Barbies, Space and Bikes! Oh My!!!

Deke Slayton Memorial Space and Bicycle Museum in Sparta, WI

What can I say, the Arundels really like combo-museums.  When we say combo museums we are talking about places that put together a couple of things that just don't seem to make much sense, but for our Destination Weird purposes, they make WONDERFUL sense!  Of course Space and Bikes go together, duh?  "From sprockets to rockets" is their catchphrase associated with the museum. 

But really, it wasn't just two museums, we were pleasantly surprised with a 3rd when we entered.  You can imagine our excitement when we walked in!  The third was a nice display of Monroe County's history...plus a Barbie display.  That's right.  There's a Barbie display as well in the back corner displaying Barbies from the 1960s.  Again, makes complete sense, right?  This was my favorite stop of the day.  It was so odd and so bizarre with all the things combined that this place was the iconic and classic Destination Weird location.

Now, this is a shout out to all my Gilmore Girls fans.  This place made me think of Stars Hallow and the historical society and one of the places Taylor would put together.  I almost half expected Lorelei and Rory walking in mocking it and doing some witty banter.  So, it made me all the more happy to be meandering through this museum...or museums...

The bikes were pretty cool to see.  They had some pretty rare bikes.  The reason they house a bike mueseum, Sparta, WI is the biking capital of the world...self-proclaimed of course.  There are hundreds of them, probably provided by locals.  There are pictures of cyclists all around dating from the mid-19th century.  For all my Spoke Folkers out there, this would be a cool thing to check out!  We certainly enjoyed seeing all the bikes.  There was even a bike that turned the front tire into a lawn mower!  Haha!  Can't afford a riding mower?  Well, attach a lawn mower to the front and voila!  How would you like this as your biking attire?  I think I'll stick to my spandex biking shorts...Thanks.

Now, who is Deke Slayton?  Well he was an astronaut, duh?  And he's from Wisconsin.  So of course they are going to honor him.  There was a video for us to watch, but we really didn't want to sit for 20 minutes...so we probably missed some info about Deke.  What was cool was they had a piece of the moon there!  There was a REAL moon rock in that place!  That was pretty cool.  And you could also stand on a scale to see how much you would weigh on other planets.  Ha, yeah, I don't think I'll try that.  I feel insecure enough already, I don't need to feel insecure on other planets.  The other space stuff was fun.  Including a place to stick your head to look like an astronaut...with our personal favorite...ET flying across the moon in the corner. 

Our Ratings:
Educational:  Well, this place was pretty informative about Deke Slayton, although we didn't spend much time learning about it...Plus they had many varieties of historical bikes, so we rated it an 8.
Weird:  This was a classic weird destination, so we would rated it a 7.

Fun:  We had fun looking at all the different bikes and just taking in the splendor of all the things you could see, so we gave it a fun rating of 6.