Thumping beats. Zinging lights. Two tiny women in the middle of the dance floor pouring booze down the throats of dancing tourists. Yes, I left town for a couple of days last week. And, no, I didn’t go to Las Vegas or southern California. The clubbing scene I described is in a smallish tourist town in southern Wisconsin—about equidistant (a three-hour drive) from Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul.
I spent my adolescent years and much of my 20s in this neck of the woods, and believe me, I barely recognize the place. Once upon a time, before Indian gaming and indoor water parks, the summer resort town of Wisconsin Dells basically shut down every winter. A few hotels stayed open for folks interested in skiing the teeny-tiny runs in nearby hill country. Business owners typically spent the winter in warmer climes.
Not anymore. I moved West in 1990. Back then, the now-thriving Ho-Chunk Indian casino was just a smoke shop. In 1993, the tribe started a bingo parlor. Despite continual hassles with police and local government, the group kept pushing the envelope. When Ho-Chunk tried to install its first electronic gaming devices, authorities shut it down while trying to figure out how to handle the Indian gambling concept.
In the end, Ho-Chunk won, thanks in part to offering large gifts to political parties, like $500,000 to the Democratic National Committee given right before a gubernatorial run-off in Wisconsin in 2002. In June, the tribe won yet another victory: the right to operate table games and high-stakes poker. The tribe now operates four properties and boasts of 5 million visitors a year.
But there’s more. In 1995, a brilliant Wisconsin entrepreneur decided to add an indoor water theme park to his resort—to boost room nights in June.
Think Wild Waters with a roof. The idea took off. Finally, adults and kids had a place to play all year long. In the past eight years, 18 properties developed climate-controlled water parks. Nowadays, it can be 14 degrees and snowing outside in Wisconsin, but Midwesterners brave the bad January roads and flock to the Chlorination Capitol. By day, they lounge under potted palms drinking fruity rum. By night, well, they’re off to Ho-Chunk to play craps or to the new dance clubs springing up nearby.
The indoor water resorts get bigger every year. One, the Wilderness Resort, offers 160,000 square feet of slides and rides, making it the nation’s largest indoor park. It’s got an interactive wave pool “with water blasters and depth charges,” and Fantastic Voyage, a 500-foot, five-person raft ride. There’s a 600-foot lazy river surrounding “Gold Mine Mountain,” a five-story-tall water play structure with two 500-foot slides.
Though I’m having a hard time adjusting to the change, Wisconsin Dells has lost its aura as a kitschy summer family destination that closes down for winter. Now it’s attracting the disposable income of a much younger crowd. The area is actually considered a happening place to spend Spring Break.
So I got to thinking, as a Reno resident might do while sitting in a thriving Midwestern club called Marley’s just before “bar time.” (In Wisconsin, that’s 2 a.m., when the girls stop waving liquor at the dancers and the bartenders pour their last shots.)
Indian gaming isn’t going away. That’s a given with which we’re all too familiar.
And I know we’re in the desert and all, and the idea of an indoor “water” park will strike a dry chord with many. Still, like any big decorative fountain, water parks recycle the H2O. And at this point in the dismal downturn of tourism here, almost anything is worth a try.
Imagine a year-round beach-themed attraction at, say, the Reno Hilton. If we build it, they might come. Now, if only I had a few million to invest. Anyone?