Cool Places in America~The Musical Road

 Hello again. I know you probably think I have lived everywhere in America by now, but the truth is that there is still a good 14% I have not been in yet... Thanks to my contract working software engineer parents.

In Lancaster, California in 2008, the Honda Motor Co. approached civic officials and asked them to turn one of their roads into a marketing campaign. They wanted to cut grooves into a road that would would play the William Tell Overture once driven over at 55 mph. They did and it drove the neighbors crazy with people coming from all over to hear it and hear it again. Then they moved it out by the airport in a remote section of town. Why did they not think about that in the first place...

I always like the William Tell  Overture. I have to admit I heard it first on Bugs Bunny, and then the Lone Ranger. Not the original, but he 1980's Saturday afternoon cartoon and live action versions on YouTube. I still have not gotten to the original black and White. By the way Tonto means ignorant in Apache I think, and Kemosabe is more of a South American native word for 'doesn't know any better.' One of my favorite collections of short stories is by Sherman Alexie called Tonto and the Lone Ranger Fist Fight in Heaven.

One of my other favorite things is the musical stairs in Boston at the Science Museum. I love playing on that!

~Tyler


To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler's latest book "Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida" on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises... 

Cool Places in America~Thor's Well

At the beginning of the summer my parents had a contract in Oregon where the Goonies were from. It was such a cool town. On the way to points unknown which their software engineer lives bring them; we found Thor's Well.

I kept looking inside looking for the Kraken...but I did not see him. Kraken, he is not Greek you silly fools. Good Norwegians like myself know this. I also expected Jack Sparrow to swim out of it. I started to walk out on the stones till my Dad called me back. Oh well.

Its just South of the Cape Perpetua Visitor Center in Cook's Chasm, Oregon. Park on the West side of Highway 101.

 ~Tyler


To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler's latest book "Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida" on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises... 

Cool Places in America~Hamilton Pool

Heading out of Austin this summer on the way back to the Pines to have my parents work for the Mad Scientist  again. We stopped to cool off and take this swim in a cave right out of James Bond. I kept looking for tattoo...

 

Just 23 miles west of Austin, Texas, is a breathtaking emerald pool and cave. It was Awesome. I kept looking for the secret laser hidden under the water.  Our host in Austin reserved our day there. We had an amazing time.

To get there it is 23 miles west of Austin, on Highway 71. Surrounded by the Hamilton Nature Preserve. They require reservations from May 15 to September 30. So book early.

 ~Tyler


To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler's latest book "Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida" on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises...

Cool Places in America~ The Dream House and the Sound of Motion

We were just stopping in NYC (Tribeca) on our way back from the Mad Scientist of the Pines when we stopped to check this out. I got to dance to my own band...

Created in 1993 by modern composer La Monte Young and visual artist Marian Zazeela; they welcome you come in and become your own composer to the soundtrack of your life. You can be just as bad as Samuel Jackson walking down the street with his own theme playing. Or stand still like Clint Eastwood in the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and have your own cool song play.

Then just give up and dance from corner to corner and the light changes to the same frequency of your movements.  Whirl like a Dervish and make some paisley...

Young and Zazeela, the creators,  invite you to dive into their dream world, Wednesday through Saturday from 2PM-Midnight. Check them out and prepare to dance...

 ~Tyler


To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler's latest book "Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida" on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises...

Cool Places in America~The Wave Organ

Over this summer, my parents have moved us to San Francisco. They thought they were getting a good salary, till they calculated the cost of living in the city... but while I was there I got to listen to this amazing organ played by Njord.

The Wave Organ includes more than 20 pipes that extend down into the water of the Bay. It is comprised of PVC and concrete pipes at various elevations and the  sound is created by waves crashing against these pipes creating low, subtle tones.

It is described to have a liquid music: low, gurgling notes that ebb and flow with the restless movement of the ocean and the changing of the tides. What makes the music? It is similar to the phenomena of the sound heard in a conch shell — a specific volume of air resonating at a specific frequency. In the Wave Organ, the columns of air within the pipes constantly change as the water moves in and out. As the length and volume of the air column in each pipe changes, the pitch of the sound it produces also varies — the larger the volume of air, the lower the sound — the smaller the volume of air, the higher the sound.

