It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's a Metropolis???

by Nicole

After leaving behind the beauty of St. Louis, the Wanderers discussed the possibility of staying in a bed and breakfast for the night. We decided that it would probably be the most affordable to stay an hour or so outside of St. Louis so we locked in our next destination - Nashville, Tennessee - into Sarah's GPS and started to drive. Along the way Lauren got busy scanning nearby bed and breakfasts on her iPhone.

We both started calling whatever places were in the area while Sarah drove. Every single place we called was full! Lauren called one place that was a revamped one-room school house only to have the person who answered the phone say, "Our room is full". Our room. Just one! The luck on my end was not any better, so we all decided to drive a little further and stop at the next promising exit (at this point we were in Illinois...again, cut NOT Effingham... and promising exits were coming at a rate of every twenty-five to sixty miles). Sarah's trusty GPS told us that the nearest cluster of life was in a town called Metropolis. We decided to pull off when we saw the exit. Little did we know at the time that Metropolis, Illinois would be one of the most memorable stops we would make on our journey.

As we exited the highway we were pleasantly greeted by a sign with the words "GIANT SUPERMAN STATUE STRAIGHT AHEAD". It may have been late, but time could not stop us from seeing Superman.


We followed the sign and found ourselves passing what I have always pictured small town America to look like. Humble residences sat next to local shops. Shortly after arriving in town we saw a large statue. Could this be Superman?! A closer look revealed that Superman was not the only man in Metropolis to have a giant statue made in his honor. It was Big John or Big John's groceries complete with produce in hand. We drove on with high expectations for Superman's giganticness. Of COURSE he would be larger than Big John! This was his town after all. We drove on only to have the small town feel end abruptly when we came across a Harrah's Casino whose bright lights compared to Las Vegas. As quickly as small town was disturbed by Harrah's, it reemerged as we continued to follow the signs towards Superman. Then we saw it. "Is this it?!" It's size had been dwarfed by Big John, but in reference to the average statue, Superman's was pretty giant.

We left Superman and promised to return to him in the daylight to get a closer look at his pecks and overall physique. Though it was in the middle of NO WHERE, the three of us decided to venture into Harrah's hotel to take in the local scene. The parking lot was packed. Mostly with out-of-towners from Tennessee and Kentucky. Lauren surmised that this was probably the closest casino for all surrounding states. I pictured caravans of cars leaving every hour on the hour for the destination of Metropolis, Illinois - metropolis? Not so much.

Sarah and Lauren entering Harrah's:

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the casino, but just imagine what it would be like to live inside a pinball machine and you should get a good idea of what it was like. After leaving (and spending $3.75 on watered down cranberry vodkas), we headed to the car to find a hotel to stay in. As we approached the car Sarah made the mistake of saying, "Hey! There's a cat" - a mistake that she would spend the next 24 hours regretting because Lauren and I are avid cat fans and Sarah happens to be allergic to them. Lauren and I did our best to call the cat over only to notice that another was coming out to greet us and then a third. Within minutes we were surrounded by a dozen or so dumpster cats and found ourselves wandering (it's what we do so well) near an abandoned maintenance shack.

The clan of dumpster cats:

Abandoned maintenance shack:

Lauren and I eventually heeded to Sarah's pleads to leave our new friends, but we promised to return in the morning with food for them to enjoy. More on the rest of our stay in Metropolis to come...