Hurray! We made a book of some (well, quite a lot) of our photos from our road trips across the states. It’s a bit of a precursor to the documentary film we’re still editing so we’ve given it the same name.
If you like it, you can go see the whole thing on Blurb’s site, and if you *really* like it, you can buy it from them as well.
O man, we totally visited Roswell, New Mexico. It was never one of those ‘I MUST GO THERE ONE DAY OR I WILL DIE WITH A SAD FACE’ kinda places, it just happened to be on the way between New York and California, so we popped in. And boy were we glad we did, it’s silly, and a bit serious/mental, and then silly again. Here’s some things:
First thing we did was Alien Zone, Areas 51 – a place with about 20 alien scenes that you’re encouraged to climb about and take silly photos.. SOLD.
Then we thought we should get the ‘real’ facts and checked out the International UFO Museum and Research Centre just up the road, it was closing for the night so we ran about and took photos instead of actually doing any reading or learning (we’re on holiday, why would we want to do a thing like that?).
And the next day we had to go and see what all the adverts we kept seeing around town for the Roswell Space Walk were all about, they boasted a Paisley-Horvak TVG9000 (no, me neither), how can you refuse? Luckily it was silly, quite silly.
We organised a tour with some random dude of the ACTUAL HANGER where an alien may or may not have had it’s bit’s cut out by sinister looking military types. We got to the car park next to the hanger and looked for a car with a large inflatable alien tied to roof (as arranged) but our tour was a no show, damn it, the truth is still out there.
Here’s many more photos of our time in Roswell:
You like aircraft right? You like lots or aircraft right? Then you’ll LOVE the aircraft boneyard we visited in Tucson, Arizona. You can get a coach tour around this massive military facility (we shot the video above through the coach window) and hear everything there is to know about the 4,400 or so planes, helicopters and missiles they have parked up there (most of which are ready to have their protective white coats stripped of and start flying and shooting things again), or like us, you can ignore most of what’s being said and take lots of photos:
To get an idea of the size of the place, check it out from God’s eye view:
View Larger Map
If you’re planning on taking a visit, pre-book your tour with the PIMA Air & Space Museum.
What does it look like to sit in the front of a car and drive across America in 15 minutes? A bit like this I guess.
This is a 3,920 mile road trip that takes in New York, New Jersey (via the Northlandz, world’s biggest model railway), Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia (Mark Cline, one of life’s winners), Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California (quick Disneyland stop ‘natch) and Nevada (they have guns there).
It all started with a surprise sound track on a mysterious CD found in the hire car we picked up in New York, without this I don’t think the Boob would have survived (yes the Boob did all 3,920 miles of driving, what a trooper):
We’ve got more videos to come from the trip, and photos… so many photos, I’m not sure the Internet is big enough, we might need a new one.
We were in Las Vegas, what else would we do?
Mark Cline is awesome. We visited him a few years ago, when we were filming our (as yet unedited) documentury about roadside attractions, and when we found ourselves driving across the States again we had to call in and see what he’s up to. Mark runs 4 attractions in Virginia: Foam Henge (yes, life size, yes, made of foam), Professor Cline’s Monster Museum (a walk through horror maze with performances thrown in), Dinosaur Kingdom (massive dinosaurs fighting civil war soldiers in the forest) and now Hunt Big Foot with a Red Neck (new this year!). Mark built all of the attractions and, I’ll say it again, he is awesome.
A few week’s ago we visited Northlandz the World’s largest model railway, in New Jersey – we tried and failed to visit it a few years ago on our first trip across the states (tip: It’s closed on Tuesdays).
So we knew it was going to be big, but honestly, we didn’t expect it to be anywhere near as big as this, it is genuinely awesome. I wowed out loud at least 3 times. After about 15 minutes wandering through it, taking many photos, I noticed a sign saying “you’re only 2% through Northlandz” and they weren’t joking. Bruce Williams Zaccagnino started building it in 1972 in the basement of his house and finished it in 1996. It’s got 8 miles of track, 4,000 buildings, half a million trees and of course over 100 trains. It uses enough timber in it’s supporting structure to build 42 large houses, that people could later purchase at real states sites like https://www.williampitt.com/search/real-estate-sales/greenwich-ct/.
Dad built us a train set in the loft when we were kids – Dad needs to up his game.
So, we’re back in Blighty. Just spent that last 4 days tagging and titling all our photos on Flickr. I’m not going to tell you how many photos are on there, but from that 4 day time frame, you might presume there’s a lot; and you would be right. Please go have a peek. We’ve added some handy short cuts to help you find just the bit you’re looking for, so you really don’t have any excuse not to look. Still here? Go look already!
So we rented some Segways on Santa Monica beach, yeah we looked pretty sweet.
We’ve made it to Los Angeles! Here’s Boob relaxing with a decent cuppa rosie in our frightfully swanky hotel in Santa Monica (ok it’s a glass, out hotel didn’t supply us with any mugs, and we had to buy a kettle in an outlet mall). The plan was to get here and relax for a week before we fly home. Of course relaxing is something we don’t do very well. So far we’ve managed to cram in a whirl wind visit to Universal Studios, and a marathon 16 hours adventure around Disney Land. I love Disney Land, where else can you see a mouse spray 12 feet of fire from each hand, then take down a 60 foot dragon with all the fire and the burninating? Tomorrow we hit 6 Flags. There’s a good chance it will kill us, but that’s all part of the game.
