Visiting the House on the Rock and Watching its Room Size Music Boxes Play (Wisconsin) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the House on the Rock and Watching its Room Size Music Boxes Play (Wisconsin) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

There were 3 places that I routinely took 6-year-old Florence to visit in Wisconsin when we lived outside Madison.  University towns like Madison tend to have very nice living conditions for families, especially if you are a faculty member or administrator:

-House on the Rock

-Vilas Park Zoo

-MacKenzie Environmental Center

The House on the Rock

One of my family’s favorite places to go for an outing in Wisconsin was the House on the Rock.

According to Wikipedia (which I trust in this case, because I know who owns the House on the Rock), it was opened in 1959 and was designed by Alex Jordan, Jr.  (Jordon was a relative by marriage to my Wisconsin family.)

I liked visiting the site for its rooms full of music boxes that actually filled sides of walls.  Florence, my husband, and I all liked the Mikado music box with full-sized figures that stealthily moved around the room.

My favorite music box was the Franz Josef that played Viennese waltzes.  We all liked the huge carousel at the end of the exhibit hall with its ponies and red glittering lights.

Vilas Park Zoo

Florence liked playgrounds and the zoo almost as much as seeing the eagles dive for fish in Sauk City (Wisconsin).  The Vilas Park Zoo has been a free entertainment spot in Madison since its inception.  Florence liked the slides and teeter-totters the most in the playground.

Whenever we went to the zoo, I thought of how some people criticize zoos.  However, in many cases, most people would never have the chance to see animals like giraffes.  (I often wonder if people who promote African safaris as the best way to see the animals have stocks in tourism companies.)

Safaris to Africa are very expensive.  I always liked zoos like the one in San Diego as a child.  The San Diego Zoo does try to recreate habitats and promotes reproduction of endangered species.  I think this is a very good policy and kids get to see animals, too.

If it were not for the care that some animals receive in zoos, many species of animals would be extinct like panda bears.

On one of our zoo visits, we learned that there would be a new primate house with real trees for monkeys to play around in with their children.

We had a great time at the Discovery Center.  Florence looked through microscopes and tried to get the attention of fish swimming around the aquarium.

We saw two iguanas that were sleeping.  Florence hid behind me and looked out at them from behind my back.  Fear of the unknown is real.

We stopped to look at penguins on the way out.  I thought the frolicking penguins were Arctic monkeys.

To make our zoo visits more interesting, we would get nonfiction animal books before and after our visit, so we would know about the animals.

I would ask Florence questions like “What do you think they eat?” and “Where do you think they sleep?”

I rarely used grade-level books for zoo visits.  Instead, I used ones for adults.  These had answers to the questions I asked Florence and informative photographs as well.

MacKenzie Environmental Education Center

On one of our visits to the MacKenzie Environmental Center, I made a picnic lunch, which other families might like to make.  None of these items is too hard to make at home and do not cost very much either:

-marinated mushrooms à la grecque

-grilled chicken pasta salad with basil, tomato, and lemon and oil dressing

-four kinds of cheese with bread and butter

-a selection of chopped fruit

-plain yogurt with vanilla bean sugar

-sodas

We passed Sandhill Cranes on our way to the Center.  There is Sandhill Crane Foundation in Wisconsin, but we did not go to it, because there were so many of them to see on the way toward the north in Wisconsin.

We ate in the picnic lunch area at the Center.  They have large picnic areas with clean restrooms, clean barbecue pits, and covered picnic areas in case it rains or is very sunny.

Then, we went down two of the nature trails.  The first one we did was about wildlife and the second one was about ecology.

They had very informative booklets that talked about the plant life and animals. Florence wanted to play hide-and-seek.   That was fun, too.   I would close my eyes, and she would run behind trees as Laurent read the information books.

On another day, when we drove to the MacKenzie Wildlife Center, there were four buffalo lounging by the entryway.

Florence loved the great horned owls we saw.  When we went up to the exhibit, one of the owls hissed at us a few times.  The other owl turned its head around, so that we could see its face attached to its backside.

The owls kept blinking their eyes and moving, which kept Florence interested.  She was so intrigued by these owls that she did not want to spend time looking at the bear cubs there even though she said they were cute.

The animal that Florence really liked was called a fisher.  I had never seen one before taking a look at this one.  It looks like an otter, but it has luxurious chestnut-colored fur.

The one we looked at seemed to want to play with Florence.  Florence said some nice things about the Wildlife Center:

“Let’s just sit and watch.”

“I’m just looking at this pretty animal.”

“Let’s open our own zoo.”

I liked those comments. 

On the way out, I read a few facts about fishers:

-They are porcupine predators.

-They are rare or absent in Sothern Wisconsin.

They were reintroduced to Wisconsin after habitat loss and loss due to trapping.

As we walked on the trail out, we saw two baby deer nursing next to us.  They were speckled deer and very precious.

By Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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