The Best Tourist Site You've Probably Never Heard Of

 
I've talked before about what it takes to really be an American. Here's another example:

A pessimist looks at a giant rock that's fallen on a house, and hopes nobody got hurt.

An optimist looks at a giant rock that's fallen on a house, and figures the owner will now get a new dream house.

An American looks at a giant rock that's fallen on a house, buys the house, and begins selling souvenirs.

Or, if you're the American who writes "The Best of Everything," you missed your chance to buy the house with the giant rock on it, but you take your wife there for Valentine's Day.

The legend has it that Maxine Anderson of Fountain City, Wisconsin, had just finished taking pictures of a remodeling project in the house that she and her husband Dwight shared when a sound like a railroad train full of tornadoes* (*that's my phrase. I made it up) surrounded her, and she got out just before a 55-ton boulder crashed into the middle of their house.

55 tons. To put that in layman's perspective, if you had one ton, and multiplied it by 55, it would weigh as much as the rock that hit their house.

Maxine and Dwight, wisely, got the stuff they could and never returned. John and Frances Burt, also of Fountain City, Wisconsin, even more wisely, bought up the house, left the rock there, and turned it into a tourist attraction, charging people $1 to come and look at the Rock In The House. They also sell, as I said, souvenirs -- when Sweetie and I went there on Valentine's Day, there was a rack of rocks outside the door that you could purchase. (We declined.)

The "Rock In The House" has been declared a "historical site." I'm not sure what it adds to history, but if History class had been more about the "Rock In The House" and less about robber barons, I'd have paid more attention and might even now be a functioning member of society. As it was, history class was about robber barons and I became a lawyer.

Weirdly, this was not the first time a rock had dropped down from the bluffs above onto pretty much that exact spot.

This is the part of the nomination where I usually wax philosophical on the larger meaning of it all, adding some smart junk that makes everyone nod and think "he may not be a functioning member of society, but whatever he just said sounded pretty intelligent." Or, I suppose, you all may be nodding and thinking "If I nod he'll shut up." Like my kids do.

I could get all philosophical about this, too, about enterpreneurship and the American Spirit and turning lemons into lemonade. But I'm not going to because that's not why I love The Rock In The House. I love The Rock In The House because it's a tourist trap and I am a sucker for a tourist trap.

Remember that scene in "National Lampoon's Vacation" when Clark Griswold threatened to take his kids to see the second-largest ball of twine? I would go see that. There is no tourist trap I will not stop at if I have the time and a couple of bucks to devote to it.

"Drive-Through Tree?" Went there over the protests of my eco-friendly sister who thinks there's something wrong with driving through a Tree.

Stop by the "Today" show in New York City? Did that on my honeymoon.

Pier 39 in San Francicso? Loved it. I could have stayed and looked at the sea lions all day. And I bought a redwood tree to take home with me -- in the hopes that I could grow a tree to drive through every day.

I've been to the Wisconsin Dells countless times and I love the waterslides and the actual Dells and I've been to Xanadu The House Of Foam and Tommy Bartlett's Water Show and his Robot World.

In Las Vegas, I took a picture with an Elvis greeter. We went to Hoover Dam, where I bought a Hoover Dam t-shirt.

As a kid, I rode a sort-of-coaster down the hills of Tennessee, rode a cable car up the hills of Tennessee, watched a guy shoot a musket over a wall to demonstrate what it would be like if a Civil War soldier has shot a fake musket over a wall, visited Colonial Williamsburg but spent more time riding the roller coasters at Busch Gardens than I did anything else, and so on and so forth. I would have stopped at every single Mystery Spot in the United States except that Sweetie has her limits.

You get the point.

When I first read about The Rock In The House, way back when, it exerted a pull on me that was stronger than gravity. The Rock In The House lurked in my mind, popping up at odd intervals and driving me crazy until I convinced Sweetie that we should just drive up there and see it. She went along with it, doing a good job of hiding her doubts and reluctance, and we drove 4 hours to Fountain City, found the Rock In The House, went up, left our dollars where we were supposed to and looked.

It was a Rock In The House.

It was beautiful. I'd go back there again. I hope it stands forever, a monument to... well, a monument to the fact that people like me will drive long distances to look at weird things.

 

Colon by brianefp Get this custom shirt at Zazzle