If you know me at all, then you know I am physically incapable of driving past the Arizona tourist landmark known as “The Thing.” I have to stop! I can’t not stop!
The original “The Thing” exhibit was one of THE great American roadside attractions. It’s kind of difficult to explain to people who weren’t there just how demented it was. For a dollar, you wandered through a maze of buildings in the back of the place. Yes, there was a payoff at the end where you saw a mummified mystery creature known as “The Thing.” But the old place was so much more than that.
The old exhibit, as you wandered through the various metal buildings, had old cars in various stages of deterioration. There were tractors and wagons, dozens of them, and everywhere you looked, there were hundreds and hundreds of bizarre little driftwood sculptures made out to look like little people or aliens, with eyeballs and mouths drawn on them. There were snakes behind glass, there were antique rifles, weird old antiques, and artifacts from China and the old West, just tons and tons of junk, everywhere you looked.
All of it was decaying, dusty, and in really poorly maintained condition. There was an incredibly strange torture display, about ten feet high by twenty feet wide, with various wooden sculpted statues being tortured, and the blood, which was everywhere, was that sickly shade of neon Tide detergent red. Everybody that I ever took it to, including all of my old band members, girlfriends, and wives, was awestruck at the sheer randomness of it all, coupled with the fact that it looked like it was all caked in desert dirt and about ready to fall down. It was really something. And it cost a buck!
Look, I understand they had to do something. A number of years ago, they tore down the original buildings, built some new ones, and made sort of a new amusement-park cleaned-up version of the attraction. I know they had to do it. But it just isn’t the same. Yes, they do have “The Thing” still on display at the end of the tour. Yes, there are half a dozen of the original driftwood sculptures. There are a couple wagons and a couple cars from the old place. But gone is the… character. The new displays really look like something concocted in a corporate boardroom in Orlando, manufactured in China, and shipped out to the Arizona desert. It’s just kind of… lifeless. It’s dull! Pretty much the exact opposite of what the original exhibits were all about. It also costs five dollars now.
I’m still gonna stop. I’ll take the tour, buy a bumper sticker, maybe get an ice cream at the Dairy Queen that’s attached to the souvenir mart. I understand why they felt they had to revamp the place. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
See more photos at Deke’s original Facebook post!
