Museums – Dan's Road Trip Adventures

The Sterling Hill Mining Museum (Ogdensburg, NJ)

Dan Century November 12, 2023November 25, 2023 Leave a comment

The Sterling Hill Mining Museum, located in Ogdensburg, New Jersey, offers visitors a tour of an old zinc mine, a large mining and mineral museum, and an opportunity to collect fluorescent minerals from a dump of rocks left over from mining operations. If you have an interest in mining, geology, rock collecting, or New Jersey history, it is worth a visit. Ogdensburg, and Franklin to its north, are internationally known for the variety of fluorescent minerals and the New Jersey state mineral Franklinite, which is a non-fluorescent zinc ore.

Note the variety of colors found in the rocks a the bottom of this photo. Even in daylight, these massive rocks are colorful — under a shortwave UV light, even more so.

One of the entrances to the mine is on the side of the mountain. The mountain is named Sterling Hill.

The mine is a half-mile deep, but it is mostly filled with water. The tour guide takes you only through the top levels of the mine. There is no danger of falling to lower levels and drowning. But just imagine falling into a pool of water as deep as the Empire State Building in total darkness — not that’s a horror movie!

Look down a corridor and you’ll see mining equipment and a room where explosives were stored. Along the tour you’ll see mannequins handling assorted mining equipment like drills and jackhammers, setting dynamite charges, and riding an ore elevator.

Two large slabs of rock fluorescing orange and green under shortwave ultraviolet light. The walls of the mine behind the slabs also fluoresce. Most of the orange is calcite and the green is willemite, although these are not the old minerals that fluoresce these colors. Under white light, calcite is usually white to gray, and willemite is red or green.

This is the “rainbow room” portion of the tour, featuring an anticline of green, orange, purple, and green again fluorescing rock, with a large pile of loose rocks of differing colors in front of it. Not to be missed! In the museum, there are many rooms of fluorescing rocks to explore.

Dynamite was used to break through the solid rock of the mountain to create tunnels and get the ore down to a liftable size. The museum has an impressive collection of detonators that were used to trigger explosions from a safe distance.

A bust of a happy miner with his mining lamp surrounded by actual carbide mining lamps. Originally miners wore hats fitted with candles.

Safety first! Some mine safety cartoons from the mine tour and museum. I smacked my head on the walls of the mine a few times, so be careful. 🙂

New Jersey Lighthouse Challenge

Dan Century January 13, 2023November 25, 2023 Leave a comment

The Lighthouse Challenge of New Jersey is the closest thing New Jersey has to the Cannonball Run. You have two days to visit 10 land-based lighthouses, 3 life-saving stations, and 1 museum. At each location, you collect a souvenir (postcards, pressed pennies). Collect all the souvenirs and you win. If you plan your trip well, you can do it in one day. If you take your time, tour each museum, and climb each lighthouse, you will need both days — in fact, you might not make it if you spend too much time enjoying each location.

Bring extra money for souvenirs and donations for each lighthouse. Most lighthouses feature collectible pins commemorating the location.

I took the Challenge in 2019 with my friend Cat, an expert tourist & photographer. We took breaks to take photos of New Jersey landmarks, like Wildwood’s neon signs, gleaming chrome diners, and oddities like the cement champagne bottle in New Gretna.

I think I could have completed 2022 in one day if I hit the first location at 9 am, instead of 1:50 pm. If you can find out when each location opens or closes, and you start at either Sandy Hook or Tinicum, you can make it. The hardest part is having to navigate tiny shore towns with 25mph roads, then drive back to a major highway, and then back into a tiny shore town. The Jersey Shore is like a fractal with seemingly infinite twists and turns to get around bays, rivers, inlets, swamps, and places where the road just stops.

The Lighthouse Challenge of New Jersey is worth taking, whether you just want to challenge yourself & our vehicle, you want to experience New Jersey shore history, or you just want to spend a few fun days with friends.

Tinicum Rear Range Light (Paulsboro):

I finished 2019 at this location and started there in 2022. This lighthouse is across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. It is worth climbing for the views of Philly and the surrounding industrial & shipping areas. It looks more like a cannon than a lighthouse.

