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WILD TRAVELS goes off the beaten path to celebrate America's unusual festivals, unknown museums and unconventional characters. It's intelligent, funny, and a bit irreverent, spotlighting our country's quirkiest people and places.
2018
Visit the fun and lively 100th Anniversary of Green County's Cheese Days festival and tour a Boeing 727 airplane home. Also, experience the World's Largest Rattlesnake Roundup, meet a classic barber pole maker, and relish mustard heaven.
Las Vegas history shines at The Neon Museum and partake in the Art Car Party the night prior to the Art Car Parade. Farmacia Botanica has a cure for what ails you (or what you wish to ail someone else) and remember astronaut Deke Slayton.
Flight fascinates at the Evergreen Aviation Museum, while The Peculiarium will add levity to your day. Open a door to the past at Marv's Farm Toys and Antiques, crack a brew at The Beer Can House, and reminisce at the Classical Gas Museum.
Take part in a Stand Still Parade and learn about Las Vegas's first casino. Also, visit the Skeletons in the Closet gift shop, have a merry good time at Baumgartner's Cheese Store and Tavern, and test your skills at the Pinball Museum.
Get in touch with the other side at the National Museum of Funeral History and explore some unique history in Illinois. Witness a snapshot in time in Minnesota, meet the creator of Art Park, and experience a voodoo (doughnut) wedding.
Get hairy at the World Beard and Moustache Championship and taste extraordinary ice cream at Salt and Straw. Also, explore sand dunes containing artifacts from a Cecil B. DeMille film, and tour extreme memorabilia at The Museum of Death.
Travel the first cog railway in the world, enjoy a special visit to the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory, and visit shoe heaven at Sneaker Con. Also, experience the world of bug art at the Fairbanks Museum, and swim with mermaids.
Journey to Gatorland for a prehistorically wild time, tour the family home depicted in the film "A Christmas Story," and visit a one-of-a-kind museum dedicated to Muhammad Ali. Also, experience the West Virginia Penitentiary and Randyland.
2022
Host Will Clinger meets Mr. Pierogi, Ms. Pasczki and the polka-loving Pierorgettes at Pierogi Fest in Whiting, Indiana; ducks for cover at Lambert's Café "Home of the Throwed Rolls" in Alabama; is shocked by the products made from endangered animals confiscated by the National Wildlife Repository near Denver; and cheers on the daring (and possibly deranged) participants at a Unicycle Football game in San Marcos, Texas.
Travel to The Haskell Library and Opera House that straddles two countries, meet diver Jeffrey Bleim, and ponder African American art. Also, experience New Vrindaban, and never take fresh air for granted again at the Donora Smog Museum.
Get the lead out at Orlando Speed World, and tour soda heaven at Pops 66 Soda Ranch on Route 66. Also, meet Artist and Farmer Ruby C. Williams, discover fine brew at The Church Brew Works, and visit the amazing Bread and Puppet Theater.
For the holy rollers there is the Drive-In Christian Church, and for the fancy free there is Cypress Cove. Also, meet Mike the Headless Chicken, and visit the Presidents Hall of Fame, Tabanero Cigars, and The Main Street Museum.
Inventors shine at the INPEX convention, while felines are well cared for at Big Cat Rescue. At Sputnikfest we will celebrate the extraordinary, Willett Knight reveals his unique art, and the Museum of Everyday Life honors life's detritus.
Host Will Clinger witnesses one of the first Beard and Moustache Competitions where women have their own category; enjoys America's oldest Mardi Gras celebration in Mobile; takes on the 150 ton tower of debris at the Cathedral of Junk in Austin; uncovers the extra-terrestrial activity at the UFO Watchtower in Colorado, and then watches the unusual and amusing breed of fainting goats topple over at a farm in Alabama.
Host Will Clinger checks out the film prop collection and samples some of the trashiest films ever made at Movie Madness in Portland; checks in to the Dino Hotel in Colorado so he can check out their impressive collection of dinosaur fossils; drops in on Tug Fest, the incredible tug-of-war between two towns on opposite sides of the Mississippi River; and sneaks a peek at a California bar's annual tradition of mooning passing Amtrak trains.
Host Will Clinger watches the competitors hollow out and race gigantic, thousand pound gourds at the annual Pumpkin Regatta on Tualatin Lake, Oregon; tracks down the infamous "Unipiper", a bagpipe-playing, flame throwing, unicyclist on the streets of Portland; holds a 10 Pound sundae eating contest at MacAlpine's Diner and Soda Fountain in Phoenix; visits a museum dedicated to Action Figures in Oklahoma; and revels in the cheesy art and relentless puns at Solomon's Castle in the swamps of Florida.
Host Will Clinger enjoys the view from the highest bridge in America-1,000 feet above the Royal Gorge; shivers near the frozen masterpieces created at the U.S. Snow Sculpting Competition in Wisconsin; wanders the halls of the world's only spear hunting museum in Alabama; and searches for the elusive Yeti with the Bigfoot believers of the Sasquatch Outpost in the mountains of Colorado.
An entire episode devoted to the strangest festivals WILD TRAVELS has ever attended: Frozen Dead Guy Days in Nederland, Colorado. The annual festivals honors a deceased Norwegian who resides in a shed on a hill above town under 1,200 pounds of dry ice (long story), and features Team Coffin Races, a Polar Plunge, a Parade of Hearses and a Frozen T-shirt Contest.
