My Summer Vacation To North Carolina-Part 1 the Dambo Trolls

Last fall I wrote about an adventure I had with my oldest daughter. We went to IKEA and on the way home we stopped in Wauwatosa, WI to see one of the Thomas Dambo trolls. We saw Mama Rosa and really enjoyed her. https://www.thecabincountess.com/2025/08/a-visit-to-ikea-and-mama-rosa.html 

I mentioned in that blog that I would really like to see more. Before I knew it, I got a package in the mail. It was a large hardcover book about Thomas Dambo and a history of his first 100 projects. It was exciting to read about but not as exciting as to see what came next. 

 

My youngest daughter doesn't let any moss grow under her feet. She was planning a trip for the two of us. In researching the trolls she found a whole family of them in North Carolina. What made it even better was that one of the trolls was named DUX. That is my maiden name. It was done, we were going to North Carolina.

We decided to go as soon as my daughter could get time off in the summer. That happened last week. Fortunately there is a direct flight from Appleton, WI to Charlotte, NC. The flight is only 2 hours long. The flight was around noon so we arrived about 3:00 Eastern time. We rented a car. The first troll was only a few miles from the airport so we went there before we did anything else. His name is Big Pete.

 

It is hard to see how large he really is. His big feet alone are about 7 feet long. All the trolls in North Carolina have a necklace or a symbol nearby that you have to keep track of. After you see all of them, you put the symbols in a website and that leads you to a final treasure. It is called The Grandmother's Tree. The trolls alone are a treasure but this adds a little fun game to the process.

After we saw Big Pete we found our hotel and ate. We had a big adventure ahead of us.

The next day we headed for High Point, North Carolina. High Point had a girl named Little Sally. She was located next to a deserted brick factory and was surrounded by woods. It was a wonderful setting right in the middle of town.

High Point NC was a very interesting place. It looked industrial, yet modern. There were a lot of buildings with names which we didn't recognize. Then we happened on this large chest of drawers. Apparently High Point is known for being the furniture capital of the world. It is the headquarters for many furniture companies. It also has a very fancy prestigious university. 

As we continued on our way we stopped at a couple attractions, but I will show you them in part 2 of this blog. Right now we have to get to Dix Park in Raleigh, NC. The park was named after Dorothea Dix. It's buildings and land were part of North Carolina's first state psychiatric hospital. Dix Park has a history of its own separate from having the Dambo trolls living there. Dorthea Dix was an educator and social reformer. She was an important woman who changed how mentally ill people were treated. There is a lot of information about her online. 

This park is where the rest of the family is located. The family consists of Daddy Bird Eye,  He is sitting alone in park. He is watching over the forest and protecting his family. He has really big ears so he can hear if danger is coming. The trolls don't fully trust humans so they are hidden throughout the park.

The trolls were in three separate locations in the park. It was very hot and humid in North Carolina so we drove from site to site. It could easily be walked and my daughter would have done that if I hadn't been along. Next was Mother Strong Tail. She had a very long tail that was 645 feet long. She was resting but at the end of her tail was her baby named Dix.

Daddy and Mother have two more children in the park. They are Dax and Dux. They are twins. They are playing hide and seek. Dux has his eyes covered and he's counting. He was the reason we came.

 

 

 

   

They were all unique and amazing but now we had to decipher the codes. After putting in each symbol we were given a vague idea of where The Grandmother Tree was. It wasn't as straight forward as we thought it would be. I am a bit of a quitter, but not my daughter. She is like a dog with a bone and will not give up for anything. We discovered the final "Tree" was over 10 miles away.  It was in a Nature Preserve. We drove there and started walking and walking and walking. Finally we knew we were in the right area but couldn't find the tree. We thought a Grandmother Tree would be a huge stately and solid tree. It was not. There are rules to not publish the exact spot and pictures, but I will say it was not as it seemed. Thank goodness my daughter is persistent. 

