White Bear Surprise

If you've been on a road trip with me (Beth, Colleen, Eva, Missy, Nancy, Ryan...) you pretty much know what to expect.  If you haven't, you probably haven't seen The World's Largest Chocolate Moose, The Land of Make Believe, The World's Tallest Land Structure, The World's Largest Ball of Twine, a family of hamburger people in tribute to A&W Root Beer, a tennis shoe bigger than a Cadillac, or a 15-foot tall swan.  I have seen all of these things, and many, many others.  In fact, spotting these random roadside attractions is one of my favorite activities, and when I spot something I didn't expect to see there is generally a lot of giggling and clapping of hands followed immediately by shrieking at the driver to pull over while I dig furiously through my purse for my camera.


I generally try to have an idea of which major roadside attractions are in my immediate vicinity, but Julia and I ventured into new territory in the Minneapolis metro area today and I was not prepared for what we discovered:

Isn't he great?!  Now Julia and I haven't had much experience traveling together so this was her first roadside attraction spotting with me, but fortunately I was pretty calm about this one and didn't start screaming about pulling off the road the second I saw it.  (I think it was because I spotted it from a ways away, giving us plenty of time to plan our attack.)  I think she was pretty entertained by my reaction to it, and she quickly pulled into the parking lot of this Chevy dealership and then drove all over the parking lot to allow me the best shot of him.  And, as if this isn't great enough, in talking to a local about him we found out that they dress him seasonally (swim trunks in the summer, etc.), so guess who'll be returning to White Bear Lake, MN four times a year?!