Prepare to step into the intriguing world of Iowa as we journey through some of its hidden gems with our guest Megan Bannister from Olio in Iowa. Megan, a walking trove of fascinating facts and tales about the Hawkeye State, offers an inside look at the mystery surrounding the Black Angel statue in Iowa City and the chilling legends associated with the Roseman Covered Bridge.
Our exploration doesn't stop at folklore, as we also uncover some of the world's largest attractions that have found their home in Iowa. Hear Megan share delightful stories about Albert the Bull, the world's largest Cheeto, and the staggering 9,000-pound popcorn ball. Delve into unique cultural fiestas such as the National Balloon Classic and the vibrant arts scene in Mason City.
By the end of our chat with Megan, you'll look at the often underestimated state of Iowa with fresh eyes. From the world's largest Swedish coffee pot and cup to iconic historical landmarks, Iowa's charm lies in its quirks and captivating tales. So, buckle up, press play, and let's discover the wonders of the Hawkeye State together!
Prepare to step into the intriguing world of Iowa as we journey through some of its hidden gems with our guest Megan Bannister from Olio in Iowa. Megan, a walking trove of fascinating facts and tales about the Hawkeye State, offers an inside look at the mystery surrounding the Black Angel statue in Iowa City and the chilling legends associated with the Roseman Covered Bridge.
Our exploration doesn't stop at folklore, as we also uncover some of the world's largest attractions that have found their home in Iowa. Hear Megan share delightful stories about Albert the Bull, the world's largest Cheeto, and the staggering 9,000-pound popcorn ball. Delve into unique cultural fiestas such as the National Balloon Classic and the vibrant arts scene in Mason City.
By the end of our chat with Megan, you'll look at the often underestimated state of Iowa with fresh eyes. From the world's largest Swedish coffee pot and cup to iconic historical landmarks, Iowa's charm lies in its quirks and captivating tales. So, buckle up, press play, and let's discover the wonders of the Hawkeye State together!
It was so congealed that it didn't do anything. It flew into the air and, like fell back down and broke apart into like a couple of chunks.
Joshua:Do you love the outdoors?
Craig:Do you love to travel?
Joshua:Do you love finding hidden treasures in towns all over the USA? Hi, I'm Joshua.
Craig:And I'm Craig, and welcome to Treasures of Our Town, the podcast that takes you on a journey to explore the unique and charming towns scattered throughout the United States.
Joshua:Join us as we venture into some of the country's most intriguing destinations, uncovering hidden gems and local secrets along the way.
Craig:On today's episode, josh, we're going to chat again with a special guest. This is part two. Part two with Megan from the Iowa and all the secrets that she's she's going to let release to us.
Joshua:You know what? She had so many secrets about Iowa. It could not be, it could not be contained in one episode.
Craig:Well, no because we try to, we try to keep our episodes to an hour, but we we never really do.
Joshua:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so we're going back to Iowa and we have an episode filled with value. You're going to learn about some stuff.
Craig:Oh, wow.
Joshua:That you've never heard of before.
Craig:Yeah.
Joshua:My gut is is that this is going to make you very interested in doing a little week long maybe adventure, two weeks maybe throughout the great state of Iowa, the Hawkeye State.
Craig:And again, josh, what you said in last episode as well, when you said that it's a flyover state, I can. I get it now. You don't really hear you of Iowa on the map per se, but now, after, after speaking with Megan as well, and if you want this, don't forget guys as well, if you want this, not just audio, but visually as well, she does have a couple of books that are out now, that have been released out now and that are available, and links are in the show notes for her books as well. Some of these things, josh, incredible, and we only touch the surface. We only got 10 out of the 84.
Joshua:Yes, 84 destinations in her book. And the thing I love about Megan and this is the the, the hook to make sure you listen to this whole episode Not only does she like know about these places, she's been there and she's done the research. You're going to hear some of the history behind why some of these places exist.
Craig:Exactly, exactly, and she's not reading out of the book itself. She's going off her memory. She's been there, she's done that and she's written the book.
Joshua:Yeah, she's literally written the book. Yeah, iowa, exactly. And so, without further ado, let's just jump in with Megan Bannister from Olio in Iowa.
Craig:He went back, josh, and this is episode or part two, I should say of talking to Megan from Olio in Iowa. Megan, thank you for joining us again for a part two. It took so long after the first one and you know me, I'm a stickler for time as well, so we've got to get into more of these big things, secret things, all about Iowa, josh.
Joshua:Oh, this show is so big, it's like this. This podcast is like a big thing. Now, because I don't think we have a big thing. I don't think we have ever had two episodes dedicated to one interview, but Megan has so much great information about the great state of Iowa, the Hawkeye state, not the Cyclone state, just saying.
Craig:So, megan, thanks so much for joining us for part two as well. Just quickly, if you haven't heard part one, go back and listen to part one. Or if you don't want to, megan, just tell us quickly about yourself, just quickly.
Megan:Yeah, thanks for having me back. So I'm a freelance writer, a blogger, an author, based in Des Moines, iowa, and I like to write about all of the weird, wacky, kind of wonderful and obscure things you can find around Iowa, midwest and even further.
Craig:Perfect, perfect. And you've written two books, as we spoke about in the last episode as well the Supper Club and also now Secret Iowa, which is now released. And, josh, now's the cutoff time as well for our patrons. If you're not a patron by now, you're going to miss out.
Joshua:You're going to miss out on actually obtaining one of these books from us, like one of our patrons is going to win a book, but if you don't win, you should go buy one. Yeah, that's right. Everybody should go buy this book.
Megan:I'm going to go buy one.
Joshua:I'm really excited about it. We talked a lot about awesome things. Now Megan, she is an expert. I'm just going to say it. She is an expert. It's very clear, based on the first episode with Megan, she's an expert on all things Iowa, secret, iowa. But you know what, craig? I said it before. I was born in Iowa. Craig, I know things about Iowa, I know some things. So actually on the last episode, I taught Megan about something, a secret about Pete Shorty's oh that's right Shorty's which is a national chain.
Joshua:There's only two locations, but it's a chain based on a little dive bar in Clarksville, Iowa. So I want to add a question that's not on the show notes. One of my most interesting locations is the crash site of Buddy Holly just outside Clear Lake, Iowa. Craig, do you know about this?
Craig:No, I know about Buddy Holly's crash site. I don't know.
Joshua:Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, richie Valens. They did their last show at the surf ballroom in Clear Lake, iowa, and they crash in a field and you can actually visit in the middle of the field, the crash site. And the cool thing is the trail where it begins is a pair, a giant pair, of Buddy Holly glasses.
Craig:Oh, that's really cool, that's sweet but cool.
Joshua:Megan, I assume you've been here.
Megan:You've been to the location I have yes, I've been out to the crash site and then to the surf ballroom quite a few times and they actually every year. One of my things that I'm hoping to get to next year is so. They were performing as part of the Winter Dance Party with the tour that they were on. It was in February and they every year at the surf ballroom still do a Winter Dance Party where they have like era-appropriate music and people dress up and they have a day that all of the school kids go on a field trip and do a sock hop, which is very cute. But, yeah, you can go and learn about the history and go to your own Winter Dance Party and pay your respects to the day the music died.
Joshua:Yes, you know that song, craig Don McLean. Bye-bye, miss.
