So when I was leaving Amana I stopped at a furniture store. Talking to a woodman working in the shop I mentioned that I was headed to Spring Green. He said you have to stop at House on the Rock. “House on the Rock?” I said. Never heard of it. He said you can’t miss the signs.

So after I had gotten done with my Taliesin tours I decided to go see the House on the Rock. 6 hours and 3,000 pictures later I still don’t know how to describe it. Life sized Jonah’s whale, check. Largest carousel in the world, which happens to have zero horses on it, check. Whole rooms with automated musical bands that are out of tune and sound ominous, check. Huge Cantilever room that juts out off the rock face and looks like it goes on forever, check.

You knew this was going to be an interesting place when you start to drive in and see these 12 foot tall clay pots on the side of the road that have lizards and dragons crawling all over them.

From what I had heard they said to schedule 3 1/2 hours to see the three sections. Section one contains the Infinity room and the original house. Section two contains the Streets of Yesterday, Heritage of Yesterday, Music of Yesterday, and the Carousel. Section three starts at the Carousel, the Organ Room, and the Doll House room. I ended up stopping after taking 4 hours to see the first two sections. I was tired and had already taken 1,400 pictures. I came back early the next day to finish Section 3 which took another 2 hours. Anyway, I’ll attempt to add the pictures in relation to the three sections.

Section 1

As you walked towards the Infinity room you heard the theme from the Godfather come from the above device.

This house was started by Alex Jordan. He fell in love with a Chimney shaped rock in Wisconsin called Deer Shelter Rock. He went picnicking there often and eventually decided to build a house there. It became locally famous and people kept stopping by asking to see it. So he eventually started charging them 50 cents to take a look. It just expanded from there.

The first part of the house is more like a meandering trail. You go up and down, left and right, you can see where you are going but not really sure how long it’ll take for you to get there. He just ended up collecting things that he tried to figure out how to incorporate it into the house. The stained glass windows are a perfect example.

Walking between the house and the other sections you got to look down at a beautiful Japanese garden.

Section 2

For an up close and personal bathroom experience.

My grandparents owned one of these Uncle Same piggy banks. Not sure what happened to it.

They give you as part of your admission they give you 4 tokens to put in the musical instruments and other animated devices. Below is a self playing banjo. When he made this I don’t think Deliverance had been made yet.

You can buy additional tokens for a dollar.

This one called The Dying Drunkard had various monsters popping out to scare the soon to be deceased.

These band members are life sized.

I’ve never seen so much carved Ivory.

This whale sculpture was three stories tall.

I love Burma shave signs.

9am on Day 2 to start Section 3.

I think I’ve loved Carousel and Rocking Horses ever since reading the Rocking Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence in grade school. It tells the story of how they can be magical things. “Take me to where the money is” as the story goes.

I think this is where Steampunk originated.

Pretty sure this is a Remington. These figures were used to sell Baranger Diamonds. They are all animated. They have at least a hundred here.

All the horse carousel figures he mounted on the walls since he didn’t put them on the carousel.

So uploaded about a 100 pictures of the 3,000 I took. Just to give you an example of all the stuff this guy collected.

Still don’t know what you would say it is.

The last day I went over to Mineral Point. One of the guests at the Taliesin cocktail hour mentioned that they were having a Cornish festival there to celebrate all the Welsh ancestors that came to Wisconsin. There really wasn’t anything organized. They had some museums open but not a festival in that everyone gathered at the park.

I did get to see some buildings built by the original Welsh settlers. The colony was called Pendarvis. Another religious outcast from Europe. I didn’t go on the tour.

The one museum I did stop by was the original Odd Fellows hall. The symbolism that this masonic temple used included the all seeing eye, the scythe, skull and crossbones, and the heart in the hand. Symbols that have multiple meanings throughout history.

What was interesting is that this is still an active lodge. I had thought all the Odd Fellows were history. I’d seen their temples throughout the US but had never seen an active lodge. The guy who showed me around said there was a house for rent up the street if I ever wanted to settle down. I told him I’d be traveling for a while.

The mantra of the Odd Fellows is to “visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead and educate the orphan.”

The other thing I recommend checking out in Spring Green is Break of Dawn for breakfast. It is a beautiful round barn that they have turned into a breakfast joint.

I also love the Barn Quilts you see driving down the highway.

Oh and I got to see some Amish.