Other times, I do the opposite of what I showed you last time: I skip the color entirely, and focus purely on the line. I wish I could tell you that the reason for it this time was for some lofty, arty purpose…but, uh, no. I skipped the paint this time because I was hungry, and my lunch was getting cold.
(I think I made the right choice. That was a darn fine lunch!)
Now this is a house in its own little world. This tidy little cottage was part of a pair of villages located at the northernmost tip of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia—which for all intents and purposes made it almost the last little house on the whole continent.
Somehow, though, it didn’t feel lonely. It felt like a refuge—especially considering how many hours of driving it took me to get there that day. You have no idea how badly I wanted to just knock on the door and come in out of the salt air.
We’ve all heard of the elephant in the room, but how many people can say they’ve been in a room in an elephant? Well, last week I finally joined the ranks of those who can.
There are probably thousands of roadside attractions in the U.S.—some (like the Corn Palace, Paul & Babe, the Blue Whale and Salem Sue) are so iconic they almost transcend the genre. And Lucy might just be the queen of them all.
Her story is a bit of an odd one. She was built in 1881 by a real estate developer—as Lucy was one of the taller buildings (yes, she is a building, not just a sculpture!) in town, the developer invited prospective customers to climb her staircase and view adjacent property parcels from the houdah (pavilion) at the top. Lucy, of course, became a bigger tourist draw than the local real estate market—her owner even built a much larger copy at Coney Island (Lucy’s big sister burned down in 1896).
Lucy was sold and resold over the years, and the room in her belly served as a residence, a restaurant, a business office, and even a tavern at one point. She survived visiting tourists, rowdy barflies, several remodeling jobs, a tavern fire, and many hurricanes. By the 1960s, though, she was in such a sorry state she was slated for demolition. A group of concerned locals banded together in the 1970s to move her slightly inland and restore her to her original glory—in 1976 she was designated a National Historic Landmark.
The rest, as they say, is history. Now, you know how I’m going to finish this story, right?
Yep, you guessed it. The end.
Visiting the boardwalk along the Jersey Shore last week was just a side bonus. My real motivation for that day’s trip was to see someone else—whom you’ll meet in Friday’s post. In the meantime, though, here’s a clue.
Any guesses?
Even if the bitterly cold breeze weren’t enough of a clue, I’d know what time of year it was by the fact that the boardwalk was completely empty last week.
While it would have been nice to see the Shore in its summer glory, winter gave me the best chance to see the whole (apparently endless) expanse of wood, uninterrupted as it ran alongside the beach.
I can never seem to get enough of this season—I love being surrounded by my favorite color, my favorite weather, my favorite flavors. I’m glad there are places like this this little bakery in Nova Scotia, where you can go have a cup of tea surrounded by reminders of autumn in every direction. Otherwise, I’d probably end up going nuts with the fall decorating at home, and ending up buried alive in decorative gourds.
I probably should have done with it and just go live in a pumpkin patch.
Oh, the fates were cruel to me this day. I happened to pass through a town that shared my last name, and in that town I stumbled upon a giant fiberglass potato. In front of a potato museum.
Which had closed an hour before.
Now, really. That’s just not fair.
Well, if I’m going to spend all this time talking about roadside attractions, I would be remiss if I didn’t include the legendary Muffler Men—guardians of gas stations, presidents of photo ops. If you’ve ever taken a road trip, you’ve probably seen at least one of these guys along the way.
These behemoths started appearing in the early 1960s (the very first one was on Route 66), to promote the brand new International Fiberglass Company in California. For whatever reason, they usually ended up in front of gas stations, holding giant mufflers—hence the nickname.
By 1970 there were thousands of them around the country, but the 1973 oil crisis forced the decline and eventual demise of International Fiberglass. These days the muffler men are an endangered species, down to just a few hundred stalwart lads (and a handful of lasses, too!).
For me, finding them has turned into something of a quest—and not just because I’m a completist (though, of course I am). You see, the most fun thing about these guys is that they’re not identical—there are many, many variations on the original design (and a few knock-offs, to boot).
Probably the most common variation is the Paul Bunyan—they’re certainly the most recognizable, even when their axes get stolen.
And when they’re spiffed up to their original glory, they’re unmistakeable. (This one is a mobile muffler man! When he surprised me at the local Daffodil Parade a few years ago, it felt like Christmas had come early.)
Though I’ll never pass up any iteration of Paul Bunyan, I’m most excited about the rare, extreme variants, the roadside sideshow—the Uniroyal Gals, the Happy Halfwits, the Carpet Vikings.
And best of all are the mutant modifications that have happened to some of these guys (you should have heard me squeal when I found this one!). Some have been altered so much as to be rendered almost unrecognizable. But you can’t fool me—once a muffler man, always a muffler man.
So tell me: have you found any muffler men in your travels? Do you have one in your neighborhood? I’m always on the look-out for a good one, so if you have any recommendations, I’m all (rabbit) ears.
Continuing on the whole fake farm theme, the ones that make me giggle the most are those that don’t try very hard in the ambience department. When my friend Elizabeth and I went to PEI together, our whole trip was centered around our childhood (and adult!) love of Anne of Green Gables. But even we were hesitant to visit Green Gables Heritage Place, because what could it actually offer? There’s no real Green Gables farm—Anne is a fictional character, the 1980s miniseries that everybody knows so well were mostly filmed in Ontario, and even the author’s home is now only a ruined foundation, located on a different site nearby.
Well, I’m sorry to tell you our fears were well-founded. The “Green Gables” house is just a replica farmhouse, filled with random period furniture and staffed with somewhat bored university students in Edwardian garb—all with the aim to give the busloads of cruise ship tourists a misplaced feeling of nostalgia, rather than information about the author or a detailed recreation of anything tangible. If it had been irredeemably hokey (you should have seen our reaction to the Green Gables post office in Cavendish!), we probably would have loved it—instead, we found it vaguely depressing.
Until we got to the barn, that is. The shiny fiberglass Jersey cow gave us a bit of much-needed comic relief—while Rachel Lynde’s imagined voice echoed in our heads.
Usually when I travel, I’m hurrying around everywhere, frantically sketching as many things as humanly possible (since I often travel alone, I can get away with this!). But when I travel with a friend, sometimes it’s nice to just sit for a spell and capture the moment. Because for me, that’s the best thing about having a travel companion: having the experience together.