Megan:America.
Joshua:That's based on yeah, yeah, I can't sing the day the music died.
Craig:Yes, Well, they did make a movie about it as well.
Joshua:I remember the movie Well there have been several movies the Buddy Holly story, then La Bamba.
Craig:I've actually talked about it, la Bamba. Yeah, I saw La Bamba.
Joshua:Yeah, which is both great movies.
Craig:Gary.
Joshua:Busey. I almost would say Gary Busey might be a better Buddy Holly than Buddy Holly. Like he was great, I think he won an Academy Award for a Buddy Holly. He actually sang in that movie.
Megan:Wow, that's very good Wow.
Joshua:And I believe. Tell me if I'm wrong, megan, maybe you know this. Did they record that scene in the actual surf ballroom? Ooh, that he doesn't know. Or the Buddy Holly story? Yeah, I don't know either that. I don't know, oh, look at that.
Craig:We've stumped it, Josh.
Megan:We've stumped her about the secrets of Iowa in Iowa.
Joshua:I have to ask my clearly gal Is the crash site in the book, or is that one of the ones you left?
Megan:out. It is yeah that one is in the book. Okay.
Craig:But we did speak about in the last episode. We spoke about five out of the her ten favorites, megan's ten favorites, so we're going to speak now of the next five. There's five more to go, josh, yes, and I'll go straight away on. The next one itself Is the Ida Grove castles. In Ida Grove there are castles. Josh just came back from Germany and he said there's no castles in the US.
Megan:Oh yeah. So these, these are a little bit quirky castles. So there was a man who was a local in Ida Grove who decided and it's a, I think, probably like 2000 person town, so it's pretty rural, I'm not super small, but smaller side and he owned like a fabrication company called Midwest Industries and decided that he, you know, wanted, instead of having your normal company buildings like you would have. He was a history buff, he really loved castles and so he decided he was going to make his office buildings castles instead of just your normal run of the mill buildings. And so he decided, like medieval style, 12th century was the directive, and so he made the first ones which were like some private office buildings that are all like castle shaped. And then it kind of took off because people he noticed that like wow, people are stopping and they think this is kind of cool. And so the whole town kind of adopted it and so there's a shopping plaza that's a castle.
Megan:And the skating rink is a castle, like a giant white castle, the little like signs. When you enter the town they have like a little like almost a tower with like the corner piece that you would find like a style fort that has like Ida Grove on it there's their newspaper offices, or a castle there's like a giant drawbridge on their golf course. So the whole town has really leaned into the castle, tell me, tell me, they're fast food joints.
Craig:Are they all white castles, or is McDonald's there as well?
Megan:Actually we don't have white castle. Oh, look, at that my knowledge.
Joshua:Yeah, they're pretty rare. We only have a few in the Twin Cities here.
Megan:Yeah, you can find you have to go to the Chicago land area for that.
Joshua:There you go. Oh my gosh, Megan, I'm just looking at pictures of this. I did not know this existed and you know what?
Megan:Craig, I just had an idea so Megan on my YouTube channel.
Joshua:I'm the Geocaching Vlogger on YouTube. I do Geocaching adventures and I, every year, every couple of years, I do a series called Cash Tour, where I select a location, I do a series of videos on that one location. So I've done. I've done the Pacific Northwest, I've done Brazil, I've done Alaska, I've done Germany. I think it would be hilarious, craig, if the next cash tour I just I use Megan's book and my next cash tour is just going around to all these things that I want.
Megan:Yeah, that'd be fun.
Joshua:I thought I could come with you then too.
Megan:Yeah, let me know, Meet up. I bet a lot of them have. I know there's a good handful that have geocache locations or, if they're not on the thing, they're very close by oh yeah, so maybe coming soon.
Joshua:Cash tour, season five I know.
Craig:Well, josh, just to let you know, I'm actually looking at some of the photos too, now as well. The Skate Palace is incredible. The Skate Palace.
Megan:I was like we have to come back to see it. Okay, I got, I got to look at that.
Craig:You got to look at the Skate Palace, josh. I just looked at the photos Just to let people know who listen, who listen to yourself. It's a white, full-on white castle itself and it has, on the top, pyramid or corner parts as well. It's all. They're all orange or red colored, of course. It's got the American flag at the front and it's got Skate Palace in black. Like you know, cursive writing written across the front. It looks beautiful. I think it's got a nice two nights out the front as well.
Joshua:Yeah, and the Statue of Liberty is out front too. Yeah, it's fine, now I don't. People don't know this about me, but I'm a pretty avid roller skater. Did you know that about me, Craig?
Craig:No, I didn't.
Joshua:I actually own a pair of quad speed skates because I'm a child of the 80s, like that's. That was my babysitter when I was a child and I actually, I actually practice with the Twin Cities Terrors roller derby men's roller derby team. Oh, wow, wow, and it got a little bit too hard on my body. So I'm always up for a great roller skating rink. So I'm going to go to the Skate Palace, and that'll be a great episode on my YouTube channel for sure. Absolutely, absolutely Fantastic.
Craig:All right Things. We see the things we see so good.
Joshua:I'm going to ask this now in case I forget Megan, in your book Secret Iowa, is there like in the back? Is there a? Is there like a map that has like little of all the 84 places, of all the locations?
Megan:So there is not in the book, but I am also that visual person and I like to be able to say, like, what things are nearby that I can. So I do have one created that I'm going to be putting on my website, so you lost access Because Geocashers in particular, we love checking off boxes.
Joshua:So, you know a geocacher would listen to this, or anybody. But geocachers, we just love the sense of completion. Yes, they're going to, they're going to get your book and they're going to be like check, did that one? And that there's going to be great pride in getting all 84 locations.
Megan:And for sure.
Joshua:And I don't know if you have this on your blog, but it would be an awesome idea to take these 84 locations. Maybe you've done this or thought of this. Take the 84 locations and make road trips based on the different areas.
Megan:You know what I mean.
Joshua:So like oh, you can hit these 10 in, you know in three days. Yeah, yeah, just, it would be really great to couple them together to really just have yeah kind of help people with their planning if they want to indeed hit all 84 locations.
Megan:That's a great idea.
Craig:I like that. I like that. But just to let people know as well, obviously the links to Megan's website are in the show notes as well. So yeah, and updates from there. So next one you have on your list, megan is the Black Angel of Oakland Cemetery.
Megan:This is another fun like spooky folklore.
Craig:And I'm looking at photos, Josh. It is very, very spooky. It is very spooky.
Megan:It's been fun since the book will be out, like just in time for Halloween kind of coming up with all the spooky spots from the book, because there's a good list. But this one is in Iowa City in a cemetery that's pretty close to Iowa City's downtown and it is actually a grave marker from like the early 1900s, and so there is a family that fell diverse, I can never say it correctly but she, the mother Teresa, moved to Iowa City with her son. He passed away, and so if you're looking at the photos there's the big kind of Black Angel statue, but then to the side of that there's a smaller like tree stump monument that she had created for him, and then her second husband, 10 or 12 years later, also passed away, and so that's when she had the Angel commissioned and it originally was like not the creepy black patina but because of the Iowa weather and what it was made from because it was a bronze statue.
