Cleveland, Georgia: BabyLand General Hospital

When we arrived it looked as though half the state of Georgia had come to the "Hospital, " and we soon found out that this was not just an ordinary day, this was the 25th anniversary of the cabbage patch doll (09/20/03). We went inside and found ourselves in the premie-nursery of the museum, with a lot of skinny dolls hooked up to machines in incubators. I couldn't help but wonder if I was the only one who thought this was a creepy sight. But everyone around was ohing and ahing. Very quickly I started to notice that there were a lot of people with cabbage patch dolls in strollers, pushing them around with a little "visitor" tag. Fans of cabbage patch dolls had brought their own dolls to visit the museum.

After wandering around looking at little bald heads popping out of cabbages, we decided to head outside. We were confronted by a 5-foot tall cabbage patch doll walking towards us with a 16-year old girl holding her hand. The worst thing about these "life size dolls," was the weight of the ENORMOUS head, apparently too heavy for the person inside the costume. The whole time the "doll" was following you, its head kept rolling around, as if its neck was made of spaghetti. As we briskly walked on, we noticed 50 year old women, walking around with cabbage patch dolls pretending to nurse and burp their "babies," and little kids who know-not of the evil that must circulate in this place. We decided we had had enough and after just 30 minutes at the celebration we left, feeling like we had just visited the weirdest place on the planet.

If you are a Cabbage Patch Fanatic, then this is your place. But if you don't frequently take your doll out for walks, pretend to nurse it, or if you don't find premature babies who have to be hooked up to life-machines for their first months of life absolutely adorable, this place will probably just end up creeping you out.