September 15, 2025 • 55 mins
Join Craig and Josh as they share their experiences visiting bucket-list roadside attractions they've previously featured on the podcast but never seen in person.
• Josh visits the World's Biggest Ball of Paint in Alexandria, Indiana, adding layer #30,085 and becoming a brief world record holder
• Meeting Michael Carmichael, the passionate creator who started painting layers on a baseball in 1977
• Craig explores the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, comparing its unique landscape to other national parks
• Free camping along the Badlands rim offers spectacular sunrise and sunset views
• Josh discovers Garfield-themed Munzee icons in Muncie, Indiana, hometown of cartoonist Jim Davis
• Exploring Wall Drug in South Dakota, a classic roadside stop famous for its numerous highway billboards
• Josh visits "Uranus, Indiana" - a smaller version of the Uranus, Missouri attraction we previously featured
• Craig checks out the Mitchell Corn Palace with its elaborate corn murals that change themes annually
• The current "Wonders of the World" theme features landmarks like the Sydney Opera House created entirely from corn
Support the podcast at patreon.com/treasurefortown where we'll share photos from these roadside adventures. Have feedback or ideas? Email us at treasuresofour townpodcast@gmail.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
the true treasure, craig, this is americana.
The true treasure is is the guy, because he's proud.
I mean, holy cow, he's proud ofthat paintball and he's
probably proud of his town aswell, and that's a rare thing
these days, um, that he's soproud of his.
You get it in early josh, 15minutes.
Do you love to travel?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Do you love road trips?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Do you love finding hidden treasures in towns all
over the USA?
Hi, I'm Joshua.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
And I'm Craig.
Welcome to Treasures of OurTown.
It's a podcast that exploresunique and charming towns
scattered throughout the UnitedStates.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Guided by our love for location-based games like
geocaching, join us as weventure to some of the country's
most intriguing destinations,uncovering hidden gems and local
secrets along the way.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
On today's episode, josh, we're going to check,
check, check, check one, two,check one, two.
Checking off some of our bucketlist roadside attractions that
we've spoken about previously,never been to.
Guess what, josh, that we'vespoken about previously, never
been to.
Guess what, josh, you and Iboth of us have been to some of
these brand new well, not brandnew, but brand new to us
roadside attractions that wefeatured in March Madness, not
(01:14):
just this year, but MarchMadness in 2024 as well.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yes, you know, it's really cool.
Part of this podcast is that itgives us some ideas of places
we should go, and we wereinspired, craig.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
We were inspired by our own podcast I know, I know,
absolutely, it was um, and evento the point when you know, we
say before, our travels areguided by our location-based
games, etc.
You know, you know me, josh.
I've been traveling around theUS going from mega to mega or
block party, block party, etcetera.
But there's times in between,josh, where I think to myself
(01:49):
hang on a second, where may I begoing past between block party
A and block party B?
Well, there's a few things thathave been passed in the last
two weeks, josh, and there's afew that you've been past too.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, and I've been past a few things when I'm
hauling all my kids' stuff downto college.
It's just a little bitdifferent sort of reason, but
hey, any excuse to travel, youknow.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Exactly right, and at least you are traveling again.
Remember those times, Joshuayou went a few months without
traveling.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, it was a dry spell and you got the itch.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
You got the itch, mate.
You got the itch.
Speaking of itch mate, what'syour upgrade and delays?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Well, well, well well .
My upgrade was that we just saweach other, probably five hours
ago.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
You were here in Minnesota once again for Munzee
Mania 8.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And we had a great weekend with Coach V, rob
Vardaman, president of Munzee,our friend Minnesota boy, you
guys were here, we did, we had alot of fun and it was an epic
Munzee event.
If you're listening to this forthe first time, what's Munzee?
It's another location-basedgame where we had a gigantic, in
terms of Munzee, a giganticMunzee event here all weekend in
(03:02):
beautiful Minnesota at abeautiful time.
September's a great time.
A little bit on the warm side,it's a little warmer than usual.
A little warmer than usual, butit was.
It was a great weekend.
We had a lot of fun, didn't we?
Craig?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh, absolutely.
And the parks.
I will say, josh, especiallyfor Munzee play.
Munzee play needs parks.
It needs a good walking trackas part of the event, because
these big events as well.
There's 50 pin what they callpins to actually walk around and
collect those pins.
You can do a walking track,josh, anywhere between two,
(03:35):
three, four miles worth ofwalking track and a nice
circular track at that too.
And we, you and I spoke aboutit and, and I said Josh,
minnesota, the green parks ofMinnesota, with their actual
dedicated walking tracks, liketheir nice and smooth bitumen
roadway as well, where you canwalk through and it's all green,
(03:56):
josh, it's beautiful matebeautiful.
So, yeah, I really appreciate it.
And you know what, Josh, that'smy upgrade as well, of course a
great weekend with all theMunzee players.
So not just you, me, Minnesotaboy, Minnesota boy, Minnesota
boy and Rob, but all the Munzeeplayers.
I really enjoy catching up witheveryone, Josh.
There was people there fromCalifornia, people there from
(04:17):
Florida, Montana.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
New York as well.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Upstate New York were there too, so all of Arizona as
well.
There's people from Arizona upthere too, so all over the place
too.
So that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
It was really cool.
Another part of my upgrade thisweek was you know, I'm also a
geocacher.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I'm not just a.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Monzi player.
I am the geocaching vlogger,after all, and so this week in
Minneapolis, st Paul area wasthe Geocachers of Minnesota,
which is one of our geocachingorganizations, was Craft Beer
Week Craig, what Craft Beer Week.
And, craig, you got toparticipate in a couple of them,
which means from Monday toSunday.
(04:56):
We're recording this on Sunday.
Monday and Sunday there was ageocaching event at a different
brewery every single day, and ifyou did all seven of them, you
got your own personalizedoktoberfest.
Geocaching of minnesota steinlike beer stein like ceramic
beer stein.
And so I just completed.
I just came back from my lastbrewery.
(05:18):
It's sunday now, and so I'venever I've never done seven
breweries.
I well, I know, craig, you have, I know, but I've never done
seven breweries.
I well, I know, craig, you have, I know, but I've never done
seven breweries in a row inseven days, and so that was a.
That was a good thing.
And, uh, you know, I was guidedby my love for location-based
games to drink at least one beerin every location, so that was
really cool too tell me, josh,as well with that?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
um, was there many?
Because I know Minnesota, andMinneapolis especially, has a
lot of breweries.
Yes, and you've been to quite afew as well.
Was there any breweries thatare brand new to you at all of
those seven that you went to Was?
Speaker 1 (05:52):
there any brand new?
The one that we went toHacklemore in Chanhassen, the
West Suburbs oh yes, that wasnew to me.
I'd never been there before.
They had the coolest thinghappening, craig, it made me
laugh so much.
They had bingo going on, whichis very normal for a brewery to
do bingo, but they had plantbingo.
And you might be asking what'splant bingo?
Well, people were playing bingoto win plants and Craig tell
(06:17):
them about the collars.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I was going to say exactly right, like if you, if
you're a brewery listening tothis, for some unknown reason,
you want more.
You want more ladies to walkthrough the door and try your
different types of beers.
Then put on a plant bingo.
There was 99.9 of players.
There were all ladies, um, andthe two, the two guys running
the bingo itself.
They were fully dressed up asactual plants, like they had a
(06:46):
full green bodysuit, things on,with plants hanging off them.
They had green faces as well,uh, sunglasses on.
They had these big, uh bighacklemore.
Um, it was hacklemore,obviously, not macklemore, but
this is still something bighacklemore, big uh chains around
their necks as well.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
So it was really cool .
Yeah, yes, there were a lot oflovely moms, probably from the,
from the western suburbs, heredrinking beer, playing bingo.
It was a lovely sight to seeand, uh, it was a lot of fun.
And we, there were some reallycool beers there, craig.
There was, uh, one calledsaturday morning cereal which
(07:22):
tastes like cinnamon toastcrunch.
There was one called HolySchneikies which was a Chris
Farley inspired beer.
It was like a $30 bottle.
It was like what was thepercentage of alcohol on that
one?
Craig, 15, 15.5%.
That's a lot.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
15.5% was the percentage of alcohol on that
one.
That was a lot.
I did get one bottle of that togo, and then we did, because
it's $35 for a bottle.
We did share it between you,myself, minnesota Boy and Rob
too, just like little tasters,josh little tasters, so we can
all share the love of beer.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah, and there was another one called Tap, tap,
taparoo.
Tap it in, tap it in, oh, tap,tap-a-roo.
Tap it in, tap it in, oh, tapit in, just tap it in.
So I'm guessing the owners ofHacklemore Brewing Company are
very much fans of like 90s, youknow comedies with Chris Farley
and Adam Sandler and all thatstuff.
Yeah, that was a very nicebrewery, a lot of fun.
(08:21):
It was fun that you were therefor that one as well.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, a very nice brewery, a lot of fun.
It was fun that you were therefor that one as well.
Yeah, and just don't forget Iwas going to say if you, if you
actually enjoy breweries and youwant to listen to it, more
about breweries and a brewerypodcast.
Oh yeah, the best one out there, josh.
The brewery adventure hosted byour good friend, courtney uh,
also known as mecca mn in thegeocaching and munzee world too.
So the brewery adventure is outthere on the airwaves as well
(08:47):
and you are now their travelingroving reporter yeah, yeah, and
I do bits and pieces here andthere.
I may record with her here andthere as well.
So but, yeah, the breweryadventure, that's really cool
too.
It's every second week, justlike treasures of our town.
Meanwhile, josh, that's all thegood stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
That's all the good stuff we've done a lot of good
stuff we've got some delays,yeah what's mine is kind of a
general delay.
You know I just referenced Idropped off my final son to
college, so, craig, I'm gettingused to the idea of being an
empty nester.
It's a quiet house, yeah, uh,highlight or upgrade it's a
cleaner house, uh which is nice.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
You're not forking out as much as money either.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Well, you know it's very easy, but easy to venmo
your child from far away.
But uh, I was just evenmentioning to tammy the other
day it was garbage day and Icouldn't believe.
You know, usually our garbageis like overflowing with like
door dash bags.
Yeah, it was barely 25 percentfull.
(09:51):
I was like, oh my gosh, ourkids produce a lot of garbage.
Yeah, they do, absolutely.
But the delay is, yeah, it'skind of sad, it's a I miss them
and they're all out in the worlddoing great things.
But yeah, I'm getting used toit, so I'm gonna make that my
delay.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
There's some highlights to it, but it's kind
of sad I miss them.
They're all out in the worlddoing great things.
I'm getting used to it.
I'm going to make that my delay.
There's some highlights to it,but it's my delay.
How about you Main delay?
Mine kind of the same thing.
Over this week I stayed in anAirbnb with Rob, the president
of Munzee.
I left Tuesday all alone.
Tuesday was an empty nester,josh see, if you like that, so
it's kind of the same.
(10:28):
But I had.
I didn't even think about it,because she runs on solar as
well, and so she's got separatebatteries in it too.
And of course, I've got afridge that runs, you know,
constantly.
The whole time I wasn't usingany other power apart from the
fridge itself, but I parked herunder a tree and therefore the
solar wasn't solaring, no charge, so my batteries end up going
(10:52):
flat.
My uh, I cleaned I had to cleanup my fridge because it all sort
of you know, defrosted, so I've, uh, I've spent the the next uh
, you know, five hours nowdriving and she's all fully
charged again.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Oh that's good, and thus we can do the podcast.
Correct, correct.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I'm getting all my charge from for the podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
This podcast is powered by the sun.
I never realized that or no,it's charged by your battery of
your car.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Both it's charged by my alternator of the van the
alternator and also solar aswell.
So it's a two-pronged effect.
But normally if she's byherself and I'm not running the
car, then she does charge quitewell off full solar during the
day.
If I don't actually run her atall and if she's just running
the fridge, that's it, then shestill charges all the way up to
(11:41):
every single day.
Very cool If you don't parkunder a tree, that's a good tip,
good travel tip.
So there you go, josh.
Upgrades and delays.
But let's get on to thisepisode, josh, let's do it.
Let's do it.
We're going to talk about wherewe've been, what things we've
ticked off, what bucket listswe're talking about.
Josh, did you want to start offwith your first one and we'll
(12:02):
go?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
oh, this is the major one for me and I even
referenced it.
I referenced in the last episodebecause I think I it was my
upgrade for the last episode.
Well, you know, I was trying tofigure out what was going to be
my ten thousandth geocache andI had this one in mind.
But, as you know, if you listento this podcast, you know that
my ten thousandth was actuallywith you, craig, and it was a
(12:23):
Back to the Future theme, whichwas great.
It made for a great video.
Make sure you go to my YouTubechannel and check it out.
