Number 19

Oh Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe.  Why did I not visit you earlier?

With your shrunken heads and your fetal deer in a jar and your taxidermic two-headed calf?

I mean, come on. You have two mummies and a full human skeleton. You have a taxidermy four-legged chicken.

You have stuffed dead things and fake things hanging from the ceiling in dusty, crazy-time splendor.

My favorite part, however, and the part for which I was woefully unprepared, are your old-timey carnival machines.  

There's the fortune teller with the glowing crystal ball, the one-armed bandit who dispenses tokens, the sex-appeal-o-meter, the strength-of-character-o-meter (measured by shaking hands with Uncle Sam), the Charlie Chaplin moving picture showcase and a number of old time peep shows.

You can bet that I'll be back, dear Shoppe, and this time with a fist-full of change.

The governor's tomb and a hole

The first governor of Arizona, George W.P. Hunt, upon his wife's death in 1931, built a pyramid in which to entomb her, and--the best part really--completely covered it in white ceramic bathroom tiles.

He, along with four other family members, was eventually buried here as well.

The hilltop, including this pyramid, were later absorbed into Phoenix's Papago Park and this ugly iron fence was added to protect the...tomb? pyramid? integrity of the bathroom tile?

There's a lovely little parking lot right below it and a number of interpretive plaques that tell you about the Governor and the love his people have for him. You can walk all around the tomb/pyramid and take photos and generally love the fact that the world is big and huge and weird.

Straight across from the pyramid is a natural wonder, affectionately named Hole in the Rock.  It's a fitting name, too, since it's a hole. In a rock.

This too has a rocky but generally cactus-free trail up and around the back of the rock to a place where climbing up to the hole is quite simple, assuming one has sturdy legs and good shoes.  I don't have a photo of the hole from a distance, which I see now is a mistake, as you can't tell how impressive this hole is up close.

You can, however, see how impressive the greyhound and the husband are. So that's something.

Look here for the far-away view that I should have taken while up on the hill of the tomb.

World's Largest

Kokopelli.

The 32-foot tall, humpbacked, flute-playing god of fertility and harvest graces a strip mall in Camp Verde, AZ, containing a drive-thru Starbucks, a Verizon wireless store, and--wait for it--the Krazy Kokopelli Trading Post.

 It was definitely worth the stop.

World's Largest

Kachina Doll.

And it's for sale, people. So if you wanted a photo or two with it, you'd better hurry.

To find it, look here.

In other news, we also visited the America's Largest Sundial, though if you've been following along, you know that we recently visited another sundial, and it was bigger than this one.  (That one, however, only works one day a year, so maybe it doesn't count.)  This one is adorably in the center of the town of Carefree, Arizona, and it is festooned in yellow holiday lights.

The Roadside America app may be my new best friend. Just sayin.

Road trip

This year we're taking a much needed holiday away from Seattle. We have available to us a home in northeast Scottsdale, Arizona, and because it's not supposed to rain much there, we packed the dogs in our little red car and drove down.

Drove? Yes.

Roody and T show off their road trip skillz

The dogs turned out to be fabulous road trip companions.  We laid the back seat down, packed it with two dog beds, and the dogs were thrilled to enjoy the ride.

I bought the Roadside America app for my iPhone, and am currently trying to cross off as many "offbeat tourist attractions" as possible.  The first one: the sundial bridge in Redding, CA.

It rained through the bulk of our drive through northern California. (Except the tiny sun break we got on the second morning, above, where we raced to see the bridge.)

12 pm marker.  It should be noted that this sundial only works on June 21, the summer solstice.

But the rain didn't stop there.  It rained over our entire drive through state of California, through the Olive Capital of America and the Artichoke Capital of the Universe.

[It should be noted that if I never again have to drive through Las Angeles in the pouring rain, I will be forever grateful.]

Southern Californians don't actually know about driving in the rain at high speeds.  And the steering-wheel clutching, lip-biting, I-can't-see-the-road-from-all-the-spray driving didn't make the mood worthy of pulling over and photographing the offbeat.

And thus, we checked off only one item from Roadside America on our three day drive.

Oh well, there's always the drive home.