A Giant Cock, Cone and a Dash of Pocahontas

After a dandy of an day and evening at my mother-in-law's bungalow it was time to pack the hounds and head south to my dad's miniature bachelor pad (it's small because he is really little) in Griswold, IA. As the wind whipped the hell out the hounds with their heads popping out both passenger side windows, I kept my eyes open for the next two-lane attraction. Our first photo-op came in the form of a large cock and cone on the outskirts of Clear Lake, on the north of US HWY18. Both fiberglass megaliths were exactly what I needed to get the handy Canon primed for the next few weeks.

Clear Lake Cock

Two of my favorite things as a kid:
Wonder Bread and a TWIST cone

I can honestly say that I have never seen
the underside of a cone's lip before.

As a young chub my Grandpa Jack used to take us fishing and actually let us talk, unlike Leo who demanded silence while trying not to stick his whole finger into the stink bait jar. If old Grandpa wanted us to really feel like we were hot shit he would take us out to snag a couple buckets full of bullheads (a nasty little fish that lives in and eats the crap at the bottom of the lake). Those slimy guys never grew much larger than a hoagie bun, unless you were to find yourself in Crystal Lake, IA where the World's Largest Bullhead resides.

Swell Fella on the Jetty: You want me to move my truck from in front of that?
Sweaty Fat Man from Chicago: It's not in the way, thanks though.
SFotJ: Isn't that thing goofy looking?
SFMfC: Yes it is. I;m traveling throughout Iowa snapping photos of big weird stuff.
SFotJ: That's not the biggest weirdest thing in Iowa, this guy is (gesturing to the old man in the boat).

We used to catch enough bullheads to fill the cleaning table in Grandpa Jack's yard.
They would be piled so high that it was nothing more than a floppy, sloppy table top.

In a yard across from the Bullhead was an old Rock Island Railroad dining car. I bet that poor car never in a million years would have thought that it was going to end up as the centerpiece to a half ass hosta garden in small town Iowa.

This was more than a big day, it was the plunge that I needed to clear the steel wool from between my ears and realize that fresh air was supposed to make my nipples hard - not my eyes run and nose itchy. The only thing that could have followed such an amazing stop was the World's Largest Cheeto in Algona, IA. As I closed in on this the most illusive of the World's Largest snacks I spotted a billboard for a Louis Sullivan Jewel Box Bank only a mile from the Cheeto.

A few year back the city of Algona raised $180 to purchase the World's Largest Cheeto as a tourist draw. Once the seller found out about how his Cheeto brought an entire dozen of people together he donated it to the city. Rather than display their haul in a public place for all to see, it is kept behind locked doors at Emerald's Restaurant. Sadly they are closed between lunch and dinner leaving my memory card short an image of that sweet little nugget of orange goodness.

If it were not for that Jewel Box Bank billboard this stop would have been a wash. Louis Sullivan was the mentor and teacher to a pampas ass named Frank Lloyd Wright. Without Sullivan, there would not have been a Wright. Later in life Sullivan became a dead broke drunk. Much of the world had written him off, thankfully a bank director wasn't one of them. He designed and completed nine banks in total, all of which are still standing.

You can definitely see where Wright pulled some design elements.
Henry Adams Building
123 Main Street - Algona, IA

He loved placing intricate patterns on mundane surfaces. What a grand sill.

Only two more stops to go and at this point the hounds were a bit peckish and in need of some major leg stretched. It just so happened to be their luck that a swanky dog bakery occupied a storefront two doors down from the bank. Pet Kingdom's proprietors were two swell gals that absolutely loved the hounds and insisted that they taste the pastries before I even considered buying. We left with $4 of pastries in the sack, $10 in their bellies and an ear full of great places in which to photograph.