Tinicum Rear Range Light

Finns Point Range Light (Pennsville):

This lighthouse is across the Delaware River from Wilmington, Delaware. Like Tinicum, it looks like a cannon or smokestack.

Finns Point Range Light

East Point Lighthouse (Heislerville):

East Point faces Delaware Bay with Cape May to its east. It’s relatively short for a lighthouse and is in danger of shore erosion. Maybe it should be lifted a story if the ground beneath it can support that. This location is the hardest to find parking.

East Point Lighthouse

Cape May Lighthouse (Cape May):

One of the four (Cape May, Absecon, Barnegat, Sandy Hook) lighthouses that look like a classic lighthouse: tall, white with some color and a light at the top. This lighthouse is the toughest to get to because of the maze-like, 15mph local roads.

Cape May Lighthouse

Tatham Lifesaving Station (Stone Harbor):

I ended day 2 of 2022 at this location. I spend an hour here checking out their lighthouse & war museum and historical murals painted by a guy named Thomas.

Tatham Lifesaving Station

U.S. Lifesaving Station 30 (Ocean City):

I ended day 1 of 2022 at this location and then spent the rest of the day on the Ocean City boardwalk, which was still open. I got some of the saltwater taffy, thick-cut fries, and coconut macaroons that Ocean City is famous for. I should have gotten some pizza, but pizza is a gamble when you have a 2-hour drive home.

U.S. Lifesaving Station 30

Absecon Lighthouse (Atlantic City):

A classic lighthouse.

Absecon Lighthouse

Tuckers Island Light (Long Beach):

This one, I believe, is a replica. It features a museum and a gift shop.

Tuckers Island Light

Barnegat Lighthouse (Barnegat):

Maybe the best-looking Lighthouse in New Jersey (arguably Sandy Hook is more interesting).

Barnegat Lighthouse

Barnegat Light Museum (Barnegat):

Look for the seagull note where it sits.

Barnegat Light Museum

Squan Beach Lifesaving Station (Manasquan):

The antenna next door is impressive, as are the dedications on some of the benches surrounding the building. This one is a lifesaving station, which housed men and boats for saving people from shipwrecks.

Squan Beach Lifesaving Station

Sea Girt Lighthouse (Sea Girt):

Another of the short lighthouses.

Sea Girt Lighthouse

Navesink Twin Lights (Highlands):

This one is impressive in form and worth climbing for the view of Sandy Hook & Sea Bright. It looks like a military fortress. It is difficult to get a nice photo featuring both towers in the same photo. Parking is limited and the winding drive up to the lighthouses is a single-lane road.

Navesink Twin Lights

Sandy Hook Lighthouse (Highlands):

I started 2019 here. I think its shape makes the Sandy Hook Lighthouse the most interesting lighthouse in New Jersey. The entire Sandy Hook park is a former military area with forts, cannons, and missile launch pads. It’s worth visiting during the spring and summer.

Sandy Hook Lighthouse

Batsto Village in the New Jersey Pine Barrens (Jersey Devil?)

Dan Century September 3, 2021September 6, 2023 Leave a comment

Batsto Village (website), located in Wharton State Forest in New Jersey, is a preserved and restored village that once manufactured iron and glass. The village contains many well-maintained 19th-century buildings, a museum & gift shop, the Mullica River, and Pine Barrens hiking trails. History & nature — something for everybody. There’s also a connection to the Jersey Devil.

Batsto Mansion:

A large sample of the bog iron that was used for iron manufacturing:

The Mullica River is dammed at the site of the village to power a mill (or two). The Mullica is a favorite of kayakers, but maybe not at this exact location. It was previously known as the Batsto river.

The nature trails are loaded with opportunities for naturalists and photographers.
Mushroom

Batona Trail

Scope Miami 2019

Dan Century December 6, 2020September 22, 2022 Leave a comment

It took me a year to write about Scope Miami 2019. Nothing was preventing me from writing, but since I did nothing cool in 2020 (I think you know why), it feels good to reflect back on the fun I had last year.

