The americans - The Trump years - Mundo - Folha de S.Paulo
Wisconsin Dells (Wisconsin)It was my fault. The journey was long, and we wanted to save time, so I decided travel to Wisconsin using Waze. Until then, we had used the roadmap, but that day we went by the app.
After an hour and a half of the road, however, we realized that the techie route showed a ferry crossing across Lake Michigan.
The disembarkation route in Milwaukee, the largest city in the last state of our trip, was easier, but it completely misunderstood the idea of a road trip.
We recalculated –via physical map– and drove for five hours to Wisconsin Dells, the most surreal place we’ve seen in the United States.
In the summer, the city of 3,000 inhabitants, the self-titled water park capital of the world, attracts people from all over the country, who divide their time between toboggan run and nature tourism around the Wisconsin River. But on that cold day in October, the only thing we could visit was extravagant pastimes –like a roller coaster with a giant Trojan horse in the middle of the main avenue.
But the city’s main attraction is another: Top Secret – a replica of the White House. Only it’s upside down.
Perhaps because of the negative temperature, the tour within the bizarre allegory of the president’s residence was on sale that day.
"$ 5, just today,” read the ad on the door. At 11 am on a Thursday, we were the first –and only– visitors.
In less than twenty minutes inside the simulacrum, we were overcome with vertigo. The ceiling decoration forces us to look up to observe the imitations of the official rooms in the White House.
If the spaces of the US President’s official residence are upside down, what could be arranged in a conventional manner? Conspiracy theories involving the US government, of course.
Swiveling tunnels and greenish lights lead into a darkened room, where a toy gorilla is trapped in a cell and puppets examine aliens.
There are several unproven theses that NASA, the US space agency, tests and hides alleged evidence of life off Earth.
It was easy to find surreal tourism in the city. But to meet people willing to talk about real America and its reflexes in the 2020 election, we understood that we would have to go to Milwaukee.