Megan:It oxidized really quickly and so that gives it some of its ominous look, but it is like a larger than human life size bronze angel with like an arm and giant wings extended and she's got kind of like a downcast face that gives sort of a creepy energy.
Craig:She's kind of looking down to her right and she's looking over that other grave or the other monument part which looks like a tree stump, but then she's got her right arm and wing like hovered over the top of it to try and like cover the tree stump, but the other one's just down below beside it. So it's really a weird looking strange type thing, whereas, yes, like a mother covering her child, that's what gives it that little sort of? Down feeling to.
Megan:Yes, and then so naturally because it has kind of an ominous feeling to it. There's lots of local folklore about what happens. And so there's stories of you know, like if you, if you kiss the black angel at midnight on Halloween, you turn to stone or struck dead, or you know all of the college town folklore.
Craig:Again, only only in America. Got a lot of flame candle.
Megan:But yeah, so that is a good one to add to your spooky list. And there was actually. I don't think it ever got produced, but for a while somebody was working on like a Blair Witch style.
Craig:Scary movie about it. I don't think anything ever came. That could be your 2024 Halloween video, Josh. Yeah, we can do this, no for sure.
Joshua:It's actually a beautiful statue. I'm looking at it right now.
Megan:Yes, and like the detailing, some of her fingers have gotten snapped off over the years and it's there's been some vandalism. I think the last time I was there she had on like bright red lipstick, but of course it's a very pretty statue.
Joshua:It's a college town. So that's not surprising, and I just want to encourage people. If you are listening to this podcast at home or at work, this it's going to be enhanced if you Google some of this stuff.
Craig:Yeah.
Joshua:Google some of the images of this If you're not worried about having it spoiled. But it's a beautiful statue. It really is All right. We have another movie. We have another movie location, craig. So in the last episode we did talk about the field of dreams. Yeah, if you build it. I'm guessing that's the voice of Kevin Costner. That's my guess.
Megan:Megan Okay.
Joshua:In the last episode, megan did share with us that nobody knows the director had never revealed the. Who was the voice actor that said that if you build it, they will come. It just seems, it seems appropriate that if it's like this godlike creature, that he would speak in the voice of the person that's listening. So I'm guessing that it's Kevin Costner. There you go.
Craig:That's just unofficial. Unofficial, that's my assessment.
Megan:Anyway, I digress.
Joshua:The next movie takes place in in. Iowa is the romantic drama Bridges of Madison County. Craig, have you seen?
Craig:this movie. I have and I've seen this iconic covered bridge that you're talking about.
Joshua:So there's several right.
Craig:Oh, there is.
Megan:There is oh yeah, there are multiple bridges of Madison County, so the Roseman covered bridge is like the the main one, that is like the centerpiece of the bridges of Madison County story and was used prominently in the filming. So this is one that actually was very much filmed in in Winterset and Madison County, iowa, which is just like 35 40 minutes from Des Moines, so really really close if you're in the Des Moines metro, but there are actually six remaining covered bridges of Madison County that you can.
Craig:What's, what's the history? Why did they have to have the bridges covered in the area? This is a question I have.
Megan:I think it's honestly just like a building style, because New England has some too. They are definitely like more picturesque than your standard bridge and a lot of them are. A lot of them have been rebuilt. There's been a couple that have been vandalized over the years, but like 18, mid 1800s, like late 1800s, 1870s, 1880s, so very much the and it might have been like a weather thing to like trying to protect because a lot of them are wood, so trying to protect the, the actual integrity part of the bridge by covering it.
Megan:So it's not covered with snow or kind of exposed to some of those elements. But yeah, the Roseman covered bridge is definitely the most iconic one, because of both the book and movie British and Madison County, and then it also is the one that has the haunted backstory to it.
Craig:We like that, we like haunted.
Megan:Yeah, there's a lots of local stories about people hearing, so there's only I believe there's only one that you can still drive across with a car. All the other ones have been closed to car traffic and are like foot bridges only where you can kind of park and walk across if you want. But lots of local stories for this one of people hearing like horse hooves or wagon meals or just having like very weird experience, like very weird cold spots, dogs not wanting to walk across the bridge, that type of a thing. But the main story for this one was that there was a Actually there's two stories. There is a man who had escaped the county jail that is in Winterset and the sheriffs were pursuing him and he ran across the bridge and they had him like trapped on the bridge and the legend is that he rose through the roof of the bridge with like a wild scream and completely disappeared.
Megan:And so then the thing from that was like they never found him and decided like anyone who could do that was probably innocent.
Craig:So it was probably fine, I think. I think there's law enforcement back in the day covering their own tracks, but anyway, yes. And then the other.
Megan:the other piece of folklore is a young suitor whose father of his love interest did not like him and chased, tried to chase him out of town with the help of some other local Men, and when he rode on his horse across the bridge they never saw him come out the other side. Wow that story goes Wow. But yeah yeah, a very picturesque place, a fun one if you're like a person who likes to visit movie sites, and also a little bit spooky.
Craig:So so, from movie sites we now go to the weird stuff again, because I'm going to number number nine on your list. You've got matchstick marbles at Gladbrook and I've just Googled it and it's Josh. It's incredible.
Megan:Isn't it cool? Yeah, you got to look at it. You got to look it up, so tell us about the magic Marvel's.
Megan:Yeah, so matchstick marbles is a will call it a museum. So it is a, an Iowa based artist who works exclusively in matchsticks and so he started doing this. It's been like more than 40 years now. He's been doing this for quite some time, I think, like the count of matchsticks he's glued together is like in the almost 10 million, like eight to 10 million. My favorite piece of information I learned is that for a really long time he didn't know that you could get matchsticks without the striking ends on them. You can just buy the sticks.
Megan:I was cutting them off to make his sculptures and then realized like I don't need to be doing this, but he makes insane, insane models from matchsticks. He has like the Hogwarts Castle from Harry Potter. There's a scale model of the US Capitol he's made like I know.
Craig:I know Josh's favorite. I know Josh's favorite straight away. I can see it right here. Josh, you're in amazement. I know what. I know what you're looking at.
Joshua:You're looking at the back to the future. Are you looking at?
Megan:the back to the future one.
Craig:With the clock tower and he's got the hand model. He's got a model of the actual DeLorean as well, the full clock tower.
Megan:Some of them are on display at Matchstick Marbles in Iowa. A lot of them are actually on display at different locations around the world. You can find some in Replies, believe it or not, in North America and across the globe. I think that there's quite a few that have been acquired by other collections like that too. They're not all in Iowa but he does like a big one that he adds to the collection every year. I think the most recent one, I think was the Mars Rover.
Craig:It's almost full size replica of the Mars Rover. It's a real one to one replica of the Mars Rover, the cars are usually scaled down in Matchstick.
Megan:They had a dragon that actually lights up and had components that moved, which was insane. They're so impressive. It's one of those things. Gladbrook is a tiny, tiny town. They're so, so cool.
Joshua:We just need to go through a couple of these.
Craig:I got the list right in front of me.
Joshua:You're right, megan. The Mars Rover the 2020 Mars Rover is one Fun fact. There's a geocaching connection there. If you're a geocacher, you know there's a geocache thing on the actual Rover on Mars right now. Fun fact, that's a different show Apollo 11, lander, this one. This was the first one that caught my attention. The Millennium Falcon, like it's huge, it's not at the museum, but this is one of the ones he created Fast and furious. Dodge Charger.
