on wisconsin

[kirkcudbright]

Hokay. We were in Wisconsin for a week, back almost two weeks, and I'm finally posting about it.

It was a family reunion, on my mother's side. Her parents both grew up in Wisconsin, though the only close family living there now are my mother's cousin (from Ohio), and my brother (from Massachusetts).

First, let's set the scene. We had two lake-side cottages (I-90 is on the other side of the lake, and it's not a big lake, but at least the highway is out of sight), sleeping between 19 and 25 people, depending on the day. We're in Wisconsin Dells, a gaudy tourist trap of theme parks, water parks, Adventure Golf™, and other tourist crap. However, we're ½ mile off the strip, which means we're deep in the woods.

My mother has two sisters, and between them they have 10 sons, 9 of whom came for at least part of the week. We're not a terrribly close family (I haven't seen some of the cousins for 25 years), but we've all grown up to be fabulous people, and we all got along fabulously. Really.

Wisconsin Dells has its attractions (most of which we avoided), but we took two notable day trips. One was back down to Madison, to go shopping at Penzeys Spices (they're closed on Sunday, the day we arrived, and the day we'd be leaving). Those of you who care already know (and those of you who don't know, don't care), but we were excited to find out that Boston is going to get the next Penzeys store (little dance of joy).

The other day trip was to The House on the Rock, which defies description. Here's how it's described in the Fodor's guide: Another curious architectural monument of the Wyoming Valley is the House on the Rock, one of Wisconsin's top tourist attractions through no fault of the original owner, Alex Jordan, an artist with a penchant for collecting junk. The House on the Rock is balanced on a dolomite outcropping overlooking the Wyoming Valley, and is designed in a Japanese sytle, with Asian artifacts and furniture throughout its tiny upper level. As you descend into the bowels of the house, your feeling of claustrophobia will become ever more pronounced. You pass enormous wooden clocks from Germany, huge diesel engines that once powered ocean freighters, eerie orchestras (powered by hydraulic lines) playing classical music badly, and replicas of Main Street that have been abandoned by their inhabitants. The tour descends through a maze of rooms in warehouse after warehouse, until you reach the basement, where a gigantic merry-go-round is careening almost out of control, its ceiling filled with hundreds of wooden maidens, their breast pointing accusingly at the visitors, who hope that the next corner will produce an exit and fresh air. The tour is expensive and long, with no turning back once the hordes are funnelled down the chute. How could you not want to go there?

A less hyperbolic description is that it's a collection of collections. Jordan's original collections were of glass paperweights and antique firearms. But he also collected stained-glass lamps, religious statuary, dolls and dollhouses, miniature circuses, and all kinds of moving things, from steam tractors to metal banks to turn-of-the-century jewelry store animatronic displays. But he had a special thing for music boxes, player pianos, and mechanical orchestras. They're literally all over the place. Pictures behind the cut.

This was in the same town as Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin architecture school, but we missed the last tour. Oh well.

The last outing was just down the road from the Dells, to the International Crane Foundation, which has all 15 crane species on exhibit. The two that are native to North America are the sandhill crane (the most numerous) and the whooping crane (the most endangered). Most of the cranes are kept from human contact, so that they can be re-introduced to the wild, but a few are on exhibit. They had a yound couple of whooping cranes, who had not laid an egg this year, but who had been given a sandhill crane egg to see how they might make out as parents (doting, as it turns out).

This is the first time I've flown through Detroit. The terminal is long enough that it has its own indoor train. There's also a fabulous fountain that shoots precision-controlled streams or pulses of water. Kylie described it as the flying-fish fountain. Unfortunately, none of my pictures really shows it well. You can sort of see it in the lower left.	Mt. Olympus, a roller coaster and go-cart park in Wisconsin Dells. The go-cart track goes through the Trojan Horse. This was taken from the parking lot of the Duck tour.
Bit of statuary in the woods. From a demolished bank or something. From the Duck tour.	The Dells of the Wisconsin River. This is what originally brought tourists to the area.
Kylie communing with her great-grandmother. Briggsville, WI.	The daughters of Arthur Wesley Edwards and Dorothy Kimball Edwards, in age order. Elinor (my mother), Sue, and Ardath (yes, she dyes).
Francie and Kylie at the general store my great-grandfather built in 1905. Briggsville, WI.	Willow tree at Mason Lake, Briggsville.
Me with my parents, 3 brothers, assorted spouses and offspring.	The men's room at the House on the Rock has a taxidermy diorama of the Wisconsin winter woods - wolverine, badger, fox, weasels, etc. And a 3 foot long model of a Spanish wooden warship.
Dragon from the Gate House.	Built-in table in the Gate House. No, it's not a trick of the perspective. The ceiling is very low, and the table is trapezoidal.
The Infinity Room. It's built to look like it goes on forever, but it really is cantilevered 218 feet out over the Wyoming Valley. 156 feet over the valley.	The House on the Rock boasts the largest collection of Bauer & Coble lamps in the world. They're tucked into every nook, hallway, and roomlet of the main house.
Jesus, Joseph, and Tiffany. Really.	In the Streets of Yesteryear, a showroom for the Phelps Bros Horseless Carriage Mfg Co. This is a car controlled by reins.
The Giant Sea Monster. Part blue whale, part sperm whale, part pure imagination, locked in struggle with an enormous octopus in addition to the whale boat in the mouth. This is surrounded by the contents of a defunct maritime museum.	The Hupfeld Phonoliszt. Threee violins are simultaneously played by a rotating bow, while an ordinary player piano mechanism plays the accompaniment. In 1912, violinist Efrem Zimbalist declared that "the Phonoliszt Violina is the eighth wonder of our time." OTOH, The House on the Rock is filled with eighth wonders.
Car with built-in heart-shaped jacuzzi.	Player piano with xylophone. Note the continuous-loop control sheet bunched up over the xylophone.
The Mikado. Just a small part of the mechanical orchestra.	A small detail of the Red Room, playing the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Notice that the violins have four bows (one for each string), and a passel of mechanical fingers.
An enormous wooden clock from the Organ Room. There are 3 huge pipe organs, but also ship engines, brewery tanks, and cannons scattered about.	The Buddha as a centaur, in the Dolls' Carousel.
The World's Largest Carousel™. 269 animals (but no horses), 20,000 lights, but you can't ride it. For some reason, there are also all these mannequins in lingerie and angel wings hanging from the ceiling.	Carousel leopards on display.

Comments

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

I've never really had an interest in going to Wisconsin, but I'd love to see The House on the Rock.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

It sure appears that they've added an awful lot of stuff to it since I went there in the late 70s or early 80s. But I found the actual house itself to be fascinating. Back then it was all about the house. And the fact that the fellow built it all himself, way up there on the, well, rock.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Have you read Gaiman's American Gods? A key scene takes place there. That was the first time I'd heard of it. I'm rather sorry we missed it the one and quite possibly only time I'll ever be in Wisconsin.

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

Alas, no. I confess the only Gaiman I've read is the Sandman comics. Oh, and the book he wrote with Douglas Adams, Good Omens, that was it, wasn't it? Anyway, airfares are reasonably cheap, and there are a lot of places I'll never get back to.

[coraline]

sigh.
i still want to go there.

thanks for posting pictures!!!

(maybe if i ever find a really cheap fare to wisconsin...)