Experiment for home page additions

Death by Balloon Bomb: The Mitchell Monument

On a trip to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, we spotted a humble rest stop near the small town of Bly in Klamath County.  Rest stops being in short supply on Highway 140, we made a sudden stop.  The restroom was flooded in about four inches of water, but Anne coped.  In the meantime, Bob was reading a sign posted in the grounds.  To our surprise, we learned that this described and provided directions to the nearby location of the Mitchell Monument, which commemorates the location of the only place in the continental U.S. where people were killed due to enemy action during World War II.  The victims were the pregnant wife and five children of Bly minister Archie Mitchell, who unfortunately chose this vicinity for a picnic on May 5, 1945.

The odd cause of their demise was a Japanese balloon bomb.  Not something you find in Fred Meyer’s, these bombs were 70 feet tall and filled with high-explosive and incendiary devices.  Named a fugo, or “wind-ship weapon,” the first balloons were released on November 3, 1944.  The Japanese launched more than 9,000 balloon bombs, of which  the remains of 361 have been found in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.  This included one that exploded near Medford, but caused no significant damage or injuries.  According to local historian Lee Juillerat, a National Register form states that  “This particular event and site are the most recognized representation of the use of a Japanese strategic weapon against the United States during a major global war and documents the first use of an intercontinental ballistic weapon in history.”   Numerous articles about these balloon bombs may be found online using “Japanese balloon bombs” as search terms.    —-  Anne

At left, a more legible version of the poster.  The one above shows the rather attractive Spring background — greenery, flowers in bloom, etc.  If the Japanese had been shown their potential Eastern Oregon target in a picture taken at some other season, they might have abandoned the project.  From a local standpoint, the good news is that Spring is about the only high desert season in which you can be reasonably confident that it is rainwater with which the restroom has been flooded.

Another random mind-misfire — the bomb is a fugo, and I think the intoxicatingly toxic puffer fish prized by the Japanese is a fugu. Imagine bloated spiny fish raining out of American skies as a result of a Japanese military miscommunication.  Which reminds me — I was told by a former chemical warfare type that there is a minor impurity in phenolphthalein (look it up) that is an extremely potent laxative.  During WWII an Army lab is said to have isolated a substantial amount of the material, albeit with numerous episodes of downtime.  The original plan was to drop it in the Tokyo reservoir, but for some reason that was never implemented.  They probably would have had to ditch the B-29 used for the mission.

 

 

 

A borrowed picture of the actual monument/location

directions: From Bly travel E on Hwy 140 to Campbell Road (1210).  Turn left,
go to Forest Service Road NF 348, turn right and go about 10 miles to the Monument

Once again, we hope that we have slaked your thirst for offbeat knowledge, and equipped you to explore with pleasure and anticipation some the more remote corners of our little piece of the Northwest — Bob

Birds, Nuts, and Trees

Many Oregonians are familiar with Acorn Woodpeckers, which are easily recognizable by their clownish black and white faces, red heads, and noisy calls. 

Bandon — Seatrash

Blackbird or Feathered King Kong?

Almost everyone who lives in Medford probably has seen the Black Bird statue located in front the the Black Bird Shopping Center on West Main St.  In comparison, Butte Falls’ Ralph Bunyan is a Michelangelo.  According to a May 12, 2022 post in The Oregonian, the 29 foot statue dates back to 1965.  A now deceased businessman named Lee Hobbs owned an army surplus store, and thinking it needed more visibility, devised the critter. Built of re-bar, hog wire, and fiber glass, it has managed to survive for over 57 years despite bad weather and occasional automotive mishaps.

I can only say that the Black Bird gives my avian friends a bad name.  It is a completely inaccurate rendering.  Perhaps it was intended to be threatening in the manner common to 1960’s horror movies.  On the other hand, locals probably would be sad to see it take flight as it has become a landmark.  And, the shop has prospered, having grown from a 10,000 sf surplus store to over 50,000 sf. The business has been so successful that another one will be built on the S. Pacific Highway in the Phoenix area, but alas (or not), minus a large bird.

