…co-starring her little dog, Snoodles
Yes, after years and years of usually being the first subject line of the month, Mostly Purple Patty is retiring…at least for a couple of years.
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The Doclopedia #2,174
You’ve Found A…: Sea Chest
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Well now, young Ian, let’s see what ya got here. Ho ho! That there be a seachest off’n El Zorro de Mar, the Sea Fox. A damned fine ship she was, fer a spanish vessel. Gave pirates hell for years, Captain Rosario did. She went down in a storm four years ago. Let’s open ‘er up! Well, ya have to admit them Spannies build a damned tight seachest. Look at all them clothes, still dry as a bone. Say, them are expensive lookin’ dresses. Ian, what say you and I tote this booty into town and see what the ladies’ll pay for them?
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The Doclopedia #2,175
You’ve Found A…: Dead Guy
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He’s…he’s dead, Sally! Really dead. Oh God, I’ve never seen a dead person. He looks like he’s sleeping, really. What? I don’t know. What’s it look like to you? Yeah, it does look like he just sat down under this tree. I mean, he wasn’t shot or anything. Maybe he had a heart attack or something. We ought to go call the police. I’m just glad we didn’t find him later, when it’s dark. I probably would have peed myself.
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CritterCon 13, Trip Day Two: In which we re-enact the Potato Wars, visit a village full of bunnies, find out if we’ve continued to screw the pooch time travelwise, see humongous dice, and revisit some monsters.
After breakfast and reassuring the collected masses that we would not go anywhere “creepy as fuck” today, we stopped an an old favorite civic re-enactment.
Potato Throwing Days On our very first trip to DogCon1, in August of 2008, we stopped for the night at a motel in Grimly, Arizona, where I wrote this very short entry.
(Leon: Not this place! Last time, it took me two days to get fully clean!)
(Sasha: Witness now how Daddy can pad this entry out with old stuff.)
“Saturday, 4 PM: We stop for the day in Grimly, Arizona. Apparently, we are just in time for their annual Potato Throwing Days celebration, as I got clocked upside the head by a warm baked tater as I an entering the motel lobby.” Yeah, that first trip/con report was short and sweet.
(Roxy: No kidding, folks, the entire first DogCon trip/con report was fewer words than this days entry will be.)
When we went back there in 2013, on the way to CatCon 6, I wrote this…
“We rolled into Grimly about 5:30 and promptly took about 5 pounds of mashed potatoes to the windshield. Before we got out of the bus to go into our hotel, we all armed ourselves with potato products. Being the first one out of the bus, I took a ball of smooshed french fries to the shoulder, but got the woman throwing them with a baked tater to the ass. From there on, it was like we were storming the beaches of Ireland. Nobody reached the hotel lobby free of tater, including the critters.”
Then, two years later, we were back and I wrote a much longer account.
“We arrived in Grimly about two hours before sunrise and got a space at the Happy Acres RV Park. After a light breakfast of coffee or tea and donuts for us humans and dog or cat food for the critters, we got dressed properly for the day.
“Proper dress” is old clothes you don’t care about, a hat if you don’t want taters in your hair and a pair of goggles. Throwing potatoes are provided by the Chamber of Commerce on tables all along the street. Thus clad, we ventured out for the 3 mile long stroll up and down main street.
As the sun rose over the mountains, we had just loaded up on throwing supplies (The critters were all wearing Ottopuses, so they could throw spuds too) when a guy on a roof started chucking mashed potato snowballs at us. I took one to the leg, Silky took one to the tail and Spike got hit square in the middle of his back.
Meanwhile, three teenage girls were throwing tater tots at us from the other side of the street. Grace, Mary, Avis and Sasha all got hit, but Daisy & Leon managed to stay clean. Unfortunately for those teens, besides the womenfolk chucking small roasted red potatoes at them, they had Sasha hurling hash brown patties at them four at a time. Her accuracy was impressive.
By the time we reached the end of main street, we looked like victims of the wrath of some potato god. Spike and I alone must have had 2-3 pounds of potato products in our hair & beards. The surface of the street looked like some unholy potato salad demon.
