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The Doclopedia #2,184
New From Wilton & Cox: Dual Bladed Sword Cane
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New this season, we have a sword cane for the man who might find himself accosted by more than one ruffian. Made of finest oak, when a secret release trigger in the center of the cane is pressed twice, two 12 inch long steel blades spring forth, one from either end.
These blades are made from the finest steel and are double edged with a dagger point. Any scoundrel that encounters them will most certainly regret it. Available in several designs and colors.
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The Doclopedia #2,185
New From Wilton & Cox: Knifeproof Jacket
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These stylish jackets have a metal mesh sewn into them that will stop a stabbing blade cold and protect against slashing from all but the sharpest swords. Strong, but still light enough to wear to any social occasion. Available in a wide range of styles and fabrics for both gentlemen and ladies.
CritterCon 13
CritterCon 13, Trip Day One: In which we hit the road, see an even larger toilet paper roll than in the past, check in on the most roadside attraction of roadside attractions,meet a new and impressive Giant Jesus, and interact with spiders.
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This year, I’ve decided it is easier to recap each day, rather than write up parts of the day at different times. It will also make it easier reading for you, Gentle Reader.
(Leon: TL/DR Uncle Doc is getting old & lazy.)
(Sasha: Getting?)
At 8:00 this morning, we all sat down for a great breakfast and some discussion of the day’s upcoming events. I have decided to keep our stops secret until we arrive, a choice not beloved among some of our company.
(Cupcake: Grandma, Auntie Avy and others think he’ll hit all the creepyass attractions. I think they’re right.)
(Penny: How creepy are they?)
(Leon: Serial Killer Museum, Clownland, Big fucking snakes and spiders!)
(Penny: Holy shit!)
I should also point out that our trip this year will not just be us popping hither and yon to see attractions. Well, okay, it will, but we’ll do the popping as we drive to the con via Highway 99, Interstates 5, 10 & 40, and various Texas highways from Amarillo to Critter City. We’ll stop along the way for meals and to rest for the night.
“But wait,” you say, “what about the whole Covid 19/Coronavirus situation? You could be risking your lives!” Legitimate concerns, to be sure…unless you have a time machine.
We will be making this whole trip in August of 2019! Last year, our trip took us nowhere near this route or any of the attractions I have chosen, so there is no chance of us meeting ourselves. We will only return to 2020 just before we get to Critter City, which has been rendered virus free by the scientists at SJC Industries. Everyone going into the dome will be virus proofed.
(Sasha: I have to admit, it’s a pretty elegant solution, Daddy.)
(Amy: True. The Doctor knows his shit.)
So, once breakfast was done, we departed Sacramento and started down 99. Most of the Critters were playing in the Shoe Room…
(Sadie F: WOW! An entire room full of shoes that it is okay to sniff, chew and play on!)
(Lettie: Wait until you see the Slide Room.)
…while most of the humans just sat around talking. When we got to Lodi, it was time to pop us up to Dufur, Oregon to see…
The All New World’s Largest Toilet Paper Roll!
We first visited this great attraction in 2010, when it was actually two rival giant toilet paper rolls and just before the two old guys who created them went nuts and destroyed them in a cross country unrolling spree.
(Penny: Humans are strange creatures.)
(Brownie: Yep, in almost every reality.)
(Ginie: Roxy can hardly wait for the toilet paper!)
We came back 5 years later in 2015 because the grandsons of the original creators had rebuilt a single roll larger than the previous two combined. It was truly inspiring to see.
(Sasha: These are Cal Tech graduates, folks.)
(Cupcake: Get an advanced degree, invent new ways to roll up miles of toilet paper.)
(Sadie M: I wonder if they calculated how many butts that huge roll could wipe?)
This year, the roll was even bigger, by around 15 miles of TP! The building that protects it is even larger and now has a better gift shop and statues of the two original toilet paper rollers. Sadly, both the men have died, but their wives and grandchildren keep the place running. We bought the usual bumper stickers, fridge magnets and t-shirts, of course.
(Omar: I thought Doc was going to cry a couple of times.)
(Pixie: He def choked up at least once.)
(Sasha: Oh, yeah, for those of you wondering how this place fared during the Great Toilet Paper Panic of 2020, they had no problems thanks to electrified fencing and a couple of armed guards.)
(Avis: Great! I was afraid that, in the future, we’d be visiting the World’s Largest Toilet Paper Roll Tube!)
