Day 25: House on the Rock

The infinity room
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Marcia was very excited to take us to House on the Rock, a bizarre private collection of collections in Spring Green, WI. The house and grounds took us 5 hours to see. We had heard a lot about it, but didn't know exactly what to expect. The first part of the tour includes a walk through this guys house (he‘s died in the 90's). It was literally built on a big rock and in this crazy haphazardness of funky nooks and low ceilings. Its like a dingy 70's shag pad with tiffany lamps everywhere and ornate Asian furniture. So far, I would classify this tour as interesting. The last part of the house tour we saw his amazing Infinity Room. Its this long finger of a "room" that stretches out from the rock and hangs above the forest below. The room comes to a point and has a painted picture in the corner to look as though it goes on much further which is kind of cheesy, but there is a window in the floor that allows you to see under your feet to the tops of the trees. Getting cooler.

Worlds largest carousal, that you can't even ride.
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We then head into the second part of the tour. We systematically go through 15 giant rooms (housed in two hangar like structures near the house) that are full of the craziest collections and weird stuff. It reminded me a bit of old world Disneyland, like the Small World ride before they remodeled. There are collections of doll houses, circus figurines, carved ivory, model ships, and Santa mugs. The major highlights of the collections is the worlds biggest carousal and a half a dozen orchestras that are played with mechanical arms. I think the highlight for Sam and I was the carousal, which was quite impressive and the Organ Room. The Organ Room was this crazy room with huge church organs and fake machinery all connected and built into a giant maze. Of course there are tons of other weird exhibits to tell about but I will save it for another day. All in all, I would say House on the Rock is a bizarre must see.