Category Archives: Roadside Attractions

I Found Sasquatch

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At the City Park in North Bonneville, I spotted a family of five Bigfeet and Littlefeet plus more Littlefeet frolicking in the trees.

 

Maybe it’s because Bigfoot hunting is prohibited in Skamania County. Or because the residents of North Bonneville were welcoming and friendly. But this family of Sasquatch (or is it Sasquatches?) has moved from the Cascade Forests to this small town that was built for the workers on the Bonneville Dam project in 1934.

Large footprints guide you to the various Littlefeet who seem to be hiding in the trees at the park. But if you look closely you’ll see them and the Littlefeet are very curious about humans and hardly shy at all unlike their Bigfeet parents, so you may find yourself talking to them.

 

Birds, squirrels, owls and rabbits live in perfect harmony with the Bigfeet and Littlefeet in this park.

Skamania County is the only sanctioned “Sasquatch Refuge” in the world due to the large number of Bigfoot sightings in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, so if you’re a fan you should put this place on your visit list. You won’t regret it.

Have any of you spotted Bigfoot?

The Tree Bike: Fact or Fiction

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There’s currently a story circulating on Facebook about the bicycle in the tree on Vashon Island. It’s a made-up story of a boy who left his bike by the tree, went off to war in 1914 and never came back.

I intend to set the record straight. In actuality there is a bicycle that a tree grew around on Vashon Island. But the true story of how it got there is quite different.

In 1954 Helen Puz (who is now 99 years old) moved to Center with her five children. At that time she had been recently widowed.

“People were very sympathetic and generous,” writes Puz in a document on display at the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum. “We were given a girl’s bike and my 8-year-old son, Don, seemed the natural one to ride it.”

Don was none too happy having a girls bike, said Puz, but it was better than none.

The neighborhood boys, including Don, liked to play behind a local restaurant called, “The Den.” (This restaurant is now called Sound Food.)

One day Don told his mother that he had lost his bike and he wasn’t sure where he’d left it. They both let it go because Don was a little embarrassed to be riding a girl’s bike anyway.

 This is a photo of the bike in the tree before someone attached the front wheel. Courtesy of the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum

Forty years later Puz read in the Beachcomber, Vashon’s newspaper, that someone had discovered a bike up in a tree near Sound Food. The bike was five feet off the ground and the tree had grown around it. News of the tree bike even carried to Japan where they made a film about it.

The mystery of where Don Puz left his bike had finally been solved.

If you’d like to see the bike in the tree, directions on how to get there can be found at roadsideamerica.com.

Couldn’t Find Big Foot

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I’m back from the land of BigFoot sightings – Lewis County in Southwest Washington. We didn’t see any thing, but our nephew’s size 14’s. Nothing of the legendary BigFoot variety.

Yard Bird statue in Chehalis

BigFoot, also known as Sasquatch, a giant ape-like creature, has been seen, heard and smelled in places like Mossyrock and Rainbow Falls in Lewis County. The BigFoot Field Researcher’s Organization (BFRO, www.bfro.net), a real scientific entity, has investigated many of these reports.

The sighting I find most odd was one I saw on TV. A woman who lived in a cabin in Tennessee (yes, he gets around) claimed Sasquatch knocked on her door and asked to borrow some garlic. I guess he was cooking Italian that night.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not Sasquatch is real or imagined. But since I didn’t find any evidence either way, I went on to take in some roadside attractions. I love the concept of people erecting things to attract travelers’ attention. Remember the old Burma Shave signs?

On this trip I was able to find the Yard Bird’s statues and the world’s largest egg.

World's largest egg in Winlock, Washington

In Chehalis two of the statues remain at the Yard Bird’s home improvement store. There used to be many more. One, a gawky cartoon bird, 30 feet tall and at least 50 feet long; faces a main road. On a dark, dreary day this one didn’t photograph well, but its smaller counterpart at the front entrance did.

Currently the “World’s Largest Egg” (I’m sure there are probably larger eggs) is painted white, but at Easter it resembles an Easter egg and on the Fourth of July, it bears the stars and stripes of the American Flag. This town used to be a major producer of eggs, hence the mascot egg that is twelve feet long and weighs 1,200 pounds.

Winlock also has an annual Egg Day celebration where egg salad sandwiches are given away.  The town is located about three miles west of Interstate 5 off Exit 63 and on State Route 505.

What is your favorite roadside attraction?