World's Largest Crow

May 12th, 2007 - Belgrade, MN



The wife and I headed back to our alma mater, the University of Minnesota - Morris, for her sister's graduation. It was an outdoor ceremony and it was hot, really hot, and the wind just couldn't find it's way through the buildings and trees for any relief. The last time we were at a graduation that hot was our own 3 years earlier, but that time it was hotter and we were dressed in black from head to toe.

After plenty of time baking and not really listening to a lot of speeches because I was too busy overheating, we took some pictures and headed to Brooten for dinner. Brooten is a town of about 600 people that inexplicably has fine dining and is the home of X-Bats. More importantly, Brooten is only about 7 miles from Belgrade and the World's Largest Crow.

After dinner we stopped at the crow on our way to her family's house in Willmar. The crow is perched on top of a 31 foot long branch, which is on top of a 25 foot tall cement pedestal. The total height is 43 feet. The crow is surrounded by a semi-circle wall made from 6,000 individually purchased bricks as well as flags from all 50 states and several European nations. The crow is located close to Crow Lake and near the Crow River.


The bricks of the wall surrounding the World's Largest Crow.

The details of this crow are incredible, but hard to capture on camera because of the height and it's very black paint and, in my case, the late evening light. Below is a picture that shows some of the detail.

World's Largest Loon

November 24th, 2006 - Vergas, MN



We leave Big Tom and head south a few miles to Vergas to visit the World's Largest Loon. This majestic looking bird sits in a small roadside park and overlooks Long Lake. It really is very well made.

The loon is 20 feet tall and was built out of concrete in 1963 by Robert Bruns. Bruns has also built the World's Largest Otter in Fergus Falls and the World's Largest Mallard in Wheaton, MN. The loon was built in honor of Vergas's former postmaster Ewald C. Krueger.

The common loon is also the state bird of Minnesota.

World's Largest Turkey

November 24th, 2006 - Frazee, MN



That's right, it's the day after Thanksgiving and we are at the World's Largest Turkey, Big Tom. We were back up to my neck of the woods for the holiday and we took the opportunity to go to another nearby town to see another giant bird. What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than to visit a gigantic turkey? Well, eating turkey I suppose.....and stuffing and potatoes and lefse (I'm Norwegian).

Cooking a turkey isn't an easy thing to do. Butterball knows this. That's why they setup the turkey hotline. And I bet if you call the turkey hotline, they would advise against using a blowtorch as a cooking method to prepare your bird. It's just too bad that a couple of maintenance workers in Frazee didn't give Butterball a call.

On July 1, 1998 a pair of maintenance workers were working on removing Big Tom to make room for his replacement (Tom was slated for replacement due to frequent repairs) and accidentally hit his insulation with a blowtorch and within seconds their goose was cooked, or turkey I guess.



After the fire, a small egg statue was placed where the new Big Tom would stand and for the first time in 12 years, the Turkey Capital of the World had to celebrate their Turkey Days festival without Big Tom. The new Big Tom is even bigger and Tommier than the original. He now stands at 22 feet tall and weighs over 5000 pounds.

City of Frazee's World's Largest Turkey page

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

October 20th, 2006 - Minneapolis, MN



Our final destination on my day off is the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Museum in downtown Minneapolis. It's the nation's largest urban sculpture garden and there's a lot of good stuff to see. The centerpiece, and most famous piece, is the Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.



There's art with movable parts that you can play on.



There's even a giant glass fish inside the conservatory.



So take a couple hours and wander through the garden. It will be worth it. Watch where you step, though. There are a lot of geese and they tend to make a mess.

World's Largest Polar Bear

October 20th, 2006 - White Bear Lake, MN



From North St. Paul we head north to White Bear Lake and the World's Largest Polar Bear. The polar bear was built out of fiberglass in 1964 by Gordon Shumaker for a local car dealership. In 1989, Polar Chevrolet opened it's new dealership and mounted the bear on top of it's new building.

The polar bear has sustained a long, and apparently successful, 43-year career in marketing. He's still selling cars and still kind of smiling about it.

White Bear Lake was named after a local Native American legend about a white ghost bear living on an island in a nearby lake.

Tip: It is on a car dealership so if you show up on their lot while they are open, a dealer will find you. If you don't want to be hassled by a salesman, then you may want to either show up after hours or try to take a shot from the other side of the road to the south. You may need a little bit of a zoom lens for that, however. Although, the salesman will tell you about the bear if you tell them that you are there for the bear and not the cars.

World's Largest Snowman

October 20, 2006 - North St. Paul



I took the day off from work and the wife and I spent the day driving around the Twin Cities looking for a big stuff or three. We started by going to North St. Paul and tracking down the World's Largest Snowman.

The snowman was built in 1974 out of concrete stucco and is 54 feet tall. According to a tipster at RoadsideAmerica.com, the North St. Paul Jaycees used to build a snowman each year at the same intersection for it's Sno-Daze celebration. After a couple of winters with some lean snowfalls, they decided to build this one of cement. Take that, Mother Nature!

The snowman was somewhat recently repainted to appear as if he was wearing a Bret Hedican jersey. He used to have a much more traditional paint job. Hedican was born in St. Paul and went to high school in North St. Paul. He went on to play in the NHL and last year won the Stanley Cup as a member of the Carolina Hurricanes.

P-38 Fighter Jets

October 15th, 2006 - Owatonna, MN



This one is very cool and it makes for a great break after driving through Iowa. It's right off of I-35 north of Owatonna. It's south of the Cabela's store, which is an attraction of it's own.

Inside Cabela's you will find huge aquariums full of Minnesota fish and critter mountain, which is a fake mountain in the middle of the store scattered with dozens of different stuffed animals (the taxidermy type, not the gift shop type). There's also a giant deer statue out front.

But back to the jets (J-E-T-S JETS! JETS! JETS!). They are outside of what was Heritage Halls Transportation and Children's Museum, which is now closed. It was closed down when we stopped as well. I would imagine that it had various historical transportation stuff and children on display at the museum. The jets look nice from a distance, but you need to stand underneath them to truly appreciate it. I was amazed with how cool they are. I don't know how tall they are exactly, but they were built to withstand 100 mile-per-hour winds.