Labor Day Travels Part Deux

The inside spaces at the House on the Rock were filled with room after room of awesome, and the outside was no exception.  This huge cannon and chain was on display and it really looked like it could have been used at one point, although I don't know if it was.

There was a lot of wood supports and framing outside and it made the whole place feel warm and charming.

An overhead shot of the outside garden paths and ponds.  Everything was lush and green; even though it was a dreary rainy day, it was still delightful.

There were bridges across the pond connecting the paths, and some kind of koi/huge goldfish in the pond.

More bridges.  I feel like this would be a great place for family pictures; a great outdoorsy feeling without getting too far into nature.

There were also a couple of pretty little waterfalls.

Another little waterfall.

We had a couple other adventures in Illinois including a trip to UIUC to visit the infamous underground library and the cornfield that caused it.

Performing Arts theater building on campus

We also spent an afternoon at a nearby orchard enjoying the best hot apple cider and apple cider doughnuts. They really were the best doughnuts I've ever had.  They also had a little farm museum with all sorts of old farm equipment and memorabilia from life in the early 1900s.

They even had a 48 star flag on display.

I really loved the look of this old fashioned stove/oven.

They had a few animals too including this baby cow, some goats, and chickens.  It stank to high heaven inside the barn, but the animals were pretty cute.

Cool old truck sitting outside the orchard.

The worst part about our trip was that it couldn't last longer! We had a great time visiting and really recommend going to the House on the Rock!

House on the Rock Rocks!

Over labor day we drove to Illinois to visit my best friend and her family for a few days, and while we were there we drove up to Wisconsin to visit the House on the Rock.  If you've never been, it's what is sounds like, but the house and surrounding buildings have turned into museums full of a bit of everything from anywhere.

Outside there was an ornamental garden with some pretty adorable plants.  These are a type of ornamental pepper that are so small they can grow up instead of down.

These pumpkin on a stick were probably my favorite because they are just too cute.  In reality, they aren't pumpkins at all but actually eggplants.

More eggplants, this time white eggplant which look like little eggs growing on a plant until they turn yellow.

Stained glass inside the house.

Asian themed statues.

This was the ceiling in one section of the house and I really liked the way it looked.

Since the house stands on the edge of a rock, this infinity room lends a great view to the surrounding area, if you can stand the bounciness of the walkway.  The whole structure was cantilevered and so it would sway up and down as people walked the length of the room.

This was my favorite gun from the very large collection.  I can't imagine it would have worked well or been very accurate, but it was probably comical if it was ever used.

One of the best parts was all of the player instrument exhibits.  Each one played a different song, and this one played Octopus's Garden.  It played near continuously while we walked around the giant whale and looked at the model ships.

Teeth from the giant whale.

Giant indeed.  This took up the entire middle section of what was a very large warehouse type building.  The whale is in battle with the giant kraken.

Tons of model ships lined the walls on several levels around the whale.  There were a lot of recognizable boats too like the Titanic, Mayflower, and Columbus's three boats.  

Planes, boats, and even cars were in the museum.  This car had been entirely covered in a tile mosaic, which was pretty cool looking but I would imagine made the car incredibly heavy.

Another schmancy car unfortunately type unknown.

Even the bathrooms were decorated with all sorts of stuff.  This bathroom had an entire winter scene populated by penguins while some of the other bathrooms had planes suspended from the ceiling and glassware in display cases.

Back outside they had wagons, carriages, and this funeral carriage as well.

House on the Rock is filled with lots of crazy weird stuff, but as far as museums go, it was probably one of my favorites and well worth the drive!

Kandy: Trip to the Tea Museum

A short 4 km drive from Kandy is a fabulous Tea Museum.  The old tea factory has been converted into a museum and goes through the history of tea production in Sri Lanka and the tea making process, which is more complicated than one might think!

Sri Lanka Tea Museum

Hand drawn factory plans

An old liquid chromatograph used for tea testing.  They had lots of old sciency instruments used to do testing and research on tea leaves.

Drying racks for the tea leaves to dry on.  This whole floor would have been covered in these racks in an operating factory.  The building was windows on all four sides so the air could circulate and help dry the tea.   The huge walls of windows were absolutely gorgeous; I'd love to live somewhere with so many windows.