Craig:And that's got lights inside it too. I'll say that one.
Joshua:I'm just going down the list. Harry Potter, hogwarts that is not at the museum, but that's what he's created. That one is really cool. The United States Capitol is there. There's lots of stuff connected to Iowa. It's interesting. The governor's mansion is there. The Sullivan Brothers, the USS Sullivan which Sullivan Brothers were, I believe, military that died in the war their ship is there. This is just wow.
Craig:And just everyone's information as well. There is an admission fee for the museum. It's $5 for adults $5 for kids, and if you're under five it's free.
Megan:And I do think it's cash only. Yeah, cash only.
Craig:And I mostly open seven days a week from 1 to 5 pm, so only in the afternoon. So there you go.
Joshua:Where is Gladbrook Megan?
Megan:Gladbrook is like northeast of Des Moines but not quite to Cedar Rapids Iowa City area, so north of Haiti, but yeah.
Craig:Very cool, we have one more of your.
Joshua:We're calling it top 10, but it's sort of randomized because you got to get the book to really get a sense of all of them. The Billy Clocks Museum in Spillville.
Megan:Yeah, tell us about that. That one is up by Decora, so in northeast Iowa, and it's the Beely Brothers. Oh, beely Franklin Joseph.
Craig:Beely.
Megan:And they were in like the early 1910, so they were farmers and during the winter needed a hobby, and so they decided that they would get into wood carving because they had the supplies for that and figured they might as well. And so they already had a carpentry background, started doing these wood carvings and were just really natural talents at it. And so in like I want to say it was like 1915, 1916, they created this giant clock. They did a lot of clocks is after they started making figures.
Megan:They moved on to clocks and they would make all of the clock mechanisms and then also the clock faces, and we're talking like life-size, like seven to eight foot tall clocks, not like, oh, a tiny cuckoo clock on the wall. But, they made one that is called the apostle clock, where all of the 12 apostles appear on the hour. So it has like a rotary mechanism where they rotate through.
Megan:They made like an American history clock. They made a memorial clock for Charles Lindbergh. Like they made some really incredible pieces and both of these men had never traveled I won't forget the exact, but like more than 20 miles from their home, had like a grade school education, like were just really really talented craftsmen and so they never sold any of their clocks. They did start having people come out to their farm to see them and this is in like the early 1900s. They're having like 1,000 people a day drive to this remote part of rural Iowa to see where they were working and what they had made. They never wanted to sell any of their clocks. They tried oh, I'm absolutely blanking on who tried to buy one. So you'll have to get the book to see.
Joshua:Let's just make up a name. Oh, I did remember.
Megan:But this notable business owner tried to buy one of their clocks for like a million dollars and they wouldn't sell it to him.
Joshua:Oh, that's so, that's so Iowa.
Megan:And so they have this giant collection, decided to move it to Spillville and donated it to the town of Spillville, with the stipulation that they always remain there and that they be available for the public to enjoy. In the 1940s, and they've been there ever since. So you can go and see these really incredible clocks. Yeah, yeah, I mean truly, truly, like you could stand and stare at one of them for an hour. They're so detailed.
Craig:They are incredible, Josh. Again, if you're sitting at your computer at work, whatever, and you've got some time and you're listening to us here, Google the, not Billy, it's only one L. So, B-I-L-I Billy Clocks Museum in Spillville. Absolutely incredible some of these ones. So that's your just 10 out of the 84 locations and already.
Joshua:I want the book, I want the book.
Craig:Craig, you're salivating, josh You're salivating. I want the book, but we don't just talk about just the weird and wonderful things in Iowa. We're going to talk about the big things in Iowa as well, which is one of Josh's favorites.
Joshua:So there's the world's largest things in Iowa. Yes, and if you follow Megan on Instagram, she has a special feature every week. It is called World's Largest Wednesday. Oh, yeah. She features a world's largest thing every.
Megan:Wednesday yeah, that started as a kind of is like a little joke. I am not a video person, I'm a words person. But I think, like a lot of people, was a consumer of TikTok during the pandemic and this is a whole nother tangent but my husband and I eloped and did all of Route 66 and then eloped at the end.
Joshua:And as we were, planning it.
Megan:We were like I was looking for things to do, places to stop, and realized there wasn't a ton of Route 66 content on TikTok at the time and he was like, well, you could do that. Like why don't you just do that? And so I started a travel TikTok just for fun and started doing World's Largest Wednesday. And it took a couple weeks until one of them like really blew up and I opened it one day and it was like we showed this to 3.5 million people and I was like what have you done TikTok? So I've been doing them for more than a year and a half now and, yeah, every Wednesday we talk about a World's Largest thing somewhere. So far they've been like continental US because it's been all of the ones that I have been to, but it's like 30 to 45 seconds just talking about these giant things you can see around the country.
Megan:And it has been funny, the ones that people are like contentious about. Like that first one was the World's Largest Ketchup Bottle in Collinsville, illinois, so like just outside St Louis on Route 66. And people were very upset that it is a water tower and it is not actually filled with ketchup, and so that was very funny. But then there were people that were like, where is your sense of whimsy? The World's Largest Ketchup Bottle is probably from Costco and like this is very fun.
Megan:And so I'm like by all means. So it's always a lively discussion.
Craig:So, josh, you've got the list there in front of us right now. Just a small list, by all means, but which one stands out the most to you? That we spoke about off air beforehand? I think, the second one down. Yes, the second one down.
Joshua:But that's not the first one that popped up to me, because I've been to the first one on her list, because my great grandma lived in this town in Audubon, iowa. I visited this and this is so cool because we had Valerie from Silly America.
Megan:Do you know, valerie? Yeah, I do. We actually had been internet friends for years and years. We grew up really close to each other and then this year we actually got to meet. Now that she lives in Texas, I was down there for work, and so we got together and it was an absolute blast.
Joshua:Yeah, we had her on the show to talk about the big things. And what she mentioned. We asked her like what is your fascination with roadside attractions and big things? And she hearkened back to when she was a child and the first time she saw a big thing and for me, the very first World's Largest thing that I ever saw was Albert the Bull, the world's largest bull in Audubon Iowa.
Joshua:So I feel like you. On your social media you feature Albert a lot. Even when you're not talking about Albert, you show a picture of Albert. Let's talk a little bit about Albert, the World's Largest Bull.
Megan:Yes, I have a big slap spot for Albert too, and I know we talked about this last episode, but it is very funny. My grandparents in law are in Audubon, so we got there quite a bit as well. But yeah, he is number one, just very cute. He is actually on the cover of the new book as well because we just had to be on a special spot.
Megan:But that part of Iowa had a really prominent cattle industry still does and so they decided they wanted to pay tribute to that somehow. And so they did that by making Albert the Bull in the 1960s. And we're saying he's big, he's like 30 feet tall and has, I think he weighs like 45 tons. He's like concrete wrapped or like chicken wire wrapped in steel, wrapped in concrete. But yeah, it's just such a fun nod to the local industry, kind of what that area is about. And then he also has had quite the illustrious time in pop culture. So he was mentioned in one of the Beethoven movies. He's been an answer to.
