The Gatzke Family: The Spam Museum

Since Steve's been home working on class work and looking for jobs, we've enjoyed the extra family time together. We've been able to take several day trips exploring southeastern Minnesota. Several weeks ago, we decided to visit the Spam Museum in Austin. Neither Steve or I had been there, so we weren't sure what to expect considering it was free admission.

Once we walked in, we were immediately directed to take note of the "Wall of Spam" with nearly 3,000 cans of Spam. It was rather impressive.

Here is a picture of the Spam diner with computers to do searches of available products. We tasted a sample of garlic Spam and black pepper Spam that I guess are only available in certain areas of the world - Australia being one of them.

We watched a short movie clip in the theatre describing the early beginnings of Spam and surprisingly it kept Amaya's attention.

After the movie, we began the official tour of the different types of meat products that Hormel made. I'm not so sure I would have enjoyed a dinner consisting of OX JOINTS!

Spam was one of the main staples for those fighting for our country. There was a nice display set up honoring all our veterans.

Who knew that even Favre liked Spam?

I was plesantly surprised that there were a few interactive exhibits set up for kids. Here Amaya is trying on a hat and lab coat.

Then Amaya had an opportunity to make her own Spam! Here she's putting the meat into the metal container.

Time to cook! Here's your interesting fun fact for the day: Did you know that Spam is cooked INSIDE the metal container?!? Who knew?

Time to label the container and Voila!

Another wall of the different varieties of Spam...

Overall, we were very impressed with the musuem (considering it was free). They had a nice gift shop as well, where we got suckered into buying a couple of cans of Spam and a stuffed animal pig for Amaya (that she lost the next day!) It had been awhile since I had Spam - probably not since I was a kid and we went camping as a family and had it in macaroni and cheese. Anyway, we thought it was incredibly salty and probably won't be purchasing another can of Spam in a very long time. But, it was worth the adventure and the memories!

Then, we drove a few blocks to visit the Hormel Historic Home.

It was absolutely beautiful!

I won't bore you with all of the details since the pictures are pretty self-explanatory. It only took about 20 minutes to walk through the entire house, but it was still fun to look at the old furniture and awesome architecture.

Family Room