When I picked up my rental car, My Thrifty Blue Chip membership meant I just picked a car from the Mid-Size row. I don’t generally rent anything bigger than an economy or compact because I like small cars that get decent gas mileage. But the mid-size was the cheapest option in an inexplicably overpriced rental market (actually, a 17 passenger van was the cheapest but THAT would’ve been a disaster). I picked the one that had a Florida license plate as it seemed like kismet.
It was a KIA Soul, ya know the car the hampsters drove in that commercial that one time?
That party rockin’ car should get decent gas mileage, right? I mean, at least through the courtesy of the hamsters’ tootsies and in my case my own Fred Flintstone-ian feet.
Turns out however that this rental car gets TERRIBLE mileage.
In hamster speak, it gets GERBIL mileage! It’s 2017 for crying out loud. NO car should get less than 35 miles to the gallon on the highway. And frankly no car should get less than 40-something. A car that gets LESS THAN 24 miles to the gallon? In 2017? And me on a massive road trip crisscrossing the center of the nation. I think it’s gonna be well over 1500 miles over the course of 6 day series. That’s a lot of gas. I’m keeping a spreadsheet as I’m astonished at what this stupid impulse decision to back a Florida plate is going to cost me.
***
Having showered back at Bowman, I ventured out to the one listing for this town on Roadside America. What is it? Even after having seen it, I’m not entirely sure.
It’s listed as “Cowboy Riding a Missile.” That’s there for sure, a flash of Dr. Strangelove coming to me as I gazed upon the cowpoke straddling a missile being shot from a Bowman fire truck (?):
But it’s so much more.
There’s this rickety bridge that an RA reviewer said they drove over to get to the missile riding cowboy. I was leery of doing so.
It looked like that old Universal Studios Tour fake bridge that the tram guide would say was the “oldest set at the studio.” As you went over it, it would systematically collapse and you’d think you were going to fall. I’m not sure if it even exists anymore. Here’s a youtube video that preserves this “tour attraction” for posterity.
Note: in truth, it was built in the 1970s for a Bionic Woman episode… or maybe Six Million Dollar Man? One of those. A LOT of the Universal backlot tour in the 1980s was devoted to leftover props and gags from those shows. That and Knight Rider and The A-Team and Airwolf. Sigh. I miss the 1980s.
In any case, there’s a plane that’s mounted with a perpetual motion spinning propeller that I think is partially a weathervane as the plane itself seems to rotate on its armature.
All told there’s a general “artistic” vibe… and by that I mean some gonzo nutbar at play in the fields. But ya know what? It’s more artistry than I’ve got so who am I to judge. And while I may not know art, I know what I like… and I kinda liked the craziness of this, um, installation? Welcoming sign? Tourist trap installation that doubles as a welcoming sign? Whatever puts you on the map, right? Or at least gets you listed on RoadsideAmerica.com.
