Area 101
Laytonville, California
Count this among the many strange sights travelers encounter along northern California's Redwood Highway: a billboard of a flying saucer firing beams into "Area 101."
Behind the sign are a couple of buildings painted with lavish psychedelic murals, mixing UFO, mystic and religious symbols. Area 101 is not a tourist attraction, but the front end for a farm collective -- named Healing Harvest Farms -- growing and dispensing medicinal marijuana. It is also an occasional local concert and event venue.
The nice people inside didn't mind us snapping pics of the colorful outside murals.
Until the 1970s, the site was a gas station, motel, repair business, and a roadside restaurant named the Czech Lodge (also operated as the Grapevine, and Terwilligers).