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You Can’t Stay Madrid in Madrid

May 10, 2017 Comments Off read Attractions, Mountain, New Mexico, Travel, USA, West

Not that I was, uh, mad-rid to begin with. I had a belly full of waffles, it was a gorgeous day, and I was on the road from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. Sure, I could have taken the highway and gotten there faster, but I was keen on taking the Turquoise Trail and getting a peek at Madrid. Formerly a bustling mining town named Coal Gulch, it was left mostly abandoned in the 1950s when demand for coal died in favor of natural gas. And then in the 70s, the hippies came. These artists and craftspeople revived the town, setting up shops, galleries, and services for locals and passersby, and thus the town of 300 or so people has a funky, arts-y, welcoming vibe. Their shops showcase local turquoise jewelry and pottery, they have their own artist quarterly, and they host events like mailbox painting contests to bring their community together.

I had a grand time in Madrid, shopping around (I bought an ammolite ammonite at a really reasonable price, the ammolite I saw when I last wandered into the Gastown museum in Vancouver cost the Earth), taking silly photos in Connie’s Photo Park, and soaking in that much-needed sunshine. I also was able to grab a few photos from the road of the Turquoise Trail Sculpture Garden & Studio, which was unfortunately closed–but fortunately, it gives me a reason to go back. Aren’t those origami sculptures cool?!?

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The Turquoise Trail to Tinkertown

April 26, 2017 Comments Off read Attractions, Mountain, New Mexico, Travel, USA, West

I don’t think I’ve ever been cagey about how badly the winters in Seattle affect me: the days themselves are surpassingly short and spots of sunlight among the nigh-constant cloud cover are fleeting at best. From the moment the holiday lights snap off in January, I feel dragged down emotionally and physically. Light therapy doesn’t help, exercise doesn’t help, a healthy diet doesn’t help, a junk food diet doesn’t help. I don’t want to write, I don’t want to make art, I don’t want to go outside. All I want to do is sleep, like a form of hibernation for the modern useless person. And this winter has been particularly difficult, as it’s been hard to feel hopeful about, well, anything since late January. So this year for my birthday, instead of throwing a massive party like last year, I wanted to get out of town for a while, feel the sun on my face, experience an emotion other than anxiety and despair. I decided that the timing would be ideal to head back to New Mexico to do all of the things we ran out of time for on the Harpies road trip last summer, plus a plethora of other things across a larger swath of the state that were entirely out of reach previously.

My first stop was Tinkertown, via the “singing road” on eastbound Route 66 outside of Tijeras. I’d read that as you drive over it, you hear the strains of “America the Beautiful”, but only if you’re driving the speed limit of 45mph. Neither Jason nor I believed it would be all that impressive, potentially just a series of rumble strips that you could convince yourself was “America the Beautiful” if you were singing it in your head at the same time, the same way you could click a pen in time to Katy Perry’s “Firework” and hear different tones out of that pen click, that it was all about the power of suggestion. Nope.

This musical rumble strip was funded and put in place by National Geographic in 2014 as part of a show aimed at changing public behavior. Speeding is a factor in a lot of accidents, so this was a way to incentivize people to drive the speed limit, at least for that small stretch of road. It’s one of only a few musical strips of road anywhere in the world–there’s one in Lancaster, California that plays the William Tell Overture, and another in South Korea that plays “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. I’m not certain that National Geographic approved of me whipping around so I could drive it twice but they’re going to have to build something else to prevent that particular human behavior. A spike trap, maybe.

Then it was on to Tinkertown, a museum collecting the life’s work of Ross Ward. Ward, an admirer of roadside attractions, set out to construct his own: collecting, carving, and painting everything during the time, as he was known to say, “while you were watching TV”. I do watch a lot of TV, Ross. Particularly in the winter. In my defense, it’s pretty good. Or, you know, not good but beats wandering out into the soggy gray wasteland or trying to write about all the nothing I’m doing–it’s not like I’m a TV blogger.