The Scope contemporary art show in Miami Beach…

So what’s it like? A huge gallery of galleries on the beach in South Beach, Miami, is filled with contemporary art from around the world. Like a museum on the beach. With a bar, and a dancefloor with a DJ. Some of the best art you’ll ever have a chance to see, and buy, and some of the most beautiful people on earth (that’s South Beach in general). Much of the art is similar to what you’ll see in magazines like High Fructose & Juxtapoz. It’s a candy-coated feast for the eyes.

Here’s the entrance, with the color-gradient yard art by Hot Tea:

Scope Entrance

The highlight of the show was by Asbury Park, New Jersey artist Porkchop, presented by Jenn Hampton of Parlor Gallery:

Sculpture by Porkchop

Colorful money & a mirror ball in the party room. I don’t know the artist, but the gallery representing them was in C15.

Mirror Ball

Don’t sit on the King’s Tongue!

King tongue

Balloon Heads (I don’t remember the artist) on the beach.

Balloon heads

Metal & fur Moth. (I’ll add the artist and gallery when I figure that out). I liked this one quite a bit.

Moth

Teacup motorcycle helmet ladies by Lucio Carvalho were memorable. Gallery link.

Tea Cup Helmit

Laurina Paperina’s cartoon-based art was excellent & hilarious, and her parody of Maurizio Cattelan’s $120,000 duct-taped banana was funny as well:

I don’t have a photo here, but I liked artist Yuka Mitsui’s Japanese-style woodcuts of Eddie from Iron Maiden and Tim Conlon’s graffiti train car models that Roman Fine art had on display.

Here’s the full list of exhibitors and the virtual tour. There were other art fairs happening in Miami at the same time: notably Art Basel & Design Miami (which still happened in 2020 regardless of the pandemic).

Wynwood Miami Art Murals

Dan Century November 27, 2020December 9, 2020 Leave a comment

Wynwood Walls is an outdoor museum located in the Wynwood section of Miami, Florida. It was created by Tony Goldman to transform and revitalize a once bleak warehouse district. The museum features a courtyard surrounded by buildings covered in colorful pop-art murals and an indoor museum/gift shop. The museum itself is impressive, but the neighborhood is mind-blowing.

The art seems to have spilled over the museum walls and flooded the entire neighborhood, as every building, street sign, and even giant industrial hopper/feeder silos have been covered with art.

I visited Wynwood Walls and the Wynwood neighborhood on December 8th, 2019, after spending 3 days in South Miami for the Scope and Art Basel art fairs. You might think I would be tired of art, but Scope & Basel only primed me for the Wynwood experience.

Exploring the Wynwood neighborhood was like being lost in an amazing city-sized maze museum. Every street I wandered down, every inch of the town was coated with eye-popping, technicolor art. It was an Alice in Wonderland-like experience.

If you’re in Miami for a few days, give yourself 2 or 3 hours and check it out. Bring a camera. Get some lunch. The tip I got was to get there early before the tourist buses start dropping people off — so I’ll pass that tip along to you.

Here’s a small sample of the murals you’ll find in the neighborhood:

Scrooge McDuck:

Not art, per se, but half a pink cow:

A red rocket hiding in a private parking lot:

Walked around Dallas in 107°F degree heat and it felt like the insides of my eyes were boiling

Dan Century October 21, 2018December 29, 2022 Leave a comment

Back in July, I walked around Dallas in 107°F degree heat and it was so hot it felt like the insides of my eyes were boiling. I didn’t mind. I was happy. I love HOT weather, specifically dry HOT weather. Put me outside on a 100°F+ day, and I’ll stand in the heat until my head cracks open like a kernel of popcorn. Drop me in Texas on a 100°F+ day, and you’ll find me outside with a Shiner Bock beer and a pack of heat-loving chihuahuas — just as dumb as me — roasting their fontanels like chestnuts on an open fire.

That said, here are 10 Things to See or Do in Dallas during a Heatwave:

NUMBER 1: go see The Giant Eyeball. There is a giant eyeball at the location: 1601 Main St, Dallas, TX 75201.

NUMBER 2: get yourself some dried shrimp with their heads still attached at the 7-11. They don’t have these in New Jersey, so to me, they’re a novelty, and I find them interesting.

