Giant

It's time for Alphabe Thursday once again.  This week the featured alphabet letter is "G".  The first "G" word that came to mind was "Giant."   I get the feeling that Americans are in love with super sizing everything from french fries to skyscrapers.  There are few places I travel without finding a giant something to photograph and many of them have found their way into previous posts over my seven years of blogging.  

The first photos to come to mind are the ones of the Old Salt and me in giant rocking chairs.  The one of me with my nieces was taken in October 2009 at a pumpkin patch in Omaha.  I snapped the Old Salt in Branson, Missouri this past March.  

It is almost impossible to go anywhere in St. Louis without seeing that giant arch towering over the city. 

 Just across the river a giant ketchup bottle  towers over the skyline in Collinsville, Illinois.  

 We found a giant steer in Will Rodger's home town of 

Oologah, Oklahama. 

 This giant coffee pot can be seen for miles along Hiway 29.  It sits at exit 10 near Nebraska City.  The spout steams and the percolator knob on top lights up and flashes.     

Even the worst tornado in the state didn't dare touch the giant glazing ball in front of this nursery in Joplin, Missouri.   

 This giant bag boy stands guard over a grocery store in Cape Girardeau, Missouri --- or maybe it was East Cape Girardeau, Illinois.

 I'm told that everything in Texas is bigger.  That was certainly true for this giant guitar being used as a base for a toy train set at Gaylords in Grapevine, Texas. 

 This is my foot beside the giant shoe that sits on the counter at our local shoe store.  Actually, that giant shoe doesn't seem very large to me anymore. It is a size 22 and my sixteen year old grandson is currently wearing a size 15.  His paternal grandfather wore a size 27.  

I snapped this giant martini glass in the window of a restaurant  one day last April, during a visit to Eufaula, Alabama  

This may appear to be a giant statue but in reality it is a life size statue of a real giant.  Robert Pershing Wadlow was known as the Alton giant.  This statue is located in front of the history museum in Alton, Illinois, Wadlow's home town.   At the time of his death in 1940 at age 22 Robert Wadlow was an unfathomable 8-feet 11-inches tall.  The young man in the photo is my nephew.

This is my nephew's foot being compared to the giant size 36AA shoe worn by Wadlow at the time of his death.  He was buried in a ten foot one-half ton casket that required twelve pallbearers and eight helpers to lift.  Click on one of the following websites to read more about Robert Pershing Wadlow better known as the Alton Giant. 

St. Louis Today 

Alton Web 

Roadside America 


What giant items can be found in your area?

Linking to Alphabe Thursday