House on the Rock and Cave of the Mounds

Yesterday, my father and I drove up to Wisconsin to visit two attractions: the House on the Rock and Cave of the Mounds.

We first went to House on the Rock. It starts with a room containing information panels and videos about the history of the House and its creator. There is then a winding wooden path through the forest up onto the rock. The first section (the original construction) is composed of paths and stairs that navigate around outcroppings and trees. Along the walls, there are bookshelves, cooking implements, and Asian-like items. This section also has access to the Infinity Room, which overhangs the forest.

Along the way, several seating areas are visible but cordoned off. Through them, other parts of the path can be seen. It seems that the barriers could be rearranged to produce a different path through the rooms. There are one or two music-making machines around. Outside the house, there are lookouts toward the forest.

The second section is much larger. It starts with the "Streets of Yesterday" exhibit, which has arrangements of 19th-century buildings, like households, dentist offices, and shops. Those buildings have many interesting artifacts corresponding to their function. At the end of that entry hall is a massive music machine: the Gladiator.

The path then goes into a huge sea-themed area. There is an "octopus garden" statue/sculpture to the right, and the center of the very tall room is taken up by a statue of a whale-vs.-octopus battle. Along the walls are nautical artifacts and history on famous ships.

Past that, there are some interesting cars, like one completely covered in tiles. Nearby, there's a café, at which we got some pizza. Continuing on into "The Music of Yesterday", there are more automated music rooms.

The third section features a massive carousel, with all kinds of creatures. Several smaller carousels can be seen from later paths.

The path then enters another large area, this time full of unlabeled inert machinery. The color scheme here is really interesting: mostly gray from the metals, with some red splashed in from small displays reminiscent of the second section.

After the machine room, there's another relaxing break spot. The path then continues by some medieval-themed display cases and into a circus-themed area. There is a section with dolls and dollhouses, then the room opens up and the ramp circles another circus music machine. After a trip by the small carousels, visitors exit onto an outdoor path back toward the entry building.

We drove the half-hour or so to Cave of the Mounds and registered for an hourly cave tour. The first thing I noticed is that the climate is really nice inside the cave: cool and not humid. Most of the cave is very easy to navigate - there are high ceilings and fairly wide paths - while one part in particular is very narrow and short.

The cave has impressive formations, and also a small, beautiful river.

On the drive back home, we stopped at an A&W for a burger and root beer.

Visiting Chicago

Yesterday, my father and I visited Chicago, primarily to see the Museum of Science and Industry. Since we had all day, we got tickets for general admission and three timed-entry events.

Before the first such event started, we went to find the Omnimax theater so we would know where to go later. (The Museum is a big place!) While around there, we saw an exhibit on the history of the space program. There was a dramatic video about the moon landing, which was interesting because I didn't previously know about the issues encountered on the way down.

The first scheduled event was a tour of the captured German U-505 submarine. The entrance hall to the main room told of how the American military planned to capture a German sub rather than just sink it. That was an amazing feat, especially considering that the sub was continuing to sink as the Americans boarded and secured it. Its inside is very cramped, even after some objects were removed to make entrances for museum visitors.

We then went to look at the DARPA exhibit, which had a wall for the history of interesting modern technologies started there. In the rest of the room, videos and captioned pictures illustrated real-world applications for DARPA's research.

We then stopped by the food court for noodle bowls, which were delicious.

Continuing to explore the central area of the main floor, we walked through a section on genetics, which mentioned some applications of genetic engineering in dealing with genetic disorders.

In the Omnimax theater, we saw National Parks Adventure, which had absolutely amazing scenes of natural wonders. It followed the experiences of a small group of people taking trips to America's national parks. The movie also had a brief history of the national parks' conception (Theodore Roosevelt's trip with John Muir).

After the movie, we looked through "Fast Forward", a hall of ideas currently in development that have the potential to hugely impact life.



It was then time for the last timed-entry event: Future Energy Chicago, which had been described as a simulator for energy conservation strategies in a city. It consisted of five semi-competitive games. It seemed to be targeted at a younger age group, but with the competition it was still a good time. One of the games was about installing various kinds of public transportation to remove cars from the road, and the tutorial included the direction "Drag a train onto a busy road." At the end, my father and I won (which makes sense considering the age of the other players), but the scoreboard also included a "combined team" score, which was the average of the high scores from each game, and so was of course higher than any individual team's score. The moral of the story is that collaboration is key, see. (An individualistic game designer might rig the combined score as the minimum of the individual scores to reflect the more likely scenario that one poor performer holds everyone back.)

There were still several exhibits to see. We looked at a John Deere farming technology exhibit, saw a classic coal-powered train, went in a real decommissioned Boeing 727, checked out a sound reflecting room, and went through a mirror maze.

By this time, the museum was about to close. Back in the lobby, we looked at and heard the story of the Pioneer Zephyr, the first "streamlined" train.

Exiting the museum, we started driving toward the Willis Tower, but stopped on the way at the Berghoff's (a German restaurant) for dinner. We shared a plate that included several things served by the restaurant and finished out the meal with apple strudel.

That one plate was more than enough for both of us. It was very good, as was the root beer.

We then walked over to the Willis Tower and went up to the Skydeck.

After all that, we started the several-hour drive back home. It was definitely a very full day.