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When Mom found out that henchgirl and I were going to be driving through Iowa on our way Northwest, she asked, "Are you going to show her the grotto?"
I actually hadn't considered it, but once Mom said the words, I knew it was a must. Henchgirl asked what the grotto was, and I honestly tried to describe it for a minute there before giving up and telling her to just wait and see for herself. It just has to be seen to be believed.
Truth be told, my own memories of the place are fuzzy. My brother took me there back around 1998 on my first-ever road trip, bound for Seattle (where I am now, having more or less followed that very same route; funny, that). That made description even harder, so I just held my tongue as we made our way West, the day turning quickly into night.
It looked like we would have to find a place to hunker down nearby, since surely it would be closed at this point. It was 9:30pm, after all. But still, I thought, it couldn't hurt to check their times. So I fired up ol' Mother Box and discovered that while the grotto's personnel were off and thus there were no tours or anything, the site itself was--in fact--open 24 hours! They even kept it lit until 10:30!
According to my GPS, we were an hour and five minutes away. Just enough time to miss it. That is, if I didn't gun it. Which I did.
And thus it was, at 10:05pm, that henchgirl and I arrived in West Bend, Iowa, at the Grotto of the Redemption.
( Tons of photos (some blurrier than others due to night photography issues), none of which capture the experience of seeing this place alone at night )
I actually hadn't considered it, but once Mom said the words, I knew it was a must. Henchgirl asked what the grotto was, and I honestly tried to describe it for a minute there before giving up and telling her to just wait and see for herself. It just has to be seen to be believed.
Truth be told, my own memories of the place are fuzzy. My brother took me there back around 1998 on my first-ever road trip, bound for Seattle (where I am now, having more or less followed that very same route; funny, that). That made description even harder, so I just held my tongue as we made our way West, the day turning quickly into night.
It looked like we would have to find a place to hunker down nearby, since surely it would be closed at this point. It was 9:30pm, after all. But still, I thought, it couldn't hurt to check their times. So I fired up ol' Mother Box and discovered that while the grotto's personnel were off and thus there were no tours or anything, the site itself was--in fact--open 24 hours! They even kept it lit until 10:30!
According to my GPS, we were an hour and five minutes away. Just enough time to miss it. That is, if I didn't gun it. Which I did.
And thus it was, at 10:05pm, that henchgirl and I arrived in West Bend, Iowa, at the Grotto of the Redemption.
( Tons of photos (some blurrier than others due to night photography issues), none of which capture the experience of seeing this place alone at night )