Shameless plug.
But I really wanted to visitthis location, which was the
biggest ball of paint theGuinness Book of World Records
biggest ball of paint inAlexandria, indiana.
And one of the reasons I wantedto visit it is because two
(12:44):
years ago, craig, when you and I, in shorty knits, jesse brown,
did the very first roadsideattraction, march madness, this
was the one that won it all.
It got first place and jesse,jesse had visited there.
I had not visited there, andyou and I don't think you've
been there yet either, have you?
No, I haven't been there yet.
No, no, no, you haven't beenthere yet either, have you?
No, I haven't been there yet.
(13:04):
No, no, no.
Yeah, you haven't been thereyet either.
So I was on my way to drive myson's stuff down to college.
I had to fly my son to collegewithout his stuff, and then I
took a weekend and I drove hisstuff down.
And a little bit outside of theway was Alexandria, indiana,
which is just slightly northeastof Indianapolis.
(13:27):
So it was slightly out of theway, maybe an hour out of the
way, but Craig, it was so worthit.
I am so glad I went, even thoughit wasn't my 10,000th geocache.
So if you don't know what thisis, this is exactly what it
sounds like it is it is thebiggest ball of paint in the
world.
It was created by a man namedMichael Carmichael.
(13:48):
Michael Carmichael, in 1977,took a baseball and painted a
layer of paint around a baseball, let it dry, did another layer,
did another layer, did anotherlayer, did another layer, more,
more, more, more, more.
So many layers and and now, asit stands, there are now over 30
000 layers of paint on thatsucker.
(14:09):
The thing is 11 over 11 000pounds.
He's created his own buildingfor it, so it's not even it's
like this building for thebiggest ball of paint, and so I
knew I need to do it and so Iwent.
And the cool thing about craigyes, it is a geocache, which
makes it awesome so I wasn'tsure if I was go ahead virtual.
(14:32):
Is it a virtual type?
No there is a physical geocachein that building oh really,
it's owner's permission not avirtual.
Yeah, it's.
It's not that new of a cache.
I think it was hidden several Ithink it's over 10 years old,
right?
So yeah, so it's a physicalcache, and so I started driving.
I wasn't sure if I was going tovisit it.
(14:53):
I'm driving through wisconsinand you have to make an
appointment.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
You have to call him because he has to be home of
course, because the whole ideais well, first of all, it'll be
locked away, surely like itwould be locked away because,
yeah, the cash is inside thebuilding.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
But the biggest fun of it, craig, is to be able to
add your layer of paint to thepaintball and so I've got a
question, though, before we goon.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So if you're adding a layer, that's technically
adding weight, even if it's onlygrams, and technically adding
width, again, only if it's ohyeah, millimeters, like it's not
even a millimeter width, wise.
So yes, so does that mean?
Does that mean it gets biggerwith every one?
So is that it says that eachtime?
Then is that new world recordyes, that's what's so amazing
(15:38):
about it?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
oh is that when you get to paint it, you are now the
world record holder, which isso cool.
Yeah, so he gives you.
Uh, I'm on, I don't want to getahead of myself because I want
to give.
I want to give a little moredetail and, if you're really
interested in what theexperience was like, I did put
out a youtube video on it as ofthe posting of this.
(16:00):
It was posted yesterday and soyou make an appointment, you go
and the guy oh my gosh, the truetreasure, craig, this is
americana.
The true treasure is is the guybecause he's proud I mean, holy
cow, he's proud of thatpaintball and he's probably
proud of his town as well, andthat's a rare thing these days
um, that he's so proud of hisyou get it in early josh, 15
(16:24):
minutes in but because it's soappropriate, he is, he is
literally so proud of this thingand the fact that I mean he's
retired, he lives there andhere's the thing is so cool.
It's like he opens this up, itbrings joy to people to be a
part of it, like there's veryfew world records.
I can't think of anywhere whereyou get to be part of the world
(16:44):
record, but he just likeopening up his home and he's a
widower.
This I discovered.
You know his, his wife passedaway just not so long ago.
So yes, there's like he bringsjoy to the world by allowing
people to come in and see it andpaint it, but also he's helping
you, like he's handing yourollers, he's, he's dipping the
rollers into the paint andexchanging rollers with you, and
(17:07):
the whole time he's talkingyour ear off.
And you can tell he just enjoyshaving the company and he enjoys
showing off the paintball andtalking all about it, and if you
watch the video you'll see that.
And so you get to decide whatcolor you get to paint it.
I'm from Minnesota.
I had to paint it purple todecide what color you get to
(17:32):
paint it I'm from minnesota.
I had to paint it, you know,purple for prince, purple rain,
or I had to paint purple for thevikings, so I painted purple
and I, uh, I painted layer30,085.
And so when you get in there,you walk in there, there's
literally on the paintball it,uh, it marks, you know what
layer you're about to paint.
So you know right away and hedoes a before and after picture.
So that was cool.
And then, when you're all done,yes, he gives you a certificate
which I'm going to frame and Ijust had a great conversation
(17:57):
with him.
And then I'm all done, craig,and then he all hands me
something and I'm like, what isthis?
He hands me a piece of the ball, like a little piece that he
cut off of the ball as asouvenir, and he autographs it.
And you look at this littlepiece, it's about the size of my
, you know, a little size of myhand, a little bit, and you look
at it, there's probably likewithin that little chunk that he
(18:19):
cuts off for me, yeah, therewere probably 200 layers.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
You could see it like the, but by cutting it off,
isn't?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
it can actually now take getting it smaller, yeah,
but he just cuts a little pieceoff the bottom.
Oh, he cuts a little piece onthe bottom so it's actually the
circumference around the middle.
That's uh measured each timerather than yeah yeah, but he
cuts up a little piece off.
But but you could see it if I,if I showed it to you, could see
the layers of the part that hecuts off.
It's probably 100 layers justin a little piece or whatever.
(18:49):
Um, so anyway, this guy saltedthe earth, it was so it's such a
cool experience.
Um, he had all these.
He's a.
I was like, what did you do fora living?
And he was like, oh, I was apainter.
Of course you were a painter hepainted.
His whole life has been aboutpaint, which really reminded me,
craig, really reminded me ofthe number one virtual in the
(19:12):
world before that it gotarchived and that was Barney
Smith's Toilet Seat Emporium.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, and the funny thing aboutBarney Smith is that I believe
he was a plumber.
Yeah, oh.
I'm sorry, and so this guy's apainter, it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It makes sense yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And so it very much felt like the toilet seat, a
museum and the ball of paint.
So really encourage you tovisit.
And outside of his house he hasall these yard ornaments of
things that he's painted likesunshines.
I was like what's up with allthese sunshine ornaments that
you painted?
They were stuck in the ground.
He goes.
This is great, he goes well.
(19:49):
During COVID I painted thoseand for people that couldn't get
out of their houses, like theelderly, I put them in their
yards to brighten their daythat's sweet Wow.
So that was cool.
Check, check, check, check,Check that one off your list.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
That's a big check that one too, because that was
that one, that one 2024.
Did you tell him about thewinning?
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Oh my, gosh, he's winning 2024.
I forgot to tell you that.
Yeah, I'm telling him.
And Craig, he was so excited,Really he was so excited that he
won.
I explained it to him and Isaid you know what I said I
thought about creating acertificate to say that you were
the winner.
I said beat out all the ones,it was the first one.
And he was like whoa, really,he's like could you, Could you
(20:37):
mail me a certificate?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
So I have designed a certificate'm gonna mail it to
him and he goes if you send me acertificate, I'll hang it up,
I'll frame it oh yes, tell youjust so proud.
So he was proud that ourpodcast named his, his roadside
attraction, the number oneroadside attraction in the, you
know, very first one so yeah, soyeah I have.
I have yet to send it to him andhe's.
It's funny too, because he waslike you know, a lot of people
(21:01):
say they're gonna send me thingsbut they never do.
Oh yeah, yeah, I was like.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I was like I'm going to follow through yeah, you got,
you got to follow through that.
I'm gonna really push it nowbecause, yeah, he sounds like a
really really cool guy, roughlyjosh uh talking to him as well.
How many times does it getreaped like it's painted?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
layers on a week, multiple, I think multiple times
a day, depending on the day.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
So you're a world record holder for how long five
hours, five hours.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah.
I showed up at probably abouttwo, two or three o'clock and he
said yeah, I got so many comingat seven.
I said, and on the video thevery beginning of the cv, and
here I am, I say I'm getting theworld record, and then he
chimes in for five hours I likeit.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I like it.
So, yeah, and want to know moreabout that one.
Yeah, absolutely head over tojosh's youtube channel, if you
haven't already subscribed, andyou'll see exactly what Josh
just described from there too.
So I love it, mate.
I love it.
All right, do we need to go onefor one for this, or what?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I think you should go next.
What have you seen?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Craig.
So, firstly and foremost I'vecome up from, I was in Colorado,
I had a great time in Colorado.
I had a great time in Colorado.
I drove all the way directlynorth to Wyoming because we've
got a good friend, a good friendof the podcast as well.
Dave Smilemakers lives inGillette, wyoming, again, a
prolific geocacher, prolificMunzee player.
Up there I think, josh, he'slike the only player in the town
(22:26):
.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Oh, I believe that.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
They're all his.
So I got up there and whathappens?
Oh, of course you know he is.
Two brand new ftf caches comeuh, get published.
So there we go, I get a coupleof ftfs, uh.
But then from there, wyomingjosh, I went straight across,
and I was going straight acrosssouth dakota, like straight
across the middle of southdakota.
Um, first and foremost and allthree of mine are in South
(22:51):
Dakota I had to stop Josh at theBadlands National Park.
Now, we haven't spoken becausetechnically, it's not a roadside
attraction, the Badlands, it isjust like a national park.
But there was a roadsideattraction that I did stop at
while I was at the Badlands too,but we'll get to that in a
second.
But the Badlands itself aren't.
Have you ever been there?
(23:12):
First and foremost?
Oh, yes, I've been there, ohyou've been there?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
yeah, I've been there two times.
It looks like another planet,like I know that.
I think I don't want to getthis wrong, but I think movies
have been shot there.
I think the the original planetof the apes, I think was shot,
was filmed shot there, becauseit doesn't look like Earth, it's
like this strange area of rocksout in the middle of nowhere,
(23:38):
yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
What got me there, josh, is that there's not that
many Earth caches there.
There's only like a handful ofEarth caches, yeah, you can go
from, and if you've been to anyother national park, normally
you go in a big circle, big loop, and as you go in the big loop
there's parking spots indifferent locations where you
can go and do your hikes, etcetera as well.
This one, it's not a loop, itgoes literally.
(24:01):
It comes in one end and goesout the other.
So you come in the north sidegate and go out the south side
gate or vice versa.
So that's really nice too.
But what got me, josh, is thatthey encourage you to walk all
over the badlands.
So what I mean by that is soyou go on these, uh, on these
actual paths, these tracks,these dedicated sort of walking
(24:21):
trails, um, and most of them, tobegin with, are actually
elevated off the ground andthey're all, like you know, the
wooden slats, and they're like apatio sort of walk um with
handrails, the lot, and then atthe very end there's steps that
go down into the badlands.
So there's, and then you, just,you just walk around.
There are like these littletrekking poles around that can
(24:44):
give you because it's on anaudio tour as well, if you want
to do that, whereby you knowthere's these poles are numbered
.
So if you're in an audio tour,you go okay, we're at pole
number one, for instance, andlook to the right, that's what
you see.
Look to the left.
So that's really cool as well.
But really shocked me though,josh, it really did that.
Yeah, you're allowed to walkall over these geological
features.
Um, yeah, it's really cool, butI'm gonna just think to myself
(25:06):
you know, how long is this tolast, with erosion and the human
interference of these big rocksand these big craters and
whatever else?
If ever anyone's gone tonational parks, we all know
national parks are absolutelybeautiful, especially here in
the good old US of A, but theyare all very, very different.
(25:26):
I've been to so many of thenational parks through the US
from Florida, where it's reallyhumid, but it's really, uh,
beautiful and green, and youknow, you've got swampy and
alligators and all that sort ofstuff all the way to utah, for
instance as well, where it's allliterally red rock, you know,
similar to the badlands, exceptbadlands is all gray and there's
no, there's not the red, soit's a different sort of soil
(25:48):
texture and a different sort ofgeological feature, and also
different in terms of like whatthey look like compared to.
Utah, for me, was very smooth.
The rocks are very smooth there.
They look so beautiful.
The red you know the whole lot,and I'm talking about the
Arches National Park.
In there you go to Yellowstone.
Yellowstone is all about thegeysers and the volcanic
(26:11):
activity and then the bison.
You know what I mean, that sortof thing too.
So it's a different again.