We arrived in North Carolina on a Tuesday afternoon. By Wednesday afternoon we had accomplished our mission. In part 2 of this blog, I will show you where else we went and what we saw. 

A Baraboo Adventure I Didn't Expect

My life is a feast or a famine. It's not whether or not I get food but in my activity level. I am either very busy or I have nothing to do. I guess I like it that way. At my age I need time between activities to rest and regroup. Some people thrive on constant activity but I do not. I have a need to feel a state of equilibrium and keeping just busy enough does that for me. 

Yesterday was a busy day. It started out with a story of a snake in the neighborhood. If you know, you know. If not, I will just say I had a snake to deal with but all is well. Fortunately I am not really afraid of snakes unless they are of the poisonous kind.

After I accomplished my first task of the day, I had to get ready for my next adventure. My grandson Dylan had the lead in a production at the AL Ringling theater in Baraboo WI. He has been in so many productions since he was Oliver in 7th grade and always makes me proud. He does musicals, comedies and dramas. Some I like better than others, but he always does a great job. 

 

My son in law wanted to leave a little early to go see Dylan because there was a place in Baraboo he wanted to go to. It was called Delaney's Surplus Sales. It is a store outside of Baraboo. I hadn't been there for 25 years and it wasn't a place I would choose to go, but I am the passenger and I go where the car goes. As it turned out, he was planning something else. Behind Delaney's is a place called Dr. Evermor's Sculpture Park. What an amazing experience it turned out to be.

 

Dr. Evermor's Sculpture Park is a park full of unique scrap metal art. Dr. Evermore (Tom Every) started building this park in 1983. He was a businessman and an industrial wrecker but couldn't scrap and destroy many of the designs he was hired to dismantle. He started keeping them and started building things out of the discarded items. He had a partnership with Alex Jordan who had the vision for House on the Rock in Wisconsin, but that didn't work out. If anyone has visited House on the Rock, it is also very unique. At the time of his falling out with Alex, Tom Evermor began building a huge sculpture called Forevertron. It was 50 feet tall and used 320 tons of salvage. They just bolted and welded parts of buildings, vehicles, musical instruments and a lot of different items they collected. He even got his family involved.

 

They collected so many things. 

 

 

 

There are so many different sculptures, I won't even try to show them all. If you want to see them it would be a good idea to go yourself.  The attraction is free and is right behind Delaney's Surplus Sales on Hwy. 12. Here is the website that describes many of the sculptures in detail. It is Foreverton.org 

 

This is a bird directing his bird band. The director and the band birds are made out of musical instruments.

 

 

 

 

This is a giant telescope and the Foreverton sculpture.

 

Next picture is a spider or at least I think that is what it is.

 

There are frogs and robots and a bird with a gas pump for a beak.  There are so many things to look at.

I had a full day. I got home about 10:30pm to my little grand dog named Bandit. I am taking care of him for the weekend. He and I are taking it easy. We had a little walk, some snacks and now we are just hanging out. 

 

I admit I am a wee bit tired. This morning when I went in the bedroom to make the bed and get dressed, I was greeted with this purse strap that got dropped on the floor. My reaction to it was a gasp and a small curse. I thought it was a snake. I guess I am not as brave as I want everyone to think.  

 

Chocolate Depression Cake

I am trying to limit the amount of unhealthy snacks and treats I have on hand. My logic says that if fattening snacks aren't easily available, then I would not be tempted. I was wrong. I will stop at nothing to get a treat (mostly sweet) when I get the urge. I have been know to take oyster crackers and a few chocolate chips in a bowl and eat them together. Sweet and salty takes care of that craving. Yesterday I had nothing to snack on. I didn't have any chocolate or crackers. I purposely passed them up in the grocery store but I should have just given in. Then I remembered a recipe I had made in the past. It was a chocolate Depression Cake.

