From Out West #14, April, 1991
By the editor
The closer you get to a national park, the larger the roadside trading posts. This is almost always true for the better known national parks, and somewhat true for the lesser known parks.
Now you take little-known Lassen National Park in northeast California. The tourist shops outside the park are puny; you can hardly find an imported jackalope from Taiwan or a scorpion imprisoned for eternity in a clear glass paperweight. You can hardly find a rubber tomahawk or a $1.95 plastic machine gun. So, in other words, these are crummy Trading Posts.
But you take the Grand Canyon -- where billions of visitors come every year, half of them from Japan (I'm exaggerating slightly): outside the Grand Canyon you have some pretty good tourist shops. And not the least impressive is the one at the intersection of U.S. 180 and Arizona Route 64. Yes, I'm talking about Flintstone's Bedrock City -- the home away from home of that lovable prehistoric couple Fred and Wilma and their dear friends Barney and Mrs. Barney (whatever her name is) and little Bam Bam and Pebbles and the rest of the lovable cartoon character gang from the Dinosaur Age.
You enter Bedrock City through a drive-thru entryway that has these words right on it: "Yaba-Daba-Doo." I'm not lying about this.
And then you park your vehicle, and walk right up to the front door of this huge Green Trading Post, and you'll swear you're hearing the words of Fred and Barney and Wilma. And do you know what? YOU ARE RIGHT. For there are loud speakers that actually project the voices of the lovable cartoon characters -- right out into the parking lot. It's impressive.
And the best part is yet to come, for right behind that green facade and the green wall to its sides, is a huge room full of souvenir items -- moccasins, earrings, plastic placemats, paperweights, post cards, plastic Indian dolls, and even a fast food area called Fred's Diner where you can order up a Bronto Burger, a Dino Dog or a Chickasaurus in a Basket. For desert, you order Pebbles' Ice Cream.
I was so impressed with Flintstone's Bedrock City that I entirely forgot about the Grand Canyon. I was, however, interested in a Grand Canyon souvenir whiskey shot glass for a guy I know back home named LaRue MacDonald, Jr., the owner of LaRue's Kitty Litter Emporium and Discount Razor Blade Shop.
But I didn't stay for long in the Trading Post, for there was the amusement area out back. And I was ready to explore it! The clerk was whetting my appetite (not for food, but to visit the walled-in back yard and see what there was). "Kids love it out there," she said, and then she stared at me for a long time -- a very long time. I wondered why. What was her point? Then I realized why: it was because I was an ex-kid -- that was it. That was my guess, anyway.
I told her about my newspaper. I thought she'd get the hint that I was trying to get in for free. But she didn't get my drift at all. She just stood by her cash register and told me about the place -- about how I could feed Rocky the Snake, how I could take the Flintstone Train Ride, how I could have my picture taken with Fred and Barney, and how I would get an absolutely free membership in the Bedrock Bunny Club.
She was looking for $3, and I wasn't going for it. But she kept standing at the cash register. I stared at her, waiting for her to say something.
"All right, you can go in for free."
That's what I wanted her to say. But she didn't say it.
So I bought the souvenir shot glass for LaRue MacDonald and went out the front door, dejected, and back to the porta-home.
But I was still curious about what was out back in Bedrock City's back yard. I was second-guessing myself now. Should I have paid my $3 and gone in? Was I passing up something really great? What was really out there? I wondered and wondered, and I almost turned around -- I almost went back. Okay, I'd pay the $3; maybe it was worth it!
I had all but turned around when I stopped.
"Why should I go back. I'm a journalist. I should get in free. They'll get millions of dollars of publicity off my story and then millions of people will come see this place."
That was the thought on my mind.
The nerve of that clerk not to just let me in!
So I wouldn't go in. I wouldn't see what was out back.
Or would I?
Tricky me, I figured out a plan -- a simple plan, yet the plan of a semi-borderline genius:
I drove the porta-home from its parking space over toward the eight-foot wall that surrounds the back yard of Bedrock City. And then I stopped and put on the parking brake. Then I got out and walked to the back of the porta-home -- right up to the ladder that leads onto its roof. And then I checked around to be sure nobody was watching me. Then I climbed up that ladder, right onto the roof of the porta-home -- which put my eyes about 15 feet off the ground -- and way above the green wall around the Bedrock City back yard. And there before me was the entire amusement area.Wow!
I checked it out. What a disappointment!
The Flintstone Train Ride wasn't a real train at all -- just a little car on rubber wheels that pulled a couple of plastic train cars that didn't look like train cars at all. I'd look silly riding that thing.
And Fred and Barney were nowhere in sight. And where the heck was Rocky the Snake?
It looked boring. Maybe it was, maybe not. But from my vantage point high atop the porta-home, it looked boring. So I got down and prepared to drive away. I'd seen enough. I was ready for the big canyon up the road.
But first I decided to check out the Bedrock City campground. So I did, and there were the usual parking spots, with electric hookups, and sewer holes, and a campground dump station -- the regular camping hardware.
Wilma's Laundry was right next door, but it was closed, so I couldn't wash my forty pair of dirty underwear and my two pairs of dirty socks.
The sky was spitting snow, and I was now officially tired of Bedrock City. Grand Canyon was only a few miles up the road. I put the porta-home's pedal to the metal, and was soon headed 55 miles per hour up the highway.
"Yaba-Daba-Doo!"
©1998 by Out West Newspaper
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