Thursday, October 16, 2008

Holy Land Experience


We finally did it! Nick and I finally made it up to Holy Land U.S.A. We had been planning on doing this for ages just never got around to it. I guess that's what happens when two not very self motivated people plan something. So anyway, it finally came to fruition and let me say that it was the weirdest place I have ever been. It was a cross between Jerusalem and Middle Earth.



Apparently back in the day it used to be some kind of bizarre theme park that Catholics could make a pilgrimage to, or whatever. They had like a mini-Jerusalem set on a hillside with little concrete buildings all over the place. They recreated the Temple Mount and Calvary and different scenes like that.



And I must admit that it was pretty cool, don't know if I would have paid money to go and see it, maybe just trespass and park illegally to boot.

Now the real reason why anyone knows that this place exists is because of the famous Holy Land Cross that can be seen whilst driving down I-84. It's up high on the mountain in Waterbury, and I always used to wonder what it was when I was a kid and driving by.



As you may or may not know they just newly renovated the cross. The old one, I'm told, used to light up and looked a lot junkier, but it was the original, so a lot more highly coveted. I guess that's what procrastination gets us. Anyway, we finally got to see the new one up close and personal, and it was really cool. The view from the top of the mountain was spectacular too. Waterbury actually looked like a decent place from up there.



It was just a really neat place. There were all sorts of statues in seemingly random places with writing on huge, cracked stone tablets. It really did feel as if I was in Middle Earth. I was expecting Frodo (or Steven Chadbourne in costume) to pop out at any moment.



If you want to see all my pictures that I took, the full album is on my Flickr page.

2 comments:

Kristina said...

I'm so glad you and Nick had a nice time!!! :-) The pictures came out amazing sweetie!!!

Anonymous said...

Very cool. Dad and I went there when we were first married. You are right, it was a little odd. Not sure about the illegal parking and trespassing part.... Mom