Anyone who has shopped at the Black Bird will testify that you can find almost anything.  This includes guns and ammunition, which presumably is the reason for the warning on the entrance (see photograph).  We were a little puzzled by the “No Tweakers” signs–are there problematic clientele?  For more information about the store: http://theblackbird.com.      —      Anne

We have traveled far and wide to bring you the best in oddities, and at last, after great effort, we are finally able to give  you… The Bird!

I vaguely remember that in the dim recesses of prehistory the store used to have a live bird (Gray Parrot?), but when it died they decided to go with something more immortal, like fiberglass.

In addition to its elaborately eclectic stock, I regard the store as a cultural landmark, or milestone, or something.  Over here on the E side of the tracks businesses tend to have wimpy little door signs like “No Weapons of Any Kind Permitted,” but The Bird is a W side kind of store and recognizes that you might need to slap that clip in pronto.

Also in keeping with the general ambience, in good weather there is a gentleman stationed by the front door grilling American hot dogs for sale.  I have looked around for the imports, so far unsuccessfully — will probably have to go to Ashland to find those

Travel Directions:

  1. Find downtown Medford (follow City Center signs from the freeway exits)
  2. Go west on Main Street (your only choice; it’s one-way).
  3. Avoid getting trapped in the wrong lane when the street turns two-way
  4. Shortly thereafter you will arrive at 1810 W. Main St., Home of The Bird  — but don’t bother to squint at house numbers as you drive, it will be abundantly obvious when you are close.

Bob

A ghost town worthy of it’s title: Golden

We are discovering that the OAL (Oddity Attraction Level) may be enhanced by a good meal along the way.  So, visitors are encouraged to stop at the historic Wolf Creek Inn for a casual and tasty repast.  Nine rooms, appropriately decorated, also are available.  Built in 1883 for travelers following the Applegate Trail, the inn remains open for I-5 motorists today.  Alas, meals, room, and bath no longer are available for 75 cents, but the ambiance is much more interesting than the usual chain restaurants found off of interstate highways.  The inn now is managed by the Oregon State Parks as a State Heritage Site.   The grounds are open to the public. For more information: http://wolfcreekinn.com.

The real goal for our trip was to find a ghost town that was more impressive than Buncom.  Located twenty miles north of Grants Pass, and easily found east of I-5 and the Wolf Creek Inn exit, Golden Historic District is an Oregon State Heritage Site.  Located near Coyote Creek, the town originally was settled in the 1840s by aspiring gold miners.  It was abandoned by the peripatetic miners and then taken over temporarily by Chinese miners.  As was true in many other places, the Chinese were then expelled by the original settlers.  By about 1885, a hydraulic mine was in place, followed by a church, general store, and carriage house, all of which remain today.  The buildings are well preserved and the church is especially attractive.  When combined with ease of access and lunch at the Wolf Creek Inn, the OAL for Golden is at least at 9 (out of 10).  Kudos also are due to local groups who gradually have been restoring the mining pits to functioning wetlands, which now even house beavers.

Anne

View of recovering wetlands at Golden

Yes, Golden definitely beats Buncom in the ghost-town sweepstakes — more buildings, older, more accessible, farther off the grid, a little more visibly decayed.  Anne’s 9/10 score would be a little high for either attraction alone, but I agree is justified if we roll inn and town into one OAL score — (for Buncom, a 2 would be generous).   I really can’t go much higher the town alone; it is maintained and protected and if there are people intimately involved, they get in the way of the ghosts.

And speaking of which, if your taste in oddities runs to the invisible and intangible (i.e. supernatural), you might do worse than to linger longer (perhaps overnight) at the Wolf Creek Inn.  Multiple sources (see below) attest to haunting by ghosts of celebrities, children, pioneers, and other THINGS.  To sample a few:

https://the-line-up.com/wolf-creek-inn

https://traveloregon.com/things-to-do/trip-ideas/favorite-trips/haunted-tales-wolf-creek-inn/

https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/ghost-adventures/photos/ghost-adventures-wolf-creek-inn

As we expand our bibliography (as yet in the planning stages) other references will be available.  In the meantime, it’s a nice double-attraction for a day trip (only 50 freeway miles from Medford, with back roads available for part of the way).               Click Here for map/directions

Bob                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Darlingtonia State Natural Site – Florence, OR

