My wife and I finally visited Treasure City in Royalton this past weekend, and, boy, was it a trip!

Our visit was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision. We were on our way to Little Falls to meet some friends at Starry Eyed Brewing and had some time to kill on the way. Now, I've passed Treasure City a couple times before on Teacher of the Week visits to the area and on a previous trip to Little Falls, but I'd never had the time or motivation to stop. With the recent news that Treasure City is up for sale, however, I was kind of eager to visit for myself. As we were passing through Royalton -- Treasure City visible in the distance as we drew nearer --  I asked my wife Katie, "Wanna stop?" To my surprise, she said yes!

The adventures began as soon as I pulled into the parking lot. "They have goats!" Katie exclaimed. Turned out, the "goats" weren't real animals at all but some of the bizarre collection of animal statues in the "petting zoo" out back. As we laughed at mistake and would quickly find that this was just a taste of the wonderfully outlandish things to come.

As soon as we walked in, we felt transported back to our own childhood memories of family road trips and gimmicky souvenir shops. Treasure City is chock-full of just about everything you can imagine (and a lot of things you definitely can't!) -- rows upon rows of toys, home decor, clothing, kitchenware, food, jewelry, oddities and much more! I laughed out loud at the toy slingshots, bow and arrow sets, Native American spears, cowboy guns and airplane kits I begged my parents for as a kid. The bag-your-own-rocks-and-gemstones station reminded my wife and me both of the Tiger Eyes we'd gotten from similar gift stores as kids and treasured (up until we tragically lost them). I had an awful flashback to my teenage self wearing a metal necklace similar to one here:

My wife -- who's only slightly obsessed with loons -- about lost her mind at the wide assortment of loon figurines.

She did end up buying herself a long-sleeve sweatshirt with a loon on the front. I even saw the man-eating clam that everyone talks about (though I was a little disappointed at it's actual size; in my head it was literally larger than a grown adult man)!

By the time we finally left Treasure City, our faces hurt from grinning and our stomachs from laughing. I can now say I've experienced the Neverending Story-like magic and terror that is Treasure City for myself!

I do have one question still, though -- how did a pirate-themed souvenir shop end up in the middle of Central MN anyway?