Sometimes this blog will enlighten and enrich your life with descriptions of artistic, cultural, or spiritual sites, like the large Buddha at the Chuang Yen Monastery.

Other times, we ditch all that highbrow stuff and go for the easy chuckle. This is one of those times.

Our guest post for October, graciously submitted by Julie Henning, is about the World’s Largest Toilet. Yes, you read that right!  Julie is the “Feed Me” Editor at a great site, Road Trips for Families. I met her at the BlogHer conference, and was jazzed to realize that there are other moms out there who: A) love quirky roadside attractions; and B) have no qualms about forcing them upon their defenseless children.

I can only imagine the stories these kids told their friends about this experience!

The toilet is located inside the Kids Commons Columbus’ Community Children’s Museum in Columbus, IN. Here’s Julie’s take:

Where we went, and who was coerced into going:

As a way to intentionally break up our recent 18-hour road trip from Madison, WI to Charleston, SC, we downloaded the Roadside America iPhone app to our iPhones. With a touch of a button, the app detects your physical location and returns back an interactive list of nearby unusual, interesting, and “Go BIG-worthy” places. Restless in Indiana, we gave the app a whirl.

WHY did you go there, exactly?

Truthfully, we hadn’t stopped since a rest area in Illinois and we all had to go to the bathroom! Fate intervened with the “World’s Largest Toilet” a short distance from I-65 in the heart of downtown Columbus, Indiana. Housed in the Kids Commons Columbus Community Children’s Museum, the museum gracefully allowed us to use the real bathroom and visit the big-daddy loo too. Normally, there’s a nominal admission fee.

Okay, what was so cool about it?

Those of us trapped in a seventh-grade humor level will find the toilet “totally wicked.” Jokes about dropping the kids off at the pool aside, the toilet is part of a bigger exhibit called ExploraHouse. Opportunities to learn about electricity, plumbing, insulation, and infrared technology are as much a bonus as watching your kids flush down a PVC “slide” into the basement one story below.

A motion detector senses when any matter passes through the bowl , and a recorded flushing noise adds to experience. Before we could find them, the kids were up and re-flushing themselves over and over again. Honestly, though, you really got the feeling Mr. Clean would come to the rescue before anyone hitched a longer ride on the Porcelain Express.

A little background info about the place:

Because the toilet was housed in an otherwise awesome Children’s Museum, you could easily spend an hour or two burning off steam and then finding nearby spot to dine in the quaint downtown. If you have teenagers or want to find an easy-on, easy-off photo opportunity, other Roadside America options were plentiful up and down that stretch of interstate corridor. Maybe even find the world’s largest toilet plunger or toilet paper roll?

The Large Loo

How it rated on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = snoozefest, 10 = add to your bucket list): [rating=8]

Referencing the aforementioned seventh-grade humor level, I say “ 8 or 9” and double thumbs up.

Hey YOU! Go BIG:

Kids Commons Columbus Community Children’s Museum

309 Washington Street, Columbus, IN 47201.  (812) 378-3046

EDITOR’S NOTE: There’s a fun video of Julie’s family in full flush at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLWBLWc0aOM

 

Columbus Vacations