Monthly Archives: September 2009

One day while driving through Virginia, we came across the Pink Cadillac Diner/Budget Inn. I was starving, so we stopped.

We were greeted at the entrance…

by an egg (Humpty Dumpty I’m guessing)

Unfortunately, I was jones’n for some pizza and they didn’t have any. So we left.

On our way back to the truck we noticed

KING KONG next to the motel section.

I was just as happy to see that trucks were welcome – you wouldn’t believe how many places we’re not – as I was to see a ginormous ape

I was feeling brave that day and asked KING KONG if I could get a high-five.

He used his free, chained hand to slap me some skin

and then, of course, Dora the copy-cat had to do it too.

I was on a mission for some pizza, therefore not deterred by the giant, weird lever hanging out of this restaurant we came across.

They not only had pizza, but an arcade!

While I waited on my slices

I noticed this ginormous banjo in the middle of the restaurant

So of course, Dora and I played it.

Since we didn’t notice this sign beforehand

We got kicked out.

That was fine because I was actually craving some Halloween pizza anyways.

I hadn’t eaten at Mr. Gatti’s since I was a kid.

Now I know why. Even though they had pizza and an arcade, they ain’t no Chucky Cheese.

Best day of Pizza and ginormous things that don’t make sense on Summer Tour 2009 EVER!!!!!

One day I was checking facebook in the front seat of my truck as usual, when my modem stopped working. Crap.

Luckily, I was parked outside this gas station that just so happened to have internet access.

And it just so happens I was starving and needing gas too. What luck!

I knew my truck took un-leaded, but I wasn’t so sure about no-lead.

I almost went for it, but no-lead seemed a little suspicious, so I chickened out.

And I didn’t get a Blimpie sandwhich cuz this cowboy took so darn long with his complicated order.

After I looked at souvenier T-shirts for awhile, I finally located the internet cafe

but the connection was too slow and that chair was super uncomfortable

so I hit up a new gas station

This gas stations was even cooler. I didn’t find a wifi signal like the other place, but I did get to finally buy a hot dog, a gun, a phone card, and some ammo. Plus, I now knew where I could get my gun repaired, should it break.

With a fill up, I got a free ticket to WIngs of Magic (my favorite show!!!) But the best part was leaving that gas station knowing in my heart that Jesus is indeed alive and loves me.

Best gas station on Summer Tour 2009 EVER!

The following story takes place in a hippy neighborhood I found in Eugene, Oregon called The Whit. I was walking around one day and literally stumbled upon this crazy place and these amazing people.

Dora and I got invited to go to a party in Eugene, Oregon one day, so we got all dolled up for the special occasion.

This outdoor salon was a little rustic but totally affordable

Me: Dude, I’m soooo excited about this party. I bet there’s gonna some hot hippy guys there.

Dora: I hope so. I’m wearing this. Do you think it’s okay?

Me: Oh, girl, puh-lease! If you didn’t have the build of an infant, I’d say put a shirt on. I wish I could get away with going topless.

When we arrived at the Whitaker Cocktail Society, I was a little worried we wouldn’t fit in.

After ringing the doorbell, we waited on the Porch of Distinction for our host to come out.

I wasn’t too worried about Dora fitting in at the party after I looked around.

These people seemed obsessed with dolls

and doll body parts

Finally our host invited us in. While Dora hung out on the couch with the dogs and dolls (including the Pee Wee doll touching his friend), I used the bathroom

Right away our host, Sunshine, and I bonded. Not only did she have a large collection of globes (like me!), she also had a doll companion. Two actually. The smaller one traveled with her

and the mannequin stayed at home.

Me: Hey Dora. If you misbehave tonight, I’m gonna carve your name into your head like Lisa
Dora: I’d like to see you try. My head is made of paper.
Me: Oh, yeah.

Things were going well until Dora found the kegs out back.

