TripHip - Travel Tips and Advice for Traveling on a Budget

When I was a kid, I wanted to put together models of trains, plains and automobiles, but I simply didn't have the patience. Or the skill, frankly!

So I've always been impressed by people who do have the patience, and the skill, to put together not only models, but their own creations. In the case of master craftsman Patrick Acton, he turns wooden matchsticks - millions of them! -into works of art.

A lot of them are on display in the various Ripley's Believe it Or Not Museums around the country, or you can go to Gladbrook and see the Matchstick Marvels tourist center where several of his masterpieces are on display, including a 13-foot model of the battleship USS Iowa, a replica of Terrace Hill, and a model of the Space Shuttle Challenger.

But you haven't seen anything until you see his model of Minas Tirith (the city from JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, as depicted in the movies by Peter Jackson.) As of the time of this writing, Acton has been working on the city for two years, and expected it to be completed in 2010.

The Center is open from April 1 to November 30, from 1 to 5 pm. (Motorcoaches and group tours are welcome any time, you just need to make an appointment.)

You can check it out before you go by viewing this clip at YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPNIRlNPnoE

The street address of the center is 319 2nd Street in Gladbrook. The official website is http://www.matchstickmarvels.com/carnivalmain.html.