Look!! Up In The Sky!!! It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's Superman!!!!

I was sort of working on heading back north, I'm missing parts of my life there. I thought I might get back home sometime next week but then I checked the weather for Minnesota. One day the low is going to be 7 degrees, another day 10 degrees. I'm sorry – I just can't do it – I'm not coming back until the Robins are guaranteed not to get frostbite. Hopefully I will get back there before July.

These last couple of days were culture filled days – culture at both ends of the art world spectrum and some in between. I think I will start with the high end culture and work my way down into the low end – the clever end perhaps?

In Paducah Kentucky (sidebar: I would love to live in Paducah, just so I could say the name – coolest sounding city name ever), there is the National Quilt Museum. I thought I would go see it, thinking it would be mildly interesting. Boy, was I wrong – this place blew my socks off. These were not your grandma's quilts. It is a contemporary quilt museum, for one thing. These were absolutely beautiful works of art and so creative, sometimes humorous, and many times it made you wonder “how did they do that?

I actually spent a whole two hours in this museum, believe it or not. One quilt was titled Beatles 1962-1970. There was a fabric square for each band member. There were album squares. For example – Sergeant Pepper had it's own square. Inside the square, the individual songs were portrayed. Lovely Rita standing next to her meter, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Fixing a Hole. There was so much to see just in this one quilt. While I'm studying it, one of the docents came up and whipped out his cell phone and started playing Beatle songs for me so that I could appreciate the quilt more.  Nice touch.

They don't let you take pictures so I'm just going to include a couple of pictures from the web. This museum is highly recommended.

Paducah is right across the river from the great city of Metropolis. We all know what Metropolis is famous for, right? Superman!!!!! In the center of town they have a giant statue and then there is the Super Museum. I paid my $5 and went into the museum. There was a ton of Superman/Supergirl/Superboy toys and memorabilia but the museum itself was a little short of substance. I did have, for me, rather a little brilliant flash. The first Superman I remember was named George Reeves. Later generations' Superman was Christopher Reeve. Both Reeves and Reeve came to unfortunate ends. Coincidence? The best part of the museum was a documentary that they had playing and I could watch 'my' Superman again.  I also found it interesting that the Massac County Law Enforcement and Detention Center was located right next door to the museum and the Superman statute.  Coincidence again?

Downtown Metropolis - Super Museum on the right

TRUTH - JUSTICE - THE AMERICAN WAY

And then there is me in my SuperGirl outfit

At the other end of the street, all by herself is Noel Neill who was the original Lois Lane.

Side note: She was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

My campground was in Metropolis.  It was the Fort Massac State Park(first state park in Illinois) where they had a replica of a fort from about 1803.  Good place to walk the dog, but nothing much to see. All the buildings were boarded up.

My final visit was a little place outside of Paducah called Apple Valley Hillbilly Garden and Toyland. This was probably one of the more unique places I've visited. Keith, the owner collected lots and lots of all sorts of castoff items and then created pieces of 'art'. His neighbors call it an eyesore and as you drive up, you think it looks like a junk yard. The sheriff has actually been by quite a bit to write his property up as a public eyesore but then Keith decided that he should call himself a folk artist and affiliated himself with the Paducah Art Council, so the public eyesore charge didn't stick.   Keith is an interesting man who seems to live for puns. My pictures don't even come close to all that he has scattered around his yard. When you finish the tour, he takes you into Toyland. Keith collects toys, mainly action figures. He had one building that was crammed full. He said that what was displayed was only a tiny bit of what he had collected. The rest of his collection is stored in the semi trailer that was on the property.

Keith - picture from web

The Reality TV section

The Potty Mouth Tree

Texas has Cadillacs stuck in the dirt - Kentucky has lawn mowers

Sink Holes

The ReTIREment Home

The semi trailer with the rest of the Toyland toys. The portraits were done by Keith. 

Keith said that he doesn't know how to draw so somehow every portrait he does turns out to be a clown

Here are a couple of pictures of Toyland - rather mind-boggling.  Keep in mind, these pictures are just two small corners of the building.  The building is packed with just a small walkway in the center.

I just thought he was pretty