Unfortunately, Dora’ favorite drinking activity is riding bikes

and dumptrucks

Me: Dora, you know you can’t drink like me. You weigh like 5 pounds and have the tolerance of an infant.
Dora: You always think yo know what’s best for me. Just leave me alone….Besides, I finally met someone who understands me, right Barbie?

Dora: and I really like this guy.

Me: Yeah. Guys who hang out next to coffins? Real winners, Dora.

Dora: Do you think if I pose all sexy in this coffin he’ll like me?

Me: I don’t know…..

…you have an entire coffin full of dirty baby-doll body parts to compete with.

Dora: Ew. I didn’t even notice how dirty they are. I guess that means it’s time for….

HOT TUB!!!!

Me: You ought to be glad that’s a fish tank and not an actual hot tub. Anonymous hands would be finding their way into you bathing suite if there were guys and bubbles involved.
Dora: What are you talking about?
Me: Nevermind. Just wait til you’re a teenager girl, my friend.

Dora disappeared for about an hour. I eventually found her passed out in the Zoltar Booth

Me: Dora, what are you doing in there?
Dora: Sorry, but I only answer people who pay their 25 cents.

Me: Alight. Fine.
Dora: Your future is that you will never leave Dora. Or get laid. Ever.
Me: You better be wrong about both.

Later on, Dora disappeared yet again.
Me: Dora? Where are you?

Dora: I’m in here.

Me: What the….

Dora: Boo!

Me: Why did you lock yourself in a trunk you idiot!!!!
Dora: I needed a quiet place to pass out.

Just then Sunshine came over

Sunshine: Hey, Dora! You know my mannequin Lisa loves bowas. I think you should wear one too.
Me: Dora doesn’t like pink, Sunshine
Dora: Yes I do. Look. I’m a sex kitten

Awhile later I caught Dora just as she was trying to leave the party without me

Me: Where do you think you’re going Little Miss Thang?

Dora: Nowhere. I was just trying to find coffin guy
Me: Forget that guy. Besides, if you run off one more time, I’m gonna hang you by the hair from a door like her

Dora: I’d like to see you try. My head is made of paper
Me: True.

Me: By the way, you need to forget about Coffin guy. He’s too busy putting up the basketball hoop to notice you anyways.

The next morning, I found Dora passed out in front of Sunshine’s house in a hammock
Sunshine: Morning Sunshine! Oh, that’s my name. Hah!

Me: Dora, we have to talk. Come sit on the couch with me

Me: I know you think this is some sort of joke, but I am tired of babysitting your ass.

Dora: But that’s your job. You’re my primary caretaker.
Me: Yeah, but you’re being a jerk. I’m not talking to you for awhile
Dora: Good. I’m not talking to you either.

Two minutes later

Dora: I can’t take this anymore. I’m sorry, okay?

Me: Don’t humor me with your “I’m sorries.” Show me your sorry and don’t do it again.
Dora: Okay, I promise.

Dora and I made up. It was the best day of babydoll parts and coffins on Summer Tour 2009 EVER!!!!!

Dora and I showed up in Branson, Missouri hoping to find some cool stuff to do. Apparently, the economy is pretty bad though

Because even the Visitor’s Center has gone out of business

But wouldn’t you know, the coolest thing in town was actually parked right outside the Visitor’s Center anyways

A car made of phones and chess pieces

coffe cups

toaster and milkshake holders

kneeguards

and lobster. Mmmmmmm!!!!

I have since been wondering if my truck would run better on ten tailpipes instead of one.

The coolest car ever reminded me of the coolest truck ever in Kansas

which was made of burning (present tense) dinosaur bones

and semi trucks

It was parked next to the coolest SUV ever, which was made up of dead animal parts

and human skulls

Speaking of dead animals, I remember this Pizza joint in The Dells, Wisconsin that had a giant fake moose stuck to its roof

But I guess that’s better than a real dead baby elk on a truck, like this one in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

Best day of my favorite vehicles on Summer Tour 2009 EVER!!!!

