23 The Thing I was relatively fit and confident that Coco and I would accomplish this
new milestone during this great journey. Sir I. Ten would help us through this rough,
difficult but also beautiful part of the country, I was sure. The
climb started after a few miles. The gradient
rise was not yet serious enough to make it difficult for us, let’s say it kept
us warm. After
23mi37km we passed Willcox, the first and only village on my way to
Benson. At an altitude of 4167ft1270m the
3500 people here in Willcox were probably continuously in higher spheres. The tourist center in Willcox was closed, maybe
because it was too early, or maybe because it was Sunday. Coco and I went on in the direction of Benson.
Soon I saw an enormous yellow sign
with the text ‘The Thing? Mystery of Arizona’. During the following miles the yellow signs
repeated themselves over and over, and I tell you it worked.
The second one made me wonder, the
third I got curious and the more signs I saw the more obsessed I became. What was
that Thing? The
irresistible urge to visit ‘The Thing’ became overwhelming, we even forgot that
we were constantly climbing.
Whoever invented this path to ‘The
Thing’ was a master of suspense. Advertising
something mysterious without clarifying details triggers the imagination of
travelers on this desolate road. Over around 15mi24km the text on the
billboards ranged from:
The Thing? Mystery of Arizona! The Thing? A Wonder of the Desert!
The Thing? Have You Seen It? The Thing? Don't Miss It! I initially thought “I’m not stupid; I’m not
stopping for some idiotic tourist trap.” But when I saw the sign of exit 322, the exit
to ‘The Thing’, I knew I had to take a look. Because
the fee was only 75 cents, money was not the show stopper. I paid the cashier and
she pointed at a shed and invited me to enter it.
The museum was situated in three long
metal sheds.
In the front I found the Rolls Royce
Luis was talking about, the one supposedly used by Adolf Hitler.
How the Hitler mobile finally got
here in Texas Canyon, Arizona, was not explained to the visitor. To assure that the visitors could imagine
Hitler using the Rolls Royce, there was a plaster version of the Führer partially
leaning out of the back window. It was a bit ridiculous and even laughable. The rest of the shed and the second shed presented
a collection of old crap without context.
Here a short summary; a few old cash registers,
bear traps, a still-life of a wooden mannequin staring at the roof, cannons, 17th-century
rifles from Spain and Constantinople, long dead tarantulas, an object labelled ’piece
of mammoth’s front leg’, a sculpture of a bull conjugate with a cow, a number of
bizarre creatures carved from driftwood. By what I had seen in the first two sheds my expectations
of ‘The Thing’ were lower than low. The third shed was reserved completely for ‘The
Thing’.
Entering the shed, I saw a white
box with a glass cover. Despite
the risk of an anti-climax, I looked into the box and saw what was intended to
be a mummified mother and child. Their enclosures were in tatters. The intention of the maker was that you would think
you saw the bones where the flesh and wrappings had decayed. I wondered whether the 75 cents was not too much. It was not even ‘The Thing’, but a collection
of many things, mainly shit things. We were on the road again. One mile1.6km after I left ‘a lot
of things’ We were standing in front of the two first outspoken words of Luis ‘Texas
Canyon’. From here the climb started. The gradient was steep.
The cycling started to become
really challenging.
After one hour of pushing and groaning from my side and the squeaking
and creaking of Coco, we arrived at the top of Texas Canyon. |