I just got back from a conference, and a few unexpected things made me look twice on this trip:
automated soap dispensers in the bathrooms at Detroit Metro airport (a first for me). I was reaching over to press down on the thing when the soap just squirted out. So just for fun, I passed my hand under the dispenser a few more times.
a Buddhist monk with a wine-colored polar fleece vest and waistpack that coordinated with his robes
a sign on the jetway that presumably had operating instructions written on it, but the only thing I could see clearly was a large highlighted line at the bottom of the page: REMEMBER THE PROBE! :eek:
What have you cool/memorable/surprising things have you spotted while on the road?
Phoenix AZ has some of the most spectacular thunder storms I have ever seen. No more dramatic than say Florida…but you can see them coming for many many miles whereas in FL they generally sneak up on you so to speak.
Anyway, I was driving over I-10 and saw one such thunder storm dropping it’s rain somewhere over Scottsdale - I was roughly 30 miles away - and in it’s trail were 8…count them 8 - BEAUTIFUL! Rainbows. With extremely brightcolors. And of course I had no camera.
Second Story - The very first time I saw someone on a Segway. The school I teach at bought 12 of them for our security staff. Now it is commonplace for me for me to see them.
Third - the first time I saw an armadillo was pretty cool…
Driving home from a trip south this spring I saws this enormous cross near Effingham, Illinois. I guess they have them other places, too. I thought it was kind of creepy but it’s a pretty amazing sight with the morning sun shining on it.
On a trip to Pennsylvania, I stopped at a gas station and saw an Amish type person (horse & buggy, straw hat) making a phone call, and thought to myself, “Who’s he calling?”
Driving through South Dakota, all the roadside stuff they’ve got–a huge, iron T-rex skeleton being led on a chain by an iron human skeleton; the giant iron Easter-Island style cow head…
In London, I saw a shop named “Fish ‘n’ Things”; it had neither fish nor fishing equipment in it, and I still wonder what it sold… also saw a shop for maternity clothes with the name Bumpsadaisy–“Clothes worth getting pregnant for!”
Yep, that’s it! We never managed to get a good, unobscured picture of it. Most likely because we were too lazy to ever stop the car and take a picture while stationary.
On a detour home from Illinois last weekend, I saw a sign touting this “Creationist’s theme park” in Kentucky. I don’t think the park has actually been built yet, thank…um, Og.
Pegleg Paintball. Apparently this is a paintball show run by a guy who had a leg amputated. He named the store Pegleg Paintbal (the signage is appropriate as well. Pegleg Paintball
A sign in Mona, UT (A little town with a pop around 1000 at the most) for an exotic animal petting zoo and BBQ. The sign had a little girl munching on a huge leg of roast beast.
In Singapore:
A hot dog on a stick with the new name “Hot dog in the dip” they served Tuna dogs as one of their items. A chunk of tuna dipped in batter and deep fried.
In Hong Kong:
All the porn videos had the “universal symbol” people (like for signs and such) in various positions to tell you what was on the video. Very helpful actually.
Down one side street off of Nathan Road, was a huge sign amongs all the other ads that said “Hair Potato” no arrows to indicate where it was, no explianation. Just “Hair potato”.
In Dublin:
A light neon sign in the window of a restaraunt that said “Gruel”. This was like a beer sign. The name of the restaraunt wasn’t Gruel, so I can only assume they were advertising that they served Gruel.
I have seen a lot of other crazy stuff that i can’t remember at the moment, but I also would like to state, every time i leave my home state at least once I see a midget (or little person for you PC thugs out there). It’s not that I didn;t expect them to existi, but it’s just not often you expect to see a chinese or japanese or indian or irish midget.
I love driving through Arizona, for the saguaro cacti by the side of the road, looking exactly like what you think a cactus should look like. As if they were planted by the chamber of commerce.
burnmeup, I stayed at a casino/hotel in Reno at the same time as a Little People convention (yup, just like on CSI).
The signs painted by the curb at pedestrian crossings in London, advising you to “look right”. To keep unwary tourists from getting creamed by traffic coming from the wrong side of the road.
I hated those things! Every time I went to rinse my hands, I got soap squirted on my wrist. I had to come in from the left to fake out the dispenser. Also, I noticed a tremendous amount of wasted soap trickling down the drain of the sink. Of course, the regular, manual soap dispensers never work, so I guess this is an improvement.
OK, another funny sign: 9 years ago my father and I were in Eastern Kentucky and we saw a sign that read “Bypass Church of God.” I guess Bypass was the name of the town but we thought it was funny enough that we stopped to look and we noticed the church had outdoor toilets. That was not terribly unusual–in some areas of the country I’ve seen churches and homes that have old fashioned outdoor latrines. But this one was a three stall deal. One door read “Ladies,” another read “Gentlemen,” and another read “Trash.”
Yeah, it probably just meant the “Trash” stall was the place to toss the garbage, but we laughed about it.
I couldn’t take a picture of that one, but returning near IKEA there is another one that reads ‘shit stinks when you stir it’ (or something like that). Silly Danes.
I was looking for a picture of the Stonehenge replica at Maryhill, WA when I came across this cool site. It has all sorts of interesting roadside stuff.
When I was in Sweden I saw this sign As near as I can tell it means that Dolly Parton is laying in the road ahead.
Then of course there is the sign in the window of the store that read “Slut Rea” I know that Rea is sale, all I could think of was the old line from Yakob Smirnov “What a country!”
My favorite of all time, and the one that cracks me up every time is the sign at the entrance to the bar in the N terminal at Sea-Tac airport (Seattle). Now the N termianl are about 1/4 mile & a train ride past the TSA security check point. But at the entrance, just below waist level is a sign that says (and I am not making this up) “No firearms allowed” Is this really a problem? How many people have turned in their firearms so that they could get a beer?
Some years ago I was hiking in Yosemite National Park. At one point, our trail went right past the top on one of the waterfalls. You could walk out on a large, flat rock outcropping so that you were standing just a few feet from the edge of the fall, which is a couple hundred feet high.
Just past the railing set in the rock is a warning sign. Now, this being the litigious country that it is, I was not surprised. After all, if there wasn’t a sign to warn us to keep out of the water, we’d have people dropping like flies.
But instead of “Danger, unsafe water”, or “Keep out: Extrame Danger”, or some other such warning, this sign had a very simple message:
