Sightseeing Today:
- The House on the Rock (This is the official site, but later there is a link that provides a great description of this most unusual attraction.)
Today was a heavy-duty sightseeing day. We decided we’d go out for breakfast because the attraction we were seeing today, The House on the Rock, will take a bit of time. We knew we needed full tummies to complete the tour as our neighbors at the campground informed us it would take approximately 4 hours to complete and that we’d walk approximately 5 miles doing the tour (yea, right, I thought to myself—how can a house have 5 miles of walking). Undaunted, we ventured forward.
The House on the Rock is located in Spring Green, WI. It’s about an hour’s drive from our campground. The drive is quite scenic with taller hills and trees than we have seen in quite some time. We drove through a few small towns: Reedsburg, Loganville, and Plain. In Plain, we saw a Quaker (or the like) woman in her yard with black dress and white bonnet. It was quite unexpected, but thought that might be why the town was called Plain.
We didn’t see any cafés that looked inviting in those small towns and, therefore, ended up in Spring Green before we knew it. We came into town and were stunned to see that the town was still flooded. I quickly grabbed the camera as we couldn’t believe that over a week after the flooding, so many homes and businesses—and the graveyard—were still under water.
Pictures of flooding in Spring Green, WI.
We stopped at one place that looked high and dry, but they were still recovering. They sent us to another café on down the road. It looked “OK” but not necessarily inviting. We were greeted (after a bit) by a disgruntled hostess/waitress. Nary a smile. The breakfast progressed with her showing a bit more friendliness, and although the food was pretty good, her mood really made the breakfast quite distasteful.
We drove onward and passed Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and working studio/school, which we will visit later this week. Morbidly, this is the home where his long-time girlfriend and her 2 young children and some dinner guests were killed by a disgruntled employee. I’ll share more of this story after we visit Taliesin later this week.
We arrived at the House on the Rock and were greeted with numerous examples of these types of sculptures –they certainly set the tone for what we were about to experience. Although I have to say, nothing could have prepared us! And, there is no way that I can appropriately describe what we saw.
After a brief video in the visitor's center, we were on our way to visit this strange house. Here's a stock picture of the house.
Here’s a Website that quiply explains how the house came to be created and what it’s all about: Article. So, if you have about 3 minutes to read it, I beg you to do so. There is no way that I can top the 1-page description of the builder and the tour that his site provides. The author even pokes fun at us old folks trying to get through this maze of never-ending sights and sounds.
The whole experience became so overwhelming to the senses, all I could think about was “I don’t want to look at any more collections.” If I had known, I would have opted to do the final tour (of the three) on a separate day—not because of the length of the tour, but because of the sheer numbers of sights and collections to mentally take in.
If you didn’t take the time to read the brief story highlighted above, let me say, there are three separate tours. The first tour was of the gatehouse (a greeting area with a kitchen and dining area as well as some relaxing fireplace seating areas), the main house, and the Infinity room. The gatehouse and house are built upon a rock—appropriately named. Many of the walls are the rock that existed as Alex Jordon, Jr., built this house in the 1940s around what was there.
The Infinity Room was Jordon's design but was not completed until about 30 years ago. The view is quite daunting as you walk out.
Here's a stock photo of a view of the room from the ground!
I made it just a bit further than shown in this picture. Dave took the picture while standing out at the end. There is a glass "coffee table" at the end that looks straight down into the forest.
The second and third tours are honestly a blurr. I couldn’t tell you where one ended and the other began. All I know is that we went up and down and all around in circles and weaving pathways to more exhibits than I can possibly account for. I must say, I was overwhelmed, as most folks are, by the carousel. It defies description. This picture is not very good because I didn't have the correct lighting on it. I am still learning about this new camera. However, check back later as I hope to post the video, which did come out well, so that you can see the magnitude of this carousel.
Note: I am still having difficulty uploading to YouTube and it doesn’t seem to be our connection. So, when I get them uploaded, I’ll direct you later to this entry in the blog so that you can check out the sounds of the walls of music and the carousel.
Throughout the house there are music walls—symphonies of musical instruments that are all mechanically wired to play. It’s quite unbelievable because these walls can be as high as 12 ft. and as wide as 20 ft. You buy tokens along the way, and then you can play these walls of music. There are also antique music “boxes” that are huge and lots of unique little mechanical “plays” in boxes where puppets perform mini-shows. Of course, this type of collection is only one small portion of the tour.
We entered the tour at noon and we left at 4:30 PM. Our hips and pegs had had about all they could muster; but more than that, our senses were fried. I purchased a coffee-table book about the House on the Rock that I will be able to share with some of you. If you are ever up this way in Wisconsin, believe me, it’s a MUST SEE. But, try to take 2 days to do it.
You know Dave’s sightseeing-while-driving habit—we’ll he saw a mama, papa, and baby crane walking in a farmer’s field. The cranes were the same color as the dirt, so how he spotted them is beyond me. But, I missed them, so nothing would do but we had to turn around and let me see them. I am really glad he did because this is a very rare sight to see (which we found out the next day).
Upon exiting the building, I informed Dave that I was NOT standing tonight to fix supper. So, we drove back to The Dells (about an hour) and found a Mexican restaurant right on the Wisconsin River. It overlooked the dam, which was letting out water lickety-split to relieve the upper portion of Wisconsin from its flood waters. We enjoyed watching the Jet Boats jockey around to give thrill rides to their passengers.
We drove back to the RV and collapsed. I was sure we’d be up all night with leg cramps, but we managed to sleep soundly with nary a muscle moving—our muscles must have been too tired to spaz out as well!
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