HOTR - Part 3

After a good night's sleep, we were ready to tackle section 3 of the House on the Rock tour.  This is another long post, so I'll keep the commentary to a minimum.

First up was this ginormous carousel, billed as the largest indoor carousel in the world.  Too bad you can’t ride it.

All the ‘horses’ are strange creatures as befitting the mind of Alex Jordan.

Next we moved into a huge area with an eclectic mixture of objects on display.  For instance, this 10 foot boat propeller,

Still attached to the equally huge motor, oops, engine (my father just called to correct me,)

Several organs and pianos,

And a weird collection of steins, to name just a few.

Yikes!

Next up was the very impressive doll carousel - three main tiers alternate with three smaller ones.  I took a picture of the postcard I bought for this one.

The dolls are really cute, endlessly spinning on their ride.

Then we admired the doll house collection.  I never saw so many different ones.

I loved the tiny, perfect rugs.  Ron wondered if this was a spa shower.

Moving on, we passed by miniature circus venues.

Pretty impressive details.

We were confused by this next collection.  They were plaster castings, about a foot high, that seemed to advertise diamonds, but had no company name on them.

 

There were more than a hundred of them.

These are the diamond inspectors.

Then came an amazing collection of weapons - pistols, rifles, swords.  I’d say there were a couple hundred of them all in customized cases.  I’m not a gun fan, so this is the only picture I took.  Probably not a lot of call for this particular weapon.

There was a room with armor.  Ron remarked they must have had big noses.

But wait!  Here’s another doll carousel.  This one was more like a doll/chandelier carousel.

There are dolls and then there are dolls!

On our way out, we passed the main carousel again.  I hadn't noticed the angels flying overhead the first time.

All in all, I would say the complete attraction of House on the Rock is well worth the $28.50.  After all, we got two days’ worth of entertainment for our admission fee.  I didn't care if all the objects are antiques or reproductions, which I understand many are.  I didn't even care if all the automated musical instruments played or if the sound came from a synthesizer, which I read is true of the woodwinds and stringed instruments.  Come with an open mind and prepare to be entertained.  It’s a fun place and I highly recommend it.

HOTR - Part 2

The House on the Rock is more than just an unusual house.  Sections 2 and 3 of the tour consist of amazing collections of everything that interested Mr. Jordan.  For instance, this glass collection was in the ladies room, of all places.

This is just a small sample of the gun collection.

I liked the old-fashioned bank collection.

And many collections were housed in stores along The Streets of Yesterday.

There was a doll store,

A clock shop,

And a china store, just to pick a few.

Next we entered The Heritage of the Sea, a massive nautical exhibit.  There were many large ship models.

Quite a collection of scrimshaw,

And a model of the Titanic complete with iceberg, which I estimated to be 12 feet long.

All of this was surrounding a 200-foot whale like creature.  It looked similar to a blue whale, but with inaccurate teeth instead of baleen plates.  Otherwise how could he chew up the boat?

There was a fun picture of Mr. Jordan inside the creature's mouth.

Leaving the nautical section, I was creeped out by these marionettes

.
But I liked the vases, even though each pretty lady has a hole in her head.

Personally, I don't believe these are real ivory, but they're very pretty.

By this time we were tired and hungry, especially since we had been smelling pizza for awhile.  But, never fear, the tour routes you right into the restaurant.

After indulging in a slice each, we were ready to move on.  At the beginning of section 2 and again near the end were many, many automatic music machines.  They started out fairly simple, but became more complex as you went along.  Here are a couple of short videos.




By the end, the instruments filled whole rooms.

This is the end of section 2 and we decided we were just too tired and overwhelmed to go on.  Luckily, although they don't advertise it, you can leave at the end of any section and come back to continue with the next section.

I'll leave you with a pretty water lily from the Japanese garden.

And this canon that Ron found interesting.  He thought it had some kind of pneumatic recoil system.

The House on the Rock

On previous visits to Wisconsin, I avoided stopping at the famous House on the Rock, thinking that it's just a tourist trap.  Finally, with Ron's encouragement, and since we were staying within a few miles, I agreed to go.

