mattbell

Lots of little towns along the coast competed for our attention. Most people who run roadside attractions don't understand that it takes time for people to decide whether or not to stop the car for something. Not that many people will turn around and go back, even for something cool-looking. If there are lots of people in the car, the decide-to-stop time will be a couple of orders of magnitude longer than the visual reaction time, as there is discussion time, deliberation time, and decision time. It pays to put a series of signs along the road, starting at least a mile in advance, to alert potential customers of your attraction.

The town of Port Orford figured out something clever -- they painted a giant "OCEAN VIEW" sign on the road, an irresistible call to passing motorists that will divert their cars off the highway and bring them to a dead stop.

It sort of worked in the sense that we spent an hour walking around their beach, but we failed to spend any money there. Instead we reappropriated their flowers, crabs, and seaweed for our own nefarious purposes.

I became briefly trapped in a Matthew Barney film. Everything was overly absurd, pretentious, and high contrast. All it took to get me there was putting this piece of dried plant matter on my head.