Hello, Mom!
Today, we got up early and hit the road. We crossed the mighty Mississippi River and found ourselves in the state of Illinois.
But that's not the ONLY place we found ourselves! We had actually ended up in Chester, Illinois, which is the home of one of the most famous cartoon characters! Popeye!! 
And let me tell you, this town is definitely proud to be his home.
As soon as you cross the Mississippi River, one of the first things you see to your right is a six-foot tall Popeye statue. The statue was dedicated in 1977 to E. C. Segar, the creator of Popeye. Apparently the statue has had a rough life. Once, some vandals lassoed the statue to a truck with a chain and drove off. Popeye was ripped right off of his stone pedestal and fall right on his face. But, apparently statue Popeye is just as strong as his character because he hardly had any damage done to him. When Popeye fans all over the world heard the news, they called the city and offered their money to help restore the $10,000 statue.
Apparently, we found out that Popeye isn't the only statue in Chester. The town holds their annual "Popeye Picnic" every year and starting in 2006, they began to release a new statue through out the city. There will be a new one each year until 2019, when the final one comes out. Here you can see a photo of the map that we found of where the statues are located/planned to be. It's pretty hard to read, however.
We didn't go in order when finding the statues, we just found the ones that were closer to us. The second one we happened to come across was the statue that had Olive Oyl, Swee' Pea, and Jeep on it. This one came out in 2007.
Next, we found the most recent statue to come out. This one had Olive Oyl's brother, Castor Oyl...
And Whiffle Hen!
We drove around just a little bit longer and found Bluto! His statue was HUGE! Steph had to jump to put me on his arm, and she's pretty tall.
The last, but certainly not least, was the statue of Wimpy! He's Popeye's hamburger loving friend and his most famous quote is "I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
We found Wimpy in Gazebo Park, and there were a few things that we got to do while in the park. They had a mural painted onto the side of a building that showed many of the characters and even E. C. Segar's face!
The back of the building was also painted in the theme of Popeye!
In the park, I got a chance to be Wimpy! How amazing is that?
We also went into a shop to see some Popeye collectibles. We weren't allowed to take photos, but the owner was nice enough to let us take a shot of this wall. It showed every character and when they were introduced into the comic. Funny that Popeye wasn't first, huh?