Many years ago, I housed a Venus Flytrap.  Despite periodically feeding it tiny scraps of hamburger, the trap kept growing closer and closer to the kitchen table, making meal times somewhat unnerving. Thus, an opportunity to see thousands of carnivorous  plants in action was irresistible.  According to the Oregon State Parks website, Darlingtonia State Natural Site “is the only Oregon State Park property dedicated to the protection of a single plant species…the plants it protects are the only carnivorous flora in the system.”  For more information, go to http://stateparks.oregon.gov

The plants are ten to twenty inches tall, with hooded leaves over hollow tubes.  There are hidden openings housing nectar to attract insects.  Insects have difficulty finding their way out, eventually falling to the bottom of the tube.  They decompose and are absorbed by the plants.  Fortunately, this process isn’t visible to visitors, who can enjoy the exotic appearance of the purple and red plants.

The small park, located north of Florence, contains boardwalks to traverse the park.  Falling off the boardwalk is not likely to benefit either visitors or plants.  The plants grow in boggy, serpentine soils, which also appear to be beneficial to ferns and colorful mosses.  The area has dense stands of spruce, cedars, pines and rhododendron.  We visited on an overcast day, which added an eerie feel to the environs.  Anyone interested in unusual plants, especially carnivorous ones, would enjoy visiting the site.

Anne

 

The floristic commentary above hints at Anne’s status as a Master Gardener, although she is very modest about it because her training was in the CA Central Valley.  However, she hit it exactly with the “eerie feel.”  I kept looking around for doomed insects and listening for tiny bubbly shrieks as they fell into the digestive juices.

On the philosophical front, is this odd?  You betcha.  Just because it’s natural doesn’t make it ordinary.  Nature green in fang and claw.  The Garden of the Flesh-Eating Vegetation.  Their popular nickname fits right in — Cobralily.  It is a nice, if eerie, wayside stop, particularly well-suited for budding (ho ho) naturalists.                                   Bob

To view or download a PDF of directions to the location, click here

 

 

 

 

Exploding Whale Memorial Park – Florence, OR

“Call me Bob.”  (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)  We began to recognize our proclivity for odd places after discovering the Exploding Whale Memorial Park in Florence.  Noticing the entry sign near where we were staying, exploration was required.   Strangely, there were no signs explaining the park’s name.  When asked about the lack of explanation, a local resident simply said, “it’s not something we’re proud about.”

Google and YouTube came to rescue.  In 1970, a 45′ whale carcass came ashore and debate arose about how to get rid of the eight-ton body.  No one wanted to cut it up and bury it.  Evidently towing it back out to sea wasn’t an option.  Instead state highway officials decided to use a half-ton of dynamite to blow it up.  The explosion succeeded far beyond expectations, with large chunks of whale landing on bystanders and even crushing a car.  Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt.  A hilarious, tongue-in-cheek video about the day’s events can be watched on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ax7kENH-a7s

Despite its grisly history, in 2020 Florencians decided to name the park after the incident, although they didn’t want to provide any information to curious visitors.  Even without the intriguing title, the pleasant park is worth checking out.  Located along the Siuslaw River, there are benches, short trails, and good views of the bridge crossing the river.  It would make a good stop for a picnic or a hot cup of coffee.

Anne

The dedicated reader (do we have any other kind?) will have noticed that Anne tends to write the useful historical and descriptive material, while Bob mostly indulges in multidimensional speculation about the quantity and quality of oddness involved.  So be it.  In this case there is nothing obviously odd at the site other than the site and the sign — you might want to take along some device on which you can play the (highly entertaining) video linked above while standing at the actual epicenter.

The EWMP scores high on the uniqueness scale; if any other knucklehead has tried this method of whale disposal, they certainly haven’t publicized it.  Dead whales happen, as does human stupidity, but this particular site combines two common occurrences into one spectacular oddity.  If any of the perpetrators had suffered as a result, it definitely would have been in the running for a Darwin Award.

