Lovely SPAM™! Wonderful SPAM™!

We saw the sign about a half hour outside of Austin, Minnesota: "The SPAM™ Museum: For those hungry for history". By the time we realized it wasn't a joke, we were worried that we'd missed it. But we got there via a detour and were fed "SPAM™ples" (three flavors!) proffered by self-identified "SPAM™bassadors".

Our first SPAM™bassador

The museum was crowded. I mean it was a cloudy Monday, the entry was free, with free fried meat product on pretzel sticks being offered on silver trays like hors d'oeuvres at an art gallery opening. But still, it was hard to get our heads around the number of people visiting the one-floor Lego™-colored display room.

We would soon learn from the central display case, however, that the SPAM™ museum is a mecca for SPAM™ fans. People go on dates here. Couples fall in love here. Some get married here and have wedding cakes decorated like SPAM™ cans.

We met one such a super fan in the "international room". I noted that I wasn't aware SPAM™ was in Australia, and he said "oh you bet it is". Then he launched into a story about how his mother used to make fried rice with spam and when she'd open the lid, and that unmistakable processed pork smell wafted out, "it was like a light shone out of that pan like a light from heaven". 

The bike that ran on bacon fat.

Five cool facts: 

 1. The company made a motorbike that ran on bacon fat. 

 2. There are 12 flavors of Spam available. Check them out! 

3. They make over 550,000 cans of Spam a day. 

4. In Korea, they give fancy black gift boxes of Spam with gold lettering as gifts at Christmas. 

5. You can add spam to almost any recipe. If you don't believe me, check out this SPAM Buttercotch Cookie Recipe 

 Full of saturated fats and processed meat facts, we left Austin and headed to Sioux Falls in South Dakota, where we ran along the "Greenway" from Falls Park to the end of the regenerated downtown. While the Falls were stunning, despite the low water levels, what I remember most is the smells of the factories we passed, beginning with a meat processing plant, then some sour malty smell from a bottling plant. Throughout the nearly vacated waterfront were historical plaques memorializing various settlement struggles (floods, massacres, industries come and gone), a constant stream of colonial history cast in metal signs that you had to read both sides, front and back, to get the whole story. Seemed a lot coming from a country where we try to cram it all in on one side and in two languages.

The view of Sioux Falls from the lookout tower at Falls Park.

Last night we splurged to stay at a KOA campground outside of Sioux Falls for the joy of a hot shower and a campfire. Beside us, we had a trailer park and out of it came a family of 10 - eight blond kids, all seemingly under the age of 10, and two parents, who somehow managed to get everyone piled into tents and asleep before 10 pm curfew.

Tonight we're writing from the famous boondocking site called Nomad's view overlooking the badlands.

Badlands, SD

Moonrise over Badlands

The moon is hanging over the buttes, so bright you almost struggle to see the stars. The quiet here is immense. 

Watching the sunset from Nomad view

We met a man in an Omeo wheelchair that could spin 360 degrees on the spot in seconds and could whip over the gravel parking area at 20 km/hr. He was accompanied by a greying great Dane that I almost mistook for a pony, who leaned hard against us while we fussed him and made me miss Jess. The man told us he'd been on the road for over four years now. Four years across the country driving an RV and walking his dog in his wheelchair--crazy impressive. The man beside us, Taggart, was on his way to develop a retreat in New Mexico. Somewhere you could get away and connect with God, "or whatever", as he explained it. He was a property developer in a puffy jacket and hooded sweatshirt. And yes, his van was fancy and popped up to house up to four people!

Hope everyone is having a good time at home. We're settling into van life and starting to know where we put the odds and ends we stuffed in here before leaving. Not too many mechanical problems so far (knock on wood). Sleep well!