America's Addiction to Gravity - Mystery Spots

We contend that there is nothing more patriotic than being conned into believing that water runs uphill.

Step into a world where the laws of physics seemingly take a vacation as we explore America's beloved gravity-defying roadside attractions. From the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot to Confusion Hill nestled in California's redwoods, these quirky destinations have been baffling and delighting travelers since the '40s.
The long and cloudy history of Gravity Shacks/Confusion Hills/Mystery Spots are living reminders of the wonders of weird roadside attractions and a kind of quirky, delightful, oddball America that Pete and Kelly love. From Aldebert Ames to Bill Cipher we trace the stories, and myths, of where these mysterious, physics-defying, buildings came from.

Let's learn how to stop worrying and embrace the con!

It's the first episode of Season 2 of Lowdown on the Plus-Up: America's Addiction to Gravity - Mystery Spots

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's a little bit difficult to know exactly when
the vortex would have beendiscovered.
The folklore we have says thatthe Native Americans first
discovered the vortex by ridingtheir horses up the hill.
When they got to the edge ofthe area their horses refused to
enter.
So they made it to theForbidden Ground and did not
come back.
It was sort of rediscoveredonce we had the prospectors
coming up and down the WestCoast.

(00:20):
They came to Gold Hill and theybegan to run into problems
weighing the gold out, gettingconstruction to work quite right
.
So one of the mining engineerscontacted his friend John Lister
.
He said you're a miningengineer, you're a physicist.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hello and welcome to the Lowdown on the Plus Up, a
podcast where we look ateveryone's favorite theme park
attractions, lands, textures andnovelties.
We talk in over about andthrough our week's topic and
then, with literally no concernfor practicality, safety or
economic viability, we come upwith ways to make them better.
My name is Kelly McCubbin,columnist for the theme park

(01:10):
website Boardwalk Times, andwith me, as always, is Peter
Overstreet University, professorof Animation and Film History
in Northern California, so Pete.
Yeah, what are we talking abouttoday?

Speaker 4 (01:23):
Well, today is our first day of Season 2.
Season 2.
Yay, we've made it through awhole year.
For those who haven't heard theMinnesota, go check it out.
We kind of do a little recapand kind of give you some sneak
previews, but this is Season 2,episode 1.
And I don't want to mentionwhat we're doing just yet.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Okay, you want to ease into it.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
I want to ease into it because there's a great segue
to this that I've devised and Ihope you'll come along with me
for the ride.
Okay, kelly and I went on aroad trip with Kelly's wonderful
family and we went down toAnaheim to go to Disneyland
together.
Yeah, and this is our secondtrip together.
It was a lot of fun.
But we also did our finalepisode of season one.

(02:07):
It was a live show in front ofa bunch of other podcasters.
It was great people, greatpeople, a lot of fun.
Go check it out.
But during the day, kelly andhis family had already purchased
tickets.
I hadn't purchased tickets.
I was kind of hemming andhawing going.
I don't know if I'm going to goor not, I don't know.
So finally, first thing in themorning, I wake up and I go.

(02:28):
All right, I'll go.
I love going to Disneyland withthese folks.
I'm going to go and by the timeI had purchased all of my
tickets and I had and if I countthe gas to get down there, all
total, the bill to get in forone day at Disneyland without
buying a single tchotchke, notincluding food, was $250.

(02:52):
By the end of the day, I hadspent $300.
That's just for food.
Yeah, as the addition and thiswas the first time at Disneyland
and I know this is kind of likejumping on this big internet
troll bandwagon of goingDisneyland's way too expensive,
but frankly it is, and a lot ofpeople are talking about it

(03:13):
because it really is turninginto a thing for people and I
felt bad and I started listeningto sound effects of the park
just to cheer myself up againwith nostalgia because I
realized we are living in a dayat least for me.
I feel like we're living in aday and age in which amusement
comes at quite a cost and kindof unnecessarily so.

(03:37):
Yes, I understand that Disneyis a publicly traded company and
needs to pay off itsshareholders.
I know that there's tons ofemployees that rely upon this
and need to be given fair pay.
However, this is one of thethings that Kelly and I pride
ourselves on with the show isthat we don't just talk about
Disney and we seek outamusements in all ranges of

(04:02):
elaboration and costs, etc.
So today we're going to talkabout the cheapest possible
amusements ever.
And today we're going to talkabout magnet houses, as we're
calling it today.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Magnetic magnet houses.
Yes, they go under a lot ofnames.
They go under mystery spots andvortexes Yep, haunted shacks,
haunted shacks.
They go under a lot of names.
They go under mystery spots andvortexes, yep, haunted shacks,
haunted shacks.
And they all tend to operateunder a fairly similar principle
, though there's variations hereand there.

(04:38):
Oh yeah, and we love them.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Oh, we absolutely love them.
We love them, we love them.
It's really interesting becausethey are part of a phenomenon
that really stems out of the.
We can blame Henry Ford Okay,often we can blame Henry Ford

(05:00):
for this phenomenon because ofpopularizing the automobile as
an affordable method oftransportation for the American
family.
Yeah, it put us into the velvettrap of the commute.
Yeah, but it also allowed usthose of us who were growing
into a middle class it allowedus to go away for the weekend
and take the family for a driveRight, and take the family for a

(05:22):
drive Right.
And when you're driving forlong periods of time in a Model
A or a Model T, you're onlygoing at 35, 40 miles an hour.
Yes, whopping 35.
So it takes a while to getthere.
Yeah, and if anybody's everbeen on a road trip, these days
you get on I-5 from SanFrancisco to LA.
You're zipping down at CHP,you're not listening.

(05:45):
Yeah.
You know, 75, sometimes 90 milesan hour, based off of one of
the things I've seen.
Yeah, but back then you'retraveling and you go do, do, do,
do, do, do.
Okay, are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
This is also the birth of arewe there yet?
Yeah, so, yet, yeah.
So you need places to pee, youneed places to eat and you know

(06:07):
what if you and this is also therise of the roadside booths for
produce, yeah, especiallyduring the Great Depression,
where people are trying to selloff their fruit and say, well, I
can't sell it over here, butyou know, let's make a few extra
bucks by selling it to erranttravelers coming by, yeah, and
some of which became bigbusinesses, like Walter Knott

(06:28):
and his wife, yeah, Selling.
Lest we forget, that wasbasically a roadside attraction
Yep Boys selling boysenberriesand fried chicken.
Yeah, you know amazing, yeah,but they still do.
They absolutely still do, yeah,but that's a different episode.
Yeah, now, this episode isfocused on this rise of the
roadside attraction, and some ofthem were very successful, like

(06:51):
diners that were shaped likecows or bulldogs or oranges,
yeah, or gas stations that wereeven themed with giant chickens
and that kind of stuff.
Giant things, giant concretethings was a thing, and I think
that was because of the rise ofthe concrete industry, which we
could also blame Henry Ford for.
Yes, no, we can't, but I mean,but you know.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
You know, isn't it interesting when you go to
California Adventure in Anaheimand you go to that Cars Land
area, which I think is great,yeah, how much it has used the
iconography of the roadsideattraction.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Absolutely Especially like when you get closer, when
you're going through the linefor the main attraction there,
they actually have a bottlehouse, yes, and they're all oil
bottles.
Yeah, they're not soda bottles,they're genuine oil bottles,
which is back in the day, guys.
They didn't come in cans orplastic containers.

(07:48):
They came in these long neckedbecause you had to push it into
the engine.
Watch a Three Stooges episodewhere they're running a gas
station.
You'll see what they're alwaysbreaking the bottles over their
heads Fill with chocolate syrup.
You know breakaway bottle.
But it's, the house is made outof these bottles, yeah, and it's
like that's great.
And then you've got the foodvendors that are all in giant

(08:10):
traffic cones.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yeah, which looks similar to those old like
quote-unquote teepee motels,Mm-hmm, it looks great.
There's giant wood carvings,which is something you saw in
roadside attractions all thetime.
Looks great.
There's giant wood carvings,which is something you saw in
roadside attractions all thetime.

Speaker 4 (08:30):
In fact, you see giant wood carvings in a lot of
the roadside attractions thatfeature these magnetic houses.
Oh, yes, there is a particularroadside attraction that we will
talk about, but before we getto it you have to drive up
Highway 101 in NorthernCalifornia to get to it on your
way to Oregon.
So my parents live in PortOrford, oregon.
I grew up in Gilroy, but theymoved up there to retire, so to

(08:54):
visit them it's a long trip toget there.
So what do we do?
It's not a straight shot, no,it is not.
But what we do get to do is weget to go to all of these
classic roadside attractions andevery time we stop at least one
, maybe two of them.
And there's one it's the giantcob of corn.

(09:16):
This is from my partner, tanya,so she downloaded an app that
actually helps you map out theseroadside attractions oh neat
and tells you the distancebetween each one.
So you could literally go I'mgoing to go on Route 66.
Yeah, I'm going to go fromChicago to LA or vice versa.
Yeah, how many roadsideattractions are on Route 66?
And it'll go like you couldstop here.