But yeah, I'd never seenBadlands and I am so, so glad I
did, josh, absolutely glad I did.
So it's only been a nationalpark, itself dedicated since
1978.
And then to me it was like, oh,that's a bit different to me.
I thought it would be a lotolder than that.
(26:32):
But no, 1978, it was actuallydedicated.
There are a lot of wildlife inand around this park.
Now, again, as I drove throughfrom the north to the south exit
, as I went out the south exit,josh there's bison everywhere
and they're laying down on theground having dust baths
(26:52):
themselves and being like bigpuppy dogs.
These bison, if you'relistening, if you've seen the
bison, do not attempt to goanywhere near it.
They look friendly but they'renot.
So please stay in your car andview them from your vehicle.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
There's too many videos on YouTube of people like
trying to get selfies with aboss.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, the bisons are not having it exactly but, josh,
what happened was is that, as Icome out the south end and all
these bison there as well,luckily for me, there was a um
like a cattle grid there and andbig fences.
So that's it kept them in thatsort of area, because along the
actual rim from there to thehighway is a rim like a rim area
(27:38):
of the Badlands.
Josh, you can drive in therewith your van, with your fifth
wheel, with your trailer,whatever you've got, even your
car with a tent, with your, yourtrailer, whatever you've got,
yeah, even your car with a tent,and you can park for free for
up to 14 nights along the rim ofthe badlands.
(27:59):
Unbelievable, josh.
So I actually got there.
I got a spot, sunsets, sunrisephenomenal, absolutely
phenomenal Coming in off andover the Badlands incredible.
I parked over there, got therein the afternoon, parked
overnight.
The next morning I woke up andwent.
(28:20):
I'm not going to move.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I'm going to stay here.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
It's perfect, I don't need to, I'm not in any rush,
yeah, so I made myself somecoffee, some breakfast, sat
outside on my little deck chairover the rim of the Badlands
drinking my coffee and eating mycroissant that I'd cooked for
myself.
That sounds awesome, soundsawesome.
(28:45):
So, yeah, I spent the dayliterally just hanging around
the van, outside the van, andthis is the other thing as well.
People talk about van life.
I don't live in my van, josh, Ilive out of my van.
You see, there's a difference.
I explore the world around meand the van is just literally
where I sleep and cook my food.
(29:07):
That's pretty much it.
Other than that, I'm outside,and that's again part of our
location-based gaming that welove to do as well.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, it gets us out for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Yeah, the Badlands wow.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
There's nothing like it in our country.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
It's very unique.
You drive up to it If you'venever seen it before.
You're like what is this?
You're like it looks likeanother planet.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It's really cool.
And just again, a tip out thereIf you've got a fifth wheel, if
you've got a, you know, a van,a trailer, even a tent, and
you're anywhere near going pastand you can stay the night here
for free, do it it thousandpercent worth.
It is incredible, the, theplaces you can stay for free
(29:51):
here in good old us of a josh,absolutely incredible.
So so there you go, josh.
That's my bad lands.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
You have your number two mate all ready to go so this
location wasn't really on myradar but it was very close to
the, to the big ball of paint,because I looked at the map and
I was like, wait a minute, whatis that town really close by,
you know, alexandria?
(30:17):
And it was muncie, not muncie,muncie, muncie, indiana, which
was literally 15 miles from theball of paint, and I and it was
just like part of me in the backof my mind was like muncie,
indiana, there's something inmuncie, indiana.
So I messaged our good friendrob and I was like muncie,
(30:37):
indiana.
I was like is there some sortof connection to muncie, indiana
and muncie?
And he's like yes.
And then it all came back to methat long ago I don't know how
long, craig, maybe eight, tenyears ago they had a big muncie
event there in muncie, justbecause the town sounded so
similar to muncie, and whatmuncie indiana is known for is
(31:03):
that is the home town of jimdavis.
So you know who j Davis is.
No, jim Davis is the artist andcreator of the Orange Cat comic
.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Garfield, oh, the fat cat Garfield.
The lazy fat cat Garfield.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
So, craig, I look at the Munzee map because I'm like,
okay, there's been a Munzeeevent here in Munzee long ago.
I was like there's probablysome sort of muncie action going
on.
I look on the map and I waslike, oh, wait a minute.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
I look at the map and there arefor those of you that play
(31:42):
muncie, you know, there's iconson the map.
You see the different kinds ofmuncies and I look and there are
probably a dozen Garfield iconsdowntown Muncie.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yes that's the one.
That's the one.
I remember that because they'reclassed as tourism icons and
they're extremely rare.
Those Garfield ones are only inMuncie.
They're not anywhere else,they're just in Muncie.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
So this is the only place in the world you can get a
Munzee icon.
It's basically just Garfield.
It doesn't even look like a pin.
It doesn't look round, itdoesn't look square.
It's Garfield, it's Garfield,yeah.
And so the cool thing about it,craig, is that when they did
this event several years ago,they put these virtual Munzee
(32:28):
Garfields on top of statuesstatues they're statues of
garfield doing different things,that's doing different things
all over the town.
So what I did is like, okay, I'mgonna.
Now, this was a long time ago.
I was like I don't know whatI'm gonna encounter.
And sure enough, I go to thesepins and there are at some of
them, yeah, now, some of them.
I was slightly disappointedbecause some of them had moved.
(32:49):
I get to location, I'm like I'mliterally at the theater
downtown.
I'm like, hey, I like walking.
It's like hey, is there agarfield statue around here?
And they're like, no, thatmoved four years ago.
But there were some.
So I, of the 12, I think, Ifound four, like four of them.
I I made a youtube video of itbecause it's so rare.
(33:10):
I think garfield is great butit's it's kind of craig.
It's like it's munzee lore kindof now, because it kind of
reminds me of, like withgeocaching, the ape cache.
You know the ape?
Oh, yes, they partnered with,you know the planet of the apes
movie munzee back in the day,partnered with garfield, yeah,
in this, in this town.
So I had to visit it for themunzee lore and it was uh, it
(33:33):
was a nice little afternoon, sothat was kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
It was, uh, a way our location-based games brought me
to a different place, that'sright, that's what this is all
about and you said that you didactually do a video.
Is it a short or is it a take?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
no, I'm gonna.
It was a full video, it's gonnabe, that's coming, that come
out, it's coming down the road.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
I don't know how long .
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I have a lot of Germany videos in the hopper
because I just came back fromGermany, so we'll see.
It might not be until like Idon't know January, I don't know
.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
But keep an eye out for it.
Keep an eye out for it.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
But yeah, it was unique, I thought okay, thought
okay, this will make kind of acool munzee video you know, I
love putting out munzee videosfrom time to time, even though I
am the geocaching vlogger.
So and I actually made a munzeevideo this weekend too.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Ha, ha ha speaking of speaking of a geocaching
vlogger as well.
Uh, question for you is thatwas there like adventure labs or
anything like that around theretoo for for those geocacher
people out there?
Or you didn't even open up,don't tell me you didn't open up
the app.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
You know well you were too busy filming and I was
all I had time for was I meanthe?
These statues were all overtown, so I was just darting all
over town I was.
You know, I was focused, I waslike I guess, I'm here to shoot
this video and I'm here to findthese garfield statues.
So I I don't know, but but,craig, there were a lot of
(34:49):
munsies.
I think I was number one in theworld that day because of all
the residual Munsies that wereleft over from all the events
over the years.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
And Muncie.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Indiana, Not Muncie Muncie Muncie Indiana so that
was not on my bucket list, butit kind of was serendipitous.
I was like, okay, I'm close tothe ball of paint, I'm near
Muncie, so it was a go.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yeah, that's fair enough.
That's fair enough.
Well, my second one wasliterally 10 minutes away from
the rim of the Badlands, exactlywhere I was parked up, and this
one was on our.
I think it was this year, Ithink it was.
This one actually appeared,josh, and that is Wall Drug,
(35:32):
located in Wall, south Dakota.
You told me to go to this one.
Everyone told me to go to thisone, and not just you, I'm
talking.
Every person told me to go.
Everyone on social media toldme go to Wall Drug, go to Wall
Drug.
Go to Wall Drug, josh.
I was expecting something likeBuc-ee's, you know, like big,
and it's not.
I mean it's been out there for awhile it's certainly not modern
(35:54):
, oh yeah, no, it's definitelynot modern, quintessential,
quintessential.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
I can't say the word Quintessential, quintessential,
yeah, americana, yes, quirkyroadside attraction, exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
And so I thought to myself well, you go to these
places, josh, and sometimesthey're not all they are hyped
up to be in some cases.
So I said, okay, I'm going tobe real now with the listeners
out there.
I've got pros, but I've alsogot cons iconic, quirky, uh,
lots of weird photoopportunities in and around
there as well.
The actual buildings themselveslook really cool with made out
of all the wood.
You know the wood panelingstuff as well.
That's really cool as well.
So that's, I loved all thatsort of stuff.
They said that there's free icewater and five cent coffees.
(36:47):
I couldn't find it, butapparently it's there somewhere.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
But that craig I believe that's how it got famous
because people were likelooking for a place to stop,
because you know, it's all kindof on the way to the black hills
.
So they're like this is a stop,get your free ice water and
five cent coffee, coffee, coffeehere the water, not coffee that
you would probably like.
It's certainly the americandrip kind that disgusts you.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
You like absolutely mud water.
But, josh, I thought when I wasfirst walking through as well,
I thought you know what?
There's a lot of?
Just it's a big, big souvenirshop.
But then if you go throughother areas it's more of a.
They've got art galleries inthere too, so it shows you the
history of Waldrug.
You can look in a different artgallery as well and it shows
(37:36):
you all, like these oldnewspaper clippings.
And you know we're talking aboutthe old country, the old
westerns.
You know where they're walkingaround with their chaps and
their gunslingers and their youknow back in the day, like I'm
talking about back in the day,years and years and years ago.
They do have, obviously, therestrooms and food and all that
sort of stuff as well.
It is just off the highway.
(37:57):
I'm talking a three-minutedrive off the highway.
You cannot miss this.
You cannot miss the wall drugat all because, josh, there's
1.5 million signs, I know, butthere's thousands upon thousands
of signs from from the borderof Wyoming to the border of uh,
(38:18):
of Minnesota.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Oh, my gosh Craig.
Do you remember the movie spaceballs?
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
It's in space balls, it's like one bazillion miles to
wall drug.
So, Josh, they're the pros thatI have in regards to it.
I think the cons themselves.
I think it was just a littlebit too touristy for me.
There was a lot of people there, Josh.
I mean, there's big parking lotsbut the parking lots were
(38:45):
pretty full and a lot of peoplewalking around you know you're
shoulder to shoulder.
It was a bit too.
A bit too much for me inregards to the amount of tourism
and the amount of touriststhemselves in in.
You know, and we're not really.
It wasn't even that peak of aseason.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I mean, it's warm, of course go there in winter, but
summer's over.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.
So for me I think that was abit of a con.
Also, apparently, the foodquality.
I didn't have anything, butapparently the food quality
there, as you can understand,isn't really it's quick, it's
fast, it's.
You know that sort of thing too, and so it's just to me it felt
a bit overwhelming as well,like there was a lot going on,
(39:27):
whereas for me I compare Waldrugto Bucky's a little bit and
I'll say wall drug was theBucky's in the seventies?
Yes, exactly, if Bucky's was inthe seventies, that's what wall
drug is, and it hasn't updated.
It hasn't upgraded, it's stillstuck in the seventies.
So that's, that's, that's my,that's my thing as well.
(39:50):
So, uh, and yeah, and maybeI'll tell you now maybe a con is
that there's too muchadvertising, josh too much.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
I think that's what's .
I think it's a joke.
A lot of that advertising is ajoke I think they know, but I I
might understand it.
We can look this up.
These signs are all over theworld, they're not just on I-90.
It's just like ridiculous, likein Korea or something.
As far as I know, they putthese Walgrug signs.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
It's a joke and honestly Bucky's kind of you
know Bucky's kind of, has donethe same thing a little bit, you
know, you see really, reallyfar away.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
It's like Bucky is like a thousand miles away.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
And then it says you can hold it like the bathroom,
Because it's the best bathrooms,of course.
Absolutely so.
That's another reason why I wasat Wall was for Wall Drug too,
but I loved how it was actuallyso quick off the highway, and on
the other side of the highwaywas the rim of the Badlands.
(40:53):
I'll tell you, josh, yeah, vanlife for me.
I've been doing this for likealmost 18 months now.
No, sorry, almost 12 months now, full time in this in Tuesday,
18 months overall.
I'm going to say that's thebest place I've ever parked up
at.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Really In the US.
That's saying a lot.
You've parked a lot of places.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Yeah, I mean better than Cracker Barrel.
We'll just say that.
But anyway, all right, josh,get there, get to your last one.
