For those that have never been to one of these indoor water parks, you’re missing out on a feat of engineering and a cacophony of sound. The Kalahari is laid out in one very large room. Amenities include a wave pool, lazy river, flow-rider (artificial surf), multiple kiddy pools, hot tubs, basketball pools and water slides, water slides, water slides!

Each resort has their own gimmicky angle to lure guests. Kalahari is based on an African safari. They also have live animals that guests can have their photos taken with. During our visit was this cub and a kangaroo joey.

Friday, we spent about 2 hours in the park, checking out the assorted hot tubs and the “Master Blaster” a roller coaster style water slide that you actually do go uphill on and a few other slides. Then we had a nice dinner in the restaurant that overlooks the wave pool. The boys even got the secret of the flaming water from the hostess. Friday also began the adventure in the arcade where Oskar struck pay dirt with a “skill” based game where you try to roll the coin into a certain portion of a mat. When it goes into the machine, a light bar reads it and determines if it’s a winner. Oskar of course managed to get the 400 ticket reward. We enjoyed desert from a coffee shop there at the resort a brief story time before bed and crashed hard.

Saturday, the official birthday, we woke up and had another nice breakfast overlooking the water park. We missed the initial crowd of folks who race in at the exact moment of opening to snag a chair and packed up, alas, only one night stay, and then headed to the water park. Xavier spent most of his time over the next two hours on the intermediate water slides.

We wrapped up the day with a little while longer in the arcade (a favorite with the older two) and Xavier had a good time too. His favorites tend to involve skee-ball and other games of chance. I did get it to pause for a moment for this shot on the dance mat on his way to some other game.

The big boys worked hard and all told about 1,200 tickets were earned – plastic stuff and candy was bought – success in the mind of a 3, 6 or 9 year old. (In just a few months, at Oskar’s birthday, the kids will all be prime numbers – just noticed that!)

At 2:30ish, we waved goodbye to the Kalahari and headed west, stopping for a pit stop in Sparta, Wisconsin. We found an open coffee shop and had a snack before finishing the drive home. We did presents at the house when we got back.

There are a WHOLE lot more photos if you want to flip through them. I’ll link to the photoset after I re-created it (I goofed it up last night during the upload.)

Friday we head to Memphis for the 14th Annual Fest. It’s looking to be a smaller gathering again this year. Below you’ll find a map of some of the locations we’ll be checking out while were in Memphis and I’ll post some pics from the BlackBerry while we’re there.

A Google Map of where we’ll be. We’re staying in Mississippi (technically) but this is just over the state line from Memphis, about 20-30 minutes south. We probably won’t hit ALL of the liquor stores