(09:37):
You could stop there, andhere's the distance between all
of them and it tells you wherenearby hotels and eateries are
that are weird.
Yes, so it's like the ultimateweirdo road trip.
App Right, awesome.
Yeah, you know, it's Atlas.
Obscura is the company that putthis out.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I've bumped into thembefore.

Speaker 4 (09:58):
Yeah, they're pretty great.
I do not remember it like mypartner's going to go.
I told you today but, to behonest, we've been talking about
so much stuff I've kind of likeflipped it out of my head.
So I apologize, sweetheart,I've totally forgot the name of
the actual app, but look it upthrough Atlas of.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Sierra.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
There is an app for this and check it out if you're
interested, anyway, and it isinteresting.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
So where your folks live, that's out on the coast.
And the closer you get to thecoast, the more roadside
attractions you're going to runinto Right Like when we go up to
southern Oregon.
But we're not near the coast,you don't see much, you're just
on the highway.
No, the 505 and the 5.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
Oh boy, Lake Shasta again.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
That's nice, that's nice, yeah, that's nice.
But once you're over on thecoast and you're driving north
or south, or if you're startingin California and heading Route
66, you are going to see adog-choking motherload of
roadside attractions.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
Oh, yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
So we used this app that Imentioned aforementioned app and
she logged in.
We got to see it, guys, we gotto see it.
It, we got to see it.
It's the giant cob of corn andI went why here, biggest ball of
twine in Minnesota?
Pretty much yeah, thank youWeird Al.
Yeah, and I went wait a minutewhen.

(11:17):
Why?
Okay, I'm game, let's find out,we get there.
Uh-huh, they had literallycarved a redwood stump.
Uh-huh into it's about it'sabout seven feet tall.
Yeah, and it's a cob of corn,it's a chain, it's chainsaw art
right there surrounded by poisonoak.
Yeah, and you, we just startedlaughing our butts off and

(11:40):
taking pictures in front of itbecause it was like, all this
buildup, like how giant is it?
You know, is this the corn ofCobb that Paul Bunyan used?
You know, to wipe his hiney orsomething Like what is this
thing?
And we get there and it's likewhat?

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Is it the Cobb whose coming was foretold?
Yeah, right.

Speaker 4 (12:03):
That's.
You know, I can imagine thekernels when it pops, bang, it's
a nuclear explosion.
But I got to say I think why Imention it is the giant cob of
corn kind of encapsulates thejoy and the appeal of these
roadside attractions, which isthe building up of expectation.

(12:23):
Yeah, which is the building upof expectation.
And they also have this weirdkind of vibe of old Kearney.
Yes, and in some cases some ofthese roadside attractions were
founded by carnival owners.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, yeah, most of them at this point have been
bought out by people later.
But yeah, you see that a lot.
Yeah, I think we were talkingearlier, before we started
recording, about the Thing onthe coast of Arizona and
California, yeah, which used tobe in California.
I guess they moved it, theymoved the Thing, they moved the

(12:57):
Thing and it was totally set upby a huckster carny guy.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
Oh, yeah, yeah, and that is literally about building
up an expectation and havingsomething that the carny folk
refer to as the blow-off yeah,in which you have to get them
excited.
Yeah, you build, you do what iscalled building the tip.
Yeah, you tell them you'regoing to see the most like.
Here's a great example Mm-hmm.
Ladies and gentlemen, on theinside, it's on the inside.

(13:25):
That's right, ladies andgentlemen, it's the world's
largest bat, that's right.
It's over 12 feet in length.
It can kill a horse with asingle blow.
That's right.
It is over 360 pounds of purebat.
And it's inside and real, rightin front of your eyes.
Just for one thin dime,one-tenth of a dollar, you can
see the world's largest bat, andthey usually have, like they do

(13:48):
, what's called a 10-in-1, wherethey have nine other
attractions.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
See JoJo the dog-faced boy.
See the eyeball kid see HarryWeinbaum, the midget that once
sat in JP Boddy's lap, you know,and it's like okay, and finally
you get in and you see theamazing frog band and it's those
taxidermied frogs withcardboard instruments and

(14:08):
everything Right.
But then they finally get tothe bat.
Yeah, and it is literally a12-foot-long baseball bat carved
out of a telephone pole.
And everything he said is trueit is 12-foot-long, it is over
350 pounds.
If you dropped it on a horse itwould probably kill it in one
blow.

(14:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you saw theworld's largest bat.
You cannot deny it.
Yeah, but the banner that'sbehind him is of this huge
winged bat flying over some poorguy going ah, it's the size of
a Volkswagen flying after thisguy.
And that's what you'reexpecting.
And it's basically dad jokespersonified.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
I remember I lived in Massachusetts for a while
through the late 80s, early 90s,and we would go to the.
You know the states are smallerthere and so instead of the
state fair, you had what wascalled the Big E, which was a
bunch of states all together,and I remember going there and

(15:10):
there was an exhibit.
You know this is just on thetail end of these kind of like
super huckstery exhibits forthis kind of thing, but there
was an exhibit that wassupposedly Bigfoot, frozen in
ice, and outside it was saidprove he's not real.
I love that and you have to doit right, yeah.

(15:31):
So you go in and there was athing that said if you can prove
that he's not real, you win theattraction, you win the exhibit
, and so, and you know, you goin and of course course there's
like all these pictures and it'sreally dark and spooky, because
that is really effective inshows like this, if they can
keep you a little bit off guard.

(15:52):
Oh yeah, anything at the end isgoing to feel like a relief.
Oh yeah, and you go into thisroom and it's dark and spooky
and there's this kind of glassthing on the floor and you can
sort of vaguely see a furryhuman figure in it and that's it
, and then you leave.
But I will tell you this wewent back to the Big E the
following year and it wasn'tthere anymore.

(16:15):
Somebody won it.
I think someone maybe provedthat it wasn't real.

Speaker 4 (16:21):
It was some philosopher.
Yeah, what exactly is reality?
None of us are real.
Actually, it was somephilosopher.
Yeah, what exactly is reality?

Speaker 3 (16:27):
None of us are real Actually it was Alan Watts.

Speaker 4 (16:29):
He probably won it High as a kite yeah, high as a
kite, with his creaky littlemicrophone.
And, of course, when you haveto consider the possibility that
Bigfoot is very, veryretro-Nirvanic.
He doesn't go anywhere.
He doesn't have big feet.
He has a big foot.
So he only goes in onedirection.
If you go only one direction,like the band, you won't go

(16:50):
anywhere.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
like the band speaking of cryptids, we're
gonna come up on a reallystrange cryptid that I'd never
heard of I never.

Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yes, and a little bit about this earlier, and I my my
eyebrow went so high itactually pierced the ceiling,
yeah, but let's talk aboutmagnet spots here.
Let's get back to our storyhere.
So these roadside attractionsyes, the heyday where it really
kicked off was the Depressionand into the 50s, the 50s.
But then, like you said, someof these places started getting

(17:22):
worn down or they got sold forreal estate or whatever.
But there are still a lot ofholdovers from that era out
there.
And this is one of the oldest.
It is one of the mostsatisfying, so much so there's a
cartoon series based off ofthese attractions, is there?

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Gravity Falls.
That's right.
I brought it up to you, didn'tI?
Yeah, the mighty Gravity Fallsman.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
And I've constantly been referred to as Grunkle Stan
.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
So, like you know, and that shows something my kid
introduced me to and I just loveit.
It's just great.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
Oh yeah, it is so fantastic.
Yeah, but it's based off of oneof these magnet houses, as
we're referring to it.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
So, interestingly, I did a little research just going
back to like, where did thesecome from?
Yeah, and as with a lot ofstuff like this, we don't
entirely know, but it seems tobe related to what they call
Ames Ro rooms.
Now are you familiar with these.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
No, please explain.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
Ames rooms.
You've seen one, I'm almostpositive.
Oh yeah, what they are is aroom wherein you can see people
who look like they're radicallydifferent sizes, even though if
you know them outside of theroom they aren't.
Yeah, so one's on one side,one's on the other.
One seems incredibly tall, oneseems incredibly short, and then

(18:49):
if they cross the room to eachother, it looks like their sizes
dramatically change.
And those are called Ames Rooms, and it's an optical and
psychological trick.
What they've done is they'remisshapen.
One side of the room goes way,way farther back than your eye
thinks it does.
The floor is also slanted in away that your eye can't discern

(19:15):
and you know I'm not going to beable to describe it as well as
if anyone goes and wants to look.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
I just did a quick little Google thing here.
So here's these Ames rooms werefirst conceptualized.
I thought this would have beenactually like a Victorian
optical illusion.
It's a lot more modern thanthat.
Yeah, it's actually 1934 byAmerican ophthalmologist
Adelbert Ames Jr.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
So here's an interesting about that.
I was looking at it and I foundthat piece of information as
well.
But then the next place Ilooked it said, oh, adelbert
Ames was a scientist and hefound this in 1940.
And then I looked again and Ifound another page that said he
was a psychologist and hediscovered this in 1934.

