At the Waterpark

So the Kitten, myself, and the two kittens headed down to Williamsburg Friday for the weekend. We had an event at William and Mary on Saturday night involving a lot of friends of the Kitten's, many of whom have children. Someone suggested that making The Great Wolf Lodge our HQ would be a good idea, and that's where we stayed.

The Great Wolf Lodge is a hotel built around an indoor waterpark. It is completely and thoroughly devoted to showering goodness upon children. In addition to the waterpark, there are a ridiculous variety of entertainments, each of which served to create a legion of seriously hopped-up kids running to and fro. Had this been twenty-five years ago, Mom and Dad could have sent the kids down to the waterpark and then done some adult things; but this is not then, and children cannot and must not be unattended, anywhere. So the Kitten and I spent a good bit of time sloshing around in teeming stews of humanity (much of which was a good bit of fun) and surrendering massive sums of money electronically charged to us by these little wrist bracelets we wore which allowed us to simply have a sensor waved in front of it to pay for whatever it is we wanted.

I'm not a huge fan of "vacationing" with a ton of other people--this is why cruises are out for me. I am especially not enamored of spending a lot of time with a ton of other people's children. But all in all, this was a pretty good weekend, and I do recommend it for those with kids under say, 12 or so.

Two last things--first of all, this place is a mint. It appears to print money. I checked into some analyst research for the parent company stock (WOLF) and found Wall Street somewhat unimpressed. I'm no big financial whiz, but the place was packed and people were forking over a lot of money. I'm thinking about a buy....

Secondly, America is a big country. Not geographically, mind you, but fat. You get to see it probably more on display at an indoor waterpark than almost anywhere--but we're a big fat country. This is one aspect of the healthcare debate we don't hear enough about.

UPDATE: My Wall Street buddy says WOLF is over-leveraged. "Barely can afford to pay its interest".