Seven “Reality TV” locations I want to visit some day

No, I don’t need to live on an island in the South Pacific.  No, I don’t need to live in a studio home with a bunch of other contestants / bachelors / MMA fighters.  No.  I’ve watched enough reality television in my life to know that if I had the opportunity, if I had the chance, I would SO want to visit these businesses and locations, if for no other reason than to actually meet the show’s host and cast, maybe hang out with them for the day, and really find out what goes on when the cameras are put away.

And those places would include:

• Gold and Silver Pawn Shop, Las Vegas, Nev. – as featured in the History Channel’s Pawn Stars show.  Pawn Stars is like watching Antiques Roadshow on crank.  People bring in what look like fantastic “dripping with history” items, and shop owner Rick Harrison wants that item SO bad – but of course, that item will end up on their shelf for years and years, so he’s only going to offer a few dollars.  Negotiations.  More negotiations.  And then the item is, most of the time, sold to the Pawn Stars.  Come on, who wouldn’t want to hang out with Corey and Chumlee, or swap stories with the Old Man?  Some people’s children, indeed.
• American Jewelry and Loan, Detroit, Mich. – as featured in TruTV’s Hardcore Pawn show.  While the Harrisons look like they’ve got the most polite clientele in the history of pawnbroking, the Gold family on Hardcore Pawn have to throw two or three customers out of the store on EVERY EPISODE – and that’s not counting all the dust-ups between brother and sister Seth Gold and Ashley Broad.  You gotta know that family’s really supportive of each other, and they’re just playing up the “Jerry Springer” conflicts for the cameras… right?
• Full Throttle Saloon, Sturgis, S.D. – as featured in TruTV’s Full Throttle Saloon show.  Three hundred fifty-four days out of the year, that place is a ghost town.  But during the Sturgis motorcycle rally in August, that 30 acres of land is the hottest place in all of the Dakotas.  And if I have to pick one night to be there… it’s gotta be for the Jackyl concert – that, and maybe hang out with Michael Ballard and get a few pictures at Angieland.
• Acrylic Tank Manufacturing, Las Vegas, Nev. – as featured on Animal Planet’s Tanked show.  These guys build aquariums.  Stop yawning.  They build MEGA-aquariums.  Custom-built aquariums that are shaped and formed like no one has ever seen before.  You want an aquarium shaped like an Ace of Spaces?  They can build it.  You want an aquarium that actually fits inside your refrigerator?  They can do that, too.  Heck, I’d go out and get some fish – probably some bettas or goldfish – if it meant they could build an uber-aquarium that looks cooler than the fish inside!
• F40 Motorsports, Portland, Conn. – as featured on Velocity’s Chasing Classic Cars show.  Gotta love Wayne Carini.  The guy finds vintage cars, fixes them up, and then tries to sell them at auction.  Sometimes he makes a bundle… sometimes he doesn’t.  But it’s fun to watch him find the car, get it fixed up, and then try to turn a profit at the gavel.
• West Coast Customs, Los Angeles, Calif. – as featured first on MTV’s Pimp My Ride, and later on Velocity’s Inside West Coast Customs.  Okay, Pimp My Ride was essentially the MTV version of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, but DAMN who wouldn’t have wanted a car that went from gram to glam?  Of course, I’d sit there and watch those shows and start thinking, “if I had enough time and talent… I could pimp out my Pontiac 6000 into a SERIOUS chick magnet machine…”
• The Jane Goodall Institute, Mpumpalanga, South Africa – as featured on Animal Planet’s Escape to Chimp Eden.  Oh my GOD I think this show is amazing.  Eugene Cussons rescues chimpanzees from horrible conditions – some of the chimps were previously kept in cages and taught to smoke cigarettes; others are from closed-down zoos; still others were victims of the bushmeat trade.  The show features the rescue of these chimpanzees, their rehabilitation at the Institute, and – if all goes well – their eventual reintroduction into the wild.  Inspiring.

Kinda fun places to visit.  Don’tcha think?