(20:03):
And then another one that saidhe was a psychologist who
discovered it in 1946.
Then I found another page I'mnot making this up Another page
that said the Ames Room wasdiscovered by someone named
Jesse Ames in the early 1900s.
Then I found another page we'regoing to rob this bank.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
This is Jesse Ames.
Everybody stand back or I'mgoing to put you into forced
perspective.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Another page that said the Ames room was
discovered by a mathematiciannamed Sir William Ames in 1648.
What, and sometimes I founddifferent information on the
same page.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
It was bizarre.
I think the consensus is thatthis really was a guy named
Aldebert Ames yeah, Not WilliamAmes in 1648, but Aldebert Ames
who sometime between like 35 and45 did some experiments, some
optical experiments, anddiscovered this.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
He closed one eye, opened the other one.
Hey, I got an idea.
Which is better, the left oneor the right one?

Speaker 3 (21:10):
And you will see, in almost every single sort of
gravity shack that we talk about, we'll also have this feature
at some level the size changefeature, where people cross
their sizes change.

Speaker 4 (21:25):
So it all just comes down to.
Edelbert aims to please, and sodoes Louise yeah.
Sorry.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
Ain't that the truth.

Speaker 4 (21:35):
Ain't that the truth here?
Close one eye and open theother.
Get ready for some fun herewith my trompe l'oeil which,
folks, is actually the term thatthis particular illusion goes
into, which means to fool theeye?
Yeah, trompe l'oeil.
I'll tell you my favoriteexperience with trompe l'oeil is
because I have one Looking atme right now.

(21:56):
Yeah, Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
Because, pete, most of you don't know this Pete's
actually two-dimensional, I am.
The fact that he looksthree-dimensional is just a
shading illusion.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
It's all how you see me, yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
But my favorite Trompe-l'oeil illusion was when
I went to Amargosa.
Okay.
And I stayed.
That's very specific.
I stayed.
You've been to Amargosa?
Yeah.
So I stayed in the hotel, theMarta Beckett hotel, where she
has the you know used to beforeshe passed away the little opera
house.
The opera house this might be awhole other discussion, but if

(22:34):
you guys are interested, go lookup Marta Beckett and look up
Amargosa.
It's fascinating.
In the hotel and there isnothing within many, many miles
of this hotel you can walkaround at night and Marta
Beckett did all of theseTrabloil paintings on the walls.
So people will be walkingaround at night with like

(22:55):
flashlights or their phonelights just looking at these
weird little likethree-dimensional paintings on
the walls.
That's so cool, it was reallyneat.
Anyway, I digress.
So the reason that AldebertAmes' Ames Rooms are significant
to the Gravity Shack is thatpart of the Ames Room experience

(23:17):
was that he would build in, atleast on the early versions of
it.
He would build in this littlegroove that would make it look
like a ball was rolling uphill.
Now it's pretty much the exactsame theory as all of these
gravity shacks, because your eyecan't tell that the floor is

(23:37):
slanted.
He can put something in that'sslanted the other way, just less
so that he could then put aball on it and it would look
like it rolled uphill, and thatwas the invention of the slide
whistle.

Speaker 4 (23:48):
sound effect too.
Exactly.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
And that is, as far as we know, the origin of the
gravity shack.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
as far as we know, Right, and of course you know,
these roadside attraction ownersbeing the industrious
entrepreneurs, ie ripoff artistsyou've got to do what you've
got to do.
If you see a good idea and itworks and it's selling tickets,
steal it.
And so there are a lot of thesegravity shacks, magnet houses

(24:23):
we're just going to say gravityshacks because, yeah, you call
them a million things, whatever,yeah, but these particular
attractions are everywherebecause they're fairly
inexpensive to build, prettyeasy, and they're very easy to
make.
And if you have a good storyand a good location, you can
really make a mint.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
Real quick, before we completely get off the Ames
room, two great film examples.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
Wait, you're too tall .
I'm going to go to the otherside here, so that way you're
actually taller.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
You're walking away from the microphone.
No one can hear you.

Speaker 4 (24:55):
I know I'm much bigger now.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
This is getting weirdly Andy Kaufman-like.
So two great films that youwill recognize that they used
the Ames effect for specialeffects, one of which the Lord
of the Rings films.
Oh yeah, the reason that one ofthe ways that they made the
Hobbit characters, even thoughthey are full-sized actors, look

(25:21):
so small was using the Ameseffect.
It was by changing what youwere seeing in the background
Right.
And another one and I love thisone.
They kind of they did a weirdinversion of the Ames effect in
the original Willy Wonka film.
Oh, when he's going down thehall to this very, very, very
small door.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they usedan Ames effect there to get that

(25:43):
weird misproportionate thing.

Speaker 4 (25:44):
There's a third example, too, in Hollywood,
which is just about any filmthat Tom Cruise is in.
Sorry, it's a very, very crassknock at one of the greatest
movie stars.
Don't worry, he'll do somecrazy stunt and land on me in

(26:05):
the middle of my commute.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
He's going to wake up and he's going to be hovering
there like in the first MissionImpossible movie Dun dun dun,
dun, dun.

Speaker 4 (26:13):
Oh God.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Alright, so on to the gravity shacks, yeah, mystery
shacks.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
So there are three within close proximity, or I
should say close.
This is a mouthful Close-ishproximity to where Kelly and I
are recording this, which isVallejo, California.
Yep, and there are three ofnote that we're going to talk
about Now.
For those of you who arelistening, who hear this and you

(26:40):
know of a Gravity Shack,Haunted Shack, Mystery Spot,
whatever, tell us about yourlocal Gravity Shack.
Yeah, We'd love to hear aboutit.
Yeah, Send us pictures, scan apostcard.
We would love to see this andwe would like to encourage this
more with our show, with ourlisteners.
It's like share your memoriesand thoughts on any comment

(27:01):
section, whether this is YouTube, Spotify or whatever.
Absolutely, Because we lovehearing from you and we want to
hear what you guys think and see.
Yeah, but the three that I'mthinking of is one is in Santa
Cruz, California.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah, arguably the most famous one.

Speaker 4 (27:15):
Yeah, I mean to the point where everybody uses the
name.
Basically, as most laymen willrefer to this particular one,
yes, there's another one that isVery close to the
Oregon-California border andthis one was very much an
influence on Gravity Falls yes,which is called Confusion Hill.

(27:37):
Yeah, and there's a third one.
What is the third one?
I'll look for it, just keeptalking.
Oh, no, well, if you don't findthat one, there is a definite
third one, which is actually inKnott's Berry Farm.
Oh, or used to be, it's notthere anymore, right it?
used to be.
I don't think it's thereanymore, or if it is, it's a
shadow of its former self, yeah,but it was a location called

(27:59):
the Haunted Shack, yeah, and ithad an Ames room, it had the
bowling ball going uphill, ithad the water flowing up, you
know holding suspendingsomething up in the air gags.
All that stuff was there, andthey all have similar and yet
very unique takes on thisparticular phenomenon.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah, I wonder if, by the way, the one you were
thinking of might have been theOregon Vortex.

Speaker 4 (28:25):
Yes, that's the one, Old Hill, oregon.
Yes, the Oregon Vortex, that'sexactly the one I was thinking
of.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
But so describe the effect.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
Okay, well, to describe the effect is one thing
.
We're going to do a disservicejust by generalizing here.
Okay, all right.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
So I haven't been to the—.
So what we're going to do isinvite every single member of
the listening audience to comeover, and we're just going to
kind of tilt you sideways andyou'll get it.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
Yeah.
So the effect is that, forwhatever reason that is given to
you as a patron of one of theseattractions, gravity does not
work in the conventional manneranymore.
So water flows uphill and timeslows down, and et cetera, et

(29:12):
cetera.
You weigh less, or a ball rollsuphill, or you get smaller, you
get bigger, you can lean inways that seem impossible.
And that's the most famous isthis trick of an effect which is
actually inspired by a BusterKeaton film I can't remember if

(29:33):
it's called Yukon Ho orsomething like that but he's
trapped inside of a cart that isrolling downhill and he remains
upright the entire time.
There's a famous Fred Astairesequence in which he's dancing
on the ceiling sequence that'ssimilar in which the camera
moves with the room.
So that way, the person who isbeing filmed remains upright,

(29:55):
but the room is spinning Right,and so it's based loosely off of
this effect where, if you aretaking a photograph of somebody
and you're standing in the rightlocation, you can get a picture
of your loved one leaning at aridiculous Michael Jackson
smooth, criminal angle and itlooks great.