Address: 1295 Commerce St, Dallas, TX 75202.

NUMBER 3: Pioneer Park Cemetary at Dusk. Pioneer Park is a quiet old cemetery, shaded by big oaks, and the occasional crepe myrtle. It is loaded with Megatibicen resh cicadas. Each night after work, I would grab a snack and some water, and head to the park, and wait for the cicadas to sing at sunset. If you haven’t heard them sing, it’s kind of amazing. Other than the cicadas, which sing for just a half-hour a day, the park is quiet, relative to the rest of the city. No one is there to hassle you, which I like.

A crepe myrtle at sunset.

The squirrels are cute as well, and once they figure out you have snacks, they’ll follow you everywhere.

Pay your respects to Baby Bowser:

Is that a kid leaning up against that tomb? No, just an optical illusion.

Address: 1201 Marilla St, Dallas, TX 75201.

NUMBER 4: the Cattle & Cowboys sculpture at Pioneer Plaza.

To the west of Pioneer Park Cemetary is Pioneer Plaza, which features about 40 realistically sized and rendered sculptures of cows and cowboys. If you’re in Dallas you must see it.

Metal cattle:

A cowboy looking towards the skyscrapers of Dallas that beef, oil, and telecommunications helped to build.

As I walked around Pioneer Park, the nearby Police Memorial, and City Hall, one person after another stopped to ask me where “the cattle” were, like I was a park ranger. Maybe it was how I comport myself that gives me an air of authority. I am the new mayor of Dallas.

Address: 1428 Young St, Dallas, TX 75202.

NUMBER 5: Dallas Police Memorial. To me, it looks like something out of science fiction.

Address: S Akard St. Dallas, TX 75202.

NUMBER 6: Fountain Place (the diamond-shaped building) is perhaps the most impressive building in Dallas because it is capable of vibrating through time and space and transporting reptilian travelers to our dimension. What?

Address: Fountain Place, Dallas, TX 75202.

NUMBER 7: Dallas World Aquarium. BUT ONLY WHEN FAMILIES ARE NOT AROUND.

When you pack hundreds of people, on a 100°F day, into an attraction with a climate that resembles an actual jungle, where customers can only walk as fast as the person ahead of them, and one out of five have strollers or baby carriages, and the parents are ramming the strollers into your Achilles tendons… its a nightmare. “Oh look, a sloth”… good luck taking a photo as a herd of humanity gathers you up like a wave and pushes you down the path like a log down a flume.

Go on a day when it is not crowded and families are not around.

The blue frog will poison you. Don’t touch. Blue frog at the Dallas World Aquarium… which is like a combination of DMV and a pet shop. It was 110 degrees inside. You have to walk down winding narrow paths at 1 mile per century while kids scream and their parents ram your Achilles tendons with strollers.

Address: 1801 N Griffin St, Dallas, TX 75202.

NUMBER 8: Perot Museum of Nature and Science. Just look at the building, which looks like it should be a modern art museum by its shape of it. Stacks of collapsing twisted metal & glass. But don’t go in because it’s filled with thousands of families. Families love dinosaurs, and this place has them. Avoid it unless you are a family.

Address: 2201 N Field St, Dallas, TX 75201.

NUMBER 9: Dallas Museum of Art. The Dallas Museum of Art … because it is spacious, has fewer families than the Perot Museum or Dallas World Aquarium, and it is air-conditioned. Bonus points if you actually like art — I do — you may not.

Elliptical bottle depicting a sprouting bean with a human face. 300-100 BC, Mexico. Looks like the Etruscan Boar Vessel.

Address: 1717 N Harwood St, Dallas, TX 75201.

NUMBER 10: The fountain at City Hall with the rotating red Pacman sculptures.

“The fountain”, as I call it, is a large, round artificial pond featuring water fountains, and rotating red Pacman-like structures. On a blazing-hot day, it looks quite refreshing.

