POTATO MUSEUM (Day 2 - part 1)

All told, it would be about a 5 hour drive to Caldwell... but we had several stops planned along the way.

We had hoped to grab some breakfast in Pocatello, but just like with Montpelier, nothing appeared to be open. So we continued on.

Eventually we arrived in Blackfoot.

A friendly face at a gas station

Back in the 1960s, giant male statues, known as Muffler Men, were placed as promotional attractions in front of such places as Phillips 66, Sinclair and Texaco. A bit later, Miss Uniroyal was made as a companion idea, being moved around to different Uniroyal Tire & Rubber Company stores and gas stations for various events. Each statue originally had a Uniroyal Tire sign in her raised left hand and a watch on her right wrist.

Made by International Fiberglass, the statues weighed around 300 pounds. Originally they all were clad in only a bikini, but complaints that the statues were too racy caused many of them to be sent back to receive skirts and blouses. But Miss Uniroyal never became quite as popular as her Muffler Men brothers. Over the years, as stores closed, the statues were moved around, repainted and adapted to different businesses.

Martha's Cafe opened here in 1990, in a building that used to be a laundromat. The statue was purchased from a few blocks down, where it had stood in front of the White Eagle Drive-Thru gas station, and changed into a waitress. She was then blonde and held a plate with fries and a cheeseburger. In 2011, she underwent a make-over. She returned with different make-up, hair color, outfit ... and a giant diamond ring on her finger.

Today ... and a photo from 2008

Her ring ... and watch ...

... and bikini! Oh c'mon, you'd look too if you were standing next to her!

The place was filled to the brink with historic items and trinkets! Our server even let me peak into one of the side rooms. She said the owners had been collecting this kind of stuff for decades.

The Idaho Potato Museum was located in an old train station. Known as the Oregon Short Line Railroad Depot (a subsidiary of Union Pacific Railroad), it was built from 1912 - 1913. The museum opened in 1989.

Out front was a massive fake potato, complete with sour cream and a tab of butter.

Sean makes a friend!

The museum was quite large and had a huge variety of potato history and artifacts.

Potato were first cultivated around 200 BCE in the Andes Mountains of South America.

The potato plant

The Snake River Valley is ideal for growing potatoes due to its short summers and mineral-rich volcanic soil (as we'd already noticed from Lava Hot Springs).

Nearly all potatoes grown in Idaho are the Russet Burbank variety which originated from a single seed ball that Luther Burbank discovered growing in a garden in New England in 1872. He then developed a hybrid that was more disease resistant, to help combat the Great Famine in Ireland.

This is the world's largest potato "crisp". A potato crisp is made from processed dehydrated potatoes and is formed by food processing machines. A potato chip is made from thinly sliced fresh potatoes which are crisply fried in vegetable oil. Listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, it is 25 by 14 inches and weighs a third of a pound. It was made in 1991.

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