DAY 8 - THREE STOREY WHALE FIGHTS OCTOPUS

After a quick dash to Walgreens to pick up some sandwiches for lunch and a big bag of ice to re-stock our freezer box in the car, we headed out of Chicago on our journey through Wisconsin and Minnesota.  Severe traffic and roadworks hindered our journey for the first hour or so but eventually the roads cleared and we were able to make up some time.  We arrived at The House on the Rock, near Madison, Wisconsin at lunch time and gave ourselves 2 hours to look around.  This is a totally amazing place.  A guy named Alex Jordon built a house on the rock and steadily added to it over the years.  It is impossible to describe how truly fantastic this attraction is.

We looked all around the house and at the many collections Alex accumulated there.  There is a massive model of a whale being attacked by an octopus which is three storeys high.  We also saw faberge eggs, huge music machines which you could get to play by putting tokens in and the highlight of the visit was the massive carousel which is the largest in the world and worth almost 5 million dollars.  Jessica and I were completely awestruck by our visit and wondered whether we will ever see anything so impressive again.  

This was called the Infinity Room (from inside and out).

 This wall of shelves full of coloured glassware was in the ladies loo!

Huge collection of Faberge eggs.

The carousel was difficult to photograph (this was the best I could do)

We then pressed on to the second half of our journey to Minneapolis, Minnesota.  This took almost 5 hours but the driving was easy and there was little traffic on the road.  We experienced the School Bus road rule today (where everyone on the road has to stop when the school bus stops to let the children off).  This was quite a novelty to start with until we realised that the bus was stopping every two minutes or so to let groups of children leave.  Luckily we managed to overtake it on a dual carriageway.  We also negotiated two roundabouts and a train going across the road in front of us with carriages that seemed never ending.

We arrived at our Motel at dusk and quickly went online to arrange our next accommodation for Saturday night at Mount Rushmore before braving driving in the dark to find somewhere to eat.  We found a restaurant called Bakers Square where they sell the most scrumptious pies for dessert.  On our way to the restaurant we crossed over the Mississippi River.