Apple Valley Hillbilly Gardens and Toyland

Eric Olson
Aug 30, 2017
3 min read

Flash Back Post!

There is no better place to do a first Flash Back Post than to go to the wonderful state of Kentucky. My wife and I went on a road trip in October 2015 to St. Louis. But along the way, we decided to see what roadside attractions we could find to break up the trip. Thankfully, at the time, we were living just north of Atlanta, so the trip was much shorter than having to drive from where we live now. We only had one day to make it to St. Louis, but we weren't going to let that hold us back from seeing what we could see.

So we made it into Kentucky, and we found this place online called Hillbilly Gardens and Toyland. Hillbilly? Toys? Oh we have got to see this!! GPS got set, and we were on our way.

We pull into the house, because it is located at someone's house, and were slightly confused as to where we were. The grounds were covered in lawn art: old cars, tires, shoes nailed to trees...a squirrel...in a cage. (All I could picture was the lady who sold squirrels in Rat Race).

We aren't quite sure where to go, so we sit in the car for a moment before being greeted by a barefoot young girl welcoming us and asking if we want to take a tour. A glance at my wife, trying to hold in a laugh, wondering where this girl's parents are, and we finally shrug and agree to go.

She leads us to a little shack that sits on the property to start to give us our little introduction to the place and how it got started. This little shack is filled...wait, let me make sure you understand my meaning of the word filled: the place is covered top to bottom, no empty space on a shelf visible, and only a small space to move around...with toys and memorabilia. The mom finally comes in and starts giving us the more official run down, along with the tale that Bonnie and Clyde most definitely stayed in this house back in the day. The place has apparently been in dispute with the law as to whether or not they should be allowed to have their yard the way it is. It all started with a broken down vehicle in the yard. They were told to get rid of it, or they would be cited. But the law had a loophole: if it was "Art", there was nothing against that! So they decorated the vehicle and the whole yard grew from there. Her husband was already giving a tour of the all the lawn art, so we got an abbreviated run down from his wife and decided to just check out Toyland.

We shuffled our way through their yard, around the chickens, and to another little shack on the property where she stood outside and told us to go explore.

Ummm. Words can barely describe this place. There were so many toys in this place: old Happy Meal toys, trains, puppets (the husband worked as a puppeteer for a while), boy band dolls, hot wheels, and so much more.

There wasn't much room to move around, but it was very entertaining to observe all the things in here. They also have a full sized trailer parked on the land that she said is filled with more toys that they just don't have room currently to display them.

We talked with the lady for a little bit more, and then we had to make our leave to get back on the road for St. Louis. We sat in the car for a minute before leaving, just taking it all in one last time, and then we drove off. We laughed about that for the rest of the trip, but it was well worth the stop!