Family Trips of a Lifetime: Trees of Mystery and Other Roadside Attractions

 

For anyone whose lived through a long rainy winter in Northwest Washington, the allure of California is strong. My family made the trip to SoCal in ’71 and ’76, once in a Rambler Classic and once in a Mercury Marquis Brougham. I bet you can’t guess which one was rock solid on the Grapevine and which one imploded in a steaming tangle of shredded V-belts and coolant, with just enough inertia to coast into a Las Vegas service station. Yes indeed, it was the big Broughaminator. But I digress.

 

 

The California Dreamin’ in this story belongs to some of my mom’s older relatives, who drove south to California in the ’40s and ’50s. Luckily for us, they took a lot of pictures. The main players here are my great aunt and uncle, Lennie and Harry; her aunt and uncle, Maude and Vic; and Harry’s new-ish 1950 DeSoto. Vic and Maude were colorful veterans of the Alaska Gold Rush, and they lived in West Sacramento, Calif. More on them later.

 

 

Aunt Lennie and Uncle Harry were fixtures in my life, maybe because they never had kids of their own. They were “old” by the time I was born, and treated my mom like royalty. Harry loved his cars and he loved photography. But there was one big caveat: for every photo he took of a car, there were ten more of a featureless landscape, a blooming rose bush, or a mystery birthday cake. In the trove of photos he left behind, I could piece together California trips from 1949, 1953, and 1956. It was truly a golden age in the Golden State.

 

 

Harry worked as a maintenance man for the Bellingham School District, and Vic was a pianist with the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra. Neither men made the tall green, but their pride in owning a new-ish car was apparent. Maude’s handwriting on the back of this photo reads “Vic and the Chrysler Fluid Drive Car, 1949. We could go fishing in this bus, it will get us there.” Chrysler introduced Fluid Drive in 1939, and then a semi-automatic drive system in 1941. