I am a HUGE fan of the Roadside America (your online guide to offbeat tourist attractions) website.  In fact, I rarely travel anywhere without first researching where I am going on the website and the app on my phone, and this trip was no exception.

Case in point, we were visiting DC and I wanted to know what odd and unusual roadside attractions that I definitely had to see.  I saw the info about  Owney, the stuffed Postal Dog and knew that it was definitely on the list.  Our trip to DC was to celebrate my husbands retirement after 29+ years of service to the USPS so this cool attraction fit right in. 

At the top of the escalator, before you head down to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, there is a statue of Owney greeting you. 

National Postal Museum – 2 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Washington DC
Hours:  Daily 10 am – 5:30 pm.
Phone:  202-633-5555
Admission:  Free!

 
-Photo of a card provided at the National Postal Museum store

So here’s Owney up close and personal.  Don’t let the glassy eyed stare fool you, he was a cute little dog. 

This little guy was a stray and the USPS mail clerks grew to love him.  He had found his “forever home” except his “forever home” was not just in one place! 

He started taking trips and as the card above mentions, Owney collected tags, tokens, trinkets and medals from his travels.

I love seeing little quirky things like this.  They are little nuggets of useless info that I will store in my brain for later use.  You never know who might ask if anyone knows who the mascot of the railway mail service is…and I’ll know the answer!

Me – “Alex, I’ll take animal mascots for $1000.”
Alex – “This dog is the mascot of the U.S. railway mail service.”
Me – “Who is Owney?”
::ding::  ::ding::  ::ding::

And then I’ll get the answer right and probably win a million dollars or something. 

I picked up some *OWNEY* postcards to mail to all of our grandkids. I thought it would be cool for them to receive some mail from Nana and Poppy while we were on our trip so I bought a bunch of postcard stamps before we left.  Seriously, I’m singlehandedly trying to revive the whole postcard/snail mail industry.

 
-Photo of postcard at the National Postal Museum

• Have you ever checked out the Roadside America website?
• What cool places have you been lately or what quirky things have you seen?

(((hugs))) ~lisa