Roadside Attractions in Minnesota

As we left the Dakotas, we headed east into Minnesota. When we visit a new state, I research online to select a few stops that we will enjoy. One of our goals is to see National Parks and Monuments as well as historical sites. I knew that I wanted to stop in Walnut Grove to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum so the goal was to find something along a route that would take us near there.

Unfortunately, Voyageurs National Park is in northern Minnesota which was too far to travel to and not on our route east. So I chose to stop at Pipestone National Monument, which is located in southwest Minnesota. We could easily visit it on our way to Walnut Grove. After another scenic drive across the prarie, we arrived at a surprisingly pretty area. Pipestone was more scenic than I had anticipated.

Pipestone is a sacred land used by Indigenous peoples for over 3,000 years to quarry the red stone for their ceremonial prayer pipes. I expected to see a deep rocky quarry but this National Monument included a lovely hike through the restored tall grass prairie to rocky gorges and a waterfall. We spent a bit more time than anticipated enjoying the peaceful, quiet and lovely views as well as watching the pipe carving demonstration in the visitors center. I am so glad that the National Park Service preserves these beautiful and historic sites.

We started to see more green grass and trees in minnestoa. Definitely knew that we were heading back east.

Trent enjoyed the walk around the quarry

Afterwards, we headed east across the prairie to the little town of Walnut Grove. The Laura Ingalls Wilder books were one of my favorites as a young child and I read the series many times, including to my girls when they were young. So of course, we had to make a stop at the museum there. While none of the buildings at the museum are original, the recreated town provided insight into pioneer life in the late 1800s. In addition to the recreated town, there are some nice displays of the TV series in the museum.

replica of the dugout home where the wilders initially lived before building their cabin.

From there, we headed east towards Wisconsin to visit our RVing friends, Tim and Becky. They work camp at a County Park near La Crosse, WI. Unfortunately, Becky was away for a few days and would not be back until the weekend. That left us a few more days to fill so we had to find a some more stops. Becky recommended a few places along the route where we could see some Americana type roadside attractions which we always enjoy.

The first stop was right off of I-90 in Blue Earth, MN. This town is the home base for Green Giant so of course you can find the worlds’ largest Jolly Green Giant statue here. In addition, to the giant statue, many of the businesses in town feature a statue of the Little Sprout. It wasn’t a long stop, but definitely one that made me smile.

this display in the small museum featured this equipment from erie, PA. i didn’t care for this version of the jolly green giant.

After that stop, we headed to Austin, MN to spend the night and then visit the SPAM museum the next morning. Yes, this is the home to Hormel corporate headquarters and you can find a museum totally dedicated to canned meat - SPAM! The history of Spam was quite interesting, especially its role in feeding the troops during WWII. Pretty cool to learn that Spam saved people in England and Russia from starving during the war.

The museum features a wall of Spam with over 3,300 Spam cans, a WWII exhibit, and the World Market that shares Spam recipes from over 44 different nations. Who knew that Spam was so popular world wide. We also learned that there are 13 varieties of Spam, so of course we bought a 12 pack containing 1 of each flavor and then we bought a can of the one flavor not included in the pack. We are still eating Spam! So far, they have all been good and we are enjoying it!

this historic theater is near the spam museum

this fork located at hormel’s headquarters is made from dinner forks. glad they told us about it at the spam museum. it was worth a stop to see it. got to love these roadside attractions.

Since we still had a couple of days before we were joining Tim and Becky at the campground, we decided to head to Wisconsin and found a lovely inn along the Mississippi River to stay for 2 nights in Trempealeau, WI. It was a pretty drive through eastern Minnesota on our way to Trempealeau. The Inn on the River is a small inn located in the town of Trempealeau on the Mississippi River that provides a great view of the river and the hills on the Minnesota side of the river. The only drawback to this location were the busy train tracks that line both sides of the river. Even with the noise of the trains from early morning to evening. we enjoyed our stay here. Look for more on our time in Wisconsin in the next post.

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