After Superbob was born--he was hungry!

Superbob in his original habitat



Superbob was born in Metropolis, Illinois, but  we were far from Sweet Home Alabama. Bob had visited Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky years ago, so he wanted me to see it. He's the driver, of course, so off we went.

bGrand Rivers is a tiny town with a great big American cheese farm called Patti's 1880s Settlement and Restaurant. The restaurant has good food and interesting décor, with wait staff dressed in 1880s apparel and hot bread baked in clay flower pots, served with breath-takingly delicious strawberry butter.




I must say more about the strawberry butter and flower-pot bread. Imagine the best strawberry ice cream you have ever had. Now imagine it at room temperature with the wonderful mouth-feel of butter. Spread it on warm bread. Yep. That's it.

Inside Patti's 1880s Restaurant. See those dresses?

In the absolute middle of nowhere as far as we could tell, Patti's Settlement has a garden with children's activities, decorations, a putt-putt course, and no telling what else. It would seem that the whole population of the town must work for Patti.


In Patti's garden

This trip was about six years ago, so some of my details may be fuzzy, but if I recall correctly, this was our first meal after the birth of Superbob. A final note: Patti's is 494 miles from our house. We liked it so much, we visited again just to eat. Well, we have family in Ohio, but Patti's is a bit out of the way to their house. I have developed a strawberry butter recipe of my own since our first visit. It is fabulous; however, Patti's is better. 


Bob LOVES pie!

What do Clark Kent and I have in common?

My husband Bob lived in Jefferson City, Missouri, for about four years in the 70’s and attended the University of Missouri at Columbia as a freshman and sophomore. For super-legitimate reasons, I wouldn’t let him drag me up there for just over 30 years. (If you haven’t figured out that I really need a sarcasm font, we may be in trouble.) Anyway, in 2012, Mizzou became part of the SEC. Bob convinced me I needed to go to Missouri and watch them play Bama, my alma mater. Since I was pretty sure we would win and therefore I would have a good time, I agreed. We really like road trips, so we took the long way home. I had never been in that part of the country, so I needed to see the Gateway Arch, an actual famous landmark in St. Louis. You have likely heard of it. It is rather impressive.

This is Bob



The highlight, though, and the reason for this long narrative, occurred quite by accident. We picked up a tourist information book at the Illinois welcome stop. In it was a short feature on the town of Metropolis. I read it out loud. No response from the

Superman

hubs. I read it again. Then, I pointed out a billboard: “See the world famous 15-foot tall Superman Statue on Superman Square.”  He finally said something like, “Did you want to go there?” Oh, yes. Yes, I did.

Metropolis was at one time named something else. I don’t remember the original name right this minute, and anyway, that’s not the point. The city fathers (and mothers, no doubt) decided to reinvent their little burg as Superman’s hometown. They have that great name, and oh, so much more.

Barbara and Lois Lane

So here’s to you, Metropolis, complete with your world-famous (?) 15-foot statue, a nice little tribute to Lois Lane, stores and a museum with tie-in names and displays, and best of all, one of those cut-out forms of Supermans’s body for Bob to stand behind for a photo op. And to REALLY tell you who we are, he took that photo and had a life-sized Superbob made by a local print shop that he used when he ran for office that fall. He won, too, by golly. A big thank you to Metropolis, the birthplace of this blog.

Superbob

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