Tuesday, July 08, 2003
Leaving Lighthouse Rock CG - July 7
We saw some interesting tourist sights, including the very famous House on the Rock. As luck would have it, we got in free due to reciprocal agreements for volunteers with the Intl Crane Foundation. After going through the original house part (which took about 1/2 hour), our reaction was "We're glad we didn't pay full price for this". 90 minutes later we were passing a sign saying we were about 1/4 of the way through, and we hadn't even gotten to the antique music machines or the carousel. We were there for about 4 1/2 hours and were pretty numb by the end. I don't think the admission price is out of line, but I sure wish they had cheaper mini-tours -- see 1/4 of it for $7, something like that. We loved how they walked you through the pizza area just after they told you that you were only 1/4 of the way along!! Of course we had to get some -- it was actually quite good. We ate our lunch for dinner at a state park on the way home, since we didn't eat it at HotR. It is not a place that is conducive to a picnic lunch.
We also visited the Circus Museum in Baraboo. We chose to go on the day they were loading up the Circus Train which was headed for the Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee, an annual event. The museum & grounds were of some appeal, but we were really glad to have gotten in free (another of those reciprocal agreements!). However, the train loading was quite entertaining (they still use the big draft horses just like in the old days) with sort of a street fair atmosphere. Some of the circus wagons were 100 years old.
We continued to enjoy our volunteering at the Intl Crane Fndn and had just gotten started on some interesting tasks (one involving crane chicks) when we had to leave. We will miss the people we met there and feel bad that we had to let them down just as we were starting to be "useful".# posted by Doug and Willie @ 10:48 PM 