(30:15):
Or you can hang off of a barand you're hanging sideways and
that kind of stuff and your hairis going sideways, or you're
pouring water at a weird angle.
It's a great photo op because,along with Henry Ford, you also
had Thomas Edison givingeverybody a camera, yeah, and of
course, the Kodak EastmanCompany coming up with the

(30:38):
Brownie, where everybody had, onthese summer vacations, would
be taking snapshots of theirtrips, and so this was a great
way to capitalize on it and agreat way for these spots to
make money.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
Not only would they sell you snacks, they'd sell you
film, yeah photos, and I'venoticed this is a fairly
consistent thing, even now,where they tend to dissuade you
from taking your own pictures.
Yeah, because they want to takea picture and charge you for it
, right, and there's a couple ofelements to the effect that are

(31:10):
significant.
So the main thing, the mainthing that causes this to work,
it makes things like seem likethey flow uphill, or water flow
uphill, or whatever.
You are leaning farther thanthe lean that you are perceiving
Right, so you are leaning onedirection and the lean of the
room that you are looking at isleaning another direction, but
less so Right, so your mind isinterpreting a kind of level.

(31:37):
That's not true.
The things that kind of makethis work, aside from the actual
just construction of the shack.
But usually when you go intothem, there's a transition
period.
You usually go through eithersome carefully constructed
wooded area or a tunnel orsomething that slowly adjusts

(31:58):
you to the lean.
And it's not that you can'ttell that you're leaning.
You can, it's pretty clear, butyour brain doesn't know how far
.
And the other element of thisis that they have to remove all
visual inconsistencies whenyou're looking at the leaning

(32:19):
room.

Speaker 4 (32:19):
Right, there's very few of these places that have a
window, right?
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yep, yep, because anything you saw that was
straight would screw up theeffect.
There are, interestingly enough, there are gravity hills.
There are actually ones outsidein nature.
Some of them have occurrednaturally, where things just
have grown and positioned injust the right way.
That tricks your brain.

Speaker 4 (32:44):
Absolutely yeah, so I'm not too familiar with the
Santa Cruz one, the mystery spotyeah, I am a bit, so do you
want to talk about that onefirst?

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Yeah, we can kind of talk about that one.
The story behind it is that itwas discovered in 1939, when
surveyors were tasked withbuilding a cabin and their
instruments refused to workproperly on this specific plot
of land.
Now, this is a thing right, Ourinstruments are not working on
this specific plot of land.
Now, this is a thing right, Ourinstruments are not working on
this particular plot of land.

(33:16):
This is a thing you see through.
The stories of a lot of thesegravity spots is that, oh, your
compass will go crazy.
Whether that's usually not true, your compass is usually fine.
There are some places you cango.
Not true, your compass isusually fine.
There are some places you cango.
I believe Crater Lake is one ofthem up in Oregon where there
is something going on that makesit so that your compass doesn't

(33:37):
work very well.
But for the most part they justsay that and they expect that
not many people are going tobring a compass and check.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
Wait a minute.
I want my money back.
My compass is fine.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
But they, you know, while they attempted to this is
the story While they attemptedto figure out why all their
gadgets were malfunctioning,numerous surveyors reported the
feeling of a mysterious forcepushing them over.
There was a strange feeling ofnausea, and they found the area
extremely disorienting.
When the landowners found out,they ditched their plans to

(34:07):
build a cabin and decided tocapitalize on the bizarre vortex
.
So they built the mystery spot.
So a large cabin Used to.
There was a whole spiel.
When you went through themystery spot, oh yeah,
absolutely.
It sounds like they don'talways do that now.
It sounds like they sometimesjust kind of send you through
the room.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
Which you kind of want to go.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no,because it goes to the world's
largest bat.
Yeah, I need to hear about thebat, I need to know that I'm
going to go see this thing thatcan kill a horse.
Yeah, you know, like, build itup, because if you don't, if you
go through, okay, neat, it's aroom on its side.
Who cares it?

Speaker 3 (34:46):
speaks to the gravity shack that I grew up with,
which was at Six Flags OverTexas, the original Six Flags
Park.
Yeah, and it was called CasaMagnetica, wow, yeah, and it is
still there, it's stilloperating.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
The Aztecs had unleashed a new technology.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
And so they.
You know, and there was thiswhole story that went with it.
There was someone named DonJuan, oh God, really.
Yeah, it's in the Spanishsection of.
So Six Flags Over Texas is theonly of the one of the six flags
.
That actually explains why it'ssix flags Right.

(35:29):
So, because there were sixdifferent flags that flew over
the state of Texas, right, soDeep in the heart, right, and
they so the Spain section.
This is where the CasaMagnetica was, and this old
landowner, don Juan, discoveredthese weird properties and he
was kind of an eccentric and soA hunched over old cockroach

(35:54):
named Don Brujaha Brujaha.
Follow the snake.
So he was like a painter and hedidn't really like guests, and
so there was this whole story.
Oh, this is the story.

Speaker 4 (36:13):
This is the story.
I thought this was the actualattraction.
Okay, go ahead.
I'm sorry, I got confused there.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
So they tell you this during the attraction.
It's like, oh, don Juan, he wasa painter and you know he
would—but he was a very slowpainter.
It took a long time and hewould buy all this fruit from
the mountain and the fruit wouldgo bad.
I guess he was a slow eater too, because he was painting.
He was busy Right,no-transcript where a ball would

(36:59):
go into this kind of wooden Idon't even know like gutter, and
it would roll up this series ofwooden gutters and then like
drop onto the table.
Oh, wow, yeah, and it was neatand there's like maybe three
effects in the whole thing,three or four, okay, uh, with
with the narration about thiseccentric old guy's house, and

(37:21):
then that would be it and youwould leave.
So that was what it was likewhen I was growing up.
Okay, after a while I don'tknow what was going on, but when
they got into kind of the late80s, they just just stopped
doing the narration, which waslame, and so people would just
stay in the rooms and kind ofjust roll the ball and then they
would pull the thing and theball would go up the chutes and

(37:43):
it was lame.
But as I understand it, they'venow rewritten the narration.
It's still pretty similar towhat it was originally, and
they're doing it again.

Speaker 4 (37:51):
Oh, that's cool, yeah , because I mean that is
something that these placesreally need to provide.
That buildup and also thatexpectation is it needs the
showmanship.
Yes, if you just have anoptical illusion, big deal.
Optical illusion, big deal.
But when you actually have thisnarration, you're building up

(38:12):
this expectation ooh, we're overa giant engine that was once an
ancient.
You know, ancient astronaut,you know hot rods of the gods
man, you know, or it's, you know, a vortex into hell or whatever
you know.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
It's like that type of waxing eloquent is what
really makes those places,especially if you get tour
guides who inevitably are all ofthe this month at Boardwalk

(38:45):
Times we're writing a lot aboutMuppet Vision, what the loss of
it means to the parks and to usas fans.
We're also discussing Doctorwho on Disney+.
Have we reached the end of thepartnership?
Will the show live on?

Speaker 4 (39:00):
Come check it all out at BoardWalkTimesnet you're
either loggers who gave up on itright, or you bought it off
your brother-in-law.
Yeah, you know, I've heard manya story behind these, like how
people like you wonder who andmost people live near these

(39:24):
things.
Yeah, there's usually like aweird little house off to the
side and that's where they liveand they then they wake up All
right Time to open a gravityshack, and it's always up uphill
.
It's like why are you goingdownhill to open a gravity shack
?

Speaker 3 (39:39):
Like that?

Speaker 4 (39:39):
No, anyway, don't you think it was a gravity shack?
It'd be uphill anyway, but it'dbe easier.
It would just be easier to livedownhill from a gravity shack
If that vortex was real, youknow.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
But anyway, you know what's interesting is the Oregon
Vortex which maybe has the mostelaborate backstory around it.
Oh do tell, I know it's prettycrazy, but one of the pieces of
their backstory is that they area central vortex that attaches
to all the other vortexes.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
Wow yeah.
If that is not a giant FU toall of the other Gravity Shack
owners going.
You're part of our franchise.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
Well, they also claim that the Santa Cruz Mystery
Spot was stolen from them, thatit was actually an exact copy of
them.
Wow, so there's some bitterness, but they do crazy stuff.
You can go buy books by theimaginary discoverer of the

(40:43):
vortex about his scientificdiscoveries.
They're cool.

Speaker 4 (40:49):
And where is the Oregon Vortex located?
It's in Gold.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
Hill, oregon.
Okay, which is, I believe up,past Grants Pass, I think.
Okay, I've never been there,okay, but like central-ish
Oregon.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
Time to make a trip.
Yeah, central Oregon Okay,that's worth a shot.
So, further south, we should goto probably one of the most
eccentric of these, yeah, somuch so that a lot of people
actually view this as like oneof the main inspirations not the
only one, but one of the maininspirations for Gravity Falls,
yeah, which is Confusion Hill.
Confusion Hill, Not too farfrom the Bigfoot Museum, which

(41:29):
isn't much of a museum, nooffense, guys, but they have
more redwood carved bears thanthey do have Bigfoot stuff.
Yeah, I was like come on, guys,it's Bigfoot, you can make
anything up, just be clever.
It's fine.
Oh, and you know what?
The Bigfoot Museum is for sale,is it?
Currently it's for sale.