After having some tasty beverages provided by the Grimly Women’s Association, we loaded up with tuberous ammo and started the trek back to the bus. We teamed up with other RVers in what one old WWII vet described as “like storming a goddamn beach during World War Potato”. He had a pretty good throwing arm for an 86 year old.”
(Sasha: That old guy was hella cool.)
Well, it’s been 5 years, so I figured a return visit was in order. As we got to the city limits, we were met by a local “deputy”, actually the guy who owns the liquor store, who handed us all “Mashed Tater Guns” and told us that we could pick up extra clips all along Main Street. That done, we parked on the street and set out to battle our way up Main Street and back. I even got late riser Gabriel out of bed to join us because how often do you get to shoot and be shot with mashed potatoes?
(Goldie: Sometimes, I doubt Uncle Doc’s sanity.)
(Sadie M: Only sometimes?)
The mashed potato guns worked great, allowing you to shoot about a half cup of potatoes per shot. They had a pump action and the clips were screw on. The fighting was fierce, but we finally made our way to the end of Main, where we stopped in the “Neutral Zone” for cold drinks and to buy a bunch of t-shirts and stuff. An hour later, we were back at the bus, covered in spuds and a bit tired. Jeeves, may his lot increase, had snacks and more cold drinks set out for us.
(Omar: We were running through clips fast! Blue and I were zigging and zagging from cover to cover.)
(Brownie: At one point, we both shot the same Shriner twice, right in the fez!)
(Amy: And I have to live with these two, folks.)
With an hour to kill before our next stop, we mostly just hung out, although I did show Mark & Cathy the Warehouse. I think they were suitably impressed with it, especially when I showed them the Daleks and Cylons that are preserved in some sort of indestructible gelatin.
When Sweetie told us that we had reached the town of Skoonage, Colorado, I announced that we would be visiting a brand new Roadside attraction…
Bunnyville (Penny: All together now, folks: AAWWWWWW!) Much better than the villages we have seen for everything from garden gnomes to Barbie dolls, this village provides an actual home for 600 homeless pet rabbits. (Sasha: I've gotta admit, that many rabbits in one place had my inner wolf howling for the hunt.) (Pixie: Oh hell yes!) (Goldie: Yep!) (Tucker: So. Many. Rabbits.) (Sadie F: OMG! Yes!) (Sadie M: The call of the wild, yep.) Note: Our critters were all in human bodies for this stop (Lettie: A good thing, too, or there could have been a riot.) Housed in both a very large warehouse and predator proof outdoor enclosures, there is ample room for the bunnies to frolic and live very good lives. They have little houses and shops and trailers and all sorts of places to live and play in, along with lots of open space. They were all very healthy and very friendly. They were also all spayed and neutered and available for adoption. (Cupcake: A couple of those rabbits reminded me of Uncle Max.) It was not easy telling Grace & Sasha that we would NOT adopt a bunny. Instead, we all pooled some bucks and left Bunnyville a $1,100.00 donation and several cases of assorted fruits & veggies. We also dropped more $$ at their gift shop. We went from Bunnyville straight to our next stop, in Santa Cruz, California. It is a place with very special meaning to our family and some of our friends.
(Brownie: Say it again, Uncle Gabe!)
(Gabe: Duuuh, tell me about da rabbits, George?)
(Brownie & Omar: HAHAHAHAHAHA!)
(Cupcake: UGH! Will you guys STOP it already?)
(Amy: It has to be some defect connected to having a dick.) First Church of the True World History
We first visited this “church” back in 2017 because I had heard that they believed that immortal humans, dogs and strange creatures have been messing around throughout history. This is what I write back then.
(Sasha: These folks are nutty as can be. Not wrong in their basic premise, but still nutty.)
“The church charges nothing to visit it, so the bunch of us (the critters in their android bodies) went in. We were met by Pastors Oscar and Tanya Mendina, the founders of the church. They explained that they started the church after finding evidence that world history was being manipulated by a strange group of humans and dogs of the hound variety, at least one of which was some sort of tentacled mutant. It is a testimony to our self control that none of us laughed or looked shocked, although both Grace and Avis did give Sasha & I the “SEE? We told you you’d get caught!” look.
Pastor Oscar then showed us around the church museum and damned if they didn’t have a pretty impressive collection of written accounts and even a few photographs. Fortunately, we always subtly change how we look, so the photos of Sasha show a black & white basset and photos of me show a younger clean shaven guy with short hair.
