Clearly, I’ll Do Anything for a Post: Visiting the Spam® Museum

If coronavirus hadn’t ruined everything, I’d be regaling you with stories of our day trips along the Costa Brava in Spain, our attempt at via ferrata in tiny Andorra, and our cycling adventures up and down the French Pyrenees.  But lucky for you, Minnesota has something those lofty European destinations do not.

It has the Spam® Museum.

We don’t often travel within Minnesota.  We travel out of Minnesota, usually heading south to Des Moines, then west through interminable Nebraska toward the Rockies.  Every time we do this, we pass a sign for the Spam® Musuem, and every time—without fail—the Spam®-loving husband threatens to take the exit.  I put up the usual resistance: We’ve just gotten started!  We have twelve more hours of driving ahead of us!  It’s out of the way!  Don’t you dare!  Then we have a little laugh over our age-old joke and continue on our way, watching the sign get smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror.

This time, though, the Spam® Museum was our destination.  Located a few hours away in Austin, Minnesota, we thought we’d make a day-trip of it.  Naturally, because the husband was involved, this had to include cycling.  Pulling out his trusty Cycling Minnesota book, he found an Austin-based 33-mile route, we loaded up the bikes, and away we went.

The husband loves to visit small towns, and Austin has all the quirk and kitch one would expect of small-town America:

It has clever signs.

I love me a good play on words

It has something unexpectedly small . . .

A prayer chapel right next to a church?  Seems kinda superfluous to me, but . . . 🤷‍♂️  Maybe Austinians are a particularly sinful bunch.  Gluttony?

. . . as well as something unexpectedly large.

A giant cow.  Of course.

It has the latest innovations in privacy fencing.

It has decorative train cars goin’ nowhere.

It has interesting choices in furniture.

Strikes me as a little uncomfortable, but I’ll bet it’s sturdy.

And of course, Austin has the requisite patriotic benches on Main Street.

Out past the Austin city limits we had some quintessential small-town experiences.

We found out where the Zieglers live.

We had fun riding back and forth over the yellow road line, which in this case happens to be the state line.  Standing in Minnesota or Iowa . . . hard to say which is more exciting.

Greetings from sunny Iowa!

And of course, it wouldn’t be us if we didn’t get chased by dogs.

Moments after this shot was taken, this German Shepherd, barking like the apocalypse was nigh, demonstrated for its pup how to charge a human to within feet of the shin bone.

Due to “faulty information,” the husband’s 33-mile route ended up being 45 miles.

There was a massive headwind and, though I know this sounds meteorologically impossible given the semi-rectangular, polygonal route, I swear 80% of our ride was straight into it.  Also, the extra time in the saddle rendered my sunscreen application inadequate and thus my poor, overworked legs paid the ultimate price.

Finally, we rolled back into town and risked a public indecency citation by getting changed in the car.  Two blocks later, we found ourselves outside the crème de la crème of tourist destinations, the pièce de résistance of Austin, Minnesota: the Spam® Museum.

And in a scene straight out of National Lampoon’s Vacation, this was on the door:

Prompting visions of this:

Sorry folks.  Park’s Museum’s closed.  Moose Pigs outside shoulda told ya.

This is my “sonofabitch!” face, or if you prefer, my “you’vegottabef&%#ingkiddingme” face.  I just drove two hours, cycled into the wind for three hours, and seared my flesh for nothing?!

It’s worth pointing out that the Spam® Museum is free, so of course they’re not fussed about closing it.  The Spam® Museum store, however, is wide open for your shopping pleasure.

Of course it is.

In hog heaven—literally—the husband walked around in a heady daze.

Do you have a shopping cart? This basket isn’t going to be big enough.

In addition to every flavor of tinned meat you can imagine, of which the husband bought a case, was merchandise beyond your wildest dreams.  If you can stick a logo on it, it’s here.

No, this museum is not on my bucket list.

The main reason the husband wants to go to Hawaii.

What other uses? Door stop? Paper weight?

I admit, Spamalot was a very funny production.

Exotic Tocino: found only here & in the Philippines.

Get ’em while they’re young.

The one thing that could have been interesting—the elevated conveyor belt of tinned Spam—was turned off.

Me: Any particular reason it’s not turned on?

Saleswoman (with a shrug): No.  We just decided to turn it off.

The stroppy mood I was in for the last dozen miles of the bike ride just returned with a vengeance.

Finally, the saleswoman wished us a “Spamtastic day” and the husband, grabbing his armload of acronymed meat, verily skipped back to the car.  I got in beside him and turned the ignition, feeling defeated.  But I was grateful for two things: a) the husband didn’t buy the $80 logo-studded Hawaiian shirt.  (“Expensive, but worth it,” said the deranged saleswoman.), and b) coronavirus prevented the store from serving us “Spamples.”  (Her word, not mine.)

As we made our way home, the husband took over the sound system and forced me to listen to the best of Weird Al Yankovic.  I succumbed to the inanity and tried to sing along through the laughter, though I did get a bit misty-eyed at this one:

Now the husband’s insisting that, as long as I’ll do anything for a post, we’ll be off to the town of Darwin next.  Something about a big ball of twine . . .