Here's The Thing. . .

Earlier this week, as we were driving out of Stupid New Mexico, we began seeing signs for "The Thing."


For almost two hundred miles, the side of the road is littered with them (along with various other New Mexican debris). Jon and I had already agreed that we weren't going to stop at The Thing if it was before we reached the state border. Luckily for us, it was in Arizona.

So....after hours of seeing the billboards. . .we were wondering what you're wondering. . .



Good question. Lucky for you, your Carjoy correspondents were on the scene to investigate.


Unfortunately, we're still not really sure what it is. It costs a dollar, that much we know. You enter into what is essentially the back of the cheesy rest area/gift shop, and you're greeted with this:

An early model tractor: Just "The Thing" for replacing four-legged horse power, as the sign says.

Is that it? Is that really The Thing?

No. As you wander through, this place becomes a sort of museum, inside of what are essentially giant metal trailers that are connected by a sidewalk with giant yellow footprints. In the second trailer is a collection of . . .well, artifacts is probably too strong of a word, but I'll use it anyway. There were some 400 year old guns on display, along with old Morse Code transmitters, some random signage, and lots of wood carvings. Some of them depicting scenes. . .

TortureThing

...and some depicting....other things. . .


(We think that one might have made the yellow footprints!)

In the final metal trailer, you are treated to this Thing:



Some sort of mummified corpse, laying beneath a glass covered in bird poop. (Of course something pooped on it.) Not quite the plasticized corpses we saw in Denver, but still. It was a little too Poltergeist-ish for me.

And then...there's this Thing:

Yes. That's a Hitler dummy.

Seriously.

Who puts that anywhere?

Arizona got off to a bad start.

Or perhaps it was run-off suck from people speeding out of New Mexico. Either way...The Thing was almost worth the dollar just for the fact that it was somewhere other than New Mexico. Except for the Hitler bit, it was an interesting assemblage of items.

And also a complete waste of time....kind of like this post.