Roadside Attractions in San Antonio

We toured around San Antonio trying to locate some unique roadside attractions! And we found a few  😊

(1) First up was the 9/11 memorial just down the highway from our campground. Unfortunately it appears to be underappreciated, as it's fallen into quite a state of disrepair. There are several monuments at this site representing different elements of the tragedy - The Pentagon, Flight 93, and the twin towers.

(2) After that was the Muffler Man Indian. This Indian is part of the 'Muffler Man' collection that can be found across the country. If you're like me, you never heard of these giant figures before. This collection is a bunch of 20 foot tall fiberglass figures that were constructed back in the 1960s starting with a Paul Bunyan. They were used for advertising and promotion. After Paul, there was a slew of mechanic figures holding mufflers. Eventually they were all called Muffler Men!

(3) Next up was a true junkyard dog! Built from scrap parts of cars, it sits in front of a scrapyard where I suspect the materials came from!. The junkyard was sold years ago, and the new owner of the property decided to hold onto the dog! It's primarily a full size Plymouth Fury standing on end, the nose being a hood from a VW bug, the tongue is from the hood of a Cadillac.

(4) Later we came across the oldest kid's amusement park in the US. Established in 1925, and restored in 2006. It features a carousel built in 1918 and a miniature ferris wheel. It still operates on a seasonal basis. It's only open in summer so it was closed when we there.

(5) Finally, these last photos are of a statue I came across at a local campus. The statue is affectionately known as the 'mansplaining' statue. It was created in 2006 and you could say it flew under the radar for several years, until 2015 when Cathy de la Cruz started a teacher certification course. She spotted the statue and tweeted a photo with the tag #mansplaining. It went viral overnight and caused quite a stir. You should google 'mansplaining' if you're not familiar with the term, then it'll all make sense...lol. When we were there, I noticed a sign next to the statue stating it is called 'Classmates', but honestly it screams mansplaining :-)