Megan:Jappardy. Somebody told me recently and I had to go through and double check he is in the Twilight movie. There is a moment where she has a t-shirt quilt that her mom has made her and there is an Albert the Bull t-shirt on the t-shirt quilt, which is just a really funny nod. But yeah, he's a really great one. And if you're traveling, especially if you're traveling across Iowa on I-80, which I think is a lot of the way that people interact with Iowa sometimes Audubon is like 20 minutes north off of I-80 on an exit. So it's a very cute town named for John James Audubon of the Audubon Society. So there's lots of good bird facts and knowledge there.
Megan:But then you can also stop and see Albert and take a photo with him.
Joshua:Does Albert still talk? I remember as a child you went to the kiosk and you pressed the button and you learned all about stuff.
Megan:Yes, it talks, you can hear him moo, and they actually just added a. So the cattle industry was really tied to the rail line, so they would load all these cattle onto the rails and ride with them into Chicago to the slaughter yards, and that was like a big economic boom for the community, and so they added a replica rail car with a lot of historical pictures and information to the side of him. And this summer I was up there for a different event for work, and they actually just got the penny press machine with Albert the Bull on it. So if you're a person that likes to press penny.
Megan:You can get one with him, his front or his backside, which I thought was very funny.
Craig:You Americans, you love your press pennies. He, he, yeah, so.
Joshua:Craig, he does. He is certainly a bull.
Megan:He is not a cow if you know what I mean.
Craig:But I actually have a video.
Joshua:I actually have a video. This is a very early geocaching vlog or video, like 2011, where I visit Albert the Bull, so we'll have to put that in the show notes. You can see my visit to Albert many, many years ago.
Craig:We have one of the biggest things as well, and I think it's the world's biggest as well, in Australia, and it's the sheep or a ram. And yeah, it's in the middle of my old state in New South Wales and it's probably twice the size of your bull. Just to let you know, it is humongous. And again, if you go to the backside it is a ram. Just saying, I've got photos of me standing underneath holding these two big things above my head, so yeah, I know right, I know.
Craig:Going on to the next one, though, josh, I've just Googled this one.
Joshua:I can't believe this. No, I.
Craig:Googled it. I Googled it. Guess what? It's a real one.
Joshua:It's real, I believe it. But here's the thing. Now. I'm getting to the point now, megan, where I'm feeling like I'm not going to Google anything because it's going to spoil it for me. No, it doesn't. It's the world's largest cheeto. What?
Megan:Yeah, it's an Iowa, it is an actual cheeto.
Craig:And it's an actual cheeto Josh.
Megan:It is, yes, it was found in a bag of cheetos in Hawaii in 2003. And it is so for visual reference. Your normal bag of cheetos is a little over two ounces. This cheeto is more than half an ounce, just for one cheeto, so it's pretty big. It's a little bit bigger than a silver dollar.
Megan:It got to Iowa because it was not found here, it got here because the guy who did find it put it on eBay as an auction and apparently you cannot auction like similarly to like the toast with the face of Jesus. You can't auction food on eBay. I guess it is against their rules. And so they shut it down, but it had already gotten over. The bid was over $1 million and there was a it's in Algona, iowa, which is a small town in northern Iowa, but there was a local radio DJ who wanted to try to bring it to Iowa, and so the guy who found it had seen that and he had raised a little bit of money, and so the guy who with the cheeto was like you know what I think this is really funny Decided to send it to Algona, donate the money to the local food pantry, and they got the cheeto, and so then it needed a place to live, obviously, and so it popped around for a little bit and then one of the local restaurants took it and that restaurant closed and got new owners and with some of the restaurant equipment and things in the restaurant they inherited the world's largest cheeto.
Megan:And so if you go to Emeralds which is a really great restaurant in and of itself, but if you go to Emeralds, it is on a purple velvet pillow there's like a blown, an orange-blown glass like pedestal, and it is on a purple velvet pillow under a glass case, like in their bar area.
Megan:So if you're there and you can't find it, you can ask one of the servers. They will begrudgingly tell you where it is.
Craig:And I've even seen photos, Josh, where they dress it up with a little Santa hat, obviously at Christmas time as well yeah, sometimes it is seasonal, but it definitely it's seen better days.
Megan:I think it's getting a little crumbly. Yeah, yeah, and.
Craig:Megan, just to let you know as well. I did Google it up and one of the first things to pop up was your TikTok saying largest Wednesday, world's largest Wednesday. So there you go, yeah there you go.
Joshua:So here's the thing.
Craig:It kind of blows my mind because you know what I was picturing like a statue a giant Cheeto I wasn't expecting that actual real Cheeto, a lot of them are statues of things, but this one, no, it's a real Cheeto, but I Googled it, josh, and there is a statue of like three fingers holding a big Cheeto. But I don't know where that is. Yeah, there's a Canada, it's in Alberta which is also pretty epic.
Joshua:It's called the Cheeto hand and it's a statue. So that's what I was picturing in my mind, but it's really funny that it's actually a real Cheeto.
Craig:Yeah, yeah. So next on the list, Megan, we have the world's largest golden spike. Like a golden spike.
Megan:Yes, so this one is a like a railroad spike. Oh, and so it is in Council Bluffs. So if you're seeing the squirrel cage tail that we talked about previously, you can also stop and see this one, but it is at the, the terminus of the transcontinental railroad that ended there in Council Bluffs in the 1860s, and so they use this like ceremonial golden spike to finish the railroad.
Megan:And so they decided why not build a 56 foot tall one instead to to really hammer that home? And part of that story is that there was the movie Union Pacific was premiering in Omaha and Council Bluffs in Omaha have a little bit of a cross state rivalry, and because Council Bluffs is actually where the railroad terminus is, they decided they were going to remind people of that, that even though they didn't have the premier, that they were actually the site, and so they built this giant golden spike in the 1930s just to be like this.
Craig:And just just let you know it is golden and it is giant, and it is sitting there proud as proud as punch, with the spike side up as well.
Megan:Yes, spikes.
Joshua:And my understanding is that a golden spike is a pretty common practice for anything that's like the halfway point right Of even roads, because in southern Minnesota, I 90 in blue earth Minnesota, is the golden spike for the I 90, which I 90, of course, goes all the way across the United States, so very close to the Jolly Green Giant statue, which is also also one of my favorite big things as well. So let's, let's keep moving here.
Joshua:Yeah it's largest man made grotto and I am seeing pictures of this. This is really fascinating, Megan, maybe for listeners first of all, maybe explain what a grotto is. Yeah so talk about this one.
Megan:It is in West Bend, iowa. It's the grotto of the redemption, and if you're not familiar, a grotto is essentially like a man made there's. There's not man made grotto, so that's like more of a cave, but a man made grotto is like a kind of like a shrine, a little bit like a mosaic, a lot of times using a lot of different stones, and sometimes they are. They're usually religiously affiliated in some way, similar to this one, and so this one has been called the Eighth Wonder of the World, but started construction in like the early 1910s and took multiple people to complete it over like almost 100 years. So it was a really extensive process, but was started by a German immigrant who got assigned to the Catholic Church in West Bend and started building it, and people have no idea how long he was collecting stones and the gems that you'll find here, like before he started building.