The drawback is that there isn’t really too much for the casual tourist, but for us, serendipity was part of the charm — we were both familiar with the exploding whale story, but had no idea of exactly where it happened until we came across the sign while driving down a beachside road in Florence. “OMG (or words to that effect)” we shrieked as we skidded to a halt.  And the rest — or in fact almost all of it — is history.                      Bob

 

 

 

 

A Ghostly Town — Buncom, OR

Oregon is said to have about 200 ghost towns; SW Oregon has only one — Buncom.  As is often the case in circumstances of scarcity, the sole example is treasured, promoted, and restored to within an inch of its death.  First established, so to speak, in 1851 by Chinese goldminers, the town later expanded to include a saloon, post office, and general store.  Cinnabar, chromium, and silver also were mined.  By 1918, the gold was gone and the town abandoned.   Most of the buildings burned, but three buildings erected in the early 1900’s survived, including a post office, bunkhouse, and cookhouse.  The Buncom Historical Society continues to preserve the buildings.  Although on private land, there is parking in front of two of the buildings and they are seen easily.

As is our wont, we took a back road to Buncom.  Griffin Creek Lane is unpaved for five miles, narrow, dusty, and winding.  But the dense forest of madrones made it worth it (or at least worth the cost of a subsequent carwash).  Located in the Applegate area, there are numerous ranches, farms, and vineyards.  It is a pleasant drive and wine afficionados might enjoy stopping at one of the area wineries.    — Anne

To view or download directions to Buncom, click here

I guess we can claim unique, since it is the only designated ghost town for many miles around.  Maybe even mildly interesting, if you know its history.  But odd?  No way.  Almost any drive through rural Oregon will take you past many derelict wood structures in more advanced stages of ectoplasmic decay.  And quite possibly older, but granted, they don’t have a claim to being called towns.

For the connoisseur of ruins and the slow triumph of Nature over the works of man, the giveaway of human intervention is easily visible in the form of intact panes of glass in all of the windows.  Admittedly, someone decked out with an artificial hip, a brain shunt, a pacemaker, eyeglasses and hearing aids should probably not get excessively uppity about restorative interventions.  Nonetheless, my personal bias is that a ghost town should project an air of pitiable dilaptitude rather than structural integrity and tidiness.  And I’m sticking to it.   A real honest-to-badness genuine-appearing ghost town is still on the list, but it looks like it might take more than a day trip. Stand by, but don’t hold your breath.         Aspiringly yours,  Bob

 

Tiniest park on Earth — In Talent, OR!

We were excited to read about the “tiniest park on Earth,” recently constructed in Talent.  The park, yet to have a formal name, is part of the pollinator park located near central Talent.  It can be accessed near the Valley View Road roundabout.  Click here for directions and a local map.

Talent was not defeated by the destructive Alameda fire and evidence of reconstruction is all around, not the least in their parks.  Deciding to uproot Portland’s bragging rights about having the tiniest park in the world, the Talent Public Arts Committee presented the challenge to the community.  The Talent Bee City and Talent Garden Club sprang into action.   The new park is a tidy 374 square inches, clearly smaller than Portland’s Mill’s End Park, an expansive 452 square inches.  To their credit, Portland accepted being reduced to second place gracefully.

The pollinator-friendly tiny park is surrounded by bee themed mosaics and has a notably short fence.  Bob looked for homunculi bearing rakes and hoes without success.  Admittedly, this may not be an awe inspiring park, but kudos to the pluck of the park’s creators.  It is worth a stop if you are shopping, eating, or going to the Camelot in Talent.  Or, if you are true fan of oddities.  — Anne

 

Anne is a gracious, supportive person, and it is true that Talent has been through a lot lately, but c’mon — World’s tiniest garden?????  If the 374 sq. in. park were a square (it is actually a hexagon, presumably to make the bees feel at home) it would be 19.3 inches on a side.  Grumpy old Bob feels that this leaves a lot of room for further shrinkage, which may well have already happened somewhere on the planet.  And there is the never-ending debate about what is truly odd.  Unusual, yes, uncommon, certainly (although it may seem that way because of lack of publicity for the competitors).

However, rather than quibble about the boundaries of oddness, we can agree that this is a charming if low-key stopover if you are drawn by the Camelot Theatre close by (enjoyable musicals) or brunch at the Sweet Beet Station (a bit farther W on Main street).  Yes, there is talent in Talent.  And if little gardens arouse your competitive instincts —                                                                Bob