Both pastors related stories of how these strange dogs & humans (Spike has gone with me a few times and one of the stories is how Grace accidentally caused a pre-teen Martin Luther to start thinking the way he did) have been around for at least 7,000 years, and maybe longer. Obviously, he told us, they are immortal and could be sent by God or Satan, the jury still being out. He also related how Men In Black and government agents have stopped by the church to question them several times.”
This time, we found that the church building had gotten a renovation because it now had 4,500 members worldwide who sent in donations and, more importantly, more evidence of what the church now refers to as “The Immortal Guides”. (Sasha: HAHAHAHAHA! “Immortal”? No way! 3,000 years, tops.) (Leon: Say what?) The new stuff ranges from a damned clear 90 seconds of film from 1940 showing Spike and I watching Adolph Hitler nearly getting crushed by a falling piano to a rather generic letter from a 5th century Chinese magistrate thanking a man and his extraordinary dog for stopping some bandits from killing everyone in a village. (Sasha: That dog was Silky not me.) Closer to our time, they have a video interview with two good old boys who apparently saw Lulu running across the middle of nowhere in Kansas back in 2014. They gave a really good description of her and estimated she was going about 150 miles an hour and had “a real little metal cat on her back”. (Brownie: They ought to get a load of the videos that the NSA and CIA have of Auntie Lulu and Uncle Flash.) We also learned that in 2018, government agents closed the whole church down for a week while they examined everything. When they were done, they told the Mendina's to clear every new piece of evidence with them. Then, three months later when they tried to do just that, they were told that the administration was “no longer concerned with any of it”. Easily distracted is more like it. (Tucker: Real governmental efficiency, that.) (Pixie: If it was actually the US Government in the first place. I heard that it was OutSec.) (Tucker: NHTA Outside Security? Damn!) We bought t-shirts, bumper stickers and some copies of their quarterly newsletter “The True Historian”. Those last are pretty hilarious reading. (Spike: It's actually pretty amazing how little evidence the church has of your "activities," considering how much you've done, including during the era of photography.) (Sasha: We've spent entire days getting rid of stuff, Uncle Spike.) The bus popped back onto the highway north of San Diego, so we stopped in the city for lunch. We had seafood and it was excellent. (Leon: Can I get an AMEN for that tasty seafood?) (All Critters: AMEN!) We also hit up a used book store. As we left, the owners closed for the day and skipped down the street to deposit all our money in their bank. (Amy: Used books = crack cocaine to bibliophile geeks.) We decided to take a bit more of a break, so we all relaxed for about a half an hour. By that time, we had actually driven to our next stop, a game store housed inside... The World Famous Giant Dice Another new attraction! Now, to be honest, the game store is only housed in the giant D20, D6 & D12. The D4 is a 3 room guest house you can stay in for $75 a night. The D10 and D8 are the home of the store owner, Gary Clive and his family. (Cupcake: I am flatly amazed that Grandpa didn't find this place years ago.) (Sasha: Same here. Old man must be slipping.) The dice look very much like regular dice, except that the numerals are all windows. The D20 is about 40 feet tall, with the others being more in the 30 foot range. Very cool. We took pix and videos, then bought not only the usual stuff, but some cool custom dice, too. We might have also purchased games...and minis...and more dice. (Sadie M: Who could have predicted that?) Our final stop for the day was about 4 hours of driving away, so we decided not to pop over, but just drive instead, since it would give us time to tour the Zoo Room. Our Zoo Room is about 25 miles on a side and includes a fairly ordinary zoo, a dinosaur zoo, a zoo of extinct post-dinosaur species and a zoo of mythical/legendary creatures from alternate realities. Our staff of 2,000 androids take great care of things. (Penny: This entire Bus amazes me.) The zoo tour took about 3 hours, which really isn't enough time to see everything. Mostly, it was a tour of dinosaurs and mythical creatures. The fact that we use Class 4 force fields instead of walls for our enclosures makes for a very up close view of the animals. Maybe too close when a T-Rex comes right up to the force field. But then, the T-Rex doesn't seem that bad when the Red Dragon, Zarkonoximil, breathes fire at you and roars. Good fun, all of it. (Leon: GOOD FUN? I pooped myself twice!) (Sadie F: That dragon was enormous!)