Driving in the entrance road, I was afraid my worst fears would be realized.  These giant planters with their weird critters just made me groan.

The House on the Rock was designed and built by Alex Jordan.  He started giving tours for 50 cents because people stopped to ask about the unusual house perched atop a rock pinnacle.  The trees must be a lot taller now because you can only see a small part of it from anywhere along the road.  It's also a lot more expensive now with the self-guided tour divided into three sections for $12.50 each, or all three for $28.50 ($26.50 for over 65.) Because we knew we would not be back, we went for the whole enchilada.

The first section of the tour includes the Alex Jordan Center and the house itself.  I warned Ron that if he read every sign in the center, we would never finish our tour.  I snapped this picture of the visitors center and the water flowing beneath it, framed by these cool shutters.

Then we were off to see the house.  The style is reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright and may have been inspired by his work.  On the other hand, it may have been a case of Mr. Jordan thumbing his nose at Wright.  The rooms have low-ceilings and are laid out in a maze-like way.

While crossing a connecting walkway, we had a nice view of the lovely Japanese garden.

Then we entered another part of the house or was this the guest house?  We were confused by this time.

However, by far the most impressive piece of architecture is the Infinity Room.

It extends 218 feet from the house with no support.

This is out of order, but here is a picture from the viewpoint about a mile up the road.

Continuing the house tour, we wandered through room after room, most of which appeared to be sitting areas.

Heads spinning, we were soon out of the house and on our way to Section 2.  But that's another post.

Another Capitol

We were close enough to Madison that we just had to run into the big city and tour the Wisconsin capitol building.  First unusual fact - the Capitol and city center are located on an isthmus between two large lakes.  Whose bright idea was that?  Didn't they think about expansion?

Well the story we heard from our tour guide is that when they were deciding where the state capital should be, one gentleman was very persuasive that it should be here where he just happened to own land!  There wasn't even a town here before that!

This is the third Capitol to be built on this spot - the first was hastily erected and the second burned down in 1904.  This building was constructed from 1906-1917 and is spectacular with 43 varieties of stone from around the world, hand-carved furniture and murals throughout.  

Although this is a terrible picture, I just have to use it to show the Governor's conference room.  It looks like a room out of a palace with the murals and gold leaf.

The Hearing Room is used for the public to voice their opinions on pending legislation.  I really liked the four murals along the ceiling which reflected the history of transportation.  This is the fourth one which includes a train, ship, car, and even a small airplane (although I can't see it in this picture.)  Since the Wright Brothers' first flight was in 1903, he must have been quite a visionary.

In the Senate Chambers are three paintings that allegorically depict the opening of the Panama Canal which was being built the same time as the Capitol.  It shows the wedding of the Pacific (the woman) and the Atlantic (the man) and includes the Asian countries (on the left panel) and the European countries (on the right.)

Wisconsin is known as the badger state, although the only live badger Ron ever saw was in Idaho.  And he did a lot of trapping as a teenager in Wisconsin.

At one point the tour took us outside where we had an up-close view of the statuary and a good look at the two lakes.  The Capitol is the tallest building in the downtown area.

We weren't able to walk around the inside of the dome, but we could peek out and see the rotunda floor far below.

The mural at the top of the dome is hard to see even in person, but it is called Resources of Wisconsin.

A couple more things that I found interesting.  First, we couldn't view the Assembly Chambers (or what I would call the House of Representatives) because there was a wedding going on in there!  I asked if it was somebody important and our guide said no, that anybody can rent it.  Is that how they balance the budget?

Also, I think this Capitol must be the most perfectly symmetrical building I've ever seen.  Each of the four sides is exactly the same.  I rented an airplane to get you this picture.  (Or maybe just bought a postcard since there was no snow when we visited.)

Madison is a really active city.  We were there on a Saturday and I thought downtown would be empty. Instead it was jumping.  There was a craft show/farmers market going on right around the Capitol.  People were riding bikes or eating at sidewalk cafes.  I guess it helps that it's a college town.