A long time ago, I had a tattered, worn out copy of a book called "Strange Energies, Hidden Powers":
There was a chapter about pyramids and all the strange phenomena associated with them. Supposedly fruit lasted longer and razor blades got sharper inside a pyramid-shaped object. There was all sorts of other stuff I don't remember. But it made me curious, so I decided to run an experiment at the time. I made a small pyramid out of cardboard, and put the old razor I'd been shaving with inside. After several days, I took it out and shaved with it. My first thought was that it really was sharper! My second thought was that I really had no objective way to test the sharpness, so it might just be wishful thinking. Thus the result of my experiment was inconclusive.
Fast forward to earlier this year. I saw an article online about a "gold pyramid in Illinois". I'd never heard of it, and I thought it couldn't possibly be real, but I read the article anyway. And it turned out to be a real thing! In 1977, a pyramid-crazed man built a house for his family in the shape of a pyramid, and later had it plated in gold sheets. It became such a local sensation that he started offering tours of his house. I looked up where it was, and discovered it was only about 40 minutes from where we live! Crazy! I couldn't believe we'd lived here over 10 years and never heard about this before.
So I added it to the top of my to-do list, and when it was time for my birthday, I decided we should go check it out. I really didn't know what to expect, so I set my expectations fairly low. Most of the tour was actually a presentation by the son of the guy who built the house, and it turned out to be really entertaining. He talked about what it was like growing up with a pyramid-obsessed father and all the benefits and challenges they've had over the years with such an unusual house.
They also have a 3-pyramid, 4-car garage. And yes, they have a moat in front of their house (more on that later):
Even the fireplace is pyramid shaped!
The house has six floors. The first floor has a conference room and all sorts of Egyptian-themed artifacts:
There are several interesting things that happened to the family:
In the 1980's, after the house became a big sensation, the tourism branch of the Egyptian government got wind of it, called them, and said "You're getting a lot of people interested in Egypt. Why don't you start selling tours to Egypt?" So they did, and they sold a lot of them. The family got to go to Egypt a number of times, and eventually they sold so many tours that the Egyptian government allowed the family to go on a special behind-the-scenes tour where they got to see artifacts the public isn't allowed to see.
During one of the trips, the pyramid-obsessed father saw a large statue of King Ramses II, and decided he wanted one just like it. So he had one built:
It's 55 feet tall! There's an airport in a nearby town and apparently pilots really like the statue, because it's oriented due west, so it's easy to get their bearings from it.
The other crazy thing is that shortly after it was built, a natural spring appeared directly underneath their house. He said that in mythology, pyramids attract water. (I haven't tried to verify that yet.) So they rerouted some of the water and now they have a big pond for a backyard and a moat around their house. They also learned the spring water was drinkable, and due to popular demand, they've started bottling and selling it as Gold Pyramid Water.
I bought a few bottles (which are themselves shaped like pyramids), and it was pretty good. Normally I don't like water to have a taste. Their water did have a taste, but it was a good one. Apparently sometime next year it will be available to purchase in stores.
The guy did talk about some of the mysterious pyramid-power claims. He seemed to strike a good balance of not believing all the crazy claims, but also not taking history books and mainstream science as unshakable truth.
So it was worth the trip in my opinion.