All right, the third one.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
My last one was a little bit of a surprise,
because I drove the Ball ofPaint, then I drove the Muncie,
indiana, indiana, yeah, and thenI was heading to Kentucky, and
all my way to Kentucky, on theroad Speaking of signs, craig,
it said, in so many miles,uranus, indiana.
Oh hang on.
Indiana, uranus Indiana.
(41:40):
I was like there's two.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Uranus.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I've been to Uranus Missouri, I didn't know there
was a Uranus Indiana.
So surely when we did, we did awhole show on this craig we and
I visited together.
There's a big muncie eventthere, yeah.
And I was like I'm so curious.
So I followed the signs and nowuranus indiana is in anderson,
indiana, and so I pulled off onthe exit.
It told me to, and then it tookme like 10 minutes.
(42:05):
It was not on the highway, itwas like in town, and when I got
up there it was basically itwas clear it was owned by the
same people, oh, so they had thesame brand it was another
location.
Yeah, um, it was newer.
It was newer, uh, less, uh less, I don't want to say run down,
(42:27):
but less kitschy than the onelike the one we found.
It was like it was everythingwas, but less kitschy than the
one we found.
It was like everything wasnewer.
But certainly you walk in themain building and what do they
say?
I knew I was in the same place.
Welcome to Uranus, that's whatthey say.
I said it at the other place.
And yeah, same t-shirts.
They had the same ice creamshop, same hot dog shop.
(42:49):
Get a wiener in Uranus.
The fudge as well, fudge, yep.
The fudge factory was there,yep, but it was basically Craig.
It was basically a mini version.
Oh, it was like a condensedmini version of Uranus, missouri
.
So if you're comparing Uranus,Missouri was much more epic than
and that was like on Route 66.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
But I'm glad I stopped it was cool absolutely,
and it gave you content as well,see yeah, and you remember.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
You remember that when we went to Uranus Missouri
we had a Munzee event there andthey, the people Uranus Missouri
, the people that worked thatgot irritated that we were there
playing munzee, well, I get.
I go here and guess what?
There's a geocache on the sign.
The oh wow, the main sign ofthe place, clearly that it was
placed there by permission, noproblem.
(43:40):
They had no problem.
So there was actually aphysical geocache on location
because there's no physicalcache either in missouri.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
No, there's a virtual .
There's a virtual, but notphysical.
But not physical because theyweren't allowed to.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
So that was a nice surprise.
It was, you know, a lot ofplaces there was a dinosaur,
there's lots of again kind ofeverything that's in the other
place, but it was like condensedand smaller.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
So what you're saying is….
Speaker 2 (44:05):
What you're saying is Missouri has got a bigger
Uranus than what Indiana has.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Big way bigger Uranus .
A lot more room in that Uranusto move around, A lot more room
to explore that Uranus.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Yeah, you can pull more fudge out of that Uranus
than what you can Way more.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
They had a lot more fudge in the other Uranus but
I'm glad I visited that Uranus.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
And walking out of this one as well.
Do they say thank you forpicking Uranus?
Walking out of this one as well.
Do they say thank you forpicking uranus?
Yes, of course.
Yeah, so that's that's theirstock standard.
That's their lines.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
That's their lines, yeah they've been clearly
trained by the um the uranusexperts yes, yes, there are
uranus experts out there too.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
So anyway, moving on, because, josh, I am actually
proud of you because youactually called it uranus the
whole time then instead ofuranus.
So yeah, I'm proud of you, mate.
That's a rare thing these days,all right moving on.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Okay, I can't wait till you talk about this one,
because I have a like a humblebrag with this one, but go ahead
oh of course you do.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Of course you do.
So this one again.
I'm traveling east on the, theinterstate through the middle of
south dakota, and of course Icome across in mitchell, south
dakota, the corn palace.
This one was mentioned and thisis um the, the, the march
(45:19):
madness as well it was mynominee.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
It was your nominee.
It was your nominee.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Got beat by probably one of yours as it should, but
anyway, um, it was, it did.
It should have held its own,because it actually was.
I really really enjoyed thisplace, the corn palace in
mitchell.
Um, if you've never been there,if you haven't seen anything at
all, it is exactly what youhear it to be it is a corn
palace.
What that means is is that Ithink it's like a big community
(45:46):
center or something like thattwo, two stories, like two
floors as well.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
It's huge.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
It's huge In the middle.
You've got the old sort ofstyle I'm going to say there,
you know, josh, those in India,the country India, and you've
got those Taj Mahal, like thebig thing, with this big circle
thing on the top, like aHershey's Kiss on the top.
It's got those on it too.
Yeah, it looks like a castle,it's, it's amazing, absolutely
(46:11):
castle.
But the difference is is all onthe outside, it's actually real
corn and it's all places likean art deco sort of style as
well.
So, mate, um, absolutelyincredible, great photo
opportunities in every part aswell.
But what I love is that theyactually change it up every so
often as well.
(46:31):
They, they totally redo thefull art deco.
Um, how do you know this?
You can walk inside for freeand it's a full museum on the
corn palace.
So you go through and you lookfrom the very, very start of
this corn palace all the waythrough, um, uh, you know when I
kind of think when it actuallystarted, but when it did start,
(46:52):
I'm talking years and years andyears ago.
Um, yeah, they had the old, uh,the old one to begin with, and
then they upgraded every sooften, every few years, they
upgraded itself.
Now how they do this upgrade,josh, is that I think they use
like 12 to 13 or something,different shades of corn, so you
know how you can get like a redcorn and a brown corn, you can
(47:14):
get black corn, white corn,yellow, the whole lot.
So that's how they do the muraland designs Inside itself.
Of course you can buy popcorn.
Why wouldn't you buy popcorninside?
But what amused me, josh, themost was you walk all the way
through each side.
After the popcorn area and yougo through, it opens up.
(47:35):
It's a huge basketball stadiumvenue, like in the popcorn pal.
Yeah, it's got the, it's gotthe big uh jumbotron in the
middle as well, unbelievable, Ithink.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
the local college like plays basketball there, or
certainly the high, the highschool plays basketball there.
And it's really unique, craig,because it's yes, it's a
basketball court, but theseating is almost like a theater
.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Yes, it's really odd.
Yes, it really is Almost like atheater to a certain degree,
but it is like very, becausethey were redoing that area when
I was there, so they didn'tactually have any seats
themselves.
Redoing that area when I wasthere, so it didn't actually
have any seats, seats themselves, that was all concrete.
Um, looked like steps, concrete, huge concrete steps.
So I'm not sure, I'm not sureif they had all the seating out
(48:19):
when I was there and they wererepolishing the concrete um, or
they change it to all concretesteps.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
I don't know sure, but yeah, they didn't actually
have any seat seats um, when Iwas there, there were seats, so
they might be renovating it.
They might be renovating, yeah,question Craig.
Yes, every year they do adifferent theme for the outside.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
When I went there it was like classic rock and roll,
so there was like Elvis was madeout of corn and one was like
Johnny Cash.
Do you remember what the themewas this year?
They change it out every year.
I.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Ash, do you remember what the theme was?
This?
Speaker 1 (48:51):
year.
They change it out every year,I don't know exactly what the
theme was.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
I'm going to have a look at the photos itself, but
tell me, josh, your humble bragyou said about.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
My humble brag is that I selected this as a
nominee for.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Roadside Attraction.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
March Madness, and it got beat.
I mean we should listen back.
I probably got beat by one ofyour nominees, and it got beat.
I mean we should listen back.
I probably got beat by one ofyour nominees.
And now my humble brag is thatyou enjoyed it so much and that
if you had known how great itwas, you might have fought
differently and maybe it wouldhave gone farther in the
competition.
Possibly, possibly, I don'tknow.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
I'd have to look who it was up against.
Yeah, yeah, but one of myfavorite things as well is that.
Well, two of the favoritethings is that, apart from being
inside, of course, there's anadventure lab inside as well.
Oh, that's cool, and theadventure lab is one of those
adventure labs that's veryspecific, so it's not a multiple
choice one where you can justanswer it on the fly Nope, nope,
(49:47):
nope.
You've actually got to find thededicated year that's on the
walls inside the actual museum,and then there's questions
related to the actual years ofthe museum, which is really cool
too.
So I love that part of it.
But what I love too, joshacross the road, was the gift
(50:07):
shop.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Oh, it's a great gift shop.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
It's a great gift shop, Josh.
This is a great the gift shop,Always a gift shop.
It's a great gift shop.
This is a great, great giftshop Cause you know me, Josh, I
love my dad jokes.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
It had to be a lot of corn jokes.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
There was a lot of corn jokes there.
We're talking about, you know,things with corny things.
We're talking like, and evengoing to the point where they
almost went adult rated, wherethey go, oh, like you know me,
so corny, and all that sort ofstuff too.
So all that sort of side, oh mygosh, yes.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
What I'm looking at, the I'm looking at the Corn
Palace for 2025.
I'm surprised you didn'tremember the theme this year is
Wonders of the World ModernWonders of the World.
Oh, and one of them is is canyou see?
Speaker 2 (50:50):
that?
Oh, yes, yeah, oh yeah, thatwas on there.
Yes, yeah, so I'm not sayingthat I took a photo yeah, it's
the uh australia opera house,the sydney opera house, so it's
wonders of the world.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
This year was the that's right.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I remember seeing that on the inside, though, they
had that part on the inside andthen um, and then the the
brazil, the the christ on top ofthe hill or whatever in brazil.
Yeah, it's so cool.
That's the thing too about thecorn palace, craig, is that,
like you can visit every year,and every year it's a little
different different.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's neat , absolutely.
Um, they also got josh.
This is what you would haveloved, this as well and that is
is across the road, but nextdoor to the gift shop they've
got a dedicated area for selfiearea, so they had like a little
stand where you can put yourphone and do a full selfie mode.
At the same time, they'veactually got the corn mascot a
(51:47):
big corn mascot smiling at youas well, so you can stand with
your arm around the corn and andhave the corn palace in the
background I remember thatlocation, that was.
That's really cool too.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
So, yeah, yeah, I loved it and I think that's a
webcam too, I I think if you cango to the corn palace's website
and you can see a webcam, likeif they ever brought webcams
back, that would be a perfectwebcam absolutely.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Um, and just going back to what I said before, 1892
they started 1892.
That's over over 125 years old.
That's a lot of corn.
That's a.
That's a lot of corn like youguys you guys in the us love
your corn.
You've been growing for yearsand years and years so but yeah,
(52:32):
so that was my number three.
Josh was the uh, the cornpalace, and I'll say now I don't
know what it was against, um,but had I been there I may have
had a different view on that onmy, my take on it so, but that's
the great thing about it.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
You know, we, we we're inspired by our own
podcast and I we hope that youtoo are inspired by our podcast.
We hope that you, if you'redriving by or making a
destination to visit the cornpalace or the badlands,
certainly got I mean, if you'reever this way through south
dakota, you gotta stop at thoselocations, and you know the ball
(53:08):
of paint too.
So, yeah, this episode waspretty much like an indiana and
and south dakota episode whichis just kind of cool, because
this is like there's probablynot very many podcasts out there
.
They're like okay, today we'refocusing on indiana and south
dakota.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
There's lots of other different states with different
things.
But yeah, but here in treasuresour town.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
We know that there's treasures everywhere in this
great country of ours.
Speaker 2 (53:34):
Exactly, Josh.
What I'll do as well is I'mgoing to post on our patron page
all my selfies.
I'll find them myself, all myphotos and selfies of the Corn
Palace.
I'll do a few as well at theBadlands, and I'll put it all on
our patron page.
And if you want to see those,Josh, and if you want to become
a patron, how can they do that?
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Josh, they can support us on Patreon.
By helping us, you help us keepthis podcast going, keep
everything free.
So consider joining us atpatreoncom backslash
treasurefortown, and I'll anteup that too.
I'll send you, craig, somepictures as well of the ball of
(54:17):
paint, of course, as well.
And there was something elsewe've talked about that I wanted
.
That was something we took thisweekend that I can't now.
It's Lou, I'm losing it, butanyway it'll be a surprise over
there for our patrons.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Yes, absolutely All on the patron.
So yeah, if you want to reallysee that more, go over to
patreoncom.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
oh, craig the plant guys, the guys we gotta post
that picture, okay, so funny aswell there we go, there we go.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
So we're gonna interrupt, yeah, we're gonna
have plant guys, and plantsbeing corn palace.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
So plant guys and plant castles.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
So there we go.
That's really cool.
Otherwise, Josh, if people wantto reach out to us and give us
ideas, chat about what they'veheard as well, how can people
find us, Josh?
Speaker 1 (54:59):
Yes, we had such good feedback on our Meander or Me
and Her podcast last time.
