…they are BIG
Critter Con 14
Trip Day 4: In which we start the day with PIE!, watch a guinea pig movie, see Movie Monsters of the Desert, eat tasty cheeseburgers, and see Stuff Found Along The Side Of The Road.
When you spend the night in a place called Pie Town, by golly, you eat pie for breakfast! Which is exactly what we did promptly at 9:00 this morning when we walked into Pie Town Pies and ordered up pie for breakfast. 8 pies, to be exact, one for each of us, but we were going to share.
The pies were…
Cherry
Dutch Apple
Coconut Cream
Pecan
Lemon Meringue
French Silk
Banana Cream
Peach
By the time we were done eating some mighty fine pies, we had about 8 slices left. It was pretty much 3 way tie between me, Cakes and Sam as to the most pie eaten. We also bought t-shirts.
We waddled out of Pie Town Pies and onto the bus right around 10:00 AM. Since our next stop and first roadside attraction was just over 3 hours away in Moriarty, we decided to just relax and enjoy the ride and the scenery, with a few short stops for pix and videos.
About an hour into it, Cakes & Tuck told us all to come to the theater to see a movie they had made with an all guinea pig cast. Well, I ask you, who could say no to that?
So we all sat down in front of the big screen to watch “The Legend Of The Three Sisters”. It’s a rousing 45 minute story of three brave guinea pig sisters who are seeking the evil warlord who ravaged their village. They travel across the land helping villagers, battling monsters, and meeting the mysterious “Blue Phantom”, a swashbuckling rogue. In the end, of course, they dish out steely revenge to the warlord before scampering off into the sunset.
Proud grandpa aside, this short movie is pretty darned good, especially when you consider that Hermione, Gini & Luna played all the parts. The special effects are good and the dialog, provided by Cakes, Tuck, Mara, Blue, Omar & Amy, is well done and often funny. I give it two thumbs up.
After a few stops to look at and photograph the New Mexican desert from different points, we arrived in Moriarty at 2:10 PM. Our destination was just outside town at the World Famous Movie Monsters Of The Desert.
Those of you who have read past con reports know that there are at least two other “Monsters Of The Desert” attractions out there, but I must point out that these are MOVIE Monsters, not some damned knockoffs or original monsters. Why, the sign out front says that plain as day.
So we paid our $5.00 each and walked in to the 100 acre place. Fortunately, we did not have to walk around in the 99 degree heat, because they have an electric car/train that you ride in. It’s all open, but they do have fans above each seat.
We saw various aliens, giant bugs, giant reptiles, giant humans, giant arachnids, killer dogs, dinosaurs, mutants, vampires, werewolves, graboids, and a passel of other monsters. It was a lot of fun and took 90 minutes. Back at the souvenir shop…well, you know what we did.
By now it was nearly 4 PM and we were about half starved, so we went just down the road to Desert Burger and bought an 8 pack of Super Cheeseburgers. I’ve got to admit, they were hella tasty, but not huge enough to impact our dinner in a few hours.
Our dinner, and in fact stop for the night, was in Amarillo, Texas, which was almost 4 hours away. The fact that we still had our last stop to make meant that I told Sweetie to once again cloak up and take to the air at about 100 mph.
We got to Newkirk and the Museum Of Stuff Found Along The Side Of The Road an hour later.
Ignacio Valenzuela started gathering up potentially useful stuff along New Mexico freeways, highways and roads 60 years ago when he was 15 years old. Much of what he found was good only to sell as scrap metal or to a plastic recycler, but every so often, he’d find something interesting, rare, or just plain strange.
So 30 years ago, he started charging people a couple of bucks per head to look at his collection, which now fills three stories of a very large barn behind his house. Word has spread, because his son, Marc, told me they get an average of 60 visitors a day, 6 days a week year ’round.
There is a shitload of stuff to see here, but here are some highlights.
Refrigerators for every year from 1942 to 2016
TV sets from 1948 to 1999
A large box of 100 six inch tall plastic penguins
A 1980 Corvette, minus the engine
Around 40 department store mannequins
93 cameras, both still and movie
A full sized taxidermied moose
28 motorcycles, including some very old Indians and Harley’s
9 boxes of 1930’s porn magazines
A large glass male head
249 bowling balls in assorted sizes and colors
And that is just a small fraction of the stuff you can see for, get this, $3.00 per person. I’m thinking we’ll have to stop here again.
Amarillo was 150 miles away, so once again, we flew and got there in just under an hour.
It’s now just shy of 8:00 PM and we are heading out to have a steak dinner at the Big Texan Steak Ranch & Brewery. After that, we’ll play a few board games and then get some sleep. We’re in Texas now and while Critter City is a mere 5 hours away, we have a couple of attractions to see before we get there.
More bloggage tomorrow.
Starting Destination Sign: Derry, Maine
Ending Destination Sign: Hobbiton
Radio Station: WALK, the soothing sounds of nature, Salem, Oregon, Earth 4-J
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