Thursday, June 9, 2011

Book review: Gullible's Travels

Over the decades, I've seen a lot of the Excited States of America. I've had a pistol stuck in my face in Trout Creek MT. As Agent 17 can attest, I've even spent a weekend in Harlingen TX. I've been to three dogfights and a box social. But I have never...never...been to:

  • Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Museum in San Antonio TX


  • The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices in St. Paul MN


  • The American Museum of Sanitary Plumbing in Worcester MA, or


  • The American International Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque (turn left there...)


  • Cash Peters, however, has visited those oddball museums and many more. Deliberately.

    For years, the British journalist trekked around Europe and the USA for the BBC and for a hilarious and popular NPR radio series, The Bad Taste Tours. Before switching off the mic, he embarked on one last low-budget jaunt around the country, and recorded his observations in Gullible's Travels (Globe Pequot Press, 2003). Here's a sample.

    New Mexico is not like the rest of America. Perhaps the best way to describe it is "a dusty, primitive, flat, barren wilderness". Unfortunately, there's something about that phrase that doesn't look good on a license plate. So a few years back, the locals...said to hell with that, and dumped the dusty primitive, flat, barren wilderness angle in favor of something far better. What they came up with was a stroke of genius: The Land of Enchantment, which not only looks great on a license plate, but is also infinitely more attractive to visitors.

    Gullible's Travels is the funniest book on the subject of tourism in the USA which I've read since Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent. Read it and start planning the itinerary for your next expedition into the world of the obscure and unusual. I'm going to start with the Ahlgrim Acres Funeral Parlor and Miniature Golf Course. Can you imagine...

    No comments:

    Post a Comment