colder weather in which the trail will firm up. The east end of the trail usually opens around Thanksgiving; the rest of the trail, on national park land, is usually open and groomed by mid-December. Last year, it was skiable through April.
Boundary Country will cook for you, or you can pack your own food in. Either way, someone will meet you at the yurt at the end of the day to drop off your belongings and show you how to work the wood stove and the gas lights. And "if you don't arrive, we'll go out and look for you," says Young. "Some people like that reassurance."
Young has some vacancies left for the Christmas-to-New Year's period and says that other popular times are the Martin Luther King holiday and President's Day weekends, but suggests those interested to look at mid-week trips, too.
Skiers opting to have a hut host cook for them will be treated to Mongolian Firepot, a yurt-friendly cuisine similar to fondue. Asian vegetables, chicken, beef, pork and mock lobster are cooked in a heavy pot of chicken broth then served over rice with different Asian sauces. Breakfasts might feature French toast, baked eggs or stuffed rainbow trout. Trail lunches (finger foods, no sandwiches - too hard to eat in the cold and on the go) are also provided.
Young has been running yurt-to-yurt trips for over 20 years and has all the finer points down. And no, you won't be cold at night. "Insulating the yurts made all the difference," Young says. "Now with the wood stove, it's toasty warm even at 30 or 40 below."
Why yurts? "We lease the land from the U.S. Forest Service," Young explains. "They require that any structure be portable and temporary. Yurts fill the bill."
Young also offers trips where you can stay in a cabin or a bed-and-breakfast, or combine all of these options with the yurt for a lodge-to-lodge ski trip. Trips are available along the Gunflint Trail and the North Shore area along Lake Superior as well.
All of which would make for a pretty fine time.
Who do you call?
The Kalahari
877-253-5466
Great Wolf Lodge
Boundary Country Trekking
800-322-8327