So if you'd like to give usyour feedback or compliments or
complaints although we don't getvery many complaints, which is
great reach out to us attreasures of our town podcast at
gmailcom, or you can follow uson facebook, instagram, youtube
or our buzzsprout site.
Just search treasures of ourtown podcast and you'll find us
(55:20):
right there exactly right.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
So that's it for our show today.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
Please subscribe, rate and review on your favorite
podcasting app and, as Josh May, your travels always lead you
to the most unexpected andamazing hidden gems around our
country, like Indiana and SouthDakota.
Who knows where we're going togo next?
Find out.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
We don't even know.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
We don't know.
See you everybody, bye-bye, bye.
the true treasure, craig, this is americana.
The true treasure is is the guy, because he's proud.
I mean, holy cow, he's proud ofthat paintball and he's
probably proud of his town aswell, and that's a rare thing
these days, um, that he's soproud of his.
You get it in early josh, 15minutes.
Do you love to travel?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Do you love road trips?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Do you love finding hidden treasures in towns all
over the USA?
Hi, I'm Joshua.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
And I'm Craig.
Welcome to Treasures of OurTown.
It's a podcast that exploresunique and charming towns
scattered throughout the UnitedStates.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Guided by our love for location-based games like
geocaching, join us as weventure to some of the country's
most intriguing destinations,uncovering hidden gems and local
secrets along the way.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
On today's episode, josh, we're going to check,
check, check, check one, two,check one, two.
Checking off some of our bucketlist roadside attractions that
we've spoken about previously,never been to.
Guess what, josh, that we'vespoken about previously, never
been to.
Guess what, josh, you and Iboth of us have been to some of
these brand new well, not brandnew, but brand new to us
roadside attractions that wefeatured in March Madness, not
(01:14):
just this year, but MarchMadness in 2024 as well.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yes, you know, it's really cool.
Part of this podcast is that itgives us some ideas of places
we should go, and we wereinspired, craig.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
We were inspired by our own podcast I know, I know,
absolutely, it was um, and evento the point when you know, we
say before, our travels areguided by our location-based
games, etc.
You know, you know me, josh.
I've been traveling around theUS going from mega to mega or
block party, block party, etcetera.
But there's times in between,josh, where I think to myself
(01:49):
hang on a second, where may I begoing past between block party
A and block party B?
Well, there's a few things thathave been passed in the last
two weeks, josh, and there's afew that you've been past too.
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, and I've been past a few things when I'm
hauling all my kids' stuff downto college.
It's just a little bitdifferent sort of reason, but
hey, any excuse to travel, youknow.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Exactly right, and at least you are traveling again.
Remember those times, Joshuayou went a few months without
traveling.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, it was a dry spell and you got the itch.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
You got the itch, mate.
You got the itch.
Speaking of itch mate, what'syour upgrade and delays?
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Well, well, well well .
My upgrade was that we just saweach other, probably five hours
ago.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
You were here in Minnesota once again for Munzee
Mania 8.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And we had a great weekend with Coach V, rob
Vardaman, president of Munzee,our friend Minnesota boy, you
guys were here, we did, we had alot of fun and it was an epic
Munzee event.
If you're listening to this forthe first time, what's Munzee?
It's another location-basedgame where we had a gigantic, in
terms of Munzee, a giganticMunzee event here all weekend in
(03:02):
beautiful Minnesota at abeautiful time.
September's a great time.
A little bit on the warm side,it's a little warmer than usual.
A little warmer than usual, butit was.
It was a great weekend.
We had a lot of fun, didn't we?
Craig?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh, absolutely.
And the parks.
I will say, josh, especiallyfor Munzee play.
Munzee play needs parks.
It needs a good walking trackas part of the event, because
these big events as well.
There's 50 pin what they callpins to actually walk around and
collect those pins.
You can do a walking track,josh, anywhere between two,
(03:35):
three, four miles worth ofwalking track and a nice
circular track at that too.
And we, you and I spoke aboutit and, and I said Josh,
minnesota, the green parks ofMinnesota, with their actual
dedicated walking tracks, liketheir nice and smooth bitumen
roadway as well, where you canwalk through and it's all green,
(03:56):
josh, it's beautiful matebeautiful.
So, yeah, I really appreciate it.
And you know what, Josh, that'smy upgrade as well, of course a
great weekend with all theMunzee players.
So not just you, me, Minnesotaboy, Minnesota boy, Minnesota
boy and Rob, but all the Munzeeplayers.
I really enjoy catching up witheveryone, Josh.
There was people there fromCalifornia, people there from
(04:17):
Florida, Montana.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
New York as well.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Upstate New York were there too, so all of Arizona as
well.
There's people from Arizona upthere too, so all over the place
too.
So that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
It was really cool.
Another part of my upgrade thisweek was you know, I'm also a
geocacher.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I'm not just a.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Monzi player.
I am the geocaching vlogger,after all, and so this week in
Minneapolis, st Paul area wasthe Geocachers of Minnesota,
which is one of our geocachingorganizations, was Craft Beer
Week Craig, what Craft Beer Week.
And, craig, you got toparticipate in a couple of them,
which means from Monday toSunday.
(04:56):
We're recording this on Sunday.
Monday and Sunday there was ageocaching event at a different
brewery every single day, and ifyou did all seven of them, you
got your own personalizedoktoberfest.
Geocaching of minnesota steinlike beer stein like ceramic
beer stein.
And so I just completed.
I just came back from my lastbrewery.
(05:18):
It's sunday now, and so I'venever I've never done seven
breweries.
I well, I know, craig, you have, I know, but I've never done
seven breweries.
I well, I know, craig, you have, I know, but I've never done
seven breweries in a row inseven days, and so that was a.
That was a good thing.
And, uh, you know, I was guidedby my love for location-based
games to drink at least one beerin every location, so that was
really cool too tell me, josh,as well with that?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
um, was there many?
Because I know Minnesota, andMinneapolis especially, has a
lot of breweries.
Yes, and you've been to quite afew as well.
Was there any breweries thatare brand new to you at all of
those seven that you went to Was?
Speaker 1 (05:52):
there any brand new?
The one that we went toHacklemore in Chanhassen, the
West Suburbs oh yes, that wasnew to me.
I'd never been there before.
They had the coolest thinghappening, craig, it made me
laugh so much.
They had bingo going on, whichis very normal for a brewery to
do bingo, but they had plantbingo.
And you might be asking what'splant bingo?
Well, people were playing bingoto win plants and Craig tell
(06:17):
them about the collars.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I was going to say exactly right, like if you, if
you're a brewery listening tothis, for some unknown reason,
you want more.
You want more ladies to walkthrough the door and try your
different types of beers.
Then put on a plant bingo.
There was 99.9 of players.
There were all ladies, um, andthe two, the two guys running
the bingo itself.
They were fully dressed up asactual plants, like they had a
(06:46):
full green bodysuit, things on,with plants hanging off them.
They had green faces as well,uh, sunglasses on.
They had these big, uh bighacklemore.
Um, it was hacklemore,obviously, not macklemore, but
this is still something bighacklemore, big uh chains around
their necks as well.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
So it was really cool .
Yeah, yes, there were a lot oflovely moms, probably from the,
from the western suburbs, heredrinking beer, playing bingo.
It was a lovely sight to seeand, uh, it was a lot of fun.
And we, there were some reallycool beers there, craig.
There was, uh, one calledsaturday morning cereal which
(07:22):
tastes like cinnamon toastcrunch.
There was one called HolySchneikies which was a Chris
Farley inspired beer.
It was like a $30 bottle.
It was like what was thepercentage of alcohol on that
one?
Craig, 15, 15.5%.
That's a lot.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
15.5% was the percentage of alcohol on that
one.
That was a lot.
I did get one bottle of that togo, and then we did, because
it's $35 for a bottle.
We did share it between you,myself, minnesota Boy and Rob
too, just like little tasters,josh little tasters, so we can
all share the love of beer.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah, and there was another one called Tap, tap,
taparoo.
Tap it in, tap it in, oh, tap,tap-a-roo.
Tap it in, tap it in, oh, tapit in, just tap it in.
So I'm guessing the owners ofHacklemore Brewing Company are
very much fans of like 90s, youknow comedies with Chris Farley
and Adam Sandler and all thatstuff.
Yeah, that was a very nicebrewery, a lot of fun.
(08:21):
It was fun that you were therefor that one as well.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, a very nice brewery, a lot of fun.
It was fun that you were therefor that one as well.
Yeah, and just don't forget Iwas going to say if you, if you
actually enjoy breweries and youwant to listen to it, more
about breweries and a brewerypodcast.
Oh yeah, the best one out there, josh.
The brewery adventure hosted byour good friend, courtney uh,
also known as mecca mn in thegeocaching and munzee world too.
So the brewery adventure is outthere on the airwaves as well
(08:47):
and you are now their travelingroving reporter yeah, yeah, and
I do bits and pieces here andthere.
I may record with her here andthere as well.
So but, yeah, the breweryadventure, that's really cool
too.
It's every second week, justlike treasures of our town.
Meanwhile, josh, that's all thegood stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
That's all the good stuff we've done a lot of good
stuff we've got some delays,yeah what's mine is kind of a
general delay.
You know I just referenced Idropped off my final son to
college, so, craig, I'm gettingused to the idea of being an
empty nester.
It's a quiet house, yeah, uh,highlight or upgrade it's a
cleaner house, uh which is nice.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
You're not forking out as much as money either.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Well, you know it's very easy, but easy to venmo
your child from far away.
But uh, I was just evenmentioning to tammy the other
day it was garbage day and Icouldn't believe.
You know, usually our garbageis like overflowing with like
door dash bags.
Yeah, it was barely 25 percentfull.
(09:51):
I was like, oh my gosh, ourkids produce a lot of garbage.
Yeah, they do, absolutely.
But the delay is, yeah, it'skind of sad, it's a I miss them
and they're all out in the worlddoing great things.
But yeah, I'm getting used toit, so I'm gonna make that my
delay.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
There's some highlights to it, but it's kind
of sad I miss them.
They're all out in the worlddoing great things.
I'm getting used to it.
I'm going to make that my delay.
There's some highlights to it,but it's my delay.
How about you Main delay?
Mine kind of the same thing.
Over this week I stayed in anAirbnb with Rob, the president
of Munzee.
I left Tuesday all alone.
Tuesday was an empty nester,josh see, if you like that, so
it's kind of the same.
(10:28):
But I had.
I didn't even think about it,because she runs on solar as
well, and so she's got separatebatteries in it too.
And of course, I've got afridge that runs, you know,
constantly.
The whole time I wasn't usingany other power apart from the
fridge itself, but I parked herunder a tree and therefore the
solar wasn't solaring, no charge, so my batteries end up going
(10:52):
flat.
My uh, I cleaned I had to cleanup my fridge because it all sort
of you know, defrosted, so I've, uh, I've spent the the next uh
, you know, five hours nowdriving and she's all fully
charged again.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Oh that's good, and thus we can do the podcast.
Correct, correct.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I'm getting all my charge from for the podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
This podcast is powered by the sun.
I never realized that or no,it's charged by your battery of
your car.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Both it's charged by my alternator of the van the
alternator and also solar aswell.
So it's a two-pronged effect.
But normally if she's byherself and I'm not running the
car, then she does charge quitewell off full solar during the
day.
If I don't actually run her atall and if she's just running
the fridge, that's it, then shestill charges all the way up to
(11:41):
every single day.
Very cool If you don't parkunder a tree, that's a good tip,
good travel tip.
So there you go, josh.
Upgrades and delays.
But let's get on to thisepisode, josh, let's do it.
Let's do it.
We're going to talk about wherewe've been, what things we've
ticked off, what bucket listswe're talking about.
Josh, did you want to start offwith your first one and we'll
(12:02):
go?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
oh, this is the major one for me and I even
referenced it.
I referenced in the last episodebecause I think I it was my
upgrade for the last episode.
Well, you know, I was trying tofigure out what was going to be
my ten thousandth geocache andI had this one in mind.
But, as you know, if you listento this podcast, you know that
my ten thousandth was actuallywith you, craig, and it was a
(12:23):
Back to the Future theme, whichwas great.
It made for a great video.
Make sure you go to my YouTubechannel and check it out.
Shameless plug.
But I really wanted to visitthis location, which was the
biggest ball of paint theGuinness Book of World Records
biggest ball of paint inAlexandria, indiana.
And one of the reasons I wantedto visit it is because two
(12:44):
years ago, craig, when you and I, in shorty knits, jesse brown,
did the very first roadsideattraction, march madness, this
was the one that won it all.
It got first place and jesse,jesse had visited there.
I had not visited there, andyou and I don't think you've
been there yet either, have you?
No, I haven't been there yet.
No, no, no, you haven't beenthere yet either, have you?
No, I haven't been there yet.
(13:04):
No, no, no.
