Route 96

On the morning of my actual birthday, Pete and Derek bought me admission to the granddaddy of all mystery spots, the Oregon Vortex. First discovered by the white man in 1864, the “natural, historical, educational, scientific, authentic” Oregon Vortex is, we were told, the oldest and “most respected” gravitational vortex in America. The science behind [...]

We drove late that night because the next day was my birthday and I wanted to make it to Vancouver to celebrate. As in Texas, that long quiet night drive became one of our favorite parts of the trip.

The last and perhaps best named attraction in this cavalcade of rather hurting tourist traps were the Trees of Mystery. I’m sorry to report that the Trees of Mystery were just closing by the time we got there, so just what was so special about them remains… a mystery. In the Trees of Mystery parking [...]

But it was Confusion Hill that won the Jenkie award for Absolute Lamest Tourist Attraction in the Nation, beating out even the historical bell museum in Eureka Springs and the future birthplace of Captain Kirk. The secret of the Hill’s success? It is in fact three (3) utterly lame attractions all in one: The “Confusion [...]

After the Drive-Thru Tree, the roadside attractions grew increasingly stupid. Not that that bothered us, of course. “The Legend of Bigfoot” had a promising name, but just turned out to be a store that sold such lawn decorating essentials as plaster gnomes and all-weather Elvis busts. Their true specialties were big wooden sculptures of bears. [...]

The long drive up northern California is a lot like the Ozarks in its juxtaposition of intense natural beauty and surpassing tourist trap tackiness. The first sign of the latter was the World Famous Drive-Thru Tree. For those of you having trouble picturing this natural wonder, it’s a tree. And you can drive through it. [...]

San Franciskey? How did you came? Did you drove or did you flew? In San Francisco we stayed with Isa, one of my corky Harvard chums, and her equally cool friend Anisa, also visiting from the East. They didn’t ask us, “did you drove or did you flew?” [2006 Edit: An old Eugene Levy catchphrase [...]

We skirted Los Angeles on the storied L.A. freeways, but were so busted by the day without power that we decided to skip Los Angeles itself. It’s not like any interesting pop culture stuff ever came out of that city…

When you’re in the dark and you want to see, You need uh… electricity, eee-lectricity! Have I mentioned yet that it was a trifle warm the day we crossed the desert? It seems that one too many fans and air conditioners and soothing ocean sound generators were plugged in that day–a little fuse blew out [...]

Given the demise of Jenkin’s air conditioner, and the fact that it was a vinyl-melting 115 F by mid-morning, we decided to skip Death Valley. Instead we drove one hundred miles farther south and crossed the Mojave Desert at high noon! Our last watering hole before the great crossing–of course we’d picked a minor sub-highway [...]