Willy the Whale

My friend Jean-Marie and I recently embarked upon a three-day road trip that we dubbed the ALL CAPS EPIC ROAD TRIP OF DELIGHTS (you can browse our silly hashtag on Instagram, if you'd like: #allcapsepicroadtripofdelights). The destination was Wigwam Village no. 2 in Cave City, Kentucky, but as with any proper road trip, it was mostly about the journey. Our first stop after picking up our rental car was the site of the former Mother Goose Land fairy tale park, in Canton, Ohio.

Mother Goose Land opened in Canton in 1954 and closed in the 1980s. It sat abandoned until fairly recently, when Willy and the park's entrance gates received some much-needed attention. The park originally had storybook and animal displays such as Humpty Dumpty and the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe, and sadly Willy is all that remains. You can actually see Willy from Google Earth which delighted me to no end when I first went looking for him and spotted his distinctive shape.

Across from Willy there is a mural which appears to fairly new, paying homage to fairytale characters such as Humpty Dumpty, the three little pigs, the three blind mice, the gingerbread man, Puss n' boot and even (a quite sinister-looking) Willy himself. There's not much else to the park and it was deserted when we were there on a Saturday morning. I wish I had been able to see the park in its heyday, but  I'm so grateful that Willy survived and that attention, however little, is once again being paid to Mother Goose Land.