2:57 p.m. - 2007-10-11
Resort
Okay, NOW summer is over. I'm pretty sure. At least the October heat wave seems to have subsided. At present it's cloudy, chilly and gloomy out and I'm trying to relish every minute of it, knowing full well that a new heat wave can start any time. Give global warming credit for this at least: it can serve to remind one to not take anything for granted.
When the heat finally broke, Kia and I were slightly up north, in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. We went for just a day and a night to get out of town briefly. Elkhart Lake is a tiny town, pretty typical of Wisconsin small towns, except that there are for some reason sizeable resorts there. It's a sort of mini-Catskills, a place for the more urban (read "Chicago people") vacationers to "relax" and "take the waters". It turns out that we're resort-goers, a consequence of growing old and soft. I had been there a couple of weeks before, for a "gig" with Randy and Mark, so I was already familiar with the area. These are the things we did in Elkhart Lake:
*Looked over our room! Always the most fun thing on a trip. Our room was large and well-appointed. It was really more of a suite, with a bedroom, living area, bathroom and kitchenette complete with kitchenware. Also, there was a balcony overlooking the gigantic courtyard that was formed by the near-circular shape of the resort building. There was AC in the living area but not the bedroom. The bedroom, however, featured a ceiling fan. But the bed was a little small, bigger than twin but smaller than queen. But there were plenty of extra pillows. AND, televisions in BOTH THE BEDROOM AND LIVING AREA. We could spend our whole stay watching TV seperately, no need to interact at all. This was surely the Height of Luxuriousness!
*But we decided to hang around together anyway, since it's gotten to be kind of a habit. After we gave the room the once-over, we opened a bottle of wine and ate little gingerbread men with cheese slathered all over their bodies (luxury!) and hung around the living area, gaining familiarity with the cable channels. Among the eight thousand channels, there were about three Jesus channels and no movie channels. Also, there were no clean white bathrobes in our room. We were starting to feel ripped-off. Lest our dissatisfaction boil into a violent, furniture-smashing rage, we left the room and walked around the resort.
*Walking around, we noted how nearly abandoned the place seemed. It was, after all, the off season. We passed almost no one in the halls, and fewer hotel guests than staff. The pools, indoors and out: abandoned. The fitness room: abandoned. Every common area: abandoned. The cheesy faux-Victorian bar: nearly abandoned. And by the time we got to this point, we couldn't help but notice that we were experiencing an eerie, "The Shining" type of ambience. Right after the bar was an elevator bank, from which I fully expected to see blood seeping. But, I noted with MORE THAN A LITTLE RELIEF, there appeared to be no mysterious flood of blood imminent. We decided to venture off of the resort grounds.
*I took Kia on an informative whirlwind tour of my visit to the town of a couple weeks earlier. I showed her where the band had played in a tiny tent by the lake; where the art fair booths and food vendors, now but a memory, had been situated; where I had parked the car and unloaded my drums; where I had chatted with the organizer lady at the registration table; the building I had mistakenly walked into, thinking that we would be playing inside. Kia was either enthralled or humoring me. Either way, the tour was successful. We walked around the town for several minutes. We found two open restaurants, one of which, we agreed, may well turn out to be the evening's dining spot. The first place seemed clean and possibly a little pretentious, with its exposed brick walls and fancy schmancy tablecloths and napkins. The menu seemed pricey but adequate, with an emphasis on the high-end fish and chops items that high-rolling resort dwellers like us prefer. The second place, right next door, had more of a (studied) basement rec-room feel, with vinyl covered chairs and lots of ancient beer signs festooning the walls. There was seating facing the window we were looking in, with a long bench-style table. Kia noted the arty spiral things emanating from the underside of the table to the floor. On closer inspection, the arty spiral things were COVERED IN DEAD FLIES, MILLIONS OF THEM. It was flypaper. This gave us pause. The menu here was similar to the one at the first place. At this point we had to rush back to our room because "The Gilmore Girls" would be starting soon.
*The episode of "The Gilmore Girls" that was being aired on this day was kind of lame. Lorelei was mad at her parents and Rory was struggling with the consequences of her terrible taste in men. Nothing new going on here. We grew restless. Kia decided to go for a swim. I never swim. I offered to watch her swim so that she could show me her pool tricks. She insisted that she had no pool tricks. Unconvinced, I nonetheless decided to run on the fitness room treadmill instead. I had to choose: the tiny, abandoned fitness room near our room, or the larger abandoned fitness room near the main lobby, where there was more foot traffic. I chose the latter, since it would afford slightly more possibility of my receiving timely medical attention should I collapse suddenly during exercize. We split up, Kia deciding to swim in the lake rather than the pool. I found the treadmill in the fitness room, started running, quickly grew bored, turned the TV on ("The Gilmore Girls" was still on) and continued running. Kia came into the fitness room after a few minutes, announcing that since it looked like rain she had decided upon the the indoor pool after all. Eventually we separately finished our activity regimens and headed back to our room.
*Back in our room, we enjoyed a glass of wine while plotting our next move. The rain had been light and quick. It was growing cooler out as sundown neared. Kia suggested we venture out to sit by the lake. We both brought reading material and ambled out to the lakeside, where we found reclining beach chairs and settled in, enjoying the quiet serenity of the rippling water and waning sun. The night before, we had listened to a Tom Waits song that told the story of a man who left the earth to follow his dreams, traveling to the moon, then the sun. Both proved disappoining. The moon had turned out to be a huge mass of rotted wood.
"What did he compare the sun to?" I asked.
Kia answered, "I don't remember."
"Was it some kind of rusted-out metal hulk?"
"Probably with sharp, jagged edges?"
We sat quietly and read our books as the jagged metal hulk set. Now that I think about it, it may have been a wilted sunflower. In the end, the man returned to earth, where he sat at its filthy decayed edge and cried. The End.
*Kia grew chilled and it was darkening. We headed back to the room, refreshed by our lakeside repose. We noticed again how unpeopled the resort seemed, how like in "The Shining". I warned Kia: "If you see any Scatmen approaching, RUN."
NEXT: Room Service? Room Service!
