Hatch, New Mexico: Teako's Giants of Hatch

We stopped for gas in Hatch and spotted the Muffler Man. There is a large collection of oddities here including an A&W root beer girl, antique cars, a large hot dog advertising Sparky's Green Chili Cheeseburger, a large red chili pepper, Mighty Mouse, Ronald McDonald, and George Jetson. Inside there are antique gramophones, pianos, and many other treasures.

A T-Rex is part of the largest giant statue collection in New Mexico.

Drunken idiots may have been the attackers who knocked an eight-foot-tall rooster off of its rooftop perch outside of Sparky's BBQ in Hatch. The rooster, also named Sparky, had stood for about a year atop a GMC Suburban that was parked across the street from the restaurant, and was actually one of the smaller members of owner Teako Nunn's fiberglass menagerie.

It was found on the ground the one morning (along with empty beer bottles), snapped off at the ankles, its red comb cracked. The Nunns, Teako and Josie, attribute the damage to alcohol-fueled stupidity, not an anti-Sparky's (or rooster) hate crime, and vowed to repair Sparky and the Suburban in time for Hatch's Labor Day weekend Chile Festival Parade.

The Uncle Sam statue outside of Sparky's Burgers now holds a giant green chili pepper, one of the specialties of Sparky's menu and New Mexico's official state vegetable.

Teako Nunn, owner of Sparky's, had the pepper custom-built by Mark Cline, the fiberglass virtuoso who created Dinosaur Kingdom and Foamhenge. The pepper is another in a long list of surprises sprung by Teako on his home town.

Teako said that local farmers shook his hand when they saw the pepper rise into place.

From December 2009 - spotted an Uncle Sam holding a Christmas Tree.