Depression cakes (or War cakes) are a type of cake that originated during the Great Depression when people had limited supplies on hand. These cakes don't require eggs, milk or butter. You can make chocolate, vanilla or even a spice cake. I haven't made the spice cake but it's basically the same cake but you add cinnamon, allspice and even raisins. I made a chocolate cake but a vanilla cake can be made by leaving out the cocoa powder. The cakes rise by adding vinegar to the mixture. The vinegar reacts with the baking soda and gives it the bubbles it needs to rise just as it would with eggs. This cake makes a 8 x 8 cake or a dozen cupcakes.

Chocolate Depression Cake  

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup white sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder 

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup oil (I used avocado oil)

1 Tablespoon vinegar (I used white vinegar)

1 Teaspoon vanilla

1 cup water

There is no need for a mixer. Just mix all the dry ingredients, flour, sugar, cocoa powder,  baking soda and salt. If you want to prepare these dry ingredients in advance, you can keep them in a jar and use when you want a quick cake.

Add the oil, vinegar and vanilla to the dry ingredients. Lastly add the cup of water and stir with a spoon to combine everything together.

Grease a 8 x 8 cake pan and pour in the cake batter. Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick come out clean. It takes about 30 minutes.

When cool sprinkle with powdered sugar, top with cool whip or frost. Make frosting or just buy a can of frosting to have on hand.  

This cake was just what I needed to satisfy my sweet tooth. It mixed together quickly and didn't require many ingredients or a lot of equipment.  

Happy Easter 2026

I have a ton of cake recipes on this blog. They are only on here so I can find them easily or share with family members. It is much easier to put the name in the search box than to go into my disorganized recipe drawer and look. Most are written on a piece of an envelope or a sheet of stationery paper. My husband organized all my recipes at one point, but I am a creature of habit. I never caught onto his "system". I didn't let him throw away the originals and I still have them. Once a year he also organized the freezer but I would always forget to check off something when I used it. He is gone now and when I look at his binders of recipes, I think of how good he was at doing it and I should have tried harder. 

For Easter this year I made the usual Carrot Cake and a Chocolate Cake. 

The Carrot Cake is on the blog from December of 2014. https://www.thecabincountess.com/search?q=carrot+cake I also have the recipe from my mom written on a piece of typing paper.  Between the blog, the recipe written in red ink on stained paper and Mike's binder, I should be able to find it easily.

I also made a Chocolate Cake. I have some chocolate cakes on this blog too, but most are made by doctoring up a cake mix. I didn't have a cake mix so I made this one from scratch. It is almost as easy so that wasn't a problem. 

 I believe it was from Allrecipes.com. I googled several but this is the one I settled on. It took normal ingredients that I already had on hand.

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups white sugar

1 3/4  cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1 1/2 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

2 large eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup oil (I used avocado oil)

2 t. vanilla

1 cup boiling water

Directions:

1. Stir sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl.

2. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; mix for 2 minutes on medium speed with an electric mixer.

3. Stir in the boiling water. The batter will be thin.

4. Pour into the cake pan.

5. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 30 to 35 minutes.. 

Cool completely and frost with icing of your choice.

I made a Chocolate Butter cream frosting. 

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

1/2 cup cocoa powder

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 t. vanilla

About 2-3 T. milk 

Mix together and add the milk gradually until its the consistency you like.

I didn't want to go to the store for this recipe but I didn't have quite enough powdered sugar for the frosting. Since I sometimes make my own, I made a batch.

Powdered sugar is easy to make. It only takes two ingredients. White sugar and cornstarch. I mixed two cups of sugar and two tablespoons of cornstarch in a high speed blender. It only takes 30 seconds until it's finished. 2 cups of sugar equals about 3 1/2 to 4 cups of powdered sugar. No need to make a trip to the grocery store.

We had a very nice day today. The family was together and we had a very good meal. As old as they are my grandchildren had fun doing the traditional egg hunt without eggs. The Easter bunny hides bottles of Sprecher soda for them to find. Then they trade for their favorite flavor. They are big into traditions and this is one of them.