For a mere $3.75 per person, you gain admission through the gates into the circuitous route of rooms packed to the rafters with stuff, surrounded by walls made of over 50,000 glass bottles. I spotted at least one bumper sticker from House on the Rock inside and even if I hadn’t seen it, it would have been clear to me that Ward was inspired by that notable Wisconsin attraction. Although touring through Tinkertown was not nearly as arduous an experience as House on the Rock (owing to the fact that Ward made many of the exhibits, whereas Ross mainly purchased/commissioned them) the feel is remarkably similar. At various locations throughout the exhibit, you can insert a coin or two to bring the dioramas to life. A grandmother bursts through a window to tell some musicians to stop making such a racket. God and the Devil play tug of war over a mortal soul, complete with flashes of lightning. A maquette equipped with a cleaver chases a chicken around and around a wooden box. There’s so much packed into each diorama that one could easily note a new detail every single time they look–and from a quick peek at the guestbook, some people had been back for more than one gander, noting that the displays were currently in better repair than their last visit.

Tinkertown also shares some common themes with House on the Rock–there’s a sizeable sideshow and circus display in both places. Among his many other talents, Ross Ward also used to paint circus and sideshow banners as well as carousel horses, and so at least a portion of the banners on display were painted by Ward’s hand.

Here I’m stepping into the shoes of Louie Moilanen, of Calumet, Michigan, who stood at a whopping 7’9″. His promo photograph and the Tinkertown tag have him listed at 8’4″, which is not terribly surprising as many people in the circus had their stats exaggerated to better sell tickets.

At a time when at least two world leaders are actively jazzed at the idea of using nuclear weapons on a populace, this quote feels particularly apt.

My trip to Tinkertown happened on a fortuitous day, as local notable figure Anand Naren Oma and his tarot reading goose, Princess Esmeralda, were on site plying their trade. There was absolutely no way I was not going to have a goose divine my future, because if there’s any creature on this earth who can know the future, it’s birds. How else can you explain how they know exactly when a shiny clean car will pass directly underneath them to use as their personal toilet? You can’t.

So how does goose tarot work? The cards are shuffled, and each of us chose two. Upon flipping a card over, Princess Esmeralda would make various goose sounds (and also bite at Oma and Jason, just because she knows the future doesn’t mean she’s not a goose) and Oma would translate for her, telling us the meaning of the cards we chose and how they might relate to our lives.

The cards we chose were Abundance, Existence, Mind, and Healing. Of course, any card based divination can be applied to any situation if you reach hard enough, but considering I came to New Mexico to do some soul searching and mental healing, these felt particularly apropos. I left Tinkertown feeling truly lighthearted for the first time in months.

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Let that be a lesson to the rest of you…nuts.

January 18, 2017 4 Comments read Attractions, Pacific, Travel, USA, Washington, West

I’ve been to Leavenworth several times but had never made it to the Nutcracker Museum, as it was either closed at the time or there were group protests about it being “too creepy” even though the quaint shoppes there are already packed to the gills with creepy. Too creepy, you say? Too creepy?!? What on Earth could possibly be creepy about thousands of dead eyes staring at you from every directio–I retract the question. Come with me on a creepy journey, friends!

My first stop was at the museum website to ascertain that it would actually be open during my visit, which was a more important step than one would assume: they’re only open four hours per day, seven months of the year. If you’re reading this now and want to drop everything and head over immediately, hold your horses, because they won’t be open again until May. Sorry about energizing you with Nutcracker Fever™. But rest assured, you’re not the only one with Nutcracker Fever™, as the museum website also boldly claims that “all children love nutcrackers“. Not many. Not most. ALL. I certainly vividly remember the days of my youth colored by Nutcracker Fever™. Like all children everywhere, I loved nutcrackers. I had nutcracker sheets, nutcracker pajamas, and I begged Santa for the limited edition Bob Mackie nutcracker I saw in the Sears catalog. At school, my fellow children and I learned woodworking in the hopes of training our nimble fingers in nutcracker craftsmanship so we’d be accepted at Nutcracker College. On the bus, we swapped nutcracker trading cards (my most treasured possession remains a foil Rat King). In the evening, I used my nutcracker collection to shell nuts to dot my lightbulb-warmed treats in my nutcracker emblazoned EZ Bake Oven*.

