Palace of Gold

[cornerofmadness]

I went to the Palace of God in the Wheeling WV area. It was my idea. Mom was up for an adventure, dad was less thrilled. It was built by the Hare Krishnas in the 70's, hence his hesitation. It's like what's the harm? I want to see this. So we went. The northern West Virginias will know route 88 and know what a curvy narrow death trap it is but out we went.

The palace was beautiful but she is a fading beauty. The outside truly needs hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore properly. but you can't see that from the parking lot. When you go through the entrance, you can hear chanting. It's a short hike up to the palace. but I'm not sure how the Hare Krishna's ever found this place.

Once we got up there, we had about a half hour before the next tour so we walked down to the water gardens. They had some of the prettiest lotuses and there are many more where this came from but you don't need to see a half dozen water lily pictures. Have my parents instead. view from the pond.

We went back up to the palace. It was a shame that we couldn't take any photos inside (got a photo book from them but I haven't scanned those in yet) so have a few of the ones I could take.

I really liked this lion.

inside the lobby. Yes that's real gold leaf

There are 4 of these peacocks and each have a 4000 pieces of stained glass

The truly surprising things about this place, in no particular order were that they originally used 5 pounds of gold leaf including all the gold you saw on the outside though that is now just gold paint. (who couldn't foresee the gold leaf not withstanding WV winters…), that contrary to popular belief this isn't a temple. It was built by Hare Krishna devotees for a very important priest, sort of the founder of Hare Krishna in this country. But the most astonishing thing was these new converts did this all themselves. They made the forms, put in the glass, learned to cut and inlay marble which is everywhere in lotus patterns and utterly amazing. The only thing they didn't carve were the teakwood doors. The sheer amount of decoration was astounding. The women even got thread made from gold to do the needlework. Sadly, that swami never got to live here, he died before completion and it's pretty much his mausoleum (well not a crypt but you get the idea). But the idea that these devotees picked up books and taught themselves how to do this is just incredible.

Outside they have a rose garden that has won awards for years upon years. We got to meet one lady who's been caring for it for 20 years. I won't inflict the many many rose pictures (with name plates so I can go find them should I wish to) on you but I do have a few beautiful pictures to share.

Krishna temple in the garden

parentals

me in stupid socks


Just a mile down the road is a) the actual temple b) dormitory for the single worshippers to live in (in bad shape) c) rental cottages on another pond (in better shape). Another worshipper took huge clay models and made larger than life oxen, elephants and two krishnas. I've not heard of this but one of the incarnations of Krishna is a twin young men, how very interesting.

On the pond, there are real swans and then there's swan altar boat where a statue of Krishna is set and goes puttering about on the water for a day out. And there were peacocks roaming freely. Oh joy. Peacocks are mean suckers. peacocks however seem to like shade.

We did go into the temple which has a vaulted roof and the entire vault are grape-arbor stained glass panes. It was beautiful. Glimmering eyed worshipers kept inviting us to lunch with discussions. We did decline. It was an interesting and fun trip (not to mention sweaty hot)

On the way home we stopped at Cabela's sport store. They have a HUGE two wall aquarium stocked with all the fish you'll find in this area and then they have this cute guy, an albino catfish.
The funniest part was the morning before we went. Okay some wasn't funny. I had a migraine so bad I could barely sleep. I kept waking up. But around 7 I must have had to go to the bathroom since I got one of my 'pee' dreams, the ones where you just can't go in the dream for some reason. This one was great. I had to go and found a bathroom but with a huge window in it. There was a sheet of one way mirrored covering you pulled down over it. However, my travel companion wouldn't let me alone. He kept trying to see in. He was Tony Di'Nozzo from NCIS. I was apparently his new partner and you know how he can never let the probie be. He kept knocking on the door. In the background Ducky was telling me to hurry up and come see the mummy he'd found. Finally I gave up and woke up.