Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 7 - July 5
Bloomington, MN to Wisconsin Dells, WI to Riverside, IA
Miles traveled: 408
Local Music:
The Treats, Rock & roll trio from Madison, WI. It's the kind of music that you'd swear you already know, but just can't quite remember. Catchy.
Hold for Swank, From Iowa. They sound a lot like Weezer, which in myu optinion is a good thing. It's a keeper.
Wisconsin Dells turns out to be essentially a giant boardwalk. The arcades, the salt water taffy stands, go cart tracks, haunted houses, Believe-it-or-Not Museums, etc. are all right off of the boardwalk in Long Branch, NJ when I was a kid. It's just that Dells takes it beyond any reasonable limit. It's like an entire town made out of nothing but boardwalk businesses.
I do need to specifically mention one place here though. Wizard Quest, the last picture above, was fantastic. It's a cross between the Quest SCA event and Giggleberry Fair. I realize that most of you won't understand either of these references, but for those of you who do. Doesn't that sound AWESOME!
The House on the Rock. Wow!
OK, so Alex Jordan Jr. (Frank Lloyd Wright's evil twin) starts building a house (on a rock) in the middle of nowhere. Odd-ball architecture, most notably the infinity room, a long room, more of a hallway to nowhere really, that hangs out over the forest, and which when viewed from the entrance appears to go on forever. There's also some quirky decor, heavy on the stained glass.
People start coming to see it. So he starts charging, and starts building more buildings in the surrounding lands and filling them with stuff for people to see. Stuff like robot orchestras, a juke box that plays wax cylinder records, the world’s largest carousel, a full sized in-door reproduction of an entire Victorian down-town, room sized music boxes, a working Rube Goldberg machine, a football field sized sculpture of a whale-monster fighting a giant squid, and a cannon so large that it had to be put in place first and the building built around it. Very little explanation (if any at all) is provided, and the displays are often not well lit, and the larger displays are often situated in such a way that you can’t see (much less photograph) the whole thing at once. The visitor is left trying make sense of all this, and takes away a real sense of surreality.
Two thumbs way up!
I had just about recovered from the House on the Rock when I made it to the Mount Horeb Mustard Museum. The museum, was just what you would expect. The best part was the shop, they had a couple of hundred different varieties (some totally off the wall) and were willing to let you try any of them. I must have tried two dozen or so including a Merlot and Chocolate mustard, a watermelon mustard, vanilla mustard, peanut mustard, and several more normal varieties. The museum and the tasting was free, but I wanted to support these folks and the fine job they were doing, so I wound up buying a Morocan spiced mustard and a balsamic maple mustard. Both of which, I am happy to report, go well with the Wisconsin cheddar.
Next stop, the Forevertron.
Remember Thunder Mountain from Day 1? Well if that guy had been working in scrap metal instead of concrete, what you would get is the Forevertron. I get there just as it is closing, so I just do a very quick walk through and snap a picture, then it's off to Iowa.
