Big time move: The world's biggest cuckoo clock finds a new perch

We found out recently that the world's biggest cuckoo clock, which we visited in Wilmot, Ohio in 2007, has moved to a new home. It's been restored and now sits at the intersection of Main and Broadway Streets, 15 miles away in Sugar Creek, Ohio, proving that Ohio is still the most cuckoo state in the country. We've never been to Sugar Creek, but here's a rerun of the post we did after our swell visit to Wilmot:

 World's biggest cuckoo (I'm working on a self-deprecating joke here, give me a minute) clock

 The masses throng to watch, enthralled.

Grandma's Alpine Homestead is a fine restaurant/tourist trap in the Amish Ohio town of Wilmot that boasts the world's biggest cuckoo clock. This bit of bravado is a little bit controversial in large cuckoo clock circles, as a Michigan town makes the same claim. It would have to be a pretty darn big one to beat Wilmot's timepiece, though. We stopped by in 2007 and were lucky to view the clock in a newly refurbished luster. According to roadsideamerica.com (the bible, if you ask me), 16 volunteers spent 80 hours painting, varnishing and regrouting this tribute to German-Swiss timekeeping that would make a Swiss Miss cry in her cocoa. Hampton Hotels also coughed up $20,000 for the clock's on-going care (cuckoo! cuckoo!). Our visit's timing was excellent. After a little browsing in the gift shop we made our way to the patio for a recital featuring Old World characters doing their cuckoo clock shtick as the clock struck. You'd be cuckoo if you didn't stop and see this. Here's some more info: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/1008 

Excuse me, will you sign my buns: Tony Packo's of Toldeo, Ohio

 Tony Packo's, the pride of Toledo

 Toledo native Jamie Farr, Klinger from "M*A*S*H", immortalized Packo's by mentioning it in an episode.

I had a brand new camera when we visited and hadn't quite figured out the flash yet so these shots are embarrassingly amateurish, but there you will find autographed hot dog buns from the likes of Alice Cooper, Neil Sedaka and the Moody Blues, as well as among others...

 ...Jerry Seinfeld...

...Danny Glover...

 ...the cast of "M*A*S*H"...

 ...Barbara Bush...

 ...Ray Charles, and...

 ...Art Garfunkle.

On a cross-country trip back in 2006, we took a great detour off I-80 west toward Toledo and stopped at Tony Packo’s, an historic restaurant known for their Hungarian hot dogs and other delicacies since 1932. Already legendary with locals, Packo’s was given a huge boost by actor Jamie Farr. A native Toledoan himself, Farr played Corporal Max Klinger, a cross-dressing, Section 8-seeking medical corpsman who was also from Toledo on the TV series "M*A*S*H". In one episode, a man playing a television newsman talked to Klinger about his hometown. Farr ad-libbed, “If you're ever in Toledo, Ohio, on the Hungarian side of town, Tony Packo's got the greatest Hungarian hot dogs. Thirty-five cents...” "M*A*S*H" scriptwriters wrote Packo's into five subsequent episodes, including the two-and-a-half-hour final episode in 1983. In addition to its grub, Packo’s is also known for its collection of autographed hot dog buns. In 1972, Burt Reynolds visited the restaurant and commemorated the event by signing a bun. This started a tradition and was followed by scores of celebrities' autographed hot dog buns (actually, longer-lasting hot dog bun facsimiles) now enshrined on Packo's' walls. They even have one signed by the Iron Lady herself, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. They have a fun souvenir shop to commemorate your visit and make your friends envious, too, so if you're ever in Toledo, do as Klinger says, and give Packo's a try. It's the best deal in town, frankly speaking.

Girl, we couldn't get much Ohio-er: Scenes from the Buck-eye State

World's biggest cuckoo clock, left.

You can park your heini anywhere.

Autographed hot dog buns at Tony Packo's in Toledo.

What's all the hubbub at the Hub of Hubbard, Bub?

The Longaberger Basket Company's picnic basket shaped building.

I remember Maumee.

Birthplace of "third-rate non-entity" President Rutherford B. Hayes.

WHIZ, southeastern Ohio's news leader.

Zippy the Roo, mascot of the University of Akron.

I can see for miles and miles: Eccentric Roadside turns over 100,000

Like this blog, our car has also turned over 100,000. I wish cars still had those old-fashioned odometers where you see all the numbers rolling over. Digital odometers don't have the same drama.

Here's where we were when our car turned 100,000. A bit mundane for such a momentous occasion.

There was this bit of eccentricity at a nearby McDonald's, however.

We're a society that honors round numbers and so we must note the fact that the little hit-counting widget on the upper right side of this blog has turned over 100,000. Like a good used car, this number may not be completely accurate, though. It was added some time after we started this blog so we just kind of guessed at where we would be hitwise at that juncture. This counter also seems to be at odds with Google's blog stats feature, which thinks we get quite a few more hits. But we do like the fact that it looks like an old-fashioned dashboard odometer and it is an apt metaphor for a roadside travel blog.