Megan:Yeah but they're estimating and this is probably even an old estimate because they don't want to talk about the value, but like more than four million dollars in stones and gems are used. And so it's. I mean, it's very beautiful. It has different. I think it has all of the stations of the cross and then like a lot of different areas and different mosaic elements and things, but they see like more than 100,000 visitors every year just to see Wow.
Craig:Well, so the only grotto, the only grotto that I've seen is actually on one of Josh's videos in Memphis. Josh, you went to a grotto there in Memphis, but this cemetery. Yeah, this one looks much, much bigger.
Megan:Yeah, there's another. Go ahead, Josh.
Joshua:Go ahead Bill.
Megan:There's a, there's another one, I believe there's a near Omaha. There's a small grotto and then there's also one just across the border from Dubuque into Wisconsin and Dickeyville. That is a not quite as big as this one, but is a similar grotto.
Joshua:And they're almost like it's like caves. I'm sure there's like little different rooms that you go into. The one in Memphis is just one room, but this one, I think, is just like a lot to explore.
Megan:Yes, yeah, it's very big.
Joshua:Very cool, and that's in Northern Iowa.
Megan:Yeah, west Bend, and like Northwest Iowa.
Joshua:Yes, very good.
Craig:Well, the next one, Josh, on the list is the world's. The world's I've Googled this already the world's largest poker hunters. Yeah, and it's surprising in this day and age that surprising this day and age that this one's still up, just to saying just, it is still up, yeah.
Megan:This is an interesting one, particularly because so she's in the town of poker harness, iowa If you're scratching your head, because the actual poker harness number came to Iowa. That is correct. So the state senator who was living in that area at the time was formerly from Virginia and so he thought that that would be a really good. It's also in poker harness County. He thought that that would be a really good name for his county and so he proposed that in like the mid 1850s and it has stuck. And then, about 100 years after that, one of the other state senators from the area decided that the town of poker harness and the county of poker harness needed a giant statue, and so they commissioned a Minnesota artist to create the design for this giant statue and she is like 25 feet tall, I think, like seven feet wide. It's very big.
Megan:And like a little bit, a little bit scary in the eyeballs, just a little bit, but they actually they had to put it together in pieces, and so you can actually still see the like hook on the top of her head. Yes, there's like a loop from where they had to like crane it in.
Craig:Crane, the head in.
Joshua:It looks like. Also, the shelter next to her is a. It looks like a teepee but it looks like it's changed over the years, so I don't know. It looks like maybe it was a teepee, but now it's just like teepee shaped.
Megan:Yes, yeah, there's some other like murals and some other like historic buildings, kind of in a little park on on the same property. But yeah, that's an interesting one for sure.
Joshua:Oh my gosh, this one the world's largest popcorn ball.
Megan:And this is, this is one that is real popcorn. It is.
Craig:It is.
Megan:It is in Sac City, iowa, and so a fun thing I feel like a lot of people don't know about West Iowa is they actually grow a lot of popcorn corn there, so there's like a big industry from that as well. But this is the fourth iteration of the Sac City popcorn ball. They have been bested. They started doing it in the mid 90s. They've been bested a couple times. This one has held on to the record but it is real popcorn.
Megan:Yeah and they made this. The existing one is from 2016, so very stale at this point.
Craig:It reminds me of just a little bit of that paint, the world's largest ball of paint that you do a video of as well.
Joshua:It's also reminds me, yeah, it also reminds me of the twine ball.
Megan:Yeah, yeah but by one man not to be by one man, that's the one in Minnesota.
Joshua:Yeah.
Megan:But yeah, no, the popcorn ball is wild. I think it weighs like More than 9,000 pounds. It's like 12 feet across and they actually all of them have been community efforts to make them, and so the one in 2016, they like take community volunteers to help put it together. This one does actually have like a plastic form Around it to help it not just like disintegrate. That was allowed. But, yeah, one of my favorite popcorn ball Stories is the first. I think it was the first one that they made.
Joshua:Wait, wait, wait. Can you stop being more than one? It's funny that you have many popcorn ball.
Megan:I do, oh yeah, I, I do, I sure, I sure do. I think it's the first one they made. They decided, like the record had gotten beat and it was in the mid 90s. They were like we need to make a new one, we need to somehow dispose of this existing one, and it is, I mean, popcorn and corn syrup, so it is just congealed. And so they decided like what better way than to take it to the county fair and load it up Listen, dynamite and like explode it for the grandstand and I think in the vision for it, it would like rain popcorn, right, that's a fun visual.
Megan:It was so congealed that it it was, it didn't do anything. It flew into the air and like fell back down and broke apart into like a couple chunks. It was so like, so the disposal of them has been a time I think the last, like the third one that they did they actually had to remove it on like a pork lift or like with a With like a bulldozer, because it they couldn't break it apart to. But yeah, I can, I keep on saying only in America.
Megan:Yeah, it's on display all the time. It's in like a shed with like windows around it so you can peek in it's like a beautiful.
Joshua:Build it like it's nice.
Megan:They built a really nice building for this one the the previous one. Granted it wasn't quite as big, but they had like a garden shed kind of a thing, and it only had one window and sometimes was hard to see. This one Is very, very nice you know what?
Joshua:you know what? Craig Mm-hmm, looking at these pictures, looking at people that are building this popcorn ball. Yeah there's a lot of pride and you know what they're proud. They're proud of their popcorn ball.
Craig:Josh. Just to let you know, megan Josh always has to say that in one of these episodes in which you missed out in the last episode, you didn't say that.
Joshua:I can't believe I missed it, you missed it.
Craig:You missed it. Well, the next one on your list, megan, because there's only a few more. Tell me this is not real. It's the world's largest strawberry. Please tell me that's this one is not real. Oh good, not like a cheetos.
Megan:Yes, yeah, the actual largest strawberry, because I did look this one up is actually like 10 inches around, so still a really big strawberry, but not quite as big.
Megan:So this one is in Strawberry Point, iowa, which is going to be in like the north of East my sense and it is a yeah, 15 foot tall strawberry sculpture that they commissioned in like the 1960s as a tourism draw for the town, and it is still there. It kind of towers above their city hall. So it's a fun one because it's pretty high up in the air and so you can get a really good picture.
Joshua:That was one of Valerie's From big silly America, one of her favorites because you, as you know, she dresses like all the things, and so she had an awesome like strawberry themed dress and it was. It was quite a photo shoot, she's got her.
Megan:Her coordinated outfits are so impressive. To me we were chatting about like the system she uses to keep track of all of her clothes and pair them with like Attractions, and it's it's amazing. My like type A brain loves things like that.
Craig:And now with AI as well. She doesn't even have to worry about anything, so she just dresses in a green green dress, for instance, and she can be anything color. It's just change color with AI. I know I know the next one on this, josh.
Joshua:Mm-hmm, worlds largest Swedish coffee pot and coffee cup and coffee cup.
