Listing Through Life

I figured we’d be leaving the Spam Museum around lunchtime, so I searched Yelp for somewhere to eat. I found this place. We’d eaten “loose meat” on the first day of our vacation and enjoyed it, so we decided to get some more.

It was worth visiting just for the ambiance.

The center of the dining area is filled with a U-shaped counter. Stools line both sides — I think there were 17. Five other people were eating while we were there. Here are our sandwiches being made.

Our server owns the place with her husband. That’s her in this next photo.

She was very pleasant and enthusiastic and gave us the history of the restaurant and took our photo (poorly) and gave us Tootsie Rolls for dessert. My bacon cheeseburger was a bit dry, but good. It came with a spoon to scoop up the escaped meat. The milk shake was excellent.

I was a bit melancholy as I ate because I knew this was the last stop on our amazing 10-day vacation and I very much didn’t want it to be over. All I had to look forward to was a six-hour drive and then back to the routine — and over 1,000 photos to sort through for my blog.

We arrived at the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota moments after it opened.

As we walked inside, we were greeted by a very enthusiastic woman who told us about everything we were about to see. She then escorted us through the “piggy doors” into a theater where we watched a short movie about Spam.

The entire place was a slightly tongue-in-cheek commercial. As the woman at the front desk had told us, “People like to make fun of Spam, but we don’t mind. Our sales are way up year after year and we’re laughing all the way to the bank.” There were displays about the history of Hormel, about the popularity of Spam during WWII, about the Spamettes singing group, about the Monty Python Spam sketch and so much more.

You could “package” Spam and race against the factory production rate. My wife was foolish enough to challenge my time.

That’s my score on the left.

We wandered about the gift shop and bought some Spam.

While my wife decided what to buy for our daughters, I stacked pigs.

And then, of course …

This statue stands a quarter mile off I-90 in Blue Earth, Minnesota. There’s really not much else to say, so I’ll just post my photos.

We didn’t stay long.

Taken at a roadside rest area on Interstate 90 east of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.