This is the featured gas station of the week (and my all-time favorite so far)

It’s located in Branson, Missouri

This isn’t just a gas station though

It’s also a liquor store

A ticket vendor

Motel

and Psychic Shop

Best gas station on Summer Tour 2009 EVER!

If you’ve never visited Green River, Utah, boy are you missing out! I stumbled upon this hidden treasure of a town one day and I will surely be going back

It has better international food than NYC even!

like hot dogs, soda, hamburgers, french fries, and Ice cream

“Ice Creams” must be how they pronounce it overseas

The restaurant also sells melons out front

because Green River is famous for their melons

They even sell them at their gas stations

which are very patriotic and grateful for my business

One of the coolest things about this town is their commitment to saving energy by using eco-friendlier vehicles like motorbikes

and scooters

If you’re not into international food, Green River has plenty of other options. They LOVE their pizza

Some restaurants are a little more diverse though, like this one

which offers not only pizza, but breakfast, hamburgers, ice cream but is a bakery as well.

My favorite, however, is this restaurant

which offers hot but cold meals, steak, chicken, and of course PIZZA!

and serves every type of meal breakfast, lunch, dinner, AND snacks!

They offer lounge food to go or

you can get it in their drive thru (and park in their drive thru!)

If you’re cheap like me, you can just get groceries at this local grocery store.

While there, you can pick up some cent ladies clothes

and then get them washed at the laundry mat

that of course, also sells melons!

They offer great government services in this town too. Their fire department still uses those cool old trucks

and herses just like the GHOSTBUSTERS!

Their trash services are pretty great too. There are dumpsters located randomly all over town!

And they have great parks as well

with missles in them!

They even have a skate park!

And cool skater punks too!

And for people like me who like to make one stop for everything, this former gas station has it all

I could eat at lovely tables outside

get some writing done in a school desk

and get some money out of the atm

if I found some cool stuff to buy at the thrift store

And if my computer should break down, they have a computer store too!

but all their computers are FREE!!

It just doesn’t get any better than that

And finally, after a long day of shopping, eating, and skateboarding, you can stay at this motel with a discount if you’re a toup

or this one if you’re a criminal

or a sexy lady.

Best town to visit on Summer Tour 2009 EVER!!!!!!

Continued from Yesterday (part 2 of 2)

Just as the sign at promised

The first thing me and Dora did was hold an alligator!

We were so good at holding alligators, the guy working there asked if he could take out picture.

Me: Hey look Dora. Smile!
Dora: Um, he’s eating my hand. Can you please get him off me Mister

Alligator Man: Pain feels good, doesn’t it little girl?
Dora: Ouch! No, it doesn’t. Please –

Me: Dora, you’re messing up the picture. Shut up already.

Alligator Man: Yeah, Chompy says he’d like to eat more than just your hand if you know what I mean

Dora: No, I don’t know what you mean, but this really hurts. Please get him off of me.

Alligator Man: Alright, alright. Because you were so good, I’m going to give you an Alligator-Holding diploma.

Me: Oh my God! What an honor!

Chompy bit the diploma as an official seal to prove we held a real alligator

Our picture didn’t turn out too good, but he said we’d be on their website if we paid them ten dollars

I figured that’s a small price to pay for fame.

In the first five minutes of our tour of the gator farm, I tripped over the tortoise fence

all of them

The tortoise lived in a dog igloo

I think the leaves on top of the dog igloo made the Tortoise feel like he was back in Africa

I tried chasing him around, but he was so slow and it got boring real quick. I was ready to see some gators!

Dora figured out where to go

I think those were remnants of people who’d just been eaten

Me: Hey, that’s so funny. Tripod is the name I used to call my ex-boyfriend cuz he had such a huge—
Dora: I don’t want to know

For some reason the Alligator farm was really against people feeding fish

but really encouraging of people feeding gators.

While I sprayed down Dora with some OFF

I learned how stupid people are

I had just slipped the bottle of OFF into my pocket, when I saw this sign.