One evening, I was exploring the grounds looking for evidence of cicadas and taking photos of the semi-futuristic City Hall when a figure in black appeared in the courtyard surrounding the fountain. Black pants and a hoodie. Shoulder-length black hair. From a distance, I couldn’t tell if the person was a man or a woman. I kept my distance. The person approached the fountain, slid in, and began to swim around. I envied this person’s bravery, and how cool and refreshed they must have felt. No fear of authorities, disease, or harm from the mechanical or electrical systems powering the dual, rotating, red “Pac Men” (plural of Pac Man). Freedom. I just sat and watched and admired that person and thought “if I had shorts on, I would have gone in too.”

I’m pretty sure the person was a she, and she sat next to me on the flight back to Newark.

Address: 1500 Marilla St. Dallas, TX 75201

BONUS! TRAVEL PRO-TIPS!

If you go someplace, and it’s full of kids and families, and you’re there alone, just go. Leave. It’s their space. You’ve entered a time and space that belongs to families. Go to a bar… or some other place for adults… and maybe come back when there are no families around. But just leave. You don’t belong there.
If you have 10 hours to kill before a flight, do this: take all your stuff (luggage, unnecessary jackets, laptop), and bring it to a UPS or FedEx and ship it to your home or office — and then go out and enjoy the town. That’s what I do. It’s good advice.
Dallas has a lot of refreshing-looking fountains. On a hot summer day, they look very inviting. Will you go for a swim? Probably not.

10 things to see or do in Cleveland other than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Dan Century October 21, 2018December 30, 2022 Leave a comment

NUMBER 1: DEVOtional. In late July, I attended the DEVOtional event in Cleveland, Ohio. The DEVOtional is a 3-day event celebrating the band DEVO, with performances by DEVO cover bands, DEVO karaoke, vendors of DEVO merch, guest speakers (2018’s event featured Jerry Casale of DEVO), and mini-events like a 5K run. If you love DEVO, you owe it to yourself to attend this yearly extravaganza at least once.

Devo fans in Cleveland at the Devotional

Check their website for future locations.

NUMBER 2: The GIANT silver hand. The giant silver hand is currently over by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), last time I checked. I might have crawled to a new location.

Giant metal hand outside MOCA in Cleveland

Approximate address: Address: 11400 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, OH 44106.

NUMBER 3: Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA). Look at the shape of that building. There are exhibits inside as well. Check their website for current exhibits and events. Rub your hands on it. It’s smooth.

MOCA

Address: 11400 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, OH 44106.

NUMBER 4: The Peter B Lewis Building. Look at this building. Just look at it. Twisting metal and curving brick. It’s something else.

Peter B Lewis Building in Cleveland

Address: 11119 Bellflower Rd, Cleveland, OH 44106.

NUMBER 5: the world-famous Etruscan Boar Vessel. I was literally shaking when I saw it. Epic.

World famous Etruscan Boar Vessel

The rest of the museum is genuinely amazing as well. Top 10 museums I’ve ever been to. During the summer of 2018, they had a massive Yayoi Kusama exhibit.

Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Cleveland museum

Address: inside the Cleveland Museum of Art, 11150 East Blvd, Cleveland, OH 44106.

NUMBER 6: the Blue Morpho butterflies at the Cleveland Botanical Garden. The Cleveland Botanical Garden itself is pretty awesome, but its huge butterfly pavilion is super amazing.

Morpho butterfly at rest (don't be shy, show your colors)

Address: 11030 East Blvd, Cleveland, OH 44106.

NUMBER 7: the sculptures around Wade Lagoon. Wade Lagoon is a lake in Cleveland that is surrounded by many exceptional sculptures. My favorite is the mermaids.

Wade Lagoon Mermaids contemplate moving into the apartments across the street

Coordinates: 41.51°N 81.61°W. (Hint: it’s in front of the place the Etruscan Boar Vessel is in.)

NUMBER 8: Blue Arrow Records. This record store is located in the Waterloo section of Cleveland. They have a cat, t-shirts with the cat’s face on them (I bought one), and an awesome selection of used (and probably new) records. I’ve been to the Princeton Record Exchange, the Groovy Graveyard, Revilla Grooves & Gear, and Curmudgeon Records, so I know what I’m talking about — it’s a great record store.

Blue Arrow Records in Cleveland

Address: 16001 Waterloo Rd, Cleveland, OH 44110.