(41:50):
So I kind of went ooh, kellyand I should open up our own
Bigfoot museum.

Speaker 3 (41:54):
We're getting about to Bigfoot museum age right.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
Yeah, we're almost there.
I need to find a diner waitressto settle down.
I haven't gone through my bikerphase yet, so I'm going to have
to get through that, but anyway.
Yeah, let's see if we canaccelerate, accelerate.
But I mean come on, guys, likeput in an animatronic Bigfoot,
make this.
You know it's Bigfoot.
You know we found a Bigfootnest.
You know these are Bigfootturds.

(42:18):
You know, check out theseBigfoot turds over here.
Anyway, just sell shoes thatare bigger than size 12.
Yeah, you know it's like theultimate, big and tall for just
shoes, you know, pumps that aresize 16, men's, you know, anyway
.
But not too far is ConfusionHill, and when you pull into
Confusion Hill it is buried deepwithin the redwoods.

(42:42):
It's kind of like tucked away alittle bit, and I love this
place for its eccentricity.
And I love this place for itseccentricity.
It's run by some of the mostbitter human beings I've ever
met in my life.
And yet the location is themost charming, like it's a great
respite from driving throughthe California redwoods.

(43:04):
And you're like I got to go tothe bathroom, I need something
to.
You know, the sun's comingthrough and that flashing of the
sun kind of gets to my eyesevery once in a while.
It's like I need a break, yeah,and my dog needs to take a leak
.
So let's go for a little walk,you know.
And you go to confusion hilland the first thing you notice
are chipmunks.
Yeah, everywhere.
And Kelly has a story aboutthese specific chipmunks.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
So they, their lore is so fascinating and they've
invented, they've created thisthing they call the chipalope.
Oh yeah, the chipalopes.
It's supposedly elusive, sohard to find but the chipalope

(43:48):
is as opposed to the commonchipalope.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
Yes, the common chipalope, the elusive chipalope
, the red-crested chipalope.
As opposed to the commonchipalope.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yes, the common chipalope, the elusive chipalope
, yeah, the elusive chipalope,the red-crested chipalope.
He's half chipmunk, halfantelope.

Speaker 4 (44:04):
Okay, so let's back up for a minute For that type of
genetic merging yes, somewhereout there, probably in an Ames
room.
Yes, in Ames illusion.
Yeah, a chipmunk wandered inand went that is the shortest

(44:25):
antelope I've ever seen in mylife, and thus the mating
process occurred in order tocreate the chipalope.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
The Ames room made them almost the same size when
they stood in the middle of theroom.

Speaker 4 (44:42):
Yeah, was he that?
Or was Henry Ford inventing the12-foot ladder for chipmunks?
Alvin Simon, what the hell?
Theodore Alvin, Get off thatantelope.
You're a king, I just want anantelope.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
So I love this.
I read this on their site thepeople that started the—or that
owned Confusion Hill at leastearly on Campbell Brothers oh
yes, they said that there was amagical accident that combined
two happy male and femaleantelope and chipmunk couples.

Speaker 4 (45:25):
Okay, hold on a second, because that just got
even creepier than what I cameup with.
You're not going to let thatone just slide by.
Huh yeah, no, that's like a badAlbert Brooks movie.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
Yes, the first chipalope, the male version.
His name was Chester I, and hegained self-awareness and
realized that he was a rarespecies and has hidden away from
humans ever since.
My God, look at me.

Speaker 4 (45:57):
I'm so small, yet these prongs are so big.
I am very aware I am Chester meroar or don't.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
I love their literature.
For centuries, people havecalled such things as magnetism
and gravity laws of nature hey,what's up, baby?

Speaker 4 (46:32):
You know you're related to deer and I'm related
to a squirrel and it's kind of anatural mating.
So so Let me climb them antlersa little bit.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
Jeez.
So the confusion is sofascinating, and I gather that
they're still doing a full-onnarration show with people.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Yeah, they're also.
This is interesting they areboth a gravity shack and a

(47:06):
gravity hill.
Oh yeah, so they have a naturalone outside.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
Yes, they do.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah, and a gravity hill?
Oh yeah, so they have a naturalone outside?
Yes, they do.

Speaker 4 (47:14):
Yeah, and I don't recall if they have an Ames area
.
They do.
They have an Ames room.
They also have a switchbackrailroad Right.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
Yeah, which I supposedly.
It's like really steep like amountain climbing railroad.

Speaker 4 (47:27):
Yeah, so you get in this thing thing and this crusty
old guy.
Yeah, again, see part aboutbikers.
Yes, this guy was super cool,though, no, no shade to him.
Actually he was really I cannotremember his name and, dude,
you were amazing.
I like I'm no, no dig, no shame, no, no foul.
Yeah, you were awesome becausehe was one of the first that I

(47:48):
ever encountered, first peoplethat gave you the full narration
, gave you the full bag of chipsand everything.
That's awesome.
Welcome aboard.
Let me explain the Vortex toyou.
And he just sold it and I'm onthis just smiling like an idiot
going.
This is great.
And my kid is looking at megoing.
Are you insane?

Speaker 3 (48:08):
This is like when I make people go on the cave train
in Santa Cruz.

Speaker 4 (48:13):
This is entertainment .
Someone here is a cheat.
Yeah, it was, it was bad, butno, it was great.
And what it is?
Yeah, the train is a loggingstyle train to to transport
workers.
Loggers up the hill at a rapidpace.
Rather than going the long way,it literally goes.
Switch back up loggers up thehill at a rapid pace Rather than
going the long way.
It literally goes.
Switch back up, goes a reverse,switches back around, switches

(48:36):
back up and back and forth.
It kind of zigzags up the hilland then it travels around
through these little redwoodswhere they've set up these
little dioramas, and you gothrough the chipalope tree where
there's a chipalope lookingdown and it's Chester above you.
Chester, I.
Chester I looking down upon youas you go through this

(48:56):
hollowed-out redwood that thetrain has gone through and you
know, and he's giving you allthe spiel and tons of I mean
it's northern, northernmostCalifornia, so lots of rusty
used farm equipment and loggingequipment everywhere.
You know this is our display ofunused chainsaws.

(49:18):
You know, you're like, okay,whatever, it's cool, man,
because they had a hot saw therewhere, like, the blade is, you
know, six foot long.
You're like, oh, I want to usethat chainsaw, you know, and
then you go up, up and then youcome back down, but it's like an
hour long ride and dang it.
I was satisfied with my ticketprice.
I'm like I'm never going to seea show like this again.

(49:41):
This guy is so eccentric and sogood at selling it.
Yeah, he gets an A plus for hiseffort on this, even though
what you actually see you'relike really, yeah, okay, but you
know what he sells it You'relike I don't care, this is great
.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
That's what you want.
You want the hucksterism?
Totally yeah, I want to be.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
I don't want to be fooled when I go to a gravity
shack.
Yeah, I want to get conned.
Yeah, like, like I really do,like I walk into these things
going bring it.
I'm such a skeptic and I knowhow a lot of these things work,
so sell it to me Like just makeme go for a minute and go like,
yeah, okay, you almost got mewith that one, you get A plus on
that one, and yeah, so theyhave one of the sculptures.

(50:24):
It's a giant faucet with thewaters coming out of it and it's
suspended over the tub of water.
They have a redwood totem polethat was made in 1982 or
something like that.
They have a little lady wholived in a shoe thingy that you
know photo op for little kids toclimb on.
I got a picture of my dog in it, because toad.

(50:45):
And then what else?
Yeah, they've got a littledisplay on Chipolopes, yeah.
And then when you get back toyour car, they no longer do what
they did all the way up intothe mid-90s yeah, almost all of
these places.
One of the great mysteries ofthese gravity shacks is no one

(51:11):
knows where they come from, noone knows how they got there.
But when you leave your car,there's nothing on your bumper.
But when you get back, whetheryou want it there or not,
whether you ask for it or not,someone has attached with
bailing wire, a waterproof withbailing wire, a waterproof,
tough as hell sign in brightyellow, bright orange or bright

(51:35):
pink.
Yeah, I just survived gravityLike it's part of your ticket
price.
Whether you went there just touse the bathroom or not.
If you step in for more than 10minutes, it just pops up on
your car and you go like, wait aminute.
How did I suddenly become ashill for you?
Yeah, because that's the deal.

(51:56):
That's the deal you get stampedwith it.
Now they will leave a coupon orsomething on there.
Yeah, I kind of miss thevandalism part.
Yeah, I kind of miss thevandalism aspect of like bailing
wire and hard.
It's like real estate signplastic that they would put
these things on.
Yeah, and you used to see themall over the place.
You'd be driving down the coastand somebody's got one of those

(52:17):
things on the back of their RV.
Yeah, you could always tell thepeople who loved them because
they were faded and like I leftit on forever.

