Hobos and Puppets and Trombones (Oh My)

Subtitled -- Day 3: While We Were in Ioway

National Hobo Museum

One of the biggest problems with planning activities in places far from home is that it's difficult to know how well everything will fall into place until you're actually there in person.  And, unfortunately, sometimes things just don't fall into place and instead fall to pieces.  Such was the case with our visit to Britt, IA -- home of the National Hobo Museum.  I know it sounds kooky, but this stop was one of the more highly anticipated venues in our itinerary of adventures!  While planning out the timeline for our road trip, I actually worked everything around the limited availability of hours for touring the museum.  {Which is allegedly open on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday mornings.}  Apparently, however, I should have done more due diligence in researching this outing.  If I had, I would have realized that a.) Britt is a TINY town (population of approximately 2,000), b.) the museum is run by unpaid, local volunteers, and c.) as such, the museum hours are subject to the availability of these volunteers to run things.  Perhaps if we had called ahead, they would have known there was enough interest in the museum that Saturday morning for it to actually be open.  Alas, it was not to be.  After an hour spent "exploring" the town, our hope in the accuracy of the "we'll be back at 10 AM" sign died as sure a death as the time we killed while waiting.  {*single tear emoji*}

Taking pictures in front of the "Welcome" sign, visiting the local library (which was roughly the size of our bonus room), and stopping at the gas station to grab some more Ricola for my interminable cough took up maybe 20 minutes of our waiting time.

This is the closest we got to any hobos.

This little welcoming hobo mocked our sadness with its cuteness.

Charles H. MacNider Art Museum

While trying to salvage our morning, I did some mad Googling for "things to do" around Britt, IA and discovered that there was an art museum about 45 minutes away in Mason City.  And since Mason City was our afternoon's destination anyway (for the 1 o'clock opening of The Music Man Square), it was the perfect place to chill for an hour or so before we ate lunch and got on with our regularly scheduled programming for the day.

An added and unexpected bonus of visiting the Charles H. MacNider Art Museum was discovering that renowned puppeteer, Bil Baird (creator of the iconic "Lonely Goat Herd" marionettes from The Sound of Music), was a native Iowan and had left his creations to his hometown's art museum when he died.  It's safe to say that I was certainly not expecting to stumble across "one little girl in the pale pink coat" from my favorite movie ever when we headed upstairs to the children's section of the museum!  Hahaha.  It was a lovely bit of lagniappe, and contributed to my overall delight in our brief stop in Mason City, Iowa.  

Jane's reproduction of one of Bil's puppets.

Before heading out for lunch and then the Square, Alex and Isaac had fun with these giant foam erector set pieces and blocks.  They spent a happy half hour or so playing while the others were finishing up in the museum.

The Music Man Square

After a delicious lunch (at The Blue Heron), we mosied around town where we were able to take a nice little walk across the Meredith Wilson footbridge and pose with some statues before immersing ourselves in all things The Music Man.  Hahaha.  Honestly, I was shocked by the exceedingly positive reception of the Square from all parties involved.  I truly wasn't expecting much, even though -- or perhaps BECAUSE -- I had forced everyone to watch the movie prior to embarking on our road trip.  For whatever reason, though, the kids kind of loved it.  Isaac in particular excitedly exclaimed that his opinion of the movie soared to an 8 out of 10 after visiting the Square.  Hahahaha.

Meredith Wilson -- creator of The Music Man musical (as well as The Unsinkable Molly Brown)

Hahahahahahaha.

Once we were inside, there was a fun scavenger hunt that the kids raced around trying to complete along with photo ops and displays galore.  In addition, the boyhood home of Meredith Wilson was right next door and open for tours to the public, so of course I had to check that out as well.  Grace was the only kid interested in joining me, so while Scott stayed behind to keep an eye on the others, we were able to explore the lovely old home and learn more about the family who lived there all those years ago.  As a sidenote -- Grace and I both agree that houses today, with their cookie cutter blueprints, are no match for the charm and appeal of older houses.  We were both pretty much in love with the layout and decor of Meredith's old home. 

Meredith Wilson's boyhood home.

There were 76 trombones strung across the ceiling here.

Who can resist a cutout, am I right?  Hahaha.

There were instructions behind the cutout for mimicking the shot from the movie poster.

I think Grace did a pretty good job here of recreating Marian the Librarian's facial expression.  Hahahaha.

"We got trouble -- right here in River City..." -- is quite the apropos sentiment when it comes to Isaac.

Along with "76 trombones led the big parade...," the kids' most quoted parts of the movie -- throughout the whole road trip, mind you -- include: "Baaaalzac!," a mocking of the lisped "Amaryllith," "Shipoopi, shipoopi, shipoopi," and the crazily catchy classic, "pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little, cheep, cheep, cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more...".

And that's a wrap for Day 3!  In addition to working our timeline around the Hobo Museum, I really wanted us to be able to hit up the Mall of America for the 4th of July.  So, after finishing off our afternoon with some ice cream from the Candy Kitchen, we hit the road once again with our next midwestern destination on the horizon: Minnesota.  Until next time...