Admittance to the museum is a paltry five bucks, which is a pittance given the number of nights since I’ve bolted awake, sweating, clutching the sheets while in the grip of Nutcracker Fever™. Upon arrival, I was directed to several rows of folding chairs set up in front of a tiny TV playing a grainy video about the history of nutcrackers. This is directly next to the person taking admissions, so unfortunately any smartass joke I would have wanted to make had to be stifled for the greater good of not being kicked out of the museum.

This is Karl, named after his maker, Karl.

I knew before going in that the Nutcracker Museum contained one of the largest collections of nutcrackers in the world, but I don’t think I really knew just how many nutcrackers that entailed. After the video finished playing, I walked around a corner of nutcrackers for sale and found myself in a room filled with glass display cases with narrow walkways between them, all packed with nutcrackers. Outside this room is a small section filled with antique nutcrackers that no one is allowed to photograph for whatever reason, followed by a long hallway lined with more cases which leads to yet another room lined with still more cases. Don’t let my description fool you into believing it’s a labyrinth of nutcrackers: it’s not possible to get lost in this museum, but it is possible to become intensely claustrophobic.

“Nuts all float down here, Georgie.”

“Check out this Emperor Palpatine nutcracker,” I joked…

…before finding a grouping of Star Wars nutcrackers.

There was also a section on betel nut cutters, which is a nut that I have some familiarity with from my year in Taiwan. Often the sidewalks were splattered with red stains, which could have been blood, but was most likely betel nut juice. Chewing betel nut is supposed to have a similar effect to nicotine. A few slices of the nut are wrapped in a betel leaf, and chewing it releases a blood red juice which is expectorated wherever is most convenient (i.e. the street). At the time, these packets were sold by “betel nut beauties”: scantily clad women in small transparent booths along the street, which I believe is a practice exclusive to Taiwan although betel nut consumption is popular throughout southeast Asia. It’s not dissimilar to the bikini baristas found all over the PNW, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a similar amount of angry local Facebook group posts looking for a “family friendly” alternative. Regardless, the Rotary warned us away from betel nuts, blah blah blah addictive, blah blah blah cancer…but you only live once, right? Might as well learn what it’s like to spit out a mouthful of “blood”, especially if you’re not like to be punched in the face or participate in community horror theatre.

This’ll be the photo my detractors will use when I run for office. “SHE DRINKS THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT, DO YOU TRUST HER WITH YOUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE?”

I don’t know why I find the name “nutting stone” to be so filthily funny, I just do.

Hey, wait, this ISN’T a nutcracker!

Why not both? All kids love nutcrackers!

Buttcrackers and smutcrackers.

To the left of the nut guillotines are some shoes called “nutcracking shoes”. I’m pretty sure you could use them to crack whatever the hell you’d please, Gene Simmons.

I also solved a personal mystery among the shelves. See that moon? I bought one exactly like it two years ago at an antique shop. When I bought it, I just thought the moon looked cool, and the man at the register exclaimed that it was a nutcracker. Over the ensuing two years, I still haven’t found a nut that it can crack–it just half-assedly spits them out of its moon mouth like some kind of low powered useless nut gun. It seemed probable that the antique store clerk had just lied to me to test the limits of my gullibility. Not so–it is indeed a nutcracker, just a terrible one. I suppose this is the Nutcracker Museum, not the Museum of Effective Nutcrackers.

Despite my Nutcracker Fever™, my eyes glazed over surprisingly quickly. “Well hey, that’s a nutcracker” turned to “Yup, still a nutcracker” turned to a vaguely amorphous nutcrackery blob. Perhaps if I’d played the nutcracker finding game, my attention would have been held for longer. What is the nutcracker finding game, you ask? The museum has different lists of nutcrackers to find, depending on one’s age and enthusiasm. For instance, one may be tasked with finding a Mickey Mouse nutcracker, an astronaut nutcracker, and a three legged man nutcracker. No word on whether they ask people to search for the Hitler nutcracker**, but he’s there if you have the fortitude to look for him.

*I’m sorry, all of this is a hideous lie. However, a nutcracker was present when I learned the horrifying nickname my grandparents had for brazil nuts.

**Hitler IS there, along with some really racist caricature nutcrackers and a whole shelf of Confederate crackers. Because, you know, it’s not like they have enough other nutcrackers to fill the gaps if they were to take out the ones that implied some of their guests were sub-human. That would just be too much work, too tough of a nut to crack.

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