Speaker 3 (52:23):
Yeah, you know it's great Well, and I mean you know
you travel up and down the fivefrom Northern California down to
LA.
You are going to see a ton ofcars with mystery spot bumpers
Because you know we passed by it.
Yeah, it's a thing, it's amystery spot.

Speaker 4 (52:40):
You got to go, you know.
And the same thing withConfusion Hill.
Yeah, and Confusion Hill hassome of the greatest t-shirts
ever.
Yeah, yeah, when they've got,like you know, I've got about
five of these things because Ijust, I go, I stop, I'm a total
sucker for it.
Yeah, it's a very 1950s styledesign with question marks.
What's up with Confusion Hilland his eyeball in the center of

(53:01):
your chest, like looking out?

Speaker 3 (53:03):
Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 4 (53:04):
Yeah, I mean, and that t-shirt was one of the you
know the inspirations for Bill,the infamous intergalactic, you
know interdimensional being thatterrorizes Grunkle Stan and his
family in Gravity Falls.
And if you're careful you canactually spot Bill at the
Confusion Hill, yeah, so let'stalk about the Cypher Hunt.

(53:27):
Yes, the great Cypher Hunt, thegreat Cypher.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
Hunt.
So, everyone, if you haven'twatched Gravity Falls, you
should, it's great.
Yes, and again, thank you.
Haven't watched Gravity Falls,you should, it's great.
And again, thank you, penn, forintroducing me to that and
explaining to me about theCypher Hunt.
So right around the time thatGravity Falls was I believe it
had already been canceled, so itwas off the air.
The creator of the show decided, for whatever reason, that he

(53:51):
was going to do this massivescavenger hunt to find what
turned out to be a statue of thecharacter Bill.
Bill Cipher Yep, bill Cipher isa sentient triangle based on
David Lynch.

(54:12):
They actually tried to getDavid Lynch to do the voice and
he wouldn't do it.
God, what a pity.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
Yeah, that would have been great.
A plea with a smoker's cough.
It would have been great, sogreat Anyway.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
So this thing was crazy and I actually spent some
time just writing down all ofthe places that there were clues
.
There were clues.
So it starts in St Petersburg,florida, russia.
What In Russia?
Yeah, the Kazan Cathedral.
The next clue was in Tokyo, atthe Kanda Shrine.

(54:46):
Okay.
So this is I'm trying toremember the name right now Alex
Hirsch.
Is that the creator?
Yeah, yeah, and so he at thatpoint is in a relationship with
Dana Terrace, who's the creatorof the Owl House.

(55:06):
Just a little bit later, theytraveled around for a while and
I gather they put some cluesdown.
So, st Petersburg, russia, theKazan Cathedral.
Then there's a clue in Tokyo,the Kanda Shrine.
The next clue is at theShriner's Temple in Atlanta,
georgia.
Next clue is at Griffith Parkin LA, okay.
Then the California Instituteof the Arts in Santa Clarita

(55:31):
Okay, a tree stump on a cornerin Piedmont, california, which
is, you know, 20 minutes fromhere, yeah.
Then back to LA, a post officebox, a street corner in Portland
, okay, and this is in.
I'm reading them in order, soyou have to go.
Wow.
The next clue was at ConfusionHill in Piercy, california.

(55:54):
The next one was on a telephonepole, actually by a pair of
telephone poles, in Amity,oregon.

Speaker 4 (56:01):
Okay, which is not open during Fourth of July.
Oh right, sorry.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
I've often this is just a weird trivia thing.
There's a I don't know ifyou've watched the Owl House,
but it's great.
There's a very substantialminor character in it named
Amity Nice.
That is kind of a fan favoritecharacter and I was like and
Dana Terrace was involved inthis, and I was like, oh, I
wonder if there's a connectionthere, Nice, Anyway, just me.

Speaker 4 (56:29):
Okay, so anyway in.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
Amity, yeah, anyway, just me, okay.
So, anyway, in Amity, yeah, soon a pair of telephone poles,
okay.
Then the next one's in Turner,oregon, at the Enchanted Forest
Amusement Park.
Okay, the next one is inReedsport, oregon, and it was
near the Reedsport CommunityCharter School.
Oh, I'm sorry, the Turner, theEnchanted Forest one was the
last clue.
The first one was the last clue.

(56:51):
The final piece of this was inReedsport, oregon, which is
where they found a statue ofBill Cipher.
Wow, now, there's someinteresting things about this.
There's a statue there andthere was a buried treasure
chest under the statue.
And people did solve theseclues.

(57:12):
Occasionally the creators ofthe show would give them a
little bit of help, but for themost part they figured it out,
and these were not easy, like ifyou go read about it or there's
a documentary about this.
These were complicated cluesusing really advanced cipher
techniques.
Pretty crazy stuff.
Yeah, cipher techniques, prettycrazy stuff.
That said, the statue was foundbefore the scavenger hunt

(57:38):
started, because this guy hisname was Bradley Pick, okay, and
he found the statue eight daysbefore the start of the cipher
hunt.
He did not know anything aboutthe show, right?
He just stumbled on it, hey lookat this Triangle guy with an
eyeball.

Speaker 4 (57:58):
I think it was buried and he just found it dug it up
and he posted a picture onlineof the statue.
Don't trust those old guys withmetal detectors, folks, Right?
Hey, look at this.
I found a watch.
What the heck is this?
So it ended up.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
He was a pretty cool guy.
He posted a picture on somesocial media site, yeah, and the
creator of the show found outabout it, reached out to him and
said please could you take thatdown.
He paid him like a hundredbucks.
He said could you please takethis down?
This is what I'm trying to do.

(58:35):
And so and the guy was like,yeah, totally, I'll do it for
you.
So then, a little bit later, asthe hunt was going on one of the
things that I hope I'm notgetting his name wrong, alex
Hirsch, I think, but if not,I'll correct it in the notes he
realized that he had wanted toput a little USB key in the

(58:57):
final treasure chest that wasgoing to have a link to Grunkle
Stan's singing, and it was.
I don't remember what it was,it was something like I'll be
seeing you, or something Sure.
And he had forgotten to put itin the treasure chest.
Oh no.
So the creator of the showcalled up this guy, bradley Pick

(59:18):
, and said hey, could you helpme out, since you live there.
And so he sent him the stuff.
The guy put it on a USB port,dug up the treasure chest, put
it in there.
But one of the things he didwas because he wanted to prove
that he had found this beforeanybody else and there was all
these like fake pieces of paper,fake money, all this stuff in

(59:41):
there.
So he wrote his name, bradleyPick, on a bunch of the fake
money before he reburied it justto prove that he had actually
found it beforehand, but Ithought it was actually he was
being pretty cool about it.

Speaker 4 (59:57):
That's pretty cool.
So this episode is dedicated toBradley Pick.
Bradley Pick, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
And he.
So the reason that this yes,one of the clues was actually at
Confusion Hill, but the statuewas not found at Confusion Hill.
No, but the statue was notfound at Confusion Hill, but it
turned out that the place thestatue was found, there was some
confusion about who actuallyowned the land.
They thought they had gottenpermission from the right person

(01:00:22):
.
Someone else came in and saidwhat are you doing, putting this
weird triangle on my land?
So there ended up being kind ofa legal battle.
So there ended up being kind ofa legal battle and the Gravity
Falls.
People came in and said, hey,don't worry about it.
So they took Bill and took himback to Confusion Hill, yes, and

(01:00:46):
put him there, him and thetreasure chest.
Supposedly, if you go toConfusion Hill like Bill's, just
there you can see him.
Oh yeah, but if you want to,you can ask them to see the
treasure.
That's cool.
And they keep it behind thecounter.
Yeah, that's cool, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
Yeah, because when I was there fairly recently, there
were a couple people there, onewho were cosplaying, and one
was this girl who was cosplayingas Bill that's awesome.
And another one was cosplayingas Grunkle Stan.
He had the fez and the wholething Nice and they were taking
pictures, but they were there tosee the statue, yeah.
And that's when I found outabout Bill and I was like, okay,

(01:01:22):
that's pretty cool.

