This week for FUN FRIDAY, I give you a simple link. Wikipedia has a shortcut which takes you to a list of weird and unusual pages. I will warn you now that some of the content is slightly “not safe for work.” On the other hand, some of the content is harmless and simply strange. Here’s an example from that page:
Keep in mind, someone had to do something like this on purpose. It’s not like at some point a statue of a cow collided with some antlers on the way up to sitting on a telephone pole. No, someone spent a decent amount of time planning and executing that.
That’s only one of the many pages you’ll find that will make you wonder what people were thinking.
M-185… the highway that isn’t
Of course, my favorite link on that page leads you to a story about M-185, the only state highway in the country that cars can’t drive on. It’s on an island that does not allow motor traffic at all. It’s up in the north of Michigan, and as everyone knows, Solid Signal’s HQ is in Michigan just outside Detroit.
While we’re musing and having fun, I sometimes think about the interstate highway system. It’s a really amazing feat, and it’s not even 100 years old. But when I think about it, I think about Hawaii. There are interstate highways in Hawaii of course, but unlike any other state the interstates aren’t really… interstate. I mean Hawaii is the only state you can’t drive to, so how can they call them “interstates?” Yeah I get it, it’s just a name. Still…
But then I’m getting off topic
Not every weird thing is on that page
Just a tiny drive from the Indian Canyon Drive exit off Interstate 10 in Palm Springs you will find this surprising thing. It’s hard to see from the photo but it’s an old Volkswagen bug that has had spider legs welded onto it. This is a full-size car body so the whole sculpture is quite large. Atlas Obscura has a page on it, and it’s visible on Google Maps, too.
I first encountered this monstrosity back when it fronted a welding shop in the 1990s. That shop has closed but the sculpture remains. It’s right next door to a very busy truck stop now, but when I first saw it, it was sort of in the middle of nowhere.
The weirdest thing about Wikipedia
Despite Wikipedia being billed as editable for everyone, I’ve never been able to successfully create or even edit a page. I can do it, but then the edits are rejected for one reason or another. Even though it seems like a lot of information on Wikipedia is unsourced, my stuff always gets knocked down even when I have great sourcing. In my life, I’ve seen a fair number of things first hand, and have documented knowledge of many other things, but somehow I’ve never been able to put any of it out there on Wikipedia. I’d love to share my own history with the Volkswagen Spider Sculpture, but it seems like I can’t. That may be the weirdest thing about Wikipedia, now that I think about it.
