It was a very LARGE day… Part 1

I had compiled a list of seven oddities I wanted to see today with the help of my Roadside America investigations that I made late last night.  Jack was up for the adventure, so early this morning I drove over to his campground on the outskirts of Detroit Lakes.  The first place we stopped wasn’t open yet, but the Chamber of Commerce Visitors Center for Detroit Lakes was, so we stopped there and I picked up a bag full of information on interesting things to do in the area while I am here for the next four months.

                     Then we were off to the town of Frazee, MN, to see the World’s Largest Turkey. 

It was located in “The Best Lion’s Park By a Dam…Site”!  As we arrived, we both needed to visit the rest rooms first.  Interesting… no door to the restroom and no doors for each of the three stalls.  I was sure glad it wasn’t a busy day at the park!  The toilets did flush, however, and there was TP.  Makes one wonder what other Lion’s Parks are like…

An interesting side note about this large turkey, is that a number of years ago they were getting ready for their annual turkey festival, and members of the fire department were doing some repairs to the big bird.  One of them was using a torch and guess what?  The bird went up in flames!  It created quite a stir.  The bird was rebuilt, and I assume repairs are now made without torches.

As we then headed to Fergus Falls, we drove through the town of Vergas, and lo and behold found the World’s Largest Common Loon in a small park along side a lake.

This gem wasn’t even on my list as I thought Vergas wasn’t near our route.  I’m not sure why I get a kick out of these big things, but I do.  I remember dragging my daughter and 87 year old mother to see the World’s Largest Sausage in Canada on our trip to Alaska in 2004.  It’s kind of like geo-cashing to my way of thinking, only there’s a BIG bonus when you get there. I thought it was fitting that we visited the Minnesota state bird.  Jack just groaned.

First up on my list in Fergus Falls was “Otto” the large river otter.  Seems he was built by a bunch of high school students. 

Otto is located in Grotto Park in the city, and several people were taking their lunch in the park as we visited.

As an added bonus to Otto, there was a great egret rookery located on a small island in the lake that the park surrounds.  Lots of egrets were busy bringing nest building supplies to the tree tops.  A little surprising to find this rookery right in the middle of town.

The Fergus Falls Public Library has a large sculpture of a stack of books at the corner of it’s parking lot.  It was a nice touch, but not as huge as the other things we had found.  I would have liked to see some titles on the spines of those books.  If you look closely at the background in two of the pics, you’ll see the grain silos.  I got a kick out of those in the middle of town too.  It surely shows the importance of agriculture to this area of the state.

By this time, we were only done with half of the list, but I think I’ll leave the rest for another post.  This is long enough for tonight.  We were having a great time, but needed to stop for lunch before pressing on with the rest of this adventure.  The clouds were also creeping in after a beautiful morning.  As I’m writing this tonight, it is once again raining…

                                                THE END… TO THE THIRD POWER!! 

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy