If you think Wisconsin is all farms and dairies and cheese and average people, you haven't seen the Wisconsin I've seen. I am not a minimalist but our visit to House on the Rock, triggered a panic attack from being surrounded by so much stuff. Alex Jordan was an eccentric genius who designed a home on a big rock just down the road from Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesan. He incrementally proceeded to expand it and fill it with countless collections that he acquired or had built. (actually that is quite an understatement) He was a collector and commissioned the largest carousel in the world. You just have to read about it. Then we stopped by Dr Evermor's park with his Forevertron. Here's what Wikipedia says:
"The sculpture incorporates two Thomas Edison dynamos from the 1880s, lightning rods, high-voltage components from 1920s power plants, scrap from the nearby Badger Army Ammunition Plant, and the decontamination chamber from the Apollo 11 spacecraft.[2] Its creator, Tom Every (1938 - 2020),[3][4] was born in Brooklyn, Wisconsin and was a demolition expert who spent decades collecting antique machinery for the sculpture and the surrounding fiction that justifies it. According to Every, Dr. Evermor was a Victorian inventor who designed the Forevertron to launch himself, "into the heavens on a magnetic lightning force beam." The Forevertron, despite its size and weight, was designed to be relocatable to a different site—the sculpture is built in sections that are connected by bolts and pins." I got to talk to his widow, Lady Eleanor, who was absolutely lovely and clearly misses her husband who passed away last year. In addition to art, we visited the International Crane Society's sanctuary with the 15 different types of cranes that are in the world. We ended our day by staying at the Ringling House B and B in Baraboo. This is where the Ringling Brothers Circus began.
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