Sunday, August 8, 2010

Thr House On theRock

I thought I would start with these Burma Shave signs. Yeah, they even have a section decidated to Burmashave.
Now today's exciting entry:

To be honest I do not know where to start on this entry. Our friends Don and Evelyn suggested we stop by the House on the Rock. Alex Jordon fell in love with this big rock out cropping near Spring Green, Wisconsin. He first built a beautiful house. He kept adding.


This amazing place now houses a 90' whale in action jumping out of the water over an equallly sized squid. It has the worlds largest Carousel. This place is unreal. It is like going through a Smithsonian crammed into a much smaller space. I have to start at the end and work toward the front to make this entry of pictures. To give you the idea how huge this place is, I took over 400 pictures. So I started at the end. and got back only thirty minutes. So mabe more tomorrow.


This first picture is in one of the cafe's, this is the lighted water fountain. Below is a shot of the thousand chinese dolls.


Sherry knows the name of these things, says it is a Calliope. There are hundreds on display. When you buy your ticket($26.75) they give you some tokens to put into some of them to make them play. They play and also have action.


This is the Saint of liquor or something. This section has stills and huge distillery tanks. (NO Samples)




Look closely at this chandelier, It is thirty feet across. huge.





There were so many pipe organs I lost count. Can you imagine playing this thing. Look at all the bells and whistles.



This clock it at least thirty feet high.




Believe it or not, girls cannot see this, this is in the men's room.




Sherry said she felt like a little girl again, there must have been over 500 doll houses.


These Circus ladies are standing on a pyramid of five life size elephants. That is how big this next Calliope is.



This is only part of the wind and string section of the Calliope . They all produce music. The instruments play by compressed air like the old pump organ. There are
at least 200 instuments in this Calliope. They produce fantastic music.


This was one of my favorite sections. When Sherry presses the button, it controls about ten of the little animations. All from jewelery stores over the years. These I remember being in the jewelry store windows when
Dad took us to Lincolton, NC on Sunday afternoon, to look in the store windows. It was hard for them to pry me away from the jewelry store window, watching these things. I know they had three or four hundred of them all working.






This is the Doll Carousel. It has about seven levels and is three stories high. It continually turns and has it's own Calliope to perform the music continutally. (CAUTION THE NEXT FRAME HAS NUDES)



This is the very top of the doll carousel.


Looking down from the second floor here are some of the carousel figures not used, there were hundreds of these.

This is too much for a blog entry. I will try to continue. There are full size hot air balloons, full size cars and carriages. You must see the infinity room streching out over the valley a hundred feet. The Huge ships models and planes. the crown jewels of different countries. and the money plant. There is a garden with exotic plants, like the pumpkin on a stick.


Thanks for coming along, you have saw part of the last thiry minutes of our four hour walk.


Nite Shipslog


PS:

> > WHY ATHLETES CAN'T HAVE REGULAR JOBS...

Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker:


"That's so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes."


Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regimen of heavyweight Andrew Golota:


"He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning, regardless of what time it is."

9 comments:

Paula said...

Wow that is all so amazing. You must have both enjoyed it so much. Thanks for taking the time to show the pictures and I'll be watching for more.

I'm mostly known as 'MA' said...

That was quite a tour for sure. I cannot imagine how or why people start collecting all that but it is great now that many can see the amazing parts of history that would otherwise be forgotten. Thanks for sharing today. One more thing that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. I'll be waiting to see the pumpkin on a stick.

~mel said...

Thanks for sharing! I knew you'd be in awe of it ~ it's a LOT to take in. I personally haven't been there; but Slim's grandparents took the girls and I remember their stories and seeing the pile of postcards that they bought home from that adventure. 20 years later and the girls still talk about it ~ it was a very impressive memorable trip.

Rose said...

Amazing!

Thought you may enjoy this Burma Shave link:

http://oldfortyfives.com/DYRT.htm

Hugs, Rose

Fred Alton said...

Fantastic reporting Jack! It's so difficult to select which pictures to show after you have taken 400 - but you do a fantastic job of it, keeping your followers informed. Keep having fun!

shirl72 said...

You sure are taking in a lot of interesting sites. Pictures are awesome and sure looks like you are have a great time. We are going to get to 99 Wed. it is 94 today. I am Ready for Fall.
Stay cool. I hope this will print.

Shirl

Lucy said...

You guys just made me feel better just to see the doll houses and all. It is so easy to fall into the " poor me " category when things are rough and then here you 2 came to the rescue.

Anonymous said...

Surely a place filled with peace and harmony. Must have taken ages to build. Thank you for allowing us a glimpse of it, thank you for all the effort. Please have you all a good Tuesday.

Debbie said...

Wow a 4 hour tour and 400 pictures! It must be a huge place. I love the pictures of the carousel (sp? not sure if I spelled that right or not). I'm glad you & Sherry are seeing some interesting things while on your trip we don't have anything interesting in our neck of the woods.

Love ya
Debbie

PS: I've lost count on how many times I've tried to view your blog, the dang computer is running slow and keeps knocking me offline.