WESTERN VACATIONS – Discover Your Routes

By Bennett Owen

Credit: SurferSam.com

4 Bucks a gallon be damned, Memorial Day is approaching at a speed that would surely merit a night in jail if Mother Earth were twirling up the turnpike in an SUV.  So with the family outing looming large, the My-West staff has assembled a series of helpful hints to enhance your vacation, entice Dad to stop for something other than gas, food and lodging and perhaps even keep the kids’ noses out of the play station for a few minutes.

In cooperation with my favorite website, Roadsideamerica.com, here are some quirky stop-offs to spice up vacation 2011.  Most are open 24/7 and as we all know, the best things in life…are free.

Our first route takes us from Salt Lake City to Yellowstone Park and our number one roadside attraction is located right in the Utah state capital:

1 - Gravity Hill - E. Capitol Blvd.

Credit: Wikimapia

Also known as “a cheap date” when I was going to school there, Gravity Hill is truly one of the most brain-twisting optical illusions I’ve ever experienced.  

Credit: Way Marketing

You will swear the road is pointing downhill and yet when you throw the jalopy into neutral it will actually roll upwards.  Try it at night and you will feel a strange and irresistible magnetic pull that will soon lead to some heavy necking with your wife. I mean, the view is phenomenal.

Credit: SheldonPhotography

2 – After defying gravity, it’s time to hit the road, and along the way you can admonish the kids that “money doesn’t grow on trees…but shoes do,” at least in Park City, Utah.  Yes, it’s the Shoe Tree at 780 Main St., a monument so moving it is immortalized in poem:

“Symbol of mystery, intrigue and fun...Body for free spirit deep in town's roots (or is that routes? Ed.)...You invite us this summer to throw off our shoes...We celebrate all that you stand for.“  -  Park City Magazine

Credit: Sheneng

Legends abound on the origin of the Shoe Tree and all involve one pair getting tossed up for some reason or another and everyone else following suit.  Say, as long as you’re in town, you might as well have lunch at the High West Distillery, an experience good for the ‘sole.’ But don’t make it the liquid variety or you’ll never get out of Park City!

3 – By mid-afternoon you’ll be driving through the Wyoming wilderness and perhaps wondering how the pioneers survived and thrived in such a forbidding landscape. Well, all the answers are waiting at the Museum of the Mountain Man in Pinedale. It’s a touch off the beaten track but worth the visit for the Beaver Top Hat alone! 

Credit: Museum of the Mountain Man

4 – Of course we try to save the best for last…forget Sasquatch, the elusive Jackalope is the stuff of true western lore…a cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope (I bet they met at Gravity Hill!). 

Credit: Wikipedia                                            

Well, Dubois, Wyoming has captured the creature and even saddled him up so the kids can have a ride.  Everything you ever wanted to know about Jackalopes is right here.

Credit: ChucksToyland

After driving through Jackalope Junction, ya gotta love it, you ONLY have the Tetons and Yellowstone Park to keep the kids occupied. So, happy traveling and next week’s offbeat tour takes us from Yellowstone to Glacier.  

Credit: dog on wheels

Credit: mcfa0773