We’re more than halfway done with this tour and it’s starting to feel like we have been everywhere! While I do enjoy the dining and entertainment at our big city stops, I really feel at home on our small town visits. We’ve been to a few to towns where the cows outnumber the people and you can’t help but feel that this is the heart of America. A place where everyone knows their neighbors and they all go out of their way to make strangers like us feel welcome.
We celebrated the 125 year anniversary of a town of about 400 in Lindsey, NE last month. They had arm wrestling and beard growing competitions as well as a talent show and BBQ cook off and a vintage tractor parade. Yesterday we visited Seymour, WI home of the hamburger which had a similar feel, ketchup slip & slide, cheese sculptures, and of course the country’s largest hamburger.
The little ghost town where I built my tiny house is on the outskirts of Boise use to be one such place. A small but bustling ‘tent city’ called Orchard built around the railroad. There is a large water tower that still stands although very much in disrepair. It was used to fill the Steam Engine Trains which had to stop every 40 miles to fill up again. As technology advanced and the trains no longer need to stop in Orchard the town slowly fizzled to what it is now.
I’ve seen first hand how some tiny towns are built around certain oddity’s from The Largest Egg in Mentone, IL to The Largest Hamburger in Seymour, WI, I can’t help but wonder when the Famous Idaho Potato Tour retires, what the Largest Potato in my backyard might do for my little town….