Yeah, you haven't been thereyet either.
So I was on my way to drive myson's stuff down to college.
I had to fly my son to collegewithout his stuff, and then I
took a weekend and I drove hisstuff down.
And a little bit outside of theway was Alexandria, indiana,
which is just slightly northeastof Indianapolis.
(13:27):
So it was slightly out of theway, maybe an hour out of the
way, but Craig, it was so worthit.
I am so glad I went, even thoughit wasn't my 10,000th geocache.
So if you don't know what thisis, this is exactly what it
sounds like it is it is thebiggest ball of paint in the
world.
It was created by a man namedMichael Carmichael.
(13:48):
Michael Carmichael, in 1977,took a baseball and painted a
layer of paint around a baseball, let it dry, did another layer,
did another layer, did anotherlayer, did another layer, more,
more, more, more, more.
So many layers and and now, asit stands, there are now over 30
000 layers of paint on thatsucker.
(14:09):
The thing is 11 over 11 000pounds.
He's created his own buildingfor it, so it's not even it's
like this building for thebiggest ball of paint, and so I
knew I need to do it and so Iwent.
And the cool thing about craigyes, it is a geocache, which
makes it awesome so I wasn'tsure if I was go ahead virtual.
(14:32):
Is it a virtual type?
No there is a physical geocachein that building oh really,
it's owner's permission not avirtual.
Yeah, it's.
It's not that new of a cache.
I think it was hidden several Ithink it's over 10 years old,
right?
So yeah, so it's a physicalcache, and so I started driving.
I wasn't sure if I was going tovisit it.
(14:53):
I'm driving through wisconsinand you have to make an
appointment.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
You have to call him because he has to be home of
course, because the whole ideais well, first of all, it'll be
locked away, surely like itwould be locked away because,
yeah, the cash is inside thebuilding.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
But the biggest fun of it, craig, is to be able to
add your layer of paint to thepaintball and so I've got a
question, though, before we goon.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So if you're adding a layer, that's technically
adding weight, even if it's onlygrams, and technically adding
width, again, only if it's ohyeah, millimeters, like it's not
even a millimeter width, wise.
So yes, so does that mean?
Does that mean it gets biggerwith every one?
So is that it says that eachtime?
Then is that new world recordyes, that's what's so amazing
(15:38):
about it?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
oh is that when you get to paint it, you are now the
world record holder, which isso cool.
Yeah, so he gives you.
Uh, I'm on, I don't want to getahead of myself because I want
to give.
I want to give a little moredetail and, if you're really
interested in what theexperience was like, I did put
out a youtube video on it as ofthe posting of this.
(16:00):
It was posted yesterday and soyou make an appointment, you go
and the guy oh my gosh, the truetreasure, craig, this is
americana.
The true treasure is is the guybecause he's proud I mean, holy
cow, he's proud of thatpaintball and he's probably
proud of his town as well, andthat's a rare thing these days
um, that he's so proud of hisyou get it in early josh, 15
(16:24):
minutes in but because it's soappropriate, he is, he is
literally so proud of this thingand the fact that I mean he's
retired, he lives there andhere's the thing is so cool.
It's like he opens this up, itbrings joy to people to be a
part of it, like there's veryfew world records.
I can't think of anywhere whereyou get to be part of the world
(16:44):
record, but he just likeopening up his home and he's a
widower.
This I discovered.
You know his, his wife passedaway just not so long ago.
So yes, there's like he bringsjoy to the world by allowing
people to come in and see it andpaint it, but also he's helping
you, like he's handing yourollers, he's, he's dipping the
rollers into the paint andexchanging rollers with you, and
(17:07):
the whole time he's talkingyour ear off.
And you can tell he just enjoyshaving the company and he enjoys
showing off the paintball andtalking all about it, and if you
watch the video you'll see that.
And so you get to decide whatcolor you get to paint it.
I'm from Minnesota.
I had to paint it purple todecide what color you get to
(17:32):
paint it I'm from minnesota.
I had to paint it, you know,purple for prince, purple rain,
or I had to paint purple for thevikings, so I painted purple
and I, uh, I painted layer30,085.
And so when you get in there,you walk in there, there's
literally on the paintball it,uh, it marks, you know what
layer you're about to paint.
So you know right away and hedoes a before and after picture.
So that was cool.
And then, when you're all done,yes, he gives you a certificate
which I'm going to frame and Ijust had a great conversation
(17:57):
with him.
And then I'm all done, craig,and then he all hands me
something and I'm like, what isthis?
He hands me a piece of the ball, like a little piece that he
cut off of the ball as asouvenir, and he autographs it.
And you look at this littlepiece, it's about the size of my
, you know, a little size of myhand, a little bit, and you look
at it, there's probably likewithin that little chunk that he
(18:19):
cuts off for me, yeah, therewere probably 200 layers.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
You could see it like the, but by cutting it off,
isn't?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
it can actually now take getting it smaller, yeah,
but he just cuts a little pieceoff the bottom.
Oh, he cuts a little piece onthe bottom so it's actually the
circumference around the middle.
That's uh measured each timerather than yeah yeah, but he
cuts up a little piece off.
But but you could see it if I,if I showed it to you, could see
the layers of the part that hecuts off.
It's probably 100 layers justin a little piece or whatever.
(18:49):
Um, so anyway, this guy saltedthe earth, it was so it's such a
cool experience.
Um, he had all these.
He's a.
I was like, what did you do fora living?
And he was like, oh, I was apainter.
Of course you were a painter hepainted.
His whole life has been aboutpaint, which really reminded me,
craig, really reminded me ofthe number one virtual in the
(19:12):
world before that it gotarchived and that was Barney
Smith's Toilet Seat Emporium.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, and the funny thing aboutBarney Smith is that I believe
he was a plumber.
Yeah, oh.
I'm sorry, and so this guy's apainter, it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It makes sense yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And so it very much felt like the toilet seat, a
museum and the ball of paint.
So really encourage you tovisit.
And outside of his house he hasall these yard ornaments of
things that he's painted likesunshines.
I was like what's up with allthese sunshine ornaments that
you painted?
They were stuck in the ground.
He goes.
This is great, he goes well.
(19:49):
During COVID I painted thoseand for people that couldn't get
out of their houses, like theelderly, I put them in their
yards to brighten their daythat's sweet Wow.
So that was cool.
Check, check, check, check,Check that one off your list.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
That's a big check that one too, because that was
that one, that one 2024.
Did you tell him about thewinning?
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Oh my, gosh, he's winning 2024.
I forgot to tell you that.
Yeah, I'm telling him.
And Craig, he was so excited,Really he was so excited that he
won.
I explained it to him and Isaid you know what I said I
thought about creating acertificate to say that you were
the winner.
I said beat out all the ones,it was the first one.
And he was like whoa, really,he's like could you, Could you
(20:37):
mail me a certificate?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
So I have designed a certificate'm gonna mail it to
him and he goes if you send me acertificate, I'll hang it up,
I'll frame it oh yes, tell youjust so proud.
So he was proud that ourpodcast named his, his roadside
attraction, the number oneroadside attraction in the, you
know, very first one so yeah, soyeah I have.
I have yet to send it to him andhe's.
It's funny too, because he waslike you know, a lot of people
(21:01):
say they're gonna send me thingsbut they never do.
Oh yeah, yeah, I was like.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I was like I'm going to follow through yeah, you got,
you got to follow through that.
I'm gonna really push it nowbecause, yeah, he sounds like a
really really cool guy, roughlyjosh uh talking to him as well.
How many times does it getreaped like it's painted?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
layers on a week, multiple, I think multiple times
a day, depending on the day.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
So you're a world record holder for how long five
hours, five hours.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah.
I showed up at probably abouttwo, two or three o'clock and he
said yeah, I got so many comingat seven.
I said, and on the video thevery beginning of the cv, and
here I am, I say I'm getting theworld record, and then he
chimes in for five hours I likeit.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I like it.
So, yeah, and want to know moreabout that one.
Yeah, absolutely head over tojosh's youtube channel, if you
haven't already subscribed, andyou'll see exactly what Josh
just described from there too.
So I love it, mate.
I love it.
All right, do we need to go onefor one for this, or what?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I think you should go next.
What have you seen?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Craig.
So, firstly and foremost I'vecome up from, I was in Colorado,
I had a great time in Colorado.
I had a great time in Colorado.
I drove all the way directlynorth to Wyoming because we've
got a good friend, a good friendof the podcast as well.
Dave Smilemakers lives inGillette, wyoming, again, a
prolific geocacher, prolificMunzee player.
Up there I think, josh, he'slike the only player in the town
(22:26):
.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Oh, I believe that.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
They're all his.
So I got up there and whathappens?
Oh, of course you know he is.
Two brand new ftf caches comeuh, get published.
So there we go, I get a coupleof ftfs, uh.
But then from there, wyomingjosh, I went straight across,
and I was going straight acrosssouth dakota, like straight
across the middle of southdakota.
Um, first and foremost and allthree of mine are in South
(22:51):
Dakota I had to stop Josh at theBadlands National Park.
Now, we haven't spoken becausetechnically, it's not a roadside
attraction, the Badlands, it isjust like a national park.
But there was a roadsideattraction that I did stop at
while I was at the Badlands too,but we'll get to that in a
second.
But the Badlands itself aren't.
Have you ever been there?
(23:12):
First and foremost?
Oh, yes, I've been there, ohyou've been there?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
yeah, I've been there two times.
It looks like another planet,like I know that.
I think I don't want to getthis wrong, but I think movies
have been shot there.
I think the the original planetof the apes, I think was shot,
was filmed shot there, becauseit doesn't look like Earth, it's
like this strange area of rocksout in the middle of nowhere,
(23:38):
yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
What got me there, josh, is that there's not that
many Earth caches there.
There's only like a handful ofEarth caches, yeah, you can go
from, and if you've been to anyother national park, normally
you go in a big circle, big loop, and as you go in the big loop
there's parking spots indifferent locations where you
can go and do your hikes, etcetera as well.
This one, it's not a loop, itgoes literally.
(24:01):
It comes in one end and goesout the other.
So you come in the north sidegate and go out the south side
gate or vice versa.
So that's really nice too.
But what got me, josh, is thatthey encourage you to walk all
over the badlands.
So what I mean by that is soyou go on these, uh, on these
actual paths, these tracks,these dedicated sort of walking
(24:21):
trails, um, and most of them, tobegin with, are actually
elevated off the ground andthey're all, like you know, the
wooden slats, and they're like apatio sort of walk um with
handrails, the lot, and then atthe very end there's steps that
go down into the badlands.
So there's, and then you, just,you just walk around.
There are like these littletrekking poles around that can
(24:44):
give you because it's on anaudio tour as well, if you want
to do that, whereby you knowthere's these poles are numbered
.
So if you're in an audio tour,you go okay, we're at pole
number one, for instance, andlook to the right, that's what
you see.
Look to the left.
So that's really cool as well.
But really shocked me though,josh, it really did that.
Yeah, you're allowed to walkall over these geological
features.
Um, yeah, it's really cool, butI'm gonna just think to myself
(25:06):
you know, how long is this tolast, with erosion and the human
interference of these big rocksand these big craters and
whatever else?
If ever anyone's gone tonational parks, we all know
national parks are absolutelybeautiful, especially here in
the good old US of A, but theyare all very, very different.
(25:26):
I've been to so many of thenational parks through the US
from Florida, where it's reallyhumid, but it's really, uh,
beautiful and green, and youknow, you've got swampy and
alligators and all that sort ofstuff all the way to utah, for
instance as well, where it's allliterally red rock, you know,
similar to the badlands, exceptbadlands is all gray and there's
no, there's not the red, soit's a different sort of soil
(25:48):
texture and a different sort ofgeological feature, and also
different in terms of like whatthey look like compared to.
Utah, for me, was very smooth.
The rocks are very smooth there.
They look so beautiful.
The red you know the whole lot,and I'm talking about the
Arches National Park.
In there you go to Yellowstone.
Yellowstone is all about thegeysers and the volcanic
(26:11):
activity and then the bison.
You know what I mean, that sortof thing too.
So it's a different again.
But yeah, I'd never seenBadlands and I am so, so glad I
did, josh, absolutely glad I did.
So it's only been a nationalpark, itself dedicated since
1978.
And then to me it was like, oh,that's a bit different to me.
I thought it would be a lotolder than that.
(26:32):
But no, 1978, it was actuallydedicated.
There are a lot of wildlife inand around this park.
Now, again, as I drove throughfrom the north to the south exit
, as I went out the south exit,josh there's bison everywhere
and they're laying down on theground having dust baths
(26:52):
themselves and being like bigpuppy dogs.
These bison, if you'relistening, if you've seen the
bison, do not attempt to goanywhere near it.
