Creatures by the Roadside

In Abita Springs, Louisiana, you can come upon the Bassigator. Which mercifully is not a live creature because it is half-alligator and half-bass, 22 feet long, and has eyes that are the size of beach balls. Where can you meet up with this amazing being?

It is mounted on a boat trailer that stands behind the UCM Museum under an open-sided shed. It has powerful, very toothy jaws and has been nicknamed “Buford the Bassigator.” While you are there, you might be interested in taking a look at the museum.

The UCM Museum gives visitors a look at handmade folk art with animated scenes of Southern life. There are over 50,000 found and recycled objects made into fascinating things by Louisiana inventor and artist John Preble. You can see such things as a Mardi Gras parade, a New Orleans jazz funeral, a rhythm and blues dance hall, a haunted Southern plantation, and lots more.

Now America apparently loves Bigfoot because you can see more than one Bigfoot. He is found in several places along the highways and byways. The Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Felton, California, isn’t very large, but it has information on Bigfoot sightings, displays of Bigfoot action figures, and tabloid newspaper headlines. There is also the history of Bigfoot sightings, and outside of the museum is an enormous full-size model of Bigfoot.

Happy Camp, California, has a 12-foot-tall statue of Bigfoot standing next to a blue building that has a sign that says “Alchemist’s Den.”

In Ranchita, California, it is the Ranchita Yeti. It is an 11-foot statue of a white Yeti, Sasquatch, or Bigfoot. During Christmastime, he may be wearing a Santa hat.

There is a Bigfoot exhibit in the China Flat Museum in Willow Creek, California. Along Main Street one can see three large wooden statues of Bigfoot and one outside of the museum.

At the Bigfoot Motel visitors can see a large iron cage that stands behind the motel and once housed a replica of Bigfoot. In the museum, visitors can see various displays and get information about everything Bigfoot.

Willow Creek has become the Bigfoot Capital of Northern California and has an annual Bigfoot Festival every Labor Day weekend.

If you happen to be in Index, Washington, you’ll get to see a statue of Bigfoot holding a raccoon. He must have been hungry. This statue has been moved a little farther downhill, and in its place is a statue of a Sasquatch waving. There is another Sasquatch seated on a bench behind an espresso stand.

Going farther along U.S. Highway 2 East, visitors can see a wooden Bigfoot statue and a sign that says this was the filming site for the 1987 movie “Harry and the Hendersons.” If you remember the movie, Harry was the Bigfoot.

You can see Bigfoot and the Buried A-Frame in Kid Valley, Washington. Due to Mount St. Helen’s blowing up on May 18, 1980, a newly built A-frame house was filled up with 200 tons of silt, mud, water, and ash. At that time other houses along Highway 504 were also destroyed. Now the A-Frame is a tourist attraction, and visitors can walk through the ground floor that is now underground.

Nearby is the North Fork Survivors Gift Shop and a 28-foot-tall Bigfoot statue made of concrete.

If you’re up in Canada, Vermilion Bay, Ontario, offers the hitchhiking Bigfoot. (pictured above) At a rest station is a huge Bigfoot with fangs and white eyes hitching for a ride.

In 1952 the people who lived in a small town called Flatwoods, West Virginia, were visited by aliens. Supposedly a flying saucer landed on a hilltop nearby on a summer evening. When some neighbors went to look for the saucer, they met an alien who was about ten feet tall and dressed in a skirt with a green body and eyes that bulged all in a glowing red face in the form of the Ace of Spades. The neighbors ran away frightened when the alien started hissing, making loud thumps, and began gliding toward them. Not only did they receive a scare, but they also became ill because of some gas the alien apparently let out. Afterwards visitors found no alien nor saucer but did smell a sickening, metallic odor. Now the Flatwoods Monster is also known as the Green Monster, and there is a sign in town which says, “Welcome to Flatwoods, Home of the Green Monster.” In town there is a gas station that sells replicas of the Flatwoods Monster.

Now I don’t know who’s pulling whose leg but there’s the story of Hodags, which are found in the north woods of Wisconsin. They’re supposedly fierce creatures that rose out of lumber oxen ashes. These lumber oxen were cremated so that their souls would be cleansed after spending a lifetime listening to lumberjack profanities. Visitors may see the stuffed kind. The beast is apparently seven feet long, has a lizard-like body, and has thick, short legs with huge claws. The Hodag has short, bristly hair, spikes along its backbone, a powerful tail, large horns, sharp teeth, and green eyes. In Rhinelander, Wisconsin, at the Logging Museum, one can see an old photo in which the Hodag leers at its next victim while Rhinelanders surround it wielding pitchforks, axes, and rifles. At first the town was called “Hodag City” and now is known as “The Home of the Hodag”. Specimens of this beast are exhibited at the Rhinelander Logging Museum. The museum shows the life of a logger and informs visitors of the history of logging. Among the outbuildings there is a cookhouse, a bunkhouse, and a blacksmith shop.

If the Hodag didn’t scare you, take a trip to Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and meet the Mothman. In 1966 and 1967 a creature called the Mothman terrorized this town. He was said to be 6 feet tall, had a barrel chest and huge wings, and it appeared that he had no head or neck; the glowing red eyes seemed to look out from his chest. The creature gave out a high-pitched squeal and during a 13-month period was seen by more than 100 townspeople. The Mothman usually appeared by an old military munitions storage deposit. The end of the reign of terror came with the collapsing of a local bridge, which killed dozens of people. Now the residents of Point Pleasant sell Mothman souvenirs, have a small Mothman Museum, and there is a statue of the creature in the downtown business district.