NUMBER 9: the Axolotl in the basement of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. It’s there, just chilling out. Trust me. Don’t hassle with it though. Give it the peace and quiet it craves.

Axolotl

The rest of the museum is top-notch. There’s an eagle named Spaghetti, a friendly raven, and a massive wildlife of Ohio exhibit in the basement (close to the Axolotl).

Address: 1 Wade Oval Dr, Cleveland, OH 44106.

NUMBER 10: B.A. Sweetie’s candy warehouse. I already wrote an entire article about that place.

at b.a. Sweetie in Cleveland

Address: 6770 Brookpark Road, Cleveland OH 44129.

The House on the Rock, Area 3

Dan Century July 30, 2017December 30, 2022 1 Comment

Area 3 of the House on the Rock includes new views of the Carousel, Organ Room, Inspiration Point, Doll House Room, Circus Room, Galleries, Doll Carousel Building, and the Japanese Garden.

After touring Area 1 and Area 2, you have experienced a lot. Your mind cannot possibly process it all — and probably can’t store much more information. You’re likely exhausted and perhaps dehydrated like I was. But, like me, you bought the ticket for the Ultimate Experience, so you keep on moving…

The Doll Carousel is much like the main Carousel, but it features Dolls — just as magnificent, but in smaller, G-Rated ways:

A small cafeteria area with free water — needed after miles of walking — leads back outside to Inspiration Rock. A rock formation Alex Jordan would visit to contemplate his dreams.

Back inside there are more mind-numbingly immense and intricate robotic bands…

Massive and ornate sculptures made of red lanterns, trees, and copper drums…

And a giant electrical machine dedicated to Nikolai Tesla…

You also get a close-up, elevated view of the large Carousel at the end of Area 2, in all its incredible, anatomically correct, magnificence.

Exit the door near the naked woman wearing the goat mask (I’m not kidding), and Area 3 ends with the Japanese Garden and the Gift Shop. The House on the Rock tour begins with a garden and ends with a garden. A perfect circle of sorts…

What else can I say?

Go see it for yourself. I’ve heard it’s featured in the Neil Gaiman book American Gods. The fudge sold by the gift shop is delicious. The staff is kind and helpful.

Link: The House on the Rock website.
Location: 5754 Wisconsin 23, Spring Green, WI.

The House on the Rock, Area 2

Dan Century July 30, 2017December 30, 2022 Leave a comment

I covered the basics of The House on the Rock, its creator Alex Jordan, and its “Area 1”, in a previous post (entrance, the Original House, the Infinity Room). I’ll discuss Area 2 in this post, and area 3 in a subsequent post.

Area 2 begins with another outdoor transitional area — a small pond and mill wheel — which leads to the Mill House. Stop for a moment and think about how Alex Jordan put a pond on top of a giant chimney of rock…

The Mill House is reminiscent of the Original House — dimly lit, stone, warmth, the things Alex loved.

Next comes the Streets of Yesterday, a replica of the downtown of an 18th or 19th-century town, with shop after shop reconstructed down to the most minute detail. If you’ve seen the Harry Potter movies, it’s very much like the town where Harry obtains his wand — winding streets, dimly lit, windows framed with a dark wood framework, each shop stocked and decorated with precise detail. The Street leads to several automated, robotic machines. Deposit a token and get your fortune told, or hear a song played by a gigantic, steam-powered locomotive calliope. The Streets of Yesterday appear to be the first area of the House on the Rock specifically built as a tourist attraction. The Original House was built by Alex Jordan for himself, but the rest of the House on the Rock is Alex sharing what he loved with the rest of the world.

The photos I’m adding to my posts about the House on the Rock really cannot convey its magnificence. They don’t accurately portray the scale of the House, the lighting, and of course not the sounds (a huge part of the House), the temperature of the air, the smells, and the energy and excitement of the other tourists around you. For every photo you see — try to imagine it 4 times larger than you think it would be. Try to imagine yourself within it.

