House on the Rock

When we go to visit Chicago, we've started to make a stop in the Wisconsin Dells for the kids. This year, since Easter was at the end of spring break for most schools in MN and WI, the rates were jacked up big-time when we decided to go to Chicago over Easter weekend.

We opted for a plan B: doing House on the Rock instead. This is in the same general area of Wisconsin, but a little off the beaten path. Still, there are signs all along the interstate that we've always ignored, so this looked like a good opportunity to make.

As an aside, the weather didn't cooperate. The Madison, WI area has had record snowfall, and the day we were passing through the area was pretty crummy due to another snowfall of 6-9 inches of fresh snow. The positive is that the House on the Rock had very view visitors - it was almost like we had the entire tourist trap to ourselves.

This is a an interesting place that I guess you need to go through once. Nik and I commented that we won't be bothered if we don't go back for another 15-20 years. The place was hit or miss for me. A few rooms were interesting and unique, most were boring to me, much less the kids. Karsten and Kiera both used the words "dark" and "scary" to describe it. I couldn't imagine this place during peak tourist season and having to maneuver around lots of people. Still, the House on the Rock took several hours just to tour all the rooms since it's a pretty sprawling place encompassing several large buildings that have been added over the years.

Oh, and did I mention that there's shag carpet everywhere - including most ceilings? I'd hate to have to be the one to vacuum this place.

Here are some pics. My favorite was the Infinity room, which juts off the top of the mountain and goes ~100 ft. straight out over the valley. Visibility was bad due to the weather, but the effect was still stunning.
This is a pic. of the Carousel Room. Supposedly, there are 20,000 lights on that thing. I counted them, and that's a bit of exaggeration. I stopped at 599,527, but I'm not sure if I counted some lights more than once since the Carousel was moving the whole time.

Lastly, we were told to check out the bathrooms. They were pretty cool. This is one of the nicer men's rooms.


This bathroom below helps men keep man law #12: avoid using the urinal right next to another dude at all costs. There was easily 5-6 feet between the urinals, and each urinal had it's own sink to boot. On the downside, the picture looks like some dude still has bad aim, if you know what I mean. That, or they just hosed the place down for a cleaning... I stayed away just to be sure.