Speaker 5 (01:01:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
So yeah, confusion Hill is probably one of the more
eccentric places.
It's very elaborate.
It's very elaborate Probably notas elaborate as the Vortex that
has published books and soforth, right, yeah, but it's a
great place to get a hot dog,get a soda and chill out from a
long road trip.
It does what it's supposed todo.
It's supposed to chill you outand, if you're paying attention,

(01:01:45):
if you're there on weekends,especially during the spring and
the summertime, some of thelocals have a little fruit stand
nearby.
Yeah, please support them ifyou go to Confusion Hill,
absolutely.
They sell fabulous plums andnectarines and they're very nice
people.
So that's a little plug forsome of the locals.
I want to talk really brieflyabout the Haunted Shack.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
Okay, yeah, yeah, At Knott's Berry Farm.
Yeah, I want to hear about thisbecause I never experienced it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
Okay.
So the Haunted Shack I meanwe're going to do an episode on
Knott's Berry Farm, so I don'twant to go too much into the
whole backstory of the park etc.
But this is now when it wasinstalled was fairly early,
probably in the 40s or the 50s,and I mean Knott's had already

(01:02:29):
been a staple from theDepression on.
Yeah, I mean Knott's hadalready been a staple from the
Depression on.
Yeah, but because there were somany people going to it just to
get boysenberry jelly andbecause Walter Knott invented
the boysenberry, yeah, they bredthe boysenberry there, yep,
named after his buddy, mr Boysen, mm-hmm.
And then to get some MrsKnott's chicken Yep, famous

(01:02:52):
chicken, by the way.
Yes, her's chicken, famouschicken, by the way, her famous
chicken.
And, believe me, mrs Knott wasvery, very sick of Walter coming
in and going hey, you know what?
Chicken butt.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
Oh God, I do that to my kid all the time.

Speaker 4 (01:03:09):
I just bought a t-shirt today with that on there
.
It says you know what?
And she says guess what?
It's this picture of chicken.
Looking at you like give me abreak.
Anyway, they started at you know, walter had purchased an entire
ghost town, yeah, and installedit in his right near his fruit
stand slash kitchen.
Yeah, this is not his chicken.

(01:03:30):
And then they realized there'smore and more people coming,
more and more people coming tosee this eccentric little
roadside stop, and so theyactually started charging
admission to get in.
And that's when they startedhaving to add more actual
attractions and they starteddipping into the pool of
roadside attractionalia withobvious ones.

(01:03:51):
One was gold panning, yeah,where you got the big trough
which Mr Knott himself,throughout his entire life,
every single day, would load thegold into the gold panning
attraction until he died.
Wow, that was a great littletouch.
He was like I'm going to addthe gold so that way, I know, I
guarantee that kids have achance to get some gold.

(01:04:13):
So here it is gold dust.
I mean, that's pretty cool.
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah, so right near the goldpanning was the haunted shack.
And the haunted shack isliterally what it is it's a
creepy old Western shack,probably one of the buildings
from the ghost town that hepurchased, yeah, and there was a

(01:04:35):
lot of the same type of shtick,only this time, this being the
50s, they're tapping in more,you know, late 40s, early 50s
they're tapping into the Westernas popularity.
So, and Walter Knott wasfascinated by Native American
cultures, mm-hmm, and he was acollector of a lot of artifacts,
yeah, by Native Americancultures, and he was a collector
of a lot of artifacts.

(01:04:55):
So they tended to tie it inwith a lot more Native American
symbolism and mysticism.
Right, there's spirit animalsthat are causing it, or the
ancient spirits of thisparticular tribe are causing
this.
Right, and it had a lot of thesame.
It had Ames Room, it had theball rolling uphill, it had the
lean-to room, it had all of thesame gags, yeah.

(01:05:18):
But my favorite part was theexit.
Yeah, and here's why Becausethe exit was this kind of
switchback pathway in which youwalk towards this jail, a little
miniature jail, and on theinside was a dummy or a skeleton
in Western clothes, right, andit would talk was a dummy or a
skeleton in Western clothes,right, and it would talk to you,
uh-huh, and it would be like hithere, peter.

(01:05:39):
What are you doing here today?
I've been in here since 1847.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
Would it actually use your name?

Speaker 4 (01:05:45):
Yeah, it would actually use your name and what
it was.
It was the people at the ticketbooth that had a mirror, and so
your mom or dad would go hisname's Billy.
Hi there, billy, how are youtoday?
Just remember to brush yourteeth.
You're going to wind up, justlike me, without none.
You know that kind of stuff,and when you're a kid and you

(01:06:12):
got this skeleton or a dummytalking to you, it's like how
did he know?
My awesome, I know everything,even though I'm stuck in here.
You know it's dumb, but yeah,even Walter Knott, who I would
actually argue is the king ofthe roadside attraction.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
Well, his is certainly the roadside
attraction that blew up thebiggest.

Speaker 4 (01:06:31):
Yeah, it was the mouse that roared.
It really like it may not havebeen the most original as far as
like stuff like the gravityshacks and stuff.
But it really took off, yeah,and a lot of that just became
that it was a family-runbusiness that just put a lot of
heart into it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
Yeah, Well, you know, it's interesting to me like and
we'll certainly go into Knott'sa lot later oh yeah, and Walter
Knott can be a very problematicperson in a lot of ways.
Oh yeah, but it is interestingto me that he and Walt Disney
maintained a friendship for hisentire life.
There was never any ill willabout the competition with each

(01:07:11):
other.
They would take out ads in thepaper to compliment each other.
Oh yeah, it was strange, thetwo waltz.
Yeah, Disney would very muchadmit he would go over to see
what Knott's Berry Farm wasdoing and take some of the ideas
.

Speaker 4 (01:07:26):
The Calico Mine Train is a fabulous example of this.
You know, the Calico mine train, which we'll again, we'll talk
about in a later show, yeah, wasvery much an inspiration for
you know, was it Journey ThroughNature's Wonderland?
Yeah right, you know, no, I'mnot going to do the prospector
right now.
You're holding off, I'm holdingoff, I'm trying.
I've already done him.
He's somewhere in there in thisepisode.

(01:07:46):
You have to.
That's our scavenger hunt Findthe prospector, find the
prospector in each episode,anyway.
So yeah, so we've reached apoint, I think in our episode
now that we reach in all of ourshows.
And if you've never heard, theshow.

Speaker 5 (01:08:02):
Before.

Speaker 4 (01:08:02):
Please go back to our episodes, especially the one
about the golden horseshoe.
Okay, my rant is over.
It's actually a really goodepisode, guys, come on.
So anyway, if you're listening,if you got me through this
episode, you can make it throughthe Golden Horseshoe, because
it's a better episode than thisone.

Speaker 3 (01:08:18):
This episode will like toughen you up and that
one's just going to be a breeze.

Speaker 4 (01:08:23):
Yeah, it'll build up a huge podcast, callus Callus,
yeah, but anyway.
So this is the part of our showin which we ignore all thoughts
of safety planning and budgetand schedule and do a plus-up in
which Kelly and I concoct newways on how to improve or
revitalize an attraction thatwe've talked about.

(01:08:44):
Yeah, and this being, Iactually consider myself to be
the sidekick of the show, so I'mgoing to let our main host of
the show You're the sidekick,I'm the sidekick.
Oh, I think I'm going to letour main host of the show You're
the sidekick, I'm the sidekick.

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
Oh, I think you're the gold.
You're what people come backfor.
I doubt that tremendously.
I'm just like Ed McMahon overhere.
Man, let's see.

Speaker 4 (01:09:06):
Let's get the great Carshoni out here with the
envelope.
Let's see.
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
Chipalopes hot dog counters and a giant corn cob.

Speaker 4 (01:09:20):
Chipalopes, hot dog counters and a giant corn cob.
What are three things thatPeter Overstreet is going to
talk about again and again?
No, I'm not Johnny, I swear toGod.
I'm more like Doc Severin, youknow.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
If you're Doc Severin , then I'm Tommy Newsome.

Speaker 5 (01:09:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
So anyway, Kelly, what's?

Speaker 4 (01:09:41):
your plus up for Gravity Shacks.

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
It's tough because this is the first time we've
done well.
It's not the first time we'vedone a collection of things, but
in this way it is so for me.
I mourn the passing of theroadside attraction.
There's less and less all thetime, Just weirdo Americana,
Like we need more of it.
I think it unifies us as apeople.
The weirder the crap that yourun into on the highway

(01:10:09):
Celebrating our eccentricity isa thing that we can kind of all
agree on, yes, and if you can'tagree on that, you suck as an
American.

Speaker 4 (01:10:18):
I think, well, I think the roadside attraction
has pretty much been replaced byshorts on Instagram, yeah.
Where you flip through and it'slike, oh, look at that weird
guy who's putting plungers onhis nipples and dancing around,
or, and dancing around, or.
You know, I'll send that to myfriend.
You know who are you watchingon Instagram?
My friend, you don't want toknow what I've got on my Insta

(01:10:38):
feed.
We'll let it go.
Let me tell you something.
Oh, yeah, anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
But so I think it's sad we're seeing less and less
of this of the roadsideattraction.
What I would like to see here'smy plus up I think there should
be Arts Council funding forroadside attractions.
I think the National Endowmentfor the Arts should pay a
certain amount to small roadsideattraction developers,

(01:11:05):
inventors, whack jobs Becausethey don't cost much.
It's not like you're funding atheater.

Speaker 4 (01:11:16):
Or a public radio station, or a public radio
station which you should fund.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):
But, like you know, pop $10,000 to Cletus, the
slack-jawed yokel in Utah whowants to put up his own gravity
shack.

Speaker 4 (01:11:31):
Or even Enos, the tight-jawed yokel.

