San Diego has a lot of quirky locations to visit. We’ve managed to see a few of them this past week.
Mini Taco Bell: This mini Taco Bell is right next the drive thru at one of the restaurants. It is easy to miss as it is under a tree and a little hidden. The back of it looks like a utility box. The boys got a burrito, so they were very happy to get lunch out.
Harper’s Topiary Garden: This is someone’s personal garden on the hill in front of their house. The topiary gardens were crafted from existing plants, so it must have been a lot of work to form the figures.
El Campo Santo Cemetery: The cemetery is located in Old Town, San Diego. The cemetery was partially paved over to make way for a streetcar. Only one grave was moved! The road and sidewalk now cover the grave sites, although there are small medallions to mark the sites.
Today was a play around day, nothing too strenuous. I looked up some more quirky things to see near Rapid City, SD. (Rapid City because it was a bigger town close to the campground (40 minutes away) and had a Walmart for groceries.)
First stop: World’s Largest Quarter-Pounder outside a Rapid City McDonald’s. Of course, we had to get quarter pounders to pose with it! It’s been years since I’ve had McDonald’s burgers.
What the inscription means per Google translate box
Tire Man: A man made of red, white and blue painted tires at a car shop. This was just a quick stop, jump in and out for the picture.
Dinosaur Park (free). This isn’t a huge park, although it is on top of a hill and there are some steps. The park also has a visitor center, but we didn’t go in. The dinosaurs are made from concrete. There are still signs labeling the dinosaurs, but some of them were hard to read. The park was made in 1936. The boys got a kick out of seeing the dinosaurs.
More of the Will and Large Objects series.
Before heading to get groceries, we stopped at Mostly Chocolates, a drive through coffee and chocolate menu! How could you go wrong? I got a mocha and dark chocolate pecan caramels.
We stopped for groceries. It’s always a challenge to go grocery shopping. There are signs in South Dakota “recommending” wearing masks, but very few people are. The grocery store is normally a big grocery game of frogger. Today was really bad, so we actually left before we bought everything we wanted.
Most of the truckers that had also used the casino’s overnight parking last night were gone by the time we left. Let me tell you something; I feel huge when we are driving and towing the RV. However, when we pull into a gas station with truck pumps or park next a semi truck, I feel a little small.
We started early again to get the most of our day. We had left the slides in and everything put away for the one night, so we had much less to do in order to leave. We hadn’t even unhooked the RV from the truck. Our next stop was also in Iowa, although right near the South Dakota border. It was another casino, Grand Falls Casino. This one had an RV park with full hook ups for $35/night. We also had access to their outdoor pool.
It was pretty standard driving, no sudden storms this time. There was some construction, but nothing eventful. We did see lots of windmills and water towers. One water tower was even painted yellow and had a smiley face on it! We found a pay phone at a rest stop in Iowa. Seriously! Blue frame and all. We became card carrying rewards members of Kum & Go.
Once we arrived at our destination, I had to go into the hotel check-in desk to get the key to the electric box and our designated spot assignment. We also got the wristbands for the pool. The campground was all pull through spots, with full hookups. The RV park was towards the side of the property (road behind us and the driving range in front of us).
We grabbed some dinner, and this time it was pretty much what I expected. I did get to make a nice salad though!
The boys enjoyed the pool for a few minutes before it got too crowded and we left. We have noticed that not very many people are wearing masks in Iowa or South Dakota. There are signs “recommending” wearing masks, but nothing requiring people to wear them. We are one of the few, other than employees, and we are still trying to maintain a social/physical distance. The night ended with the boys filling in our travel map*. We have one on the kitchen wall and one in their room for them to fill out. (Thank you Denny & Gabe for the map, the boys love coloring in where they’ve been!)
Saturday we explored the area a little bit and went to the pool again in the evening.
We began Saturday morning with getting bagels from Bagel Boy. They were pretty good (and reasonably priced when compared to back home).
Will really wanted to see some oddities/quirkiness on this trip (things like the biggest ball of twine). We checked on AtlasObscura.com and RoadsideAmerica.com and found a few options. After seeing how far they were from us, we decided on Mr. Bendo, a large statue holding a tailpipe outside of a muffler shop. He was pretty large! According to roadsideamerica.com, in 2018 the city said he could no longer hold his tailpipe, as it acted as a sign for the business and was too tall. When the city’s people heard about it, they were upset and got the city to reverse their decision. Since it had not been considered a sign when it first began in the 60’s, they said it was a work of art instead.
Our next stop for the day was extremely out there. We went to Buffalo Ridge 1880 Cowboy Town. This one was definitely an experience. It was out in the hillsides, and this man has created quite the livelihood. He was very nice as he showed us around. He had a two pump gas station, a souvenir shop, the cowboy town, buffalo (also sold buffalo hides, skulls, and burgers), had several billboards on his land (both for rent and to advertise the cowboy town), and offered overnight parking. What an entrepreneur!
The town consisted of several buildings/exhibits: a gold mine, antique farming equipment, a saloon, a sheriff’s office, etc. There is an upper walkway so you can view the town as well. The other option to get a bird’s eye view is to climb the tower. You can see the buffalo herd sometimes from here as well.
The town had many hand-painted signs explaining what each exhibit is about. There are mannequins in each location, some of them are animatronic and speak or move. It was certainly an experience! The town is a little run down. It is a huge undertaking for one person. He also said he is still cleaning up some tornado damage from a few years ago.
Some of the robots still work, although they are a little worn. The town does sit out in all of the elements, so there is some weathering to the paint, wood boards, signs, the mannequins and their clothes. Some areas smelled a little musty, so I didn’t stay in there too long with my allergies. You could tell that a lot of work had gone into making the town, although I’m not sure exactly how historically accurate some of the information was.
I would definitely stop and check it out if you like finding oddities and things off the beaten path. When we went it was $8/adult (12+) and $4/kids. We did a quick video of some of the exhibits, if you want to check it out!
