There’s only one way up. The Willis Tower was the Sear’s Tower was the highest building in the world. Now it’s cloudy with a name that sounds like it should be followed by the last name ‘Drummond.’  Chicago is an exciting place with expensive parking and many tall buildings and good pizza. That about sums it up. I have nothing poignant to add to this post.

But I do wholeheartedly implore you to visit Quimby’s Bookstore when in Chicago. Holy best place ever to read. Sorry, this post probably wasn’t really worth reading. That’s why I put that link there above there for you. It’ll help salve your disappointment.

Going away from home gives you the chance to see your home through new eyes each time you return.

“What was the name of that place people come from all over the world to visit that I never got to visit?”

“Oh yeah, House on the Rock (or just insert any other random attraction that doesn’t attract your attention even though it’s only an hour away).”

At one point and time I thought of my random moves from Wisconsin to Guatemala to New Mexico to Germany as a sneaky way to give family and friends excuses to travel. Travel is more tempting when you have someone living there. I now realize it works in the other direction as well.

Each time I find myself back in Wisconsin I end up taking a spin through Roadside America or Nerdy Day Trips (they need your help to log more great crap!) with my family or friends. Later we end up in a car to some place we’d always heard about or seen in ads for but never actually visited.

And so on this day we found ourselves on the road to  House on the Rock, which is a house built on a rock. Though the wall-to-wall carpet has lost a lot of its luster and most of its pile, the home stands up as an interesting tribute an architect wannabe who – after being slighted by Frank Lloyd Wright – decided to try and show him up by creating a wandering, somewhat misinformed, awesome tree fort bolted to a rock spire.

And as if that wasn’t enough, he went on collecting oodles of objects to pile up in warehouses hidden under the trees and eventually created an almost completely contextless museum of mirth and delight that culminates in what is purportedly the world’s largest carousel. Oh yeah, there’s also this giant fanciful (as they describe it) sea creature that is basically a blue whale with teeth.*

*Though much of this may sound somewhat snarky, this whole damn show is without doubt worth the price of admission. Please go now. Oh yeah, and they filmed 10,000 Maniacs cover of the song “More than this” here too.

And then you get to the part of the story where I forgot to buy any damn Cheerios to bring back to Germany. And here right in front of them. Oh, it is truly a cruel fate to be in a land without that yellow box.

In other news, do you know how big Woodman’s Supermarkets are?! Shit.

I posted a Christmas Market photo up in this thing last year. I really didn’t think another one was needed, but that guy there makes it kind of worth it.

It also reminded me that this is my second Christmas in this joint called Germany. I haven’t been taking pictures as much lately, which I suppose is a consequence of being in a place for a while. The newness kind of wears off a little and before you know, a mega bright merry-go-round serving mulled wine and raw egg nog isn’t that big of a deal.

The Miller (Müller) Chapel sits on the corner of Ringwood and Wilmot Roads. It was built by Mary Nett Miller back in 1878 after she went off and promised the Blessed Virgin Mary that she’d build a chapel if she could raise her family “in the fear and love of God.”

I guess it worked. Here I am fearful of falling on my head in front of the old family chapel.

Illinois was always a long drive. And with a long drive, it’s important to make sure bladders are empty before setting off.

But sometimes, just after getting on the road, some brother would pipe up as we came to the corner of 12 and 173:

“I think I have to pee.”

And the car would make its way through the early evening darkness to Uncle Dick’s house just down the road before settling in for the 2-hour drive. Sure, someone might have to pee, but it was also a well-known fact that Uncle Dick’s bathroom always had a copy of Playboy.

And so boys would trundle out of the car and make their pre-pubescent pit stop while the grown-ups talked in the creaky old farmhouse kitchen.

I believe that in this image my lips were pursed into a bit of ‘Hoo-boy! Willya’ look at that?’

The Carl von Stahl House sits on the saddle of the German Alps smack on the border with Austria. That night while sitting in our room, I turned to the door and saw a kitten run out. The next morning as I headed for the sink, one of six kittens was sitting in the corner, its face smeared in blood, hovering over a dead mouse and hissing at any of his kin that dared to come near.

But that kitty story is neither here nor there. This lovely mountain view is a 2.5 hour jaunt up a cliffside from Carl von Stahl’s place. At the peak we began to hit snow and so turned around made nervous by slippery conditions on the edge of staggering cliffs with no bottom in sight.

The main building sits at the front, narrow and wide, an imposing presence, a stern teacher at the head of class looking down on pupils lined up before him. Faces of commoners, leaders, writers, performers, shopkeepers, Jews, Italians, Gypsies, whoever was deemed unnecessary stare out from museum displays as videos of tangled corpses show what was found once the teachers were removed.

It’s strange to make the pilgrimage to this site after having spent time in blue-eyed, mountainous Berchtesgaden where Hitler had his Eagle’s Nest. Nearly everywhere you went in the valley you could look up and high on the prow of the mountain the structure stood on look out. At night three lights marked its location.

It’s a different perspective with a better view, but the same idea. A reminder of how some try to create distance, force respect and elevate ideas beyond their britches.

Of further note: I saw a group close themselves behind the gates of Dachau beneath the wrought-iron motto, ‘Arbeit macht frei,’  so their friend could take fun pictures. An older German woman saw their antics and chastised them, though I don’t think they spoke the language.

For a split second you become old friends who have lost touch. You catch up, talk about the latest news and that time back in ’97 when you tossed a bottle of ketchup out a third-floor window to watch it blow red on the dormitory parking lot pavement.

But those days passed and now you just stand together as shadows do with their owner.

Photo taken at Phantasia Land, der Freizeitpark mit den besten Attraktionen, in Brühl.

When you’re a kid in North America and you look at pictures from Europe, you get excited.

“Hoo boy, look at that castle there. Wow, someone really important must live in there! Now that’s a good time, yeah.”

This is the ultimate, this is what you live for. Courtesans, people serving you, the grand poobah with all of the trappings. And you get to eat turkey legs straight up like you’re at the Renaissance Faire in Bristol or something. Court jesters, pick of the women, them crazy dresses and knights in armor clinking around the house. This is what you think. You dream of castles. Maybe you think it might be nice to have yourself a little princess or prince.

Then you get older, you see a lot of things and move yourself over to Europe. And now every god damned corner you turn down, there’s some drafty old castle perched on a hill. Long lasting testament to some dork who probably screwed people over, exploited the weak, and built some big old castle to defend himself and his chums from the hordes of haters.

Even so, it’s still good to see. I mean look at this castle here in Cochem on ye’ olde Mosel River. Its just hanging out up there lording over the whole damn town like it owns the place.