Megan:Yeah, can't forget about the cup no this is a two for one in like Southwest Iowa. So the town of Stanton is a very Swedish town and so they Decided they wanted to do something. But the idea actually came about in the 70s because An actress by the name of Virginia Christine was the spokesperson for Folgers, so she was Mrs Olson and a lot of the like old Folgers TV commercials and then she was in a lot of their print stuff and even on like the packaging for quite some time. But she's from Stanton and so they decided to change their water tower into a Swedish coffee pot and so it's painted very Scandinavian design and then they added a handle and a spout and like a knob on the top so that it looked like a coffee pot and it can hold at the time because it is no longer in use, but like 40,000 gallons of water or 640,000 cups of coffee and they had this water tower for years and years, until 2000 they added a second water tower for the town and turned it into a coffee cup, and so that one is still
Megan:standing is still in use as a water tower, but in like 2014, they Didn't need to use this water tower anymore. They had updated the water system and it was becoming a liability just because it was aging and some of the supports were going, and so they needed to find something to do with it. They lowered it and moved it to the Swedish Heritage Cultural Center, so you can see it's like grounds level now. But they repainted it and restored it and it's very beautiful. But yeah, they made sure that they.
Craig:Josh, I like. I like as well with the photos how it's painted on the bottom. It's got flames coming up the bottom, so the coffee pot has got the flames around the base of it too, which is pretty cool.
Joshua:Well, let's be real, it's a much better photo up on the ground than it is up high.
Megan:Yeah, yeah, the cup is really hard to Get a photo of because it is like outside of town and like I mean it's a, it is a functioning water tower, and so you're like pulled over on a rural highway next to someone's farmland that has this water tower.
Craig:So yeah now, megan, we're talking before with Josh, and I were talking off air as well. We were talking about how our phone listens to us, right, and we were talking about this upcoming show only like within the last few days and of course, I then get this on on my TikTok account. And that is the world's largest truck stop. Yeah, it's actually got a name it was. It was a Iowa 80 or something it's called.
Megan:Yes, I want 80 truck stop is the world's largest and it is, if you are again, if you're driving across Iowa on 80, it is like just into the state on the eastern side of the state.
Megan:I, because I grew up in the Chicago land area, it is my halfway point stop pretty much any time I drive to Chicago from Des Moines.
Megan:And it is, it truly is the world's largest truck stop by a bridge and area, but it is like your normal gas station truck stop. It's open 24 hours a day so it makes for a really good place to stop if you're driving through. But they also have I mean, they have a dentist, they have a, they have a workout room, they have, they have, you know, all of those things that as someone who's on the road, a whole bunch you would want. But yeah, like a chiropractor, a barber, they have a library, just like really, really any amenity could possibly think of. And then last year I learned that every year they do a truckers jamboree, which they started in like the 1970s I think, but it's like a weekend long community celebration for like the trucking community and then people who Are just like fans of the truck stop and so they have like trucker Olympics, where they do like tire flipping and a water Truck's on display and it's a fun time.
Craig:So you can just when I was researching. When I was researching this a little bit the other day as well, I didn't believe this, but it's been open. It's open 24 hours a day for seven days a week Since 1964. So it has not closed its doors An hour since 1964. That's incredible.
Joshua:Absolutely Well it's. It's basically its own little city for truckers.
Megan:Yeah, yeah, it really is, and the thing to stop at if you do have some time is the Iowa 80 trucking museum. So it's not in the main truck stop building, it's like behind on the campus, but it's a completely free museum and they have hundreds of vintage cars, vintage trucks, like really cool, kind of like travel in roadside memorabilia, just because the man who started the truck stop was a big collector and it was his dream to be able to share all of that with people, and so they have a really fun, cool museum and they throw birthday parties for the trucks too as they age, and so some days, if you visit, they might have cake, which is another fun, fun thing.
Joshua:There, you go Well, we have one more on the list here. They're probably or more. We could talk oh yeah, ever, and if you are not convinced at this point that you should spend some time in Iowa. I mean, you haven't been listening to this podcast or these two podcasts. The last one we have here written down is the world's largest wood, nickel, which I have a question about because I have been in Kasey Illinois.
Joshua:Yeah, and there's a wood nick. There's a wood nickel there. Apparently Kasey's is not the largest, it is not somewhere else.
Megan:Yes, it is this one. I love Kasey. We went last summer. It's so great. But yes, this one is in Iowa City and was created in 2006 because there was a man who was upset that they were going to be changing some speed limits in the area. So it's in like the part of Iowa City if you're headed away from downtown where it kind of turns into a rural highway, and they were talking about increasing some of the lanes and changing the speed limit, and some of the local neighbors didn't like that, and so this man decided he was gonna spend more than six months making a giant wood nickel that does say Vote for common sense and don't tread on me so it's also some protest art for you.
Megan:But yeah, it is. It is very large, it's a, it's a Buffalo nickel and it is in kind of like it. Because it is on a rural highway it's a little bit hard to stop that, but there is like a bike trail a little bit up that you can park in the parking lot there and Kind of like walk across and see, see the wood and nickel that way, but yeah, it is a sight to behold.
Joshua:So his hope was to make it a spectacle, and thus people would slow down and look at it potentially.
Megan:Yeah, I think that was like an unintended consequence, which I kind of love.
Joshua:So it actually kind of worked. It did kind of work.
Craig:Yeah because, yeah, people slow down, now look at it and they, they try to find a place to pull off and park so they can get a photo.
Joshua:I'm looking at it right now. There's gotta be a geocache there.
Craig:There's gotta be, has to be. I Don't shot, at least a virtual if it.
Joshua:If not, yes, a virtual geocache, which is I don't know how familiar you are with geocache, and Megan with that's like, yeah, you just take a pic, picture or whatever.
Craig:Yeah, oh, she's shaking her head.
Joshua:How many fun have you got? I mean yeah, Do you have an account?
Megan:I don't know, I am. So I has been a very long time since I have geocache, but I am friends with a lot of geocaches. And then I have a Husband who really got into Pokemon go. So All of the like locations, because they have the same format. We we were very familiar for a long time.
Joshua:That's really cool, that that's funny because Craig Craig was just in New York City last weekend for Pokemon go fast in New York City.
Craig:Well, I wasn't there for that. I wasn't there for you. I saw yeah, I saw them. I saw them happening in the middle of the park, thousands of people.
Craig:So, josh, we've gone from the world's largest. We're gonna wrap it up very soon as well. There's only a couple of things more things we need to talk about. So we talked about the world's largest and the weirdest and all that sort of stuff, but what about just the normal things you can go to? We spoke about that. We spoke about the Iowa State Fair as well. In comparison, yes but, but, megan, there's a national balloon classic.
Joshua:Yeah, I want to do this.
Megan:It's, it's very fun. So it is Typically the last week, like first week, the last week in in July, first week in in August, and it's held in Indiana, iowa, so just south of Des Moines, like maybe 25, 30 minutes, and it has been In Des Moines or in that area for like, oh gosh, 30 to 40 years now. So I think when you see like all the photos of Like the ones in New Mexico and some of those like big ballooning events, a lot of those same people come to Iowa to compete and be part of this balloon event as well, and so in the mornings they do competitions and so if you've never, you've never seen how they're balloons, it's just fun in general, but if you've never seen them compete, it's super interesting. They have to like drop bags on the target and like land like precision and things like that.
Megan:It's really fun and so that's one of my favorite times to go, because it's also free admission and so you can just go with your coffee, if you don't mind an early morning. They do launch, I think at like 6 30, and it is very weather dependent. And so balloons I think they need like under oh gosh, under five miles an hour for sure wind. So it is. It's tricky in the summer sometimes, but then you can also go in the evening and they do launches and they do some flights too. So if you want to ride in a balloon, there's the opportunity to do that. But then they also do some events that they call like a night glow, where they just Anchor all the balloons and inflate them and they get like the really fun shape ones.