So I put it back

But apparently I wasn’t the only thief there.

Dora: I’m getting really hungry. Can get a snack from the shop?

Me: I’m sorry. Maybe you should go file a complaint at the complaint station behind you, Dora.

Me: I’m sure you’re not the only one hungry in this joint….

I mean, I wanted to feed the alligators anyways, so why not a little girl?

I was going to break the rules written on this sign

until I saw this sign.

I changed my mind.

We finally came to a place where all the gators were hanging out

so I pretended I was gonna drop Dora into the gator pit.

I love scaring the crap out of her

Me: Hey, Dora. Watch this…

…I’m a bird

Me: I bet you can’t look like a road runner

Dora: Yes I can. And it’s an ostrich, not a road-runner

Me: Yeah, whatevs. I have an idea

Why don’t you go sit on that pipe over there

Dora: But there’s an alligator next to that pipe
Me: So?

Dora: Look at me now though. I’m putting my foot next to this gator. How bout that?

Me: Not impressed. There’s a fence. What would impress me, though, is if you rode the slide into the gator-infested water
Dora: No way.

Me: Just do it, I’ll give you a push

Dora: Nooooooooooooooooo

Noooooooooooooooooooo

Me: Hah, got ya. You know I wouldn’t let you fall in there.

Good thing I didn’t. There was actually a gator in there.

After scaring the crap out of Dora, I decided to make it up to her by getting her a snack from the Gift Shop (We skipped the “Ye Old Greenhouse”)

While the green slushy next to the dramatic picture of the alligator was appealing

We went with ice cream (located behind the oxygen tanks for sale)

and then bought a pair of crocs

We were ready to go. When we left, these signs bid us farewell

I’m guessing the word “crocodile” fell off at some point.

Best day of torturing Dora on summer tour 2009 ever!!!!

We were driving through Colorado one day when we came across all these letters that spelled out “Colorado Gators”

Oh my God! I’d totally forgotten getting those discount Colorado Gator tickets back at the UFO Watchtower.

There were signs for this place for miles. My favorites were the traincar art

and the broke-down truck

This alligator pointed us in the right direction

The alligator farm offered a lot of options.

alligators, fresh fish, and canoe rentals. Canoeing in alligator-infested water would be soooo exciting!

Despite all the signs encouraging us to come to the alligator farm, the no tresspassing sings made me question whether or not we should be there.

but we went anyways

I dropped Dora off in the unloading zone

Then tried to find a place to park.

At first I thought parking was gonna be an issue since they wouldn’t even let me park in front of their abandoned train car

but they had plenty of parking elsewhere I saw later on

While no one came to the alligator farm in a hellicopter like the sign suggested

they did show up in golf carts

and 4-wheelers

I finally found a parking spot

next to this peacock

I started to get a little scared when I saw signs like this one

and this one

which was posted in front of a double-wide with fake swamp painted on it.

Was is just me or did this farm smell like crap?

Oh, okay. It wasn’t just me.

On way to the entrance, we saw this sign

As it turns out, the “troll” is a goat

We saw this sign, so we decided to cross the bridge. I just LOVE donkeys!

They were all playing on the animal playground

I felt sorry for this little donkey, who was too fat to fit through the tire tunnel of fun

When we left the playground, this sign pointed us to the alligator farm entrance

After I said the pledge of alliegance, I realized how parched I was and drank some of the water they provided

Thank God I bought those discount tickets at the UFO place, cuz it would have cost me and Dora $18.75 to get in!

We didn’t have enough cash to buy gator chow, but I had something in my pocket I could feed them anyways.

I really wish I’d seen this sign before I went in. My alligator shirt in the car that would have gotten me in for FREE!

I also learned from this sign that they had alligator wrestling classes (but they were $100 unfortunately) and allowed pets.

they weren’t kidding about the wrestling

or the pets!

All that water I drank made me have to pee real bad

Their bathroom — AMAZING!!!!

