The Miracle of America

Traveling to Polson, Montana took us about 40 miles off the Interstate. It would represent a poor decision if our primary goal was to get to Washington in a hurry...but our mission was more tourism oriented. We wanted to see cool stuff.

Roadside America described The Miracle of America Museum as a unique and eclectic collection of everything from motorcycles to pogo sticks. It sounded like something that would mostly appeal to nerds and weirdos. In other words, it seemed like a perfect destination for the Heggy boys.

But first we had to get something to eat. We found a Mexican restaurant right on the shore of the beautiful Flathead Lake (see photo above) and fueled up for an extended museum crawl. (Note: I recognize that one restaurant doesn't represent a statistically valid sampling, but based on this experience, I would conclude that Colorado has better Mexican food than Montana.)

The museum is located, appropriately enough, on Memory Lane.



From the parking lot, you could not begin to grasp the extent of what you'd find inside. The museum's humongous assortment represents a lifetime of collecting by the museum's owner, an 80-something gent who we found sitting behind a cluttered desk just inside the front door. We paid our $5 admission fees, and received a map and some brief instructions about how to navigate the premises.

The Miracle of America contains 40 different buildings full of stuff, as well as a few thousand items just sitting around in the open spaces between structures. We realized right away that we would not be able to absorb any more than a small fraction of the history and education to be found here. The first hallway we entered contained hundreds of posters, letters, stamps, brochures, games, books, trinkets, and other memorabilia that were each worthy of study. Some items were labeled or placarded, but most were just sitting there for you to interpret however you wished.



I'm not going to attempt to describe the enormity of the collection. I'll just offer a couple of comments along with a few selected photographs. But in summary, I can honestly say that this is the most mind-boggling museum I have ever visited; and undoubtedly the best bargain you'll ever find for seeing interesting old stuff. Sure, I've been to better museums, and fancier ones. And I've seen much more exotic and impressive individual displays (the Saturn V comes to mind, for example)...but I think it's safe to say you'll never see anything approaching the breadth of this accumulation that was collected by just one guy.

There were entire rooms full of old motorcycles...





...and animals.



The placard said that this stuffed buffalo was the largest bison on record for Montana. Though the display shows him being hunted by a Native American archer, the fine print revealed that he was actually a product of a local bison meat farm, and the part of him that wasn't taxidermied for display was distributed to various Polsonites in hamburger form.

There was no particular history listed for the cat. But you gotta love a place that has a puma, a jackalope, and a flying monkey in adjacent displays.

There were rooms full of old cars, military uniforms, weaponry, propaganda posters, and chainsaws. (Seriously, there were probably 100 chainsaws!) The main building contains the most organized collection; out in the back, many of the things seem to be rather random.





Most of the items were not restored to mint condition, but were interesting nonetheless...







One building was jam-packed with old washing machines and vacuum cleaners.



Another had an entire ancient dentist office, complete with shelves and shelves of tools that really made you appreciate Novocain.



There were an assortment of tractors. (Unfortunately, I did not see a Hoyt-Clagwell anywhere.)



And types of vehicles I had never seen before. This one seems to be some sort of propeller-driven Sno-Cat.



Anyone remember Mike Mulligan?



Flying machines...



...including what appeared to be a one-man helicopter.

This particular display made me think about the X-Files, UFO sightings, and crop circles.

Seriously, where would you find stuff like this? Does the guy advertise? "Wanted: Weird crap. Will pay $1 for used homemade aerospace equipment."

I don't know. But for every vehicle on display, there were also shelves of spare parts, extra tools, and unidentifiable doodads.

And yes, some real bona-fide X-Files stuff...



And I have no idea what this stuff was supposed to be. I don't think I want to know.



(I do like the Pinto with the McDonalds logo on it, though. But that's probably just nostalgia for the time I owned a Pinto adorned with a nifty cool racing stripe. Yeah, that's right...I had a Pinto with a racing stripe. Eat your heart out!)

Tanner, ever the musician, figured out that this treelike sculpture was a sort of wind-chime-for-golf-balls. A ball released at the top of the thing would rebound off each resonating plate, playing a little tune on the way down. Kinda cool.



A few of the buildings were set up as representations of the Old West. There was a schoolhouse, a barn, and even a general store.





And then there was the creepy stuff. If I ever wanted to film a horror movie, I would definitely use this place as a location. I bet it's really scary after dark.

OK, maybe a Superman pogo stick isn't that strange, but there were enough weird children's toys to make you wonder how my parent's generation grew up without serious neuroses.

(Come to think of it, they also had to deal with hideous nursery rhymes, refrigerators that didn't defrost themselves, and evenings at home with no television. It's actually a wonder that they were able to raise such well-adjusted children as ourselves.)

But yeah, some of this stuff was horrifying...



...and especially this:



But thankfully, the museum tour ended with something quite comforting -- a lovely little soda fountain.



It appeared to be functional. I'm guessing that the owner would jump behind the counter and whip you up a malted milkshake if you asked him to. But we didn't; we were tired after walking through so many exhibits over the last several hours. We chatted with him for a bit -- he seemed to be happy to talk to anyone who would listen -- thanked him and complimented the awesome scope of his project, and then made our way back to the parking lot.



Then we were back on the road.



We crossed through Idaho and then stopped for dinner in Spokane, trying another example of indigenous cuisine.



Rather than spend another night in a hotel, we decided to take advantage of Tanner's night-owl tendencies and drive on through the dark to push all the way to Bellingham. I hope to be able to share my report about the rest of the trip in one additional post. Then we'll return to our normal hard-hitting news coverage, political opinion, and relentless Star Trek trivia blather. But thanks for sticking with me through this part of our journey; I hope it hasn't been too boring. I can definitely recommend both Yellowstone and the Miracle of America...as well as vacations in general (especially if your kid is as fun to hang out with as mine is). Anyway, there is still a bit more to come, so please check back again tomorrow. Thanks, and have a great day!