They look friendly but they'renot.
So please stay in your car andview them from your vehicle.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
There's too many videos on YouTube of people like
trying to get selfies with aboss.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, the bisons are not having it exactly but, josh,
what happened was is that, as Icome out the south end and all
these bison there as well,luckily for me, there was a um
like a cattle grid there and andbig fences.
So that's it kept them in thatsort of area, because along the
actual rim from there to thehighway is a rim like a rim area
(27:38):
of the Badlands.
Josh, you can drive in therewith your van, with your fifth
wheel, with your trailer,whatever you've got, even your
car with a tent, with your, yourtrailer, whatever you've got,
yeah, even your car with a tent,and you can park for free for
up to 14 nights along the rim ofthe badlands.
(27:59):
Unbelievable, josh.
So I actually got there.
I got a spot, sunsets, sunrisephenomenal, absolutely
phenomenal Coming in off andover the Badlands incredible.
I parked over there, got therein the afternoon, parked
overnight.
The next morning I woke up andwent.
(28:20):
I'm not going to move.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I'm going to stay here.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
It's perfect, I don't need to, I'm not in any rush,
yeah, so I made myself somecoffee, some breakfast, sat
outside on my little deck chairover the rim of the Badlands
drinking my coffee and eating mycroissant that I'd cooked for
myself.
That sounds awesome, soundsawesome.
(28:45):
So, yeah, I spent the dayliterally just hanging around
the van, outside the van, andthis is the other thing as well.
People talk about van life.
I don't live in my van, josh, Ilive out of my van.
You see, there's a difference.
I explore the world around meand the van is just literally
where I sleep and cook my food.
(29:07):
That's pretty much it.
Other than that, I'm outside,and that's again part of our
location-based gaming that welove to do as well.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, it gets us out for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Yeah, the Badlands wow.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
There's nothing like it in our country.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
It's very unique.
You drive up to it If you'venever seen it before.
You're like what is this?
You're like it looks likeanother planet.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It's really cool.
And just again, a tip out thereIf you've got a fifth wheel, if
you've got a, you know, a van,a trailer, even a tent, and
you're anywhere near going pastand you can stay the night here
for free, do it it thousandpercent worth.
It is incredible, the, theplaces you can stay for free
(29:51):
here in good old us of a josh,absolutely incredible.
So so there you go, josh.
That's my bad lands.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
You have your number two mate all ready to go so this
location wasn't really on myradar but it was very close to
the, to the big ball of paint,because I looked at the map and
I was like, wait a minute, whatis that town really close by,
you know, alexandria?
(30:17):
And it was muncie, not muncie,muncie, muncie, indiana, which
was literally 15 miles from theball of paint, and I and it was
just like part of me in the backof my mind was like muncie,
indiana, there's something inmuncie, indiana.
So I messaged our good friendrob and I was like muncie,
(30:37):
indiana.
I was like is there some sortof connection to muncie, indiana
and muncie?
And he's like yes.
And then it all came back to methat long ago I don't know how
long, craig, maybe eight, tenyears ago they had a big muncie
event there in muncie, justbecause the town sounded so
similar to muncie, and whatmuncie indiana is known for is
(31:03):
that is the home town of jimdavis.
So you know who j Davis is.
No, jim Davis is the artist andcreator of the Orange Cat comic
.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Garfield, oh, the fat cat Garfield.
The lazy fat cat Garfield.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
So, craig, I look at the Munzee map because I'm like,
okay, there's been a Munzeeevent here in Munzee long ago.
I was like there's probablysome sort of muncie action going
on.
I look on the map and I waslike, oh, wait a minute.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
I look at the map and there arefor those of you that play
(31:42):
muncie, you know, there's iconson the map.
You see the different kinds ofmuncies and I look and there are
probably a dozen Garfield iconsdowntown Muncie.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yes that's the one.
That's the one.
I remember that because they'reclassed as tourism icons and
they're extremely rare.
Those Garfield ones are only inMuncie.
They're not anywhere else,they're just in Muncie.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
So this is the only place in the world you can get a
Munzee icon.
It's basically just Garfield.
It doesn't even look like a pin.
It doesn't look round, itdoesn't look square.
It's Garfield, it's Garfield,yeah.
And so the cool thing about it,craig, is that when they did
this event several years ago,they put these virtual Munzee
(32:28):
Garfields on top of statuesstatues they're statues of
garfield doing different things,that's doing different things
all over the town.
So what I did is like, okay, I'mgonna.
Now, this was a long time ago.
I was like I don't know whatI'm gonna encounter.
And sure enough, I go to thesepins and there are at some of
them, yeah, now, some of them.
I was slightly disappointedbecause some of them had moved.
(32:49):
I get to location, I'm like I'mliterally at the theater
downtown.
I'm like, hey, I like walking.
It's like hey, is there agarfield statue around here?
And they're like, no, thatmoved four years ago.
But there were some.
So I, of the 12, I think, Ifound four, like four of them.
I I made a youtube video of itbecause it's so rare.
(33:10):
I think garfield is great butit's it's kind of craig.
It's like it's munzee lore kindof now, because it kind of
reminds me of, like withgeocaching, the ape cache.
You know the ape?
Oh, yes, they partnered with,you know the planet of the apes
movie munzee back in the day,partnered with garfield, yeah,
in this, in this town.
So I had to visit it for themunzee lore and it was uh, it
(33:33):
was a nice little afternoon, sothat was kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
It was, uh, a way our location-based games brought me
to a different place, that'sright, that's what this is all
about and you said that you didactually do a video.
Is it a short or is it a take?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
no, I'm gonna.
It was a full video, it's gonnabe, that's coming, that come
out, it's coming down the road.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
I don't know how long .
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I have a lot of Germany videos in the hopper
because I just came back fromGermany, so we'll see.
It might not be until like Idon't know January, I don't know
.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
But keep an eye out for it.
Keep an eye out for it.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
But yeah, it was unique, I thought okay, thought
okay, this will make kind of acool munzee video you know, I
love putting out munzee videosfrom time to time, even though I
am the geocaching vlogger.
So and I actually made a munzeevideo this weekend too.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Ha, ha ha speaking of speaking of a geocaching
vlogger as well.
Uh, question for you is thatwas there like adventure labs or
anything like that around theretoo for for those geocacher
people out there?
Or you didn't even open up,don't tell me you didn't open up
the app.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
You know well you were too busy filming and I was
all I had time for was I meanthe?
These statues were all overtown, so I was just darting all
over town I was.
You know, I was focused, I waslike I guess, I'm here to shoot
this video and I'm here to findthese garfield statues.
So I I don't know, but but,craig, there were a lot of
(34:49):
munsies.
I think I was number one in theworld that day because of all
the residual Munsies that wereleft over from all the events
over the years.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
And Muncie.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Indiana, Not Muncie Muncie Muncie Indiana so that
was not on my bucket list, butit kind of was serendipitous.
I was like, okay, I'm close tothe ball of paint, I'm near
Muncie, so it was a go.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yeah, that's fair enough.
That's fair enough.
Well, my second one wasliterally 10 minutes away from
the rim of the Badlands, exactlywhere I was parked up, and this
one was on our.
I think it was this year, Ithink it was.
This one actually appeared,josh, and that is Wall Drug,
(35:32):
located in Wall, south Dakota.
You told me to go to this one.
Everyone told me to go to thisone, and not just you, I'm
talking.
Every person told me to go.
Everyone on social media toldme go to Wall Drug, go to Wall
Drug.
Go to Wall Drug, josh.
I was expecting something likeBuc-ee's, you know, like big,
and it's not.
I mean it's been out there for awhile it's certainly not modern
(35:54):
, oh yeah, no, it's definitelynot modern, quintessential,
quintessential.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
I can't say the word Quintessential, quintessential,
yeah, americana, yes, quirkyroadside attraction, exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
And so I thought to myself well, you go to these
places, josh, and sometimesthey're not all they are hyped
up to be in some cases.
So I said, okay, I'm going tobe real now with the listeners
out there.
I've got pros, but I've alsogot cons iconic, quirky, uh,
lots of weird photoopportunities in and around
there as well.
The actual buildings themselveslook really cool with made out
of all the wood.
You know the wood panelingstuff as well.
That's really cool as well.
So that's, I loved all thatsort of stuff.
They said that there's free icewater and five cent coffees.
(36:47):
I couldn't find it, butapparently it's there somewhere.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
But that craig I believe that's how it got famous
because people were likelooking for a place to stop,
because you know, it's all kindof on the way to the black hills
.
So they're like this is a stop,get your free ice water and
five cent coffee, coffee, coffeehere the water, not coffee that
you would probably like.
It's certainly the americandrip kind that disgusts you.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
You like absolutely mud water.
But, josh, I thought when I wasfirst walking through as well,
I thought you know what?
There's a lot of?
Just it's a big, big souvenirshop.
But then if you go throughother areas it's more of a.
They've got art galleries inthere too, so it shows you the
history of Waldrug.
You can look in a different artgallery as well and it shows
(37:36):
you all, like these oldnewspaper clippings.
And you know we're talking aboutthe old country, the old
westerns.
You know where they're walkingaround with their chaps and
their gunslingers and their youknow back in the day, like I'm
talking about back in the day,years and years and years ago.
They do have, obviously, therestrooms and food and all that
sort of stuff as well.
It is just off the highway.
(37:57):
I'm talking a three-minutedrive off the highway.
You cannot miss this.
You cannot miss the wall drugat all because, josh, there's
1.5 million signs, I know, butthere's thousands upon thousands
of signs from from the borderof Wyoming to the border of uh,
(38:18):
of Minnesota.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Oh, my gosh Craig.
Do you remember the movie spaceballs?
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
It's in space balls, it's like one bazillion miles to
wall drug.
So, Josh, they're the pros thatI have in regards to it.
I think the cons themselves.
I think it was just a littlebit too touristy for me.
There was a lot of people there, Josh.
I mean, there's big parking lotsbut the parking lots were
(38:45):
pretty full and a lot of peoplewalking around you know you're
shoulder to shoulder.
It was a bit too.
A bit too much for me inregards to the amount of tourism
and the amount of touriststhemselves in in.
You know, and we're not really.
It wasn't even that peak of aseason.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I mean, it's warm, of course go there in winter, but
summer's over.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.
So for me I think that was abit of a con.
Also, apparently, the foodquality.
I didn't have anything, butapparently the food quality
there, as you can understand,isn't really it's quick, it's
fast, it's.
You know that sort of thing too, and so it's just to me it felt
a bit overwhelming as well,like there was a lot going on,
(39:27):
whereas for me I compare Waldrugto Bucky's a little bit and
I'll say wall drug was theBucky's in the seventies?
Yes, exactly, if Bucky's was inthe seventies, that's what wall
drug is, and it hasn't updated.
It hasn't upgraded, it's stillstuck in the seventies.
So that's, that's, that's my,that's my thing as well.
(39:50):
So, uh, and yeah, and maybeI'll tell you now maybe a con is
that there's too muchadvertising, josh too much.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
I think that's what's .
I think it's a joke.
A lot of that advertising is ajoke I think they know, but I I
might understand it.
We can look this up.
These signs are all over theworld, they're not just on I-90.
It's just like ridiculous, likein Korea or something.
As far as I know, they putthese Walgrug signs.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
It's a joke and honestly Bucky's kind of you
know Bucky's kind of, has donethe same thing a little bit, you
know, you see really, reallyfar away.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
It's like Bucky is like a thousand miles away.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
And then it says you can hold it like the bathroom,
Because it's the best bathrooms,of course.
Absolutely so.
That's another reason why I wasat Wall was for Wall Drug too,
but I loved how it was actuallyso quick off the highway, and on
the other side of the highwaywas the rim of the Badlands.
(40:53):
I'll tell you, josh, yeah, vanlife for me.
I've been doing this for likealmost 18 months now.
No, sorry, almost 12 months now, full time in this in Tuesday,
18 months overall.
I'm going to say that's thebest place I've ever parked up
at.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Really In the US.
That's saying a lot.
You've parked a lot of places.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Yeah, I mean better than Cracker Barrel.
We'll just say that.
But anyway, all right, josh,get there, get to your last one.
All right, the third one.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
My last one was a little bit of a surprise,
because I drove the Ball ofPaint, then I drove the Muncie,
indiana, indiana, yeah, and thenI was heading to Kentucky, and
all my way to Kentucky, on theroad Speaking of signs, craig,
it said, in so many miles,uranus, indiana.
Oh hang on.
Indiana, uranus Indiana.
(41:40):
I was like there's two.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Uranus.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
I've been to Uranus Missouri, I didn't know there
was a Uranus Indiana.
So surely when we did, we did awhole show on this craig we and
I visited together.
There's a big muncie eventthere, yeah.
And I was like I'm so curious.