After Streets of Yesterday comes Heritage of the Sea. This was my first “Wow! out loud” moment. Imagine a wing of a three-story shopping mall, with every storefront replaced with display after display of intricate ship models and maritime artifacts — boat parts, anchors, diving suits, and military items. In the middle of this, is a massive, life-size sculpture of a squid attacking a whale. The whale & squid are larger than the Statue of Liberty — that is how huge they are. HUGE. An inclined path winds around the perimeter of the sculpture, with the maritime artifact display on your left, and the whale on your right.

Next comes the Tribute to Nostalgia, Music of Yesterday, and Spirit of Aviation. Hallways filled with showcases featuring pop-culture items (like Spittoons) lead to a large room featuring large displays of large items: a massive steam engine, multiple cars, including one covered in tile instead of paint, massive neon signs, and even a house filled with a collection of photo cameras. This area reminds me of the show American Pickers — it’s like everything they picked ended up in this area of the House on the Rock.

There’s a restaurant at this point, so fill up on food and beer if you need to. At this point, you’re about halfway through…

The Music of Yesterday features multiple room-sized automated, robotic bands — all of which you can play with one of your tokens. Each room is exquisitely decorated with ornate furnishings, many are draped in red velvet, lit with red and golden chandeliers (except the Blue Room), and some are inhabited by a cast of robotic musicians. These displays are amazing to look at, but their true magnificence lies in the automation that powers the music played by the robotic bands inside each room. I’m not sure if it’s steam, pneumatics, electronics, or a combination of all three, but I’m pretty sure each runs off of the same type of paper-roll musical program that self-playing pianos utilize. Not only are these displays robots, but they’re also the forerunners of computers.

The Spirit of Flight is similar to the Heritage of the Sea, but instead of maritime artifacts, there are aviation artifacts and models of planes.

The next WOW! moment comes with the Carousel room. A carousel, for those that don’t know, is a rotating carnival ride, featuring a variety of animal sculptures — typically horses — that you ride, illuminated by incandescent bulbs of light, accompanied by festive calliope-style music. It’s a fantastical device, and typically the most magical and enchanting ride at a fair or carnival. The carousel a the House is the world’s largest, and likely the most magnificent. Common themes experienced so far in the tour of the House coalesce in the form of the Carousel: the vibrant reds, the festive, automated music, the use of lighting to create dramatic moods, and life-like sculpture.

Sadly, you cannot ride it. 🙁 It’s for your ears and eyes only.

The difference between the Carousel and the rest of the House, so far, is it introduces fantasy into the displays. Look closely at the animals of the carousel and you’ll see that many are not the typical horse or zoo creature: chimeras, sea demons, and centaurs spin round and round. Look up, and you’ll see Valkyries and Harpies. Many are nude or partially nude. Some will blush. The Carousel represents a transition from the real (Streets of Yesterday, Heritage of the Sea, Spirit of Aviation, Tribute to Nostalgia) to the unreal — from the concrete to fantasy.

On the left side of the carousel room is a dragon’s mouth — and what is more fantastical than a dragon — which leads to Area 3.

This tribute to the House on the Rock continues in part 3.

Link: The House on the Rock website.
Location: 5754 Wisconsin 23, Spring Green, WI.

The House on the Rock, Intro and Area 1

Dan Century July 29, 2017December 30, 2022 Leave a comment

The House on the Rock, in Spring Green, Wisconsin, is a mecca for anyone who appreciates fantastical roadside and tourist attractions. I remember first learning about it from Roadside America, and then hearing about it from friends. Once you’ve seen the muffler men, you’ve shopped at South of the Border, you’ve toured Graceland, and you’ve seen the outsider art displays that make the American dream real, you have to make the pilgrimage to the House on the Rock. If you start with it, everything else — no matter how remarkable — will pale in comparison.

True to its name, the House on the Rock, is a house perched high atop a chimney of rock in a forest in southwestern Wisconsin. It’s much more than a house, though — it’s also gardens, museums, massive sculptures, music halls, an amusement park (look but don’t ride), and a restaurant (feel free to eat), all on or next to a massive rock. The house began in 1945 by Alex Jordan as a personal retreat (perhaps amplified by a desire to challenge Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin estate), which grew to become a tourist attraction in 1961, and then grew more, and evolved, and morphed into the magnificence that exits today.

