Several years ago my brother and his wife started taking their kids up to Wilderness Lodge in the Wisconsin Dells for a little mid-winter break. It wasn’t their usual vacation, but they started to enjoy the benefits of a weekend with a bunch of other midwesterners in a faux-tropical environment filled with chlorinated water, screeching children, and margaritas the size of a human head. He always said, “You’ve got to see this place”. Last year I finally went and witnessed the most bizarre environment I’d ever seen: Fathers floating on “The Lazy River” with a napping infant, families gathered together on towels with babies and booze, grandparents taking a plunge down the treacherous “Hurricane”.
What a perfect sociological study! What a perfect photo project! I quickly realized that I couldn’t pull out my large camera, as I’d really look creepy and probably get kicked out. So this year I documented some of it on my i phone. My niece told me I looked creepy anyway, so I eventually stopped shooting. I think what I got was worth it; I want the world to witness this American phenomenon without the suffering. Enjoy – I bet you can almost smell the chlorine and tequila.