The view is of San Francisco’s Marina District, of downtown San Francisco’s skyline, the East Bay hills, Sausalito, Mt. Tamalpais, the Presidio, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Marin Headlands.  Its an amazing place to chill and take in the environment.

 ~Tyler


To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler's latest book "Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida" on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises...

Cool Places in America~The Only State Highway in the Country that Bans Cars!

 Yep, my parents moved me again.. This month we are on Lake Huron. On one of its island we found this peculiar road. It is the only state highway in the country that bans cars.

M-185 is a state trunkline highway in the U.S. state of Michigan that circles Mackinac Island, a popular tourist destination on the Lake Huron side of the Straits of Mackinac, along the island's shoreline.

The first city ordinances banning all motorized vehicles from the island were passed on July 6, 1898, with similar state park rules coming in 1901. The residents complained after a doctor's car scared their horses and caused carriage accidents, and these complaints prompted the ban. They even have a horse drawn carriage ride the road to pick up all of the liter. I want to know who picks up after the horses?

One of the main attractions on the road is the Devil' Kitchen.  Local stories allege that the Native Americans of the Straits of Mackinac considered the cave to be a numinous location inhabited by bad spirits. Allegedly, the spirits were cannibals who would capture and eat victims who ventured too close to the ill-omened location. The cave is blackened with soot to this day, allegedly from the evil spirits' cooking fires; hence the name, 'Devil's Kitchen.' Me and my parents snuck in at night and roasted marshmallows over a camp fire and made some smores. The governor was vacationing here at his mansion at the time and he even joined us. I will never know why he insisted on burning his marshmallows before he made his smores...

 ~Tyler


To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler's latest book "Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida" on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises...

Cool Places in America~Badlands Guardian Eh!

This was our first trip north to the land of the friendly. The people were great there outside Alberta. My father once said that the role of the Canadians is to keep the us American's safe. He believes no one would nuke us because they would be afraid to hurt the Canadians. So on Wikipedia I was looking for the strange and wonderful in the area when I found this cool rock formation.

The Badlands Guardian which is also known as Indian Head is considered to be a geomorphological feature which is situated near Medicine Hat, south east of Alberta, Canada. It is a  rock formation when viewed from the air looks like a Native American wearing a headdress.

Supergranny, Lynn Hickox, found it in 2006 while  surfing Google Earth. She found it while navigating for directions to a dinosaur museum.

It even seems to be wearing earphones where a road and an oil well were recently installed. It is  larger than Mount Rushmore. The image can be traced on 50° 0’38.20”N 110° 6’48.32”W with the use of Google Earth. We typed in the coordinates and I took a helicopter ride with my parents and their boss for that month, Red from Fargo. Red, surprised us though when he jumped out of the helicopter with his phone in his hand. He snapped pictures every 10 seconds to create a study on scale. Red proved throughout the years to be full of surprises...

 ~Tyler


To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler's latest book "Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida" on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises...

Cool Places in America~#1 Haunted Toys R Us

Once my parents moved me to Sunnydale California to work on a warehouse program for Toys R Us.  Well of course I went to work with them several times. In fact I went there so much I was on first name basis with the ghost in the aisles.

The story starts decades earlier when much of the area was farmlands, including the area where the store itself was built. On this location the Murphy's had an orchard. One of the farm hands, Johny Johnson, fell in love with the orchard's owner's daughter in vain. To get his mind off his sorrow, he took to chopping wood. While he was doing this he hit himself in the leg and bled to death.

He now roams the aisles of the Toys 'R Us and plays with the toys. He likes bouncing balls down the aisle looking for someone to play with him. I picked up the ball once and threw it back. That is how I met him. After that we used to play air hockey all of the time, sometimes he would cheat though...

He is a practical joker also, he likes running the faucet when customers walk into the bathroom. 

~Tyler


To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler's latest book "Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida" on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had!