And it came with reading material,

which was great, cuz I got all caught up on world events

When I came out of the bathroom, I was a little distressed by this sign

Not only had I just used the men’s bathroom, but this place really was dangerous!

To be continued…………….

To see the UFO story from a couple weeks ago, click here
http://melaniehamlett.com/2009/09/04/slow-aliens-at-play/

Well, Dora and I just got back to NYC. It was an amazing trip, but it’s nice to be home.

And to sleep in a real bed is sooooo exciting

But we’re pooped to say the least.

Summer Tour 2009 may be over, but the stories aren’t. We covered 14,000 miles and 27 states in 80 days. And I have 11,000 pictures. A lot of those pictures are throw-aways, but to say the least, I have material from this trip (not to mention years of travel from my past) that will last me for months. Here is a sneak preview of what you can expect:

Strange Festivals like

A Goddess Festival

A Clown Festival

and The Testical Festival

Strange Museums like

a Prison Musuem

The Mustard Museum

Brothel Museum (in Butte, Montana)

The Potato Museum (in Idaho of course)

and the Dukes of Hazzard Museum (in Tennessee of course)

I’ll also share stories of places I don’t quite know how to categorize, like

Precious Moments (a weird chapel/museum/town of those creepy dolls)

Foamhenge (a life-size replica of Stonehenge, but made out of foam)

A miniature replica of Graceland

a Hillbilly Gas Station/Hot Dog Joint

A collection of crap on the side of the road in a hole in a rock

the messed-up town of Forks, Washington, where all the Twilight tweens have taken over

a petting zoo in Wyoming

and a funeral home that has stuffed animals doing freaky things in the basement

I’ll also show you some of the beautiful places we went

and some of the things I do in those places

(that’s me in the on the upper left side of the wall)

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. These are some of the places (that are equally as messed up) that I’ll also write about:

Kentucky Fried Chicken Musuem
The Largest Tree House in the World
The Nativity Scene Museum
The Living Bible Museum
Alligator Farm
Garden of Eden
World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Version of the World’s Largest Things
Goonies Film Locations
Big Foot Sightings
Museum of American Miracles
and the list goes on………….

and of course, I’ll continue to post weird signs, town, and people I meet.

These stories wouldn’t be complete, though, without the many adventures I have with total strangers

like this cute old man

So stay tuned,

Now that I’m back in New York, I’m working hard at trying to get published so I can do stuff like this for a living. I gotta start paying off the loan I took out for this trip, so that means back to work (assuming I can find work of course). I’m just as committed as ever to this blog, but I may have 16 hour days working on movies again, where I’ll only have time for a few pictures. Regardless of what I’m doing, this blog is my baby (more than Dora) and it’s a job I take seriously, as perverted and weird as it is.

Thank you again to everyone who donated ($1,700!!!!!!), for a huge portion of my travel money would have been spent replacing the catalytic converter that was stolen off my truck, and therefore, I wouldn’t have been able to leave New York. And thank you again for reading this blog and giving me someone to tell my stories to. Without you, I’d just be talking to myself (which I do anyways)….or my pinata (which I do anyways)

I was feeling lonely one day, so I decided to find a church. I don’t belong to any religion, but I know church people are more likely to let me cry on their shoulder than, say, the gas station attendant.

While this building didn’t look like a church, it claimed it was, so I went

As I suspected, though, it wasn’t a church after all

but rather a rental agency (and plant store)

So then I found this church

but it wasn’t a church at all.

Baptizing Harold is either a play starring Pastor Paul Isaacs or a new, one-person form of improv (non- comedy nerds probably won’t get that particular reference)

So finally I came across this place. While it looked awfully square to be a church, I saw the words “Love Temple” from afar and figured it must be.

But it wasn’t the Love Temple. It was the Jesus Love Temple. I was still on the right track though.

Then I saw the ticket booth and realized it was a religious movie theater.

I LOVE going to movies by myself! Who needed people anyways?

Best day looking for churches that aren’t churches on Summer Tour 2009 EVER!