The House on the Rock: We Did it and so Can You!

My mother says I’ve been to the House on the Rock before; I, however, have no recollection of this, so technically, I have not been to the House on the Rock. It wasn’t until last weekend though that I both officially and consciously took a tour at this museum. Chris, my boyfriend that you’ve read about a few times, was the one to convince me to go, so I thought it would be a nice gesture if I let him come along and made him drive the entire way. The second we got to the parking lot, we loaded up on some energy by downing some Larabars and ice cold water. We’ve heard from friends that this museum could take more than one trip to see it all, but we were determined to not let that happen. We got our tickets and started by cruising through the gardens. And while Chris was perfectly fine taking his time and relaxing,
I was anxious to get this thing going. The first building visitors get to go into was dedicated to the background on Alex Jordan, the man who of course built this place. There’s a lot of reading in this section, along with some pretty good Alex Jordan crazy memorabilia. After this point, Chris and I got lost a couple times, following signs that lead us to balconies, gardens, and exits, pretty much all of the places we didn’t care too much to see. We eventually found our way to the actual House on the Rock by simply stalking other crowds of people who knew their way around.

Chris and I agreed that the actual home had a strange smell to it that we just couldn’t get over, but luckily, the house was so full of oddities that it later masked the funk for us. There was a lot of head ducking in this part due to the shallow ceilings, and there were also a lot of musical instruments playing on their own. One awesome room attached to the house was called the infinity room, where you could look out onto the landscape.

I unfortunately didn’t make it to the end of the room, because Chris’s fear of heights was kicking in, and I’m the type of person who likes to join in on someone’s freak out. So, we had to leave that area fairly quickly, but it wasn’t the last time that day when Chris’s phobia would make an appearance.

We had gone through the first building of collections smoothly, no fears or anything, just good times. It was when the second building rolled around that I began to worry about something. People who’ve been to this site before told me all about the giant whale in the “sea room”. You see, I have this fear about large things. For some unknown reason extremely large objects don’t sit right with me, and I knew the second before I got in that room that I was not going to be OK. I once again scarfed down another Larabar to soothe my fears or get me psyched up, but it just didn’t work. Chris wanted to pose with the whale to prove how unafraid he was.

Then he suggested I take a picture too, probably to show my weakness.



Now, it's a little hard to see in my picture, but we had to trek up a level to get close to the mouth, and it was at this point when Chris’s height disease took over him. He got this sort of sick look on is face, and he started grabbing the wall for support. I went over to comfort him like a decent human being would and he suggested I not touch him for fear that I would make him tumble over the ledge. Here are some great photos of his panic attack.




Mind you that I was still a little queasy over the whale situation, but I encouraged Chris to join me in the next level. He eventually made it.


We got through the final room, the organ room, relatively quickly and finished the entire tour in about two hours and thirty minutes. Not bad! Also, Chris has claimed that after the "sea room" that he has been completely cured of his height disease! There was a lot of accomplishment this day.


All in all, the House on the Rock was pretty great. You get to look at a lot of neat things, be humiliated by your fears, and get a lot of walking in. Got a free afternoon? Go to the House on the Rock!