A shaker machine to shake out small particles.

Steve hanging out on the top floor.  When we got to the top floor of the museum, they have a little tea shop where you can have a free cuppa tea.  I was constantly shocked by how tasty the tea was, and I'm not even a huge fan of tea.  But I suppose packaged tea bags don't compare to quality loose leaf tea.

They even had this awesome working telescope to get a good view of all of the surrounding areas.

We walked about half way back to Kandy, which was much easier since it was almost completely downhill.  On the way we passed this goat getting some lunch in a nearby field.

We walked past so many tea fields.  Most of these weren't being picked at the time; we didn't see tea harvesting until we passed some on the train ride to Nuwara Eliya.

Check out the rest of our Sri Lanka travels:

Colombo: Beira Lake and Gangaramaya Temple 

Colombo: Dehiwala Zoo

Summer Reading

Colombo: Viharamahadevi Park

Colombo: National Museum

Colombo: Fort

Train Ride to Kandy

Kandy: Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, 1

Kandy: Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, 2
Kandy: Udawattakele National Sanctuary 

Kandy: Shopping and Sites

Kandy: British Garrison Cemetery and Royal Palace Park

Kandy: Peradeniya Royal Botanic Gardens

Italy Day 8: Market, daVinci Museum, Duomo

We are quickly drawing to a close with our posts about Italy (about time right?) but we've still got one or two left.

While wandering around looking for a site we had apparently already been to (Santa Maria Novella) we found the Mercato Centrale and decided to explore inside.  They had all sorts of stalls selling a really wide variety of food stuffs including many meat stalls.  There was also a huge outdoor tent set up outside where a lot of the produce was sold.

A stall inside selling dried fruit!  We both love dried fruit, especially pineapple so we got a few different types.  Coconut and pineapple were great, while kiwi and strawberry were kind of strange.  In the outdoor tent, we managed to buy a few nutmeg nuts to take back with us because it isn't sold anywhere (that we can find it) in Saudi.  This was quite an adventure since we didn't speak italian and the little old lady didn't speak english, but it worked out in the end.

After exploring the market and eating tasty snacks, we walked to the Macchine di Leonardo, a great little museum all about Leonardo da Vinci.  They were playing a History Channel documentary about him and the museum attendant started it at the beginning just for us.  We watched for over an hour before we got tired and wanted to see all the cool displays.  It turns out he had a pretty interesting life.

Water wheels and cool triangle spheres were only some of the awesome displays.

This clock is cool because it uses swinging weights to turn the gears for the clock.  The weight wraps around the two poles at the top and the back and forth motion moves the clock.  Check out this youtube video for a better idea of how it works.

Water wheels to move water.  Everything was assembled using these ropes or big metal staples, but I'm not sure if those are accurate or if it just looks cool.

This was cool because as you crank the handle (not shown) the tube spins and moves water from the bottom basin and deposits it into the top basin.  This was used a lot to move river water apparently.

Robot drum player!  By cranking the handle at the waist, the pulleys moved the string so that the sticks beat against the drum head.

After many hours at the museum, we decided to walk back to the Duomo and go inside, since we only went inside the Campanile before. 

I totally want this 24 hour clock.  I can just snatch that up right?  Plus, did you notice that it ticks just like a backwards clock! Double bonus.

Interior of the Duomo.

Looking up into the dome.

Follow the rest of our journey:

Travel Plans are Never Final

Different Ways to Travel

How We Get Ready To Travel

Day 1

Day 2

Shopping in Italy 

Keeping it Alive by Trying New Things

Day 3: Part 1 Sforzesco Castle

Day 3: Part 2 Parks, Arches, and Fishes

Pack and Move

Day 3: Sforzesco Museums

Tragic Losses

Address System in Florence

Day 4: Part 1 Milan's Duomo and Galleria

Day 4: Part 2 Duomo at Night

Day 5: Duomo Part Duex, Now in Florence

Day 6: Palazzo Vecchio and the River Arno

Day 6: Ponte Vecchio and Giardino di Boboli

Day 7: Day Trip to Pisa

Day 7: Pisa Part 2