(Spike: The t-shirt slogans at the World’s Largest Toilet Paper Roll Gift Shop were… unique. “We Got You Covered.” “A Two-Hander Fer Sure” (with a picture of the two original Largest Rolls). “Squeezably Soft? I Dare You To Try It.” “Imagine The Bear That S___s In These Woods.” “American Originals” (with a picture of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Big Blue Ox each with one of the original rolls). And as for bum-per (that’s how they spelled it) stickers, I don’t think there was a single one that wouldn’t offend *someone*.)
Back on the bus for another 90 minutes or so, we all decided to spend some time in the Slide Room.
(Sadie F: Holy Moley, the Slide Room was great! It was kind of like flying while sitting on your butt.)
(Goldie: I don’t know how it works, but it’s crazy fun.)
(Gabriel: I skipped the morning meeting and breakfast as I’m a late sleeper, and as far as the slide room goes I’m more of a belly-sliding type.)
Longtime readers will remember that the Slide room is very large area completely covered with slides. Walls, floor, ceiling, most of the area in between…it’s all slides. Once you sit down on one, you begin sliding along, reaching a top speed of about 30 miles an hour. Sometimes, we turn them into water slides. Everyone loves the Slide Room, and today was no different.
(Lettie: At one point, we cats were racing.)
(Roxie: Leon came in third because he tried to get fancy.)
(Leon: My surfing moves aren’t what they used to be.)
After about an hour of sliding, we all had milkshakes expertly prepared by Jeeves, our major domo and my gentleman’s gentleman.
(Sasha: Jeeves rocks about 500 different ways.)
(Omar: He makes a mean clam & minnow milkshake.)
(Cupcake: EWWWWWW!)
And then it was time for stop #2.
The World Famous Giant Roadside Attraction Museum
This is a place, just outside Aberdeen, Washington, where giant statues of all sorts end up when their attraction closes or gets destroyed. We were last here in 2012 and they have added quite a few new statues, plus huge circus tents to protect them from the weather. The entry fee has gone up, but the quality of stuff in their gift shop is much better.
(Sadie F: Did anyone else smell all the rodents around that place?)
(Tucker: Oh hell yes! There must have been dozens of squirrels.)
(Leon: These places always have huge mouse populations, too.)
New statues include Spider-Man, two versions of Batman, John Wayne, a couple of Bigfoot statues and one 25 foot tall version of Godzilla from the 1998 film. Many of the statues have been repaired or repainted, thanks to a big donation the place got back in 2017.
(Amy: Some humans apparently have just too much money.)
(Sadie M: Some humans are just plan goofy.)
We all wandered around for about an hour, then got back on the Bus to go to our next stop.
The Giant Jesus Of The River
(Sasha: Okay, folks, here we go.)
Standing on the shore of the Cahaba River near Trussville, Alabama, is the first of two all new Giant Jesus statues we will visit on this trip, and it’s a good one. Firmly in the upper middle on my list of Giant Jesuses.
(Sadie F: He keeps a list of them?)
(Leon: Uncle Doc has been known to weep openly at a really great Giant Jesus, despite being a lifelong atheist.)
(Sadie M: That’s…strange as hell.)
(Leon: Uncle Doc in three words, yes.)
Standing 50 feet tall and made of cast concrete pieces, this is a very lifelike statue. Old J is looking out at the river, arms outstretched and a smile on his face. I wonder if local fisherman ask him to help them hook a big one? The paint job on the statue is very well done.
The statue was only finished in 2018, so it’s pretty new. You can go up in it, but only one at a time. It costs an extra two bucks over the two you pay to see the statue up close. Of course, I went up. The inside of the head is only about 6.5 feet, so really tall folks might be a bit cramped. The view is okay.
(Omar: Seems to me if you’re the kind of person who spends time in Giant Jesus heads, being cramped is a minor thing.)
Both the statue and the gift store, which we bought stuff at, are owned by the Riverside Baptist Church. According to Reverend Delmar, who was there when we were, the church started the statue and then ran out of money, but then the Good Lord provided the rest of the dough from an anonymous donor.
(Roxy: What, God wouldn’t loan them any money?)
By the time we left Giant Jesus, we were all hungry and our kitchen staff on the Bus had a great lunch of assorted sandwiches and sides laid out for us. As always, it was great.
(Sadie F: OMG! I never want to leave this bus! Roast lamb sandwich!)
(Penny: After that tuna sandwich, I may have to nap.)
(Brownie: MAY have to nap? You’re a cat. Napping is your specialty.)
I decided to wait a couple of hours for everyone to have a little post lunch siesta before popping us over to our next stop. Based upon the reaction I got when we were there in 2013, I knew there would be bitching. I was correct and it started as soon as we stepped out of the Bus.
