2008 June - Trunkations

Archive for June, 2008

Going the Distance: Roadside Poll Results

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Poll Question: How many hours would you drive just to see a roadside attraction that sounds exceptional?
If you trust reports in the news media, Americans are cutting back on long driving trips this summer because of the high cost of gas. But we suspect that many families giving up on travel plans may have had [...]

Lake Erie’s Roadside Monster

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

For years, sailors on Lake Erie have reported seeing a long, thin creature swimming in its murky waters. Is it a prehistoric monster? A floating log? Leftover garbage from when the Cuyahoga River caught fire?
Len Tieman, who owns the lakeside Prehistoric Forest dinosaur park in Marblehead, Ohio, is squarely in the monster [...]

Boot Hill for Tex Randall?

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

The giant statue of Tex Randall, the lean and leaning cowboy, has been a looming fixture in Canyon, Texas, for almost 50 years. But the ground beneath his size 75 boots is up for sale, and the town faces a vexing problem: can it afford to move its hardscrabbled civic symbol?
Frankly, teetering Tex has [...]

Inventors Hall of Fame No Perpetual Motion Machine

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

A story in the Beacon Journal confirms what we had suspected: the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum in Akron, Ohio, has wound down to full stop. Its web site skirts the issue by talking of “construction,” but it’s the construction of the middle school that’s being built where the Hall of Fame used [...]

Golden Spike Tower Opens

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Back in 1999, North Platte, Nebraska, dreamed up a bold plan to attract visitors. They would capitalize on their status as home of the world’s largest railroad yards by erecting a giant tower shaped like a golden spike from which railroad buffs could observe the train action in the yards. The tower would be covered [...]

Slabapalooza!

Monday, June 16th, 2008

There’s no denying it; Americans have become slab-happy.
First came the “The Slabs” in Niland, California, an abandoned military base of empty concrete foundations and desert refuge for squatters and snowbirds out by Salvation Mountain.
Next came imported, chopped-up Berlin Wall sections in the early 1990s. Slabs from the Wall — magically imbued with Cold War strife [...]

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