The House is a fantastic dream, told over the course of one man’s life, manifested into a reality. It’s a cabin that became a Lewis Carroll novel. It’s Disneyland if Walt built it with his own hands.

Arrival

The feeling that you’re somewhere different begins with the drive to the House. Starting in Madison, Wisconsin, I traveled from urban to suburban, to rural farmland, and finally woodland areas. The journey is no simple trip — it’s like traveling through different eras of human civilization. Turning off route 23, and up House on the Rock Road, farmland abruptly transitions to wilderness — even the types of trees change. Deciduous trees are joined by evergreens, and form a tunnel-like canopy, amplifying the sensation that you are entering another world. Along the way massive vase-shaped planters appear, each inhabited by flowering plants and guarded by dragons.

The parking lot itself is a transitional space: macadam tilted ever so slightly because it was poured and flattened atop a hill, flanked on the right by a grove of evergreen trees with visible black trunks, thrusting from a blanket of fallen, rust-orange pine needles. Massive dragon flower pots punctuate the lot. It doesn’t feel normal, but it also doesn’t feel wrong.

The gateway to the House on the Rock is a relatively-normal building where you can buy tickets, and freshen up. There you’ll purchase your pass, and receive tokens to operate various exhibits inside the House. There are hints that you’re about to experience something fantastical — like a stream that runs through the lobby, and the maritime artifact collection in the men’s room. Nothing amazing — only hints.

There are two types of passes: 1) for parts 1 & 2 of the House and 2) “The Ultimate Experience” for parts 1, 2 & 3. Depending on how late in the day you purchase your pass, you’ll receive a warning that you should consider not getting the Ultimate Experience because the House is just that huge. And it turns out that it is that huge, so you will have to hustle to get through all three areas of the House. Even though I was short on time, I chose the Ultimate Experience, because I didn’t want to miss a thing. YOLO.

Tokens you’ll receive to operate many of the automated musical machines inside the House:

The Original House and Infinity Room

Walkways through gardens lead to the Original House — now is your time to cleanse your mental palate for what you’re about to see and hear.

Have you ever seen a movie or cartoon where the protagonists are shrunken down and injected into a human body? Walking through the original House is like a walk through the mind of creator Alex Jordan. It’s dimly lit; it’s warm; there are many organic twists, bends, folds & pockets; many blood reds and visceral browns; it has a unique smell; and art, sculpture & music form moments of a dream.

Alex’s thought process is preserved in the alcoves, walkways, and stairways. The architecture, in most places, embraces the shape of its rock foundation. The house surrenders, in some places, to rocks that literally just from the floor, and in other places, the House spirals away from the rock to escape it. We see what Alex adored and valued in life: knowledge in the form of a library of books; ornate art and sculpture from Asia; complicated, mechanical, robotic musical instruments; the warmth of light from Tiffany lamps, and red & brown velvet furnishings; the comfort of a cozy alcove. It might be the ultimate “man cave”.

The House has a distinct smell, in some areas. Kind of like an attic, or the inside of a wall. A sort of sweet n’ sour odor of aging cellulose fibers. Nothing repellant, but it’s definitely a presence. I collect old things: books, mid-century LP records & lamps — they all come with their unique bouquet of odors — so I can relate.

I got lost three times… a testament to the hypnotic experience of walking inside someone’s dream. Maybe I didn’t want to leave?

Books, Tiffany lamps, art from Asia, brown woods:

One of the dozens of robotic musical bands, a wooden dragon, red velvet, and a rock jutting from the floor:

The Original House leads to the Infinity Room, a glass and steel structure that juts out 218 feet away from the Original House and rock foundation, and over the valley below. It was completed in 1985, 40 years after the Original House began construction. Near the end, you can look down at the valley through a window on the floor. This attraction will be avoided by those with a fear of heights.

Alex was not a prude, so it’s fair to speculate that the Infinity Room might represent a phallus. Or simply another extension of his dreams made real. Or it might just be an amazing way to give tourists a spectacular view of the forest and rock he loved.

This tribute to the House on the Rock continues in part 2 and part 3.

Link: The House on the Rock website.
Location: 5754 Wisconsin 23, Spring Green, WI.