Metropolis-The Official Hometown of Superman

We all know that Superman's hometown is Metropolis, what you may not know is that Metropolis is as little town on the Illinois side of the Ohio River, right before you get to Kentucky.

When Kortney and I were driving from St. Louis to Nashville to visit her family over Memorial Day weekend, we'd been on the road for three or so hours when out of nowhere a sign on the side of the freeway says "Giant Superman Statue, next exit". I don't know how it originally came about but I've been on a really big tourist trap kick lately and just by reading the sign out loud, Kortney already knew that we weren't going to pass that up.

We took the exit and followed the signs. I was under the impression that it would be standing right off to the side of the exit, watching cars pass by on the interstate, instead we wound through one small town on the way to the next, every once in a while we would see a sign that would reassure us that we hadn't passed it and there was still a "giant superman statue" to see.

The great irony of the whole thing was that as soon as we got on to the Main Street of Metropolis, we passed by an even bigger statue of a grocery store mascot named Big John who seriously puts the superman statue to shame.

Now, see that is what a Giant Statue should look like. If you had told me I'd be seeing a giant man carrying groceries on this trip, I would have gladly driven the six miles out to Metropolis.

Well, we got to the "Superman Square" of the town, and honestly, for a touristy attraction it doesn't disappoint. There was a Superman Museum, which for the sake of time, we didn't go in, and a ton of great photo opportunities.

"But wait!" I can just hear you say. "What about the Giant Statue?" Well, after all that, he was in fact there.

Just kidding, that would have been a dissappointment. The real statue was much bigger. But not nearly as big as Big John.

So the detour certainly proved successful. As we did a little bit of reading on the place afterwards, it actually turns out that every year, second week of June, they host Superman Days. A Thursday to Sunday weekend with all sorts of Superman related hooplah: strength tests, costumes contests, movie screenings, celebrity tents. It basically sounds awesome. It was last weekend. We almost went back, but we wanted to go with some of Kortney's TN friends and meet in the middle so that lodging would be cheaper, and when they couldn't come we decided not to take work off for it. Someday though we plan on going to Superman Days, and maybe even winning the $1000 for best costume.

And yes, I did get a haircut, thank you for asking.