Tat’s Bizarre Travels

Seattle, WA - All of the rumors about the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop are true. The place is spectacular. Having been around for the last 100-odd years and owned by the same family the place has a wondrous collection of everything from shrunken heads and two headed calfs to t-shirts and plastic beads. And that is why the “for sale” items are not nearly as fun as the “please don’t touch” items.

Primarily a store, the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop is located right on the water, Alaskan Way, on a corner next to a souvenir store and the pier. Strangely it’s nestled among some of the most mundane fast food seafood eateries and souvineir shops. Perhaps that’s why there were so many more people inside than I expected. Of course, if they were freaked out by the shrunken heads they didn’t show it.

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Seattle, WA - If you head down to Pioneer Square, one of the only parts of Seattle that reminds me of an East Coast city, you’ll find Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour. I typically don’t like the ideas of tours, unless, like the Seattle Underground, it’s the only way I’m going to see a place that is otherwise off limits. I guess I could break in, but I’m much too old for prison. Besides this tour is a humorous look at the history of Seattle and the of the subterranean areas that are left to explore. Like any good subterranean adventure you are only permitted to explore the bits that are on the tour, but I suspect that there’s more to see for someone with the right set of keys to see.

The tour boasts “irreverent humor” which is directed mostly at the founders of Seattle. It mostly talks about the founders follies, including the inability to correctly build a working sewage system. Learning the history of Seattle’s early waste management system includes some of the best jokes on the tour. Everyone loves poo humor.

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Uniontown, PA - While heading deep into the Laural Highlands for a fun filled day of visiting predetermined offbeat attractions I came across the Searights Toll House. It was one of those unexpected stops. As I was driving along I saw this odd little building with a parking lot, so I pulled on in. Actually I turned around about 200 feet down the road and then pulled in. Typically I’m so focused on getting to my first destination I don’t stop to see the other odd sights that pepper the landscape.

The Searights Toll House is a museum, or so says the sign on the the window. There are no hours posted and the door was locked when I got there so I was a bit disappointed. At 2PM on a Saturday I thought I if they did have house I was nailing them. (In fact if you visit the Searights Toll House page you will notice that they advertise being open from 10 to 4) So with the toll house closed I proceeded to wander around the outside a take a gander.

The building has a list of toll costs on the outside and you can tell it was built in the good ‘ol cart and horse days. Especially when you read that cattle costs 3¢. Once you read the history of the toll house, which you have to get from the internet because the museum’s hours are mysterious, you find out that once the roads became paved and automobiles started ruling the highway the toll houses closed down, only to be replaced years later by those handsome devils the toll booth. And the Easy Pass.