The World Famous Spider Ranch
(Leon: I KNEW IT! Again with the fucking spiders!)
(Pixie: I’m not a fan of spiders, especially that one the SIZE OF MY HEAD!.)
(Cupcake: What the fuck is wrong with Grandpa? There were a million spiders in there!)
(Goldie: 1.25 million, according to our guide.)
Despite the fact that I pointed out that this place is a legitimate scientific research organization, aligned with several prestigious universities…
(Leon: DO NOT CARE!)
…Despite the fact that they raise and provide spiders for the movies, television and medical research…
(Sadie M: Movies that scare me silly!)
…Despite the fact that the place is clean, modern and they don’t let the spider’s run around loose…
(Cupcake: We were one good earthquake away from being ass deep in spiders!)
…nearly everyone moaned and said “Oh no, not this place!” However, I remained steadfast, so those of us who did go in paid our $5.00 and went inside.
(Mark: The only way I would go into that facility is dragged and/or drugged.)
The museum itself is almost twice as large as it was in 2013 and out of the 48,200 spider species, they have 5,170 of them. From tiny little spiders right up to Goliath Bird Eating Tarantulas, their collection is varied and amazing.
(Gabriel: So where do they keep the radioactive spiders?)
(Sasha: Goddamnit, Uncle G, it does NOT work that way!)
And, according to some of my traveling companions, creepy as hell.
(Roxy: They had ALL TEN of the world’s MOST VENOMOUS spiders! Several of each, in fact!)
We spent a bit over an hour here…
(Leon: Which probably took three years off my life!)
…and bought a bunch of souvenirs. I got a swell spider covered bandana and a very realistic Goliath that Grace informs me will stay in the box in a bag until we get home where it will remain in my office.
(Cupcake: So, not going into Grandpa’s office ever again.)
When we popped back onto the highway, the Bus was was entering Bakersfield, so we decided to stop there for the night, after seeing one more attraction. This one, everyone loved.
Old Toy Museum
In 2018, our trip was done on Earth 1-G in the hopes of finding new roadside attractions. That worked out pretty well and the Old Toy Museum was a big hit with all of us. Now, there was an Old Toy Museum here in our reality, but it had closed down in 2005, three years before we began these trips. As luck would have it, the owners of the Museum came into enough money a couple of years ago to re-open in a much nicer building. They had not stopped buying toys during the closure, so now they have even more than the Earth 1-G version has.
(Lettie: We NHT all stayed on the bus to hang out in the Park Room. Jeeves brought us snacks.)
We spent 2 hours there, wandering around, looking at old toys from all over North America made during the last 250 years and saying “I had one of those” and “I remember that”. The dolls and action figures filled one huge room, as did the toy cars & trucks. They even have a fair representation of early roleplaying games, many of which some of us still own. The owners told us that in about a week, they have a semi-truck trailer full of more old toys arriving. We’ll for sure be visiting again in a couple of years.
Do I even need to tell you how hard we hit the gift shop?
Our roadside attraction day done, we all relaxed in different ways before dinner. I mostly hung out online attending a couple of seminars on Virtual Gen Con. I know that Grace and Mary went for a swim in the gym and Avis and Ginie wandered around in the Library. Cathy went to the Greenhouse, but quickly came back to ask me if I was aware that there were two suns shining in the sky in there. I assured her it has always been like that.
(Sasha: We critters all napped in the sunshine of the park.)
Dinner was interesting, a buffet of French, Japanese and Kenyan dishes. It was all quite delicious and we had a rousing discussion of the days events, including threats of bodily harm if I made anybody go in the Serial Killer Museum or “that place with the big fucking snakes”. I made no promises.
(Lettie: SUSHI!)
(Tucker: I don’t know what that spicy Kenyan stew is called, but I’m kind of afraid for the next time I poop.)
After dinner, we all watched a couple of old movies I picked up on Earth 3-K. Both movies were Hope & Crosby “Road” movies, “The Road To Scotland” and “The Road To Bombay”. Both of them were very funny, with Bob, Bing, and of course, Dorothy Lamour, in great form.
(Sadie F: I decided to sleep off that big dinner.)
(Goldie: Same here.)
After the movies, the wiser among us went to bed. That did not include myself, Spike, Avis, Mark, Ginie, or Gabriel. We all sat up chatting for about another 90 minutes before packing it in.
Tomorrow, we’ll be hitting five more attractions and doing some virtual gaming on the holodeck.
More bloggage later.
Destination Sign When We Left: New Asgard
Destination Sign When We Stopped: New Vulcan
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