We were outside Akron, Ohio on one of our long road trips in 2009 when our trusted vehicle, a Subaru Forester, itself turned over 100,000 miles. I recorded this momentous occasion and the rather mundane scenery that was present. How great it was to be on a trip at this time rather than picking up a prescription at Rite Aid or taking a load of garbage to the dump.

Thanks to everyone for giving this blog so many hits. You've provided us many, many smiles to the gallon.

I'm gonna live forever: Some Halls of Fame seen along the way

THE RV/MH HALL OF FAME

Elkhart, Indiana

Past inductees Eldon Coons and Roger Reynolds.

THE NATIONAL BUFFALO FOUNDATION BUFFALO HALL OF FAME

Jamestown, North Dakota

Jamestown has the world's largest buffalo statue, the National Buffalo Museum and, of course, the Buffalo Hall of Fame.

THE OHIO BAND DIRECTORS HALL OF FAME

Akron, Ohio

Past inductees Phillip P. Gates and Glenn E. Walker.

THE IDAHO POTATO MUSEUM HALL OF FAME

Blackfoot, Idaho

Ricahard Polatis and Daniel Polatis were inducted in 2009.

One of the pleasures of stopping at eccentric roadside attractions is unexpectedly coming across a Hall of Fame devoted to an unusual subject. Potatoes, RVs, Ohio bands and buffaloes may not seem to have much in common but each has a Hall of Fame in its honor with a wall of inductees' plaques proudly on display. What I'd like to see is a Hall of Fame Hall of Fame with all the best Halls of Fame honored with wall plaques. Kudos to all the honorees in these hallowed Halls. You've done your field proud and, even though it's an honor just to be nominated, to be in the rarefied air of the cream of your chosen crop is an even bigger accomplishment. Light up the sky like a flame...baby, we'll remember your name.

Roo-ination: Zippy, the University of Akron's kangaroo mascot

Akron, Ohio is a nothern industrial city known for, among other things, being the hometown of Goodyear Rubber. It's also on the way to lots of places if you're driving from the east to the west. We have a good friend who teaches at the University of Akron who we always stop in and see on our road trips. I didn't realize the university had an unusual mascot, though, until our last trip. Wildcat? No. Cougar? Nada. Kangaroo? Ding, ding, ding! Zippy the Kangaroo, to be precise, who has been their beloved mascot since 1953. Why Akron picked an Australian marsupial is a bit of a mystery, but the incongruity makes it tops in my book. I suppose kangaroos are fast, agile and determined, all good traits in a college sports mascot, but it's still a bit kooky. Zippy is also a female, one of only a few female college sports mascots in the country and certainly the only one with a pouch. Capital One (the credit card company) sponsors a college mascot popularity contest (and you thought those high credit card interest rates were only used to line greedy corporate CEOs' pockets...well, they are, but they also put UAkron on the map). Zippy has been chosen number one on more than one occasion, giving Rootown something to cheer about. Take that, Kent State!

Dean Martin's hometown: When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's Steubenville, Ohio.

The one and only Dino, Steubenville's favorite son

The one and only Dino mural

 

Conveniently located next to Kroger's Supermarket

There's Dino fun to be had at the Steubenville Visitors Center

You're nobody til Tom Tom loves you

Dean Martin Blvd.

Dean Martin Blvd.

Steubenville has some first-class murals

Nobody was a cooler entertainer than Dean Martin. For decades he was everyone's favorite breezy, tux-wearing, skirt-chasing, pseudo-drunk crooner. He was the guy with the "who cares?" attitude that Frank Sinatra always tried to be like but was too intense a person to pull off. You would have expected him to have been from a swingin' cosmopolitan place like New York or Chicago, but he was born and raised in the unlikely industrial rustbelt town of Steubenville in eastern-most Ohio, not too far from Pittsburgh on the Ohio river. Wikipedia says "During its heyday in the period of the 1940s-60s, Steubenville was popularly known as "Little Chicago," a nickname that, on the one hand, evoked the city's prolific industry and downtown bustle, while on the other hand suggesting Steubenville's reputation for crime, gambling, and corruption." The town today is a hardscrabble yet earnest place, trying to beautify and better itself despite some hard times (and what smells like the fumes from a chemical processing plant in the air). It has Fort Steuben, a strategic camp from the post-Revolutionary era. It also has 25 beautiful murals painted on the outside of downtown buildings. Really nice ones. But Dino is still the main attraction here. His mural is the nicest and it's next to the Kroger's Supermarket, where everybody can see it. And they've renamed a stretch of Rt. 7, the main drag, Dean Martin Boulevard. It doesn't pass by glamorous casinos and nightclubs, though...just smoky power plants and rusty steel bridges, but, hey, they did the best they could. And if you're in the area this Thursday through Sunday (June 18-21), they're having their yearly Dean Martin Festival, which should be a gasser, pallie, a real gasser. Everybody loves somebody sometime.