Speaker 3 (01:11:33):
Yes, I mean like Because he's got braces
Invisaligns.

Speaker 4 (01:11:36):
But I decided to go the hard way.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
Anyone find me a porcelain crowbar.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
I'm telling you you should see what they're going to
do with my goiter.

Speaker 5 (01:11:52):
Anyway, anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:11:59):
That got gross fast.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
That's my plus.
Up Is actual public funding forroadside attractions.
That's what I want.
The giant peach pit maze.
I don't care Anything, the thatwe can get the you know the
giant peach pit maze.
I don't care Anything.
The weirder the better.

Speaker 4 (01:12:17):
Right, I love it.
Okay, so my plus up kind ofties in a little bit to yours,
but it expands upon theeccentric artists of the world,
in which there are communitiesthat are losing their eccentric
centers for artists.
Yeah, there are communitiesthat started off as eccentric

(01:12:38):
artists enclaves and have beengentrified to the point where
they are now giant chic yuppiecommunities.
Yeah, places like Mill Valleyor Santa Cruz at one time was a
hub of weirdness.
You still find elements of itthere.
Yeah, I mean, there's littlepockets, but it's not really not
what it once was.
Monterey used to be aneccentric world and now it's not

(01:13:01):
so much anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
Yeah, bolinas is kind of hanging in there.

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
Yeah, oh, yeah.
But you go to Portland and allthese other places where you
expect that type of eccentricityand it's just not there.
Portland and all these otherplaces where you expect that
type of eccentricity, and it'sjust not there.
Even San Francisco, like in theHaight, yeah, it is really more
of a tourist attraction of whatit once was, yeah, than what it
actually was, yeah, yeah, likeeven eight years ago, it's a lot
more eccentric than what it isnow.

(01:13:26):
Oh, yeah, I think that collegesthat run theater programs and
other art programs yeah, sowe're going to that.
Colleges that run theaterprograms and other art programs,
so we're going to tie intocolleges by tying it into the
Arts Council.
I think they should actuallyoffer paid internships and

(01:13:46):
on-site internships andbasically each one of these
places should have a smallcabinet, so it's like a summer
camp, yeah, and you send kidswho are into marketing classes,
people who are in theaterclasses, improv and stagecraft
artists and, like you say,inventors, and use these as a

(01:14:09):
way to showcase new talent ofcollege students who are, like,
I'm going to be a big improvartist.
Okay, here's the basicstructure of the script Sell it,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sell this and you get to be onsite for three or four weeks.
You've got a summer internshipworking these places, yeah, and
so the way people go oh, you'vegot to go during the summer,

(01:14:30):
yeah, or during the springbecause there's season Like go,
oh, you got to go during thesummer because, or during the
spring because there's seasonlike they actually set up like a
whole, like there's a wholestoryline built so during this.
A little bit frankly, like whatEvermore was trying to do, where
in the wintertime the vortexchanges into the winter vortex
and it's like Santa Claus popsout, you know, and you have

(01:14:51):
seasonal internships that youdon't really have to.
You know what you're doing isyou're allowing these kids to
come out and make yourattraction better and in those
off times you're coasting ontheir efforts.
Yeah, and that's theunderstanding.
Like the students know you'regoing to do it, like they're not
going to walk away going.
They ripped me off.
It's like that's part of thedeal here.
Yeah, yeah, but the studentsget a chance to have their first

(01:15:11):
opportunity to have support,encouragement, a little bit of a
budget, yeah, but also have thefree agency to try.
Like it's so dang weird, yeah,roll with it, yeah, just do
something that's so bizarre.
That makes our gravity pit comeout better than their gravity

(01:15:35):
pit.

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
Yeah, yeah, so they have a little bit of restraint,
like you're working in thisfield, but then go for it, right
.

Speaker 4 (01:15:47):
And then what that does?
It's almost like, yeah, it'slike a college summer camp, or
high school kids could do thistoo, like the STEM programs.
And then it's like a collegesummer camp or high school kids
could do this too yeah, like theSTEM programs.
And then it's like an eccentricsummer camp, like it's a summer
camp where kids would actuallygo.
No, this is actually prettycool and you are working a job,
but you're inhabiting a worldwhere you're like yeah, I'm
weird, man McGee, and I'm goingto take you up the switchback

(01:16:08):
railroad.
Hi, everybody back railroad Hieverybody, and it's these
teenagers that are just livingthis bizarre little alternate
reality of running these mysteryspots and building a world that
is small, simple and notnecessarily chip-a-lope free.
Right, you should havechip-a-lope attacks.
Yeah, all of a sudden, achip-a-lope will you have, like

(01:16:33):
a quint?
Y'all know me, know how I earna living.
I'll catch this chipalope foryou, but it ain't easy.
Those are bad little rodentsout there.
Trust me, they'll hit you inthe back of the head with a
ladder that they were mountingthose antelope with.
Mr Hooper, get away from thatchipalope.
You know it'll bite your headright off.
Chief, start putting out thechum line.

(01:16:55):
Guy's like throwing peanuts outof the back of his car, these
little chipalopes.
That's a six-incher, seveninches, three tons of them.
He's very smart, but he's verydumb.

Speaker 3 (01:17:14):
Can you measure the teeth on that one?

Speaker 4 (01:17:16):
Now I actually want to do this Now on my next road
trip.
I want to get an outfit likeQuince from Jaws and go on a
chip-a-lope hunt.
Yeah, confusion Hill.
Yeah, go to Confusion Hill.
We're looking for those badchip-a-lopes.
It's not like when I was on theUSS Indianapolis, we were

(01:17:36):
shipping a bunch of chip-a-lopesin the back of the Indianapolis
and two torpedoes took us down.
Chief Woke up with all theselittle puncture holes around me,
ankles and me calves from thoselittle buggers.

Speaker 3 (01:17:49):
There's a venom you never get out.

Speaker 4 (01:17:52):
That's true.
Come over here, I'll crush anempty beer can Wow, I like yours
I love the fact that, treatingit as an art form, because I do
believe it is.
I do too, and some people viewit as carny trash, but it's like
the carnival.
That gaffe is an art formTotally.

(01:18:12):
And same thing with theseroadside attractions.
I'm right there with you.

Speaker 3 (01:18:16):
You know, just because something might be cheap
or just because something mightbe a con game, doesn't mean
it's not art.
Oh yeah, and ask a professionalwrestler.

Speaker 4 (01:18:26):
Ask anybody who's bought a ticket for Disneyland
recently.

Speaker 3 (01:18:29):
I don't know about cheap.
Oh yeah, let's go and look forchipalopes, all right?

Speaker 4 (01:18:37):
Quentin, randy Macho man Savage on a chipalope hunt.
We can do this, folks.
All you Randy Macho man Savagecosplayers, meet me at Confusion
Hill.
We'll have a ball, all right.
So, anyway, I think that wrapsup our first episode.
I'm being stared at by a coupleof chipmunks right now.
They're like glaring at me,shut up already Making us

(01:19:01):
nervous.
Yeah, so anyway, thanks forjoining us.
I'm Peter Overstreet and I'mKelly McGovern, and you've been
listening to the Lowdown on thePlus Up.

Speaker 3 (01:19:28):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the
Lowdown on the Plus Up.
If you have, please tell yourfriends where you found us, and
if you haven't, we can pretendthis never happened and need not
speak of it again.
For a lot more thoughts ontheme parks and related stuff,
check out my writing forBoardwalk Times at
boardwalktimesnet.
Feel free to reach out to Peteand I at Lowdown on the Plus Up
on Blue Sky, Mastodon, instagramand all the other socials, or

(01:19:52):
you can send us a messagedirectly at comments at
lowdown-plus-upcom.
We really want to hear abouthow you'd plus these attractions
up and read some of your ideason the show.
Our theme music is GoblinTinker, soldier Spy by Kevin
MacLeod at incompetechcom.
We'll have a new episode outreal soon.

(01:20:14):
Why?
Because we, like you, hit it.

Speaker 5 (01:20:50):
We'll meet again.
Don't know where, don't knowwhen, but I know we'll meet
again some sunny day.
Keep smiling through, just likeyou dudes always do, till the
blue skies drive the dark cloudsfar away.

(01:21:11):
So will you please say hello tothe folks that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
I know Tell them.

Speaker 5 (01:21:17):
I won't be long.
They'll be happy to know thatas you saw me go, I was
screaming this song.
We'll meet again, don't knowwhere, don't know when, but I
know we'll meet again some sunnyday.
Hey kids, it's me, your old paland overlord, bill Cipher.

(01:21:43):
I'm sure you all miss me, butif you ever feel bad, just
remember that I watch you whileyou sleep.
At the end of the day, yourbrain is just a meat computer.
In a bone cockpit piloting askin robot.
You think the world makes sense.
Nothing makes sense, so youmight as well make nonsense.
Think about it.
We'll meet again.

(01:22:04):
Don't know where, don't knowwhen, but I know we'll meet
again some sunny day.
You dudes, I hate you all.