Megan:Oh yes, and then light them up in the night, and so that is really a good time, especially if you're with little kids.
Craig:Have you ever been in one of the balloons begging?
Megan:I haven't. No, I was just talking to somebody about this. I'm like a medium afraid of heights person, but I think I'd be okay, in a balloon. Like. It's usually like bridges that I'm like it's very pension bridges. Yeah, it sounds very nice, but if you're not visiting Indiana during the festival, they have a national balloon museum too where you can go learn about the history of ballooning and see like a bunch of Vintage balloons and then also see the US ballooning Hall of Fame this way over there.
Craig:Well, just to let you know, josh as well, I've actually been in a balloon, and it was in Australia. Now think of this it's it's across Melbourne. Melbourne is a city in Australia, so I think it's the second biggest city in Australia as well, so it's got the sky towers and everything as well. We launched the balloon from just outside of Melbourne and the way the wind was going, it actually blew us directly across the center of Melbourne City itself, cbd, and we're going through the actual Like towers.
Craig:It was incredible, absolutely incredible yeah that was a few years ago now, back in my high, hey, but yeah, that was a few years ago now. Yeah, that was beautiful, and we landed then into a valley where it's a wine valley and then went on a winery tour after that. So, oh yeah, gorgeous.
Joshua:It's, it sounds beautiful, but I'm, it sounds a little freaky. I mean, you're in a basket, yeah, and in the sky, yeah, and Like you. Just you say the wind was blowing, like well, how you know? I've watched too many tic-tac videos of balloons landing out of control. Yeah the week is ruined it for some people yeah yeah, all right.
Joshua:One last location we need to talk about, and that is in Mason City, iowa, which, again, I know some things, megan, about Mason City. It is the hometown of, I believe, meredith, meredith Wilson, who is the creator of the music man.
Megan:Yes, and.
Joshua:The there's gonna be trouble in River City. River City is based on that fictional town, or Mason City is based on the fictional sound of River City that is in the music man. So but you said that there is, there is some art, there's some sort of art Mason City that I don't know about.
Megan:Yeah, yeah. So Mason City is, yeah, the their big things are kind of music in history Meredith Wilson. And then it is also home to the Historic Park and Hotel, which is the last Frank Lloyd Wright hotel that you can actually stay in.
Megan:And so that is a fun jump to. But they have a lot of because of both of those things. They're a community that really appreciates the arts and so they have a lot of great public art in Mason City and so a lot of it. A lot of their murals are Frank Lloyd Wright theme, which is really fun. They also have a really great art museum that's in a historic home, the Charles Mcniter Art Museum, and they have one of the fun things they have there is, oh, his, what is his first name?
Megan:Bill Bard, I think it's his name, but he grew up in Mason City and is responsible for the puppets that are used in the sound of music, so like the lonely go-herd puppets from very. He was a puppeteer and a puppet maker and so they have like the largest collection of his puppets anywhere in the world, and he has Wizard of Oz ones he has, but they have the full Loom we go herd collection as well. So that's like a fun, weird thing. And then Mason City also has an installation called Rancho deluxe, which is like a.
Megan:It's like. It's kind of like an outsider art repurposed junk art.
Joshua:Like folk art, it's really cool. Yes, I've been there. Yeah, it's it's a geocache in there. Oh, there's a geocache in the bathtub.
Megan:No, it's sorry to interrupt.
Joshua:I got really excited because I've been there.
Megan:No, I love that.
Joshua:But yeah it's a.
Megan:It's a local who started, I think, like more than 30 years ago, just collecting things from around the community and he adds to it still.
Craig:But yeah, like both license plates old, you know anything and everything has been repurposed there you can tell, you can tell Josh as well, the town that loves this art, because I'm just looking it up as well and like you've got, you know River City sculptures on parades and there's like all over the town. There's all these sculptures. I'm looking at some here now. Like there's three eggs, like you know the, what do you call it? The egg fill off the wall, what's it?
Megan:called Humpty Dumpty.
Craig:Humpty Dumpty. So there's these three Humpty Dumpties, but they're playing different musical instruments. But my favorite, josh, my favorite is one and it's it's a beaver and he's named Bucky. So I'm not sure if you've got Bucky's in Iowa but his name is Bucky. In a beaver with two big teeth coming out the bottom as well, he probably stands probably four foot five foot tall. It's from Dale Lewis and Dale Lewis it's dedicated to Central Park Dentistry with his two big bucky teeth.
Megan:Yeah, there's cultures on parade are really fun and they actually, so some of them they've like purchased, but then they also rotate out every year. So every year they get like a new crop of sculptures and then it's a community voting and so people will vote on their favorite ones and the community will keep the like the fan favorite. But then you can also Purchase them too and they swap out.
Craig:So yeah, and just to let you know, megan as well, when I Google that of course Oleo in Iowa comes up first saying four ways to experience art in Mason. So there you go. So it happens, and, and, and Bucky is actually on the main cover. You, you feed you Bucky on the main cover. So there you go. Wow, so two big episodes we've had.
Joshua:Yeah, we've just scratched the surface to. Yes, in Secret Iowa, the book that has just come out, there are 84 different locations in Iowa. So, megan, I should have asked you this the first time. I just made assumptions. But where's the best place for people to purchase your book?
Megan:Yeah, so you can. You can find it wherever books are sold. If you go to secret Iowa calm, you can order them directly from me as well and I can, you know, sign them or personalize them or whatever you want that way. But, yeah, any of your major retailers. I'm always a big fan of supporting your favorite local indie too, so if you're in Iowa, a lot of the local indies will have them as well.
Craig:Fantastic fantastic and where else then, megan as well, where else can people see you like these photos and stuff as well, like your social media stuff?
Megan:Yeah, so I am on Basically any social media platform. You can think of all at Olio in Iowa. So oh, I, oh.
Craig:Very cool and that's all on. Yeah, on all your social media Facebook, instagram tick tock as well. We love a tick tock, josh, don't we?
Joshua:Yes, we love a good tick tock.
Craig:Anyway, we, josh, we're going to, we're gonna get a patreon only Competition out there right now, okay, no, right now, and then we're gonna release the results on today when this publishes. So how does that sound? Sounds fantastic very good, very good, and they win one of one of Megan's books. So if you, you want to be a patreon, though how can you be patreon?
Joshua:If you want to join our patreon support everything we're doing on the treasures of our town podcast. Consider joining us at patreoncom backslash treasures of our town.
Craig:And so next episode coming up. It's another hidden secret, because we don't know what it is yet. So we'll let you know via via our social medias and how. How can they contact us by social media, josh?
Joshua:Reach us at treasures of our town podcast at gmailcom, or you can follow us on Facebook, instagram, twitter, and all these episodes are actually uploaded to YouTube, so if you're a YouTube person, you can find us there exactly.
Craig:So that's our show for today. Please subscribe, rate and review on your favorite podcasting app.
Joshua:And, as always, josh, may your travels always lead you to the most unexpected and amazing in gems in places like Iowa.
Craig:We'll see you next time. Everybody, thanks for joining us.
Joshua:Thank you for hanging out with us and we'll see you next time.
Craig:Bye.