~ Statues and Kaleidoscopes and Hobos, Oh My! ~

When we go on vacation, we meld two very different styles of travel. I like to plan. This was especially good when the kids were young. Being near a place for the kids to get out and run off some pent up energy every two or three hours was a good idea.
Hubby likes to just go where and when the spirit moves him. The benefits of this style include finding some interesting places that we never knew existed and, when we find a place we are especially interested in, we can stay as long as we like. The opposite of that is also true. If we find a place we thought would be cool and it turns out not to be, we can move on as soon as we like.
Nowadays, I need to stop every three hours or so because my legs start to cramp up. So I make a plan, but if we feel like deviating from the plan, we have no qualms about doing so. Sometimes I feel like we lean more toward my style lately, but Hubby doesn’t complain. That’s good, but sometimes it also makes it hard to figure out if he likes the stops I choose. That is my goal, but he is woefully inadequate at making suggestions.
The last two years, we have taken four-day vacations, when lends itself perfectly to the three hour scheduled or unscheduled stops. We cover a lot of ground in those four days, which is a nod to Hubby’s style because he likes to drive, drive, drive.
When I was starting to plan this vacation, I asked Hubby where he wanted to go. He said, “Somewhere we haven’t been before.” That wasn’t a lot of help, although I did have the limitation of places we could drive to and be back in four days. So I got on the Internet and looked for suggestions of things to do in the region.
I saw the name of a town, Pocahontas, Iowa, and I thought, Who wouldn’t want to go to a place called Pocahontas? So we went there. Along the highway is a 25- or 30-foot metal statue of Pocahontas. It’s not incredibly lifelike, but you get the idea. Next to her, was a metal teepee. It was only about ten feet tall - I don’t think she would fit inside the teepee unless she was melted down.
There is also a kaleidoscope factory in the town. Some of the kaleidoscopes were the size of a telescope at an observatory. One of them was on a stand at about eye level and you turned a crank to make the colors change.
Not too far away was the National Hobo Museum. It wasn’t three hours away, but who could resist a Hobo Museum. The volunteer running the place was actually a former hobo. He did a lot of traveling, as you’d suspect, but apparently he travelled even more than most hoboes because his nickname is Been There Bill. I guess a hobo needs a nickname. All of the hoboes that were mentioned had one. Some of the nicknames even followed the people to the grave – Fry Pan Jack has a cast iron skillet on his grave. It just sits there. I guess a hobo could just borrow it and bring it back. I’m glad we weren’t camping.
Blue Earth, Minnesota, was an interesting stop. They do have something in the soil that makes blue streaks but the most interesting thing there is the 60 foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant. The sign tells you that he wears a size 78 shoe. I find myself wondering, Who makes that size of shoe? If you’ve ever seen the Jolly Green Giant, you know that he isn’t wearing Nike’s. And I thought my feet were big.
We saw so many things in the first three days, that we stopped looking for tourist sites to go to, we just looked for restrooms and food and headed straight for home. We had a really good time, but, like Dorothy observed in Oz, “There’s no place like home.”