2017.07.13-Madelia, MN

2017.07.13-Madelia, MN

We are staying in a small city park but it is impressive with its green grass and huge trees.  There is a soccer field, a baseball field, several sand volley sand courts and behind our coach is a 9 hole golf course.  This active park is beside a running stream that has a tiny waterfall.  Very nice.  In addition this overnight stop allowed us to post the Minnesota sticker to our United States tour map of places we’ve stayed; only a few states left.  Oh yes, we’re thoroughly enjoying the low humidity and low 70s today.  😎

Yesterday, we went to Blue Earth, MN, looking for the Jolly Green Giant.  Sure enough, we found it.    This 56 foot fiberglass giant has been booming “Ho Ho Ho” since July 6, 1979.

Even though these towns are not large, often considerably less than 10,000 folks, they have some interesting histories.  The Green Giant company, established in the 1920s, is no longer in existence having been bought and sold numerous times, but Blue Earth still has a canning facility for Green Giant brand products operating today.

From the Blue Earth Chamber of Commerce brochure:

- Blue Earth is located at the midsection of America’s longest highway – Interstate 90.

- Blue Earth gets its name from the blue clay the Sioux called mah-ko-ta found in the banks of the Blue Earth River.

Later we drove to New Ulm, MN, a community rich in German heritage, to see and hear their Glockenspiel which plays for ten minutes every noon, 3pm and 5pm on a set of 37 tuned cast bells.  According to Wikipedia, a glockenspiel is a percussion instrument comprised of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano.  We didn’t see the keyboard, just the outside which is similar to a cuckoo clock with four large clock dials and dancing figures that appear as the hour is struck and the music plays. We enjoyed the 3pm performance so much we went back and heard it again at 5pm.

After the Glockenspiel show we went up the hill overlooking New Ulm to the Hermann Monument.  The legend of Hermann, a freedom fighter and enemy of Roman tyranny, has lived in German folklore since 9 A.D. when his army crushed the advance of the Roman army in Teutoburg Forest.  This 102 foot high Monument was dedicated on September, 1897 and is the second largest copper statue in the US.