So I followed the signs and nowuranus indiana is in anderson,
indiana, and so I pulled off onthe exit.
It told me to, and then it tookme like 10 minutes.
(42:05):
It was not on the highway, itwas like in town, and when I got
up there it was basically itwas clear it was owned by the
same people, oh, so they had thesame brand it was another
location.
Yeah, um, it was newer.
It was newer, uh, less, uh less, I don't want to say run down,
(42:27):
but less kitschy than the onelike the one we found.
It was like it was everythingwas, but less kitschy than the
one we found.
It was like everything wasnewer.
But certainly you walk in themain building and what do they
say?
I knew I was in the same place.
Welcome to Uranus, that's whatthey say.
I said it at the other place.
And yeah, same t-shirts.
They had the same ice creamshop, same hot dog shop.
(42:49):
Get a wiener in Uranus.
The fudge as well, fudge, yep.
The fudge factory was there,yep, but it was basically Craig.
It was basically a mini version.
Oh, it was like a condensedmini version of Uranus, missouri
.
So if you're comparing Uranus,Missouri was much more epic than
and that was like on Route 66.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
But I'm glad I stopped it was cool absolutely,
and it gave you content as well,see yeah, and you remember.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
You remember that when we went to Uranus Missouri
we had a Munzee event there andthey, the people Uranus Missouri
, the people that worked thatgot irritated that we were there
playing munzee, well, I get.
I go here and guess what?
There's a geocache on the sign.
The oh wow, the main sign ofthe place, clearly that it was
placed there by permission, noproblem.
(43:40):
They had no problem.
So there was actually aphysical geocache on location
because there's no physicalcache either in missouri.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
No, there's a virtual .
There's a virtual, but notphysical.
But not physical because theyweren't allowed to.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
So that was a nice surprise.
It was, you know, a lot ofplaces there was a dinosaur,
there's lots of again kind ofeverything that's in the other
place, but it was like condensedand smaller.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
So what you're saying is….
Speaker 2 (44:05):
What you're saying is Missouri has got a bigger
Uranus than what Indiana has.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Big way bigger Uranus .
A lot more room in that Uranusto move around, A lot more room
to explore that Uranus.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Yeah, you can pull more fudge out of that Uranus
than what you can Way more.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
They had a lot more fudge in the other Uranus but
I'm glad I visited that Uranus.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
And walking out of this one as well.
Do they say thank you forpicking Uranus?
Walking out of this one as well.
Do they say thank you forpicking uranus?
Yes, of course.
Yeah, so that's that's theirstock standard.
That's their lines.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
That's their lines, yeah they've been clearly
trained by the um the uranusexperts yes, yes, there are
uranus experts out there too.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
So anyway, moving on, because, josh, I am actually
proud of you because youactually called it uranus the
whole time then instead ofuranus.
So yeah, I'm proud of you, mate.
That's a rare thing these days,all right moving on.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Okay, I can't wait till you talk about this one,
because I have a like a humblebrag with this one, but go ahead
oh of course you do.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Of course you do.
So this one again.
I'm traveling east on the, theinterstate through the middle of
south dakota, and of course Icome across in mitchell, south
dakota, the corn palace.
This one was mentioned and thisis um the, the, the march
(45:19):
madness as well it was mynominee.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
It was your nominee.
It was your nominee.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Got beat by probably one of yours as it should, but
anyway, um, it was, it did.
It should have held its own,because it actually was.
I really really enjoyed thisplace, the corn palace in
mitchell.
Um, if you've never been there,if you haven't seen anything at
all, it is exactly what youhear it to be it is a corn
palace.
What that means is is that Ithink it's like a big community
(45:46):
center or something like thattwo, two stories, like two
floors as well.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
It's huge.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
It's huge In the middle.
You've got the old sort ofstyle I'm going to say there,
you know, josh, those in India,the country India, and you've
got those Taj Mahal, like thebig thing, with this big circle
thing on the top, like aHershey's Kiss on the top.
It's got those on it too.
Yeah, it looks like a castle,it's, it's amazing, absolutely
(46:11):
castle.
But the difference is is all onthe outside, it's actually real
corn and it's all places likean art deco sort of style as
well.
So, mate, um, absolutelyincredible, great photo
opportunities in every part aswell.
But what I love is that theyactually change it up every so
often as well.
(46:31):
They, they totally redo thefull art deco.
Um, how do you know this?
You can walk inside for freeand it's a full museum on the
corn palace.
So you go through and you lookfrom the very, very start of
this corn palace all the waythrough, um, uh, you know when I
kind of think when it actuallystarted, but when it did start,
(46:52):
I'm talking years and years andyears ago.
Um, yeah, they had the old, uh,the old one to begin with, and
then they upgraded every sooften, every few years, they
upgraded itself.
Now how they do this upgrade,josh, is that I think they use
like 12 to 13 or something,different shades of corn, so you
know how you can get like a redcorn and a brown corn, you can
(47:14):
get black corn, white corn,yellow, the whole lot.
So that's how they do the muraland designs Inside itself.
Of course you can buy popcorn.
Why wouldn't you buy popcorninside?
But what amused me, josh, themost was you walk all the way
through each side.
After the popcorn area and yougo through, it opens up.
(47:35):
It's a huge basketball stadiumvenue, like in the popcorn pal.
Yeah, it's got the, it's gotthe big uh jumbotron in the
middle as well, unbelievable, Ithink.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
the local college like plays basketball there, or
certainly the high, the highschool plays basketball there.
And it's really unique, craig,because it's yes, it's a
basketball court, but theseating is almost like a theater
.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Yes, it's really odd.
Yes, it really is Almost like atheater to a certain degree,
but it is like very, becausethey were redoing that area when
I was there, so they didn'tactually have any seats
themselves.
Redoing that area when I wasthere, so it didn't actually
have any seats, seats themselves, that was all concrete.
Um, looked like steps, concrete, huge concrete steps.
So I'm not sure, I'm not sureif they had all the seating out
(48:19):
when I was there and they wererepolishing the concrete um, or
they change it to all concretesteps.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
I don't know sure, but yeah, they didn't actually
have any seat seats um, when Iwas there, there were seats, so
they might be renovating it.
They might be renovating, yeah,question Craig.
Yes, every year they do adifferent theme for the outside.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
When I went there it was like classic rock and roll,
so there was like Elvis was madeout of corn and one was like
Johnny Cash.
Do you remember what the themewas this year?
They change it out every year.
I.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Ash, do you remember what the theme was?
This?
Speaker 1 (48:51):
year.
They change it out every year,I don't know exactly what the
theme was.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
I'm going to have a look at the photos itself, but
tell me, josh, your humble bragyou said about.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
My humble brag is that I selected this as a
nominee for.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Roadside Attraction.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
March Madness, and it got beat.
I mean we should listen back.
I probably got beat by one ofyour nominees, and it got beat.
I mean we should listen back.
I probably got beat by one ofyour nominees.
And now my humble brag is thatyou enjoyed it so much and that
if you had known how great itwas, you might have fought
differently and maybe it wouldhave gone farther in the
competition.
Possibly, possibly, I don'tknow.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
I'd have to look who it was up against.
Yeah, yeah, but one of myfavorite things as well is that.
Well, two of the favoritethings is that, apart from being
inside, of course, there's anadventure lab inside as well.
Oh, that's cool, and theadventure lab is one of those
adventure labs that's veryspecific, so it's not a multiple
choice one where you can justanswer it on the fly Nope, nope,
(49:47):
nope.
You've actually got to find thededicated year that's on the
walls inside the actual museum,and then there's questions
related to the actual years ofthe museum, which is really cool
too.
So I love that part of it.
But what I love too, joshacross the road, was the gift
(50:07):
shop.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Oh, it's a great gift shop.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
It's a great gift shop, Josh.
This is a great the gift shop,Always a gift shop.
It's a great gift shop.
This is a great, great giftshop Cause you know me, Josh, I
love my dad jokes.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
It had to be a lot of corn jokes.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
There was a lot of corn jokes there.
We're talking about, you know,things with corny things.
We're talking like, and evengoing to the point where they
almost went adult rated, wherethey go, oh, like you know me,
so corny, and all that sort ofstuff too.
So all that sort of side, oh mygosh, yes.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
What I'm looking at, the I'm looking at the Corn
Palace for 2025.
I'm surprised you didn'tremember the theme this year is
Wonders of the World ModernWonders of the World.
Oh, and one of them is is canyou see?
Speaker 2 (50:50):
that?
Oh, yes, yeah, oh yeah, thatwas on there.
Yes, yeah, so I'm not sayingthat I took a photo yeah, it's
the uh australia opera house,the sydney opera house, so it's
wonders of the world.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
This year was the that's right.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I remember seeing that on the inside, though, they
had that part on the inside andthen um, and then the the
brazil, the the christ on top ofthe hill or whatever in brazil.
Yeah, it's so cool.
That's the thing too about thecorn palace, craig, is that,
like you can visit every year,and every year it's a little
different different.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's neat , absolutely.
Um, they also got josh.
This is what you would haveloved, this as well and that is
is across the road, but nextdoor to the gift shop they've
got a dedicated area for selfiearea, so they had like a little
stand where you can put yourphone and do a full selfie mode.
At the same time, they'veactually got the corn mascot a
(51:47):
big corn mascot smiling at youas well, so you can stand with
your arm around the corn and andhave the corn palace in the
background I remember thatlocation, that was.
That's really cool too.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
So, yeah, yeah, I loved it and I think that's a
webcam too, I I think if you cango to the corn palace's website
and you can see a webcam, likeif they ever brought webcams
back, that would be a perfectwebcam absolutely.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Um, and just going back to what I said before, 1892
they started 1892.
That's over over 125 years old.
That's a lot of corn.
That's a.
That's a lot of corn like youguys you guys in the us love
your corn.
You've been growing for yearsand years and years so but yeah,
(52:32):
so that was my number three.
Josh was the uh, the cornpalace, and I'll say now I don't
know what it was against, um,but had I been there I may have
had a different view on that onmy, my take on it so, but that's
the great thing about it.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
You know, we, we we're inspired by our own
podcast and I we hope that youtoo are inspired by our podcast.
We hope that you, if you'redriving by or making a
destination to visit the cornpalace or the badlands,
certainly got I mean, if you'reever this way through south
dakota, you gotta stop at thoselocations, and you know the ball
(53:08):
of paint too.
So, yeah, this episode waspretty much like an indiana and
and south dakota episode whichis just kind of cool, because
this is like there's probablynot very many podcasts out there
.
They're like okay, today we'refocusing on indiana and south
dakota.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
There's lots of other different states with different
things.
But yeah, but here in treasuresour town.
Speaker 1 (53:29):
We know that there's treasures everywhere in this
great country of ours.
Speaker 2 (53:34):
Exactly, Josh.
What I'll do as well is I'mgoing to post on our patron page
all my selfies.
I'll find them myself, all myphotos and selfies of the Corn
Palace.
I'll do a few as well at theBadlands, and I'll put it all on
our patron page.
And if you want to see those,Josh, and if you want to become
a patron, how can they do that?
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Josh, they can support us on Patreon.
By helping us, you help us keepthis podcast going, keep
everything free.
So consider joining us atpatreoncom backslash
treasurefortown, and I'll anteup that too.
I'll send you, craig, somepictures as well of the ball of
(54:17):
paint, of course, as well.
And there was something elsewe've talked about that I wanted
.
That was something we took thisweekend that I can't now.
It's Lou, I'm losing it, butanyway it'll be a surprise over
there for our patrons.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Yes, absolutely All on the patron.
So yeah, if you want to reallysee that more, go over to
patreoncom.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
oh, craig the plant guys, the guys we gotta post
that picture, okay, so funny aswell there we go, there we go.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
So we're gonna interrupt, yeah, we're gonna
have plant guys, and plantsbeing corn palace.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
So plant guys and plant castles.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
So there we go.
That's really cool.
Otherwise, Josh, if people wantto reach out to us and give us
ideas, chat about what they'veheard as well, how can people
find us, Josh?
Speaker 1 (54:59):
Yes, we had such good feedback on our Meander or Me
and Her podcast last time.
So if you'd like to give usyour feedback or compliments or
complaints although we don't getvery many complaints, which is
great reach out to us attreasures of our town podcast at
gmailcom, or you can follow uson facebook, instagram, youtube
or our buzzsprout site.
Just search treasures of ourtown podcast and you'll find us
(55:20):
right there exactly right.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
So that's it for our show today.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
Please subscribe, rate and review on your favorite
podcasting app and, as Josh May, your travels always lead you
to the most unexpected andamazing hidden gems around our
country, like Indiana and SouthDakota.
Who knows where we're going togo next?
Find out.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
We don't even know.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
We don't know.
See you everybody, bye-bye, bye.
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