(Avis: By the way, during the drives, I am apt to slip off to the Zoo room to visit the dodos in the extinct non-dinosaur section. I got interested in them from Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (Douglas Adams) and the Thursday Next series (Jasper Fforde), and find myself watching them for hours.)
(Cupcake: They are interesting. I think we are up to about 300, all told. And as for “dumb as a dodo”, they are fucking geniuses compared to turkeys.)
After another hour, during which we refreshed ourselves and, I suspect, some of us changed our undies (see dragon reference above), we went out to visit another old favorite stop. Monsters of the Desert The last time we were here, I wrote this. “Day 2 of our trip found us in Kingman, Arizona, where we visited the newly renamed and upgraded “Monsters Of The Desert!” Years ago, desert sculptors with time on their hands built something goofy and big, a kind of octopoid looking alien creature with three eyes. But in the last couple of years, they’ve added 5 new Monsters, so naturally we had to check it out.
One of these monsters looks sort of like a giant praying mantis made out of stainless steel, crushed glass, plaster and about 15 colors of paint. It stands across from two 30 foot tall creatures made of old plastic milk jugs, flattened tin cans and some sort of plastic foam. They look like crazed yetis.
Then there is the winged triceratops creature that uses an old school bus as the basis for it’s body, then added on tons of plumbing fixtures. Finally, there is “Ograntor!”, a 75 foot tall giant ape/ant/platypus thing built out of concrete, steel and what looks like about 6 months worth of the empty booze bottles from Las Vegas.
We wandered around for about 90 minutes, because what the signs along the highway don’t tell you is that while there are only 6 giant monsters, there are over 150 smaller ones scattered about, some no bigger than my fist. Some can move a bit and have motion detectors built in, so they only move when you get close. This startled some of our group.
The whole place is surrounded by high chain link fence, to keep out vandals. Our critters discovered that the local jackrabbits like to hang out just on the other side of the fence. They do not seem to fear human, yowling cats or barking dogs.”
(Leon: Those rabbits are assholes!)
(Tucker: Let those fuckers come inside that fence and talk shit!)
That was in 2015. In the last few years, they have added 4 new Giant Monsters and over 200 small ones. The giant ones are a giant duck with fangs and 4 arms, a giant cat-crab, a gorilla/lizard centaur, and a giant human woman with tentacles instead of arms. As with the other statues, they are all made of recycled materials.
(Sasha: And the rabbits still suck!)
The smaller, sometimes tiny, monsters come from all over the world, sent in by tourists who visited the place. We had a lot of fun looking for them.
(Cupcake: Speaking of tiny monsters, have you met my brother and Omar?)
(Amy: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)
And yes, the jackrabbits, according to our NHT contingent, are still uppity assholes.
When we got back on the bus, we all decided a pre-dinner nap was in order, so we hit our various sleeping areas for the hour or so it to to reach our stop for the night, the Seligman, Arizona, Rt. 66 KOA.
(Avis: Seligman! My old stomping grounds!)
(Leon: How much stomping could a little kid do, Mom?)
(Brownie: They still fear her name in Seligman.)
(Lettie: HAHAHAHA!)
(Peter: Hey! You forgot to mention stopping to see Sam and Frank at Pendemonium in Kingman. I picked up some Noodler’s Ink and a 1930s Sheaffer Oversize Balance fountain pen reportedly owned by General George Patton.)
(Penny: Dad, we are on a time machine. You could have just went back and bought it off Patton himself for a whole lot less.)
Our after dinner adventures included walks around the campground and a few hours of gaming in the holodeck, where we formed teams to explore a strange “abandoned” city in a sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy world. There were a great many surprises, including the fact that the city was nowhere close to truly abandoned.
(Cupcake: Meanwhile, we critters relaxed and watched old Star Trek episodes.)
After that excitement, most of our happy crew hit the sack while the inevitable night owls stayed up talking. Tomorrow we hit up another new attraction!
Destination Sign When We Left: Your Mom's House
Destination Sign When We Stopped: Altair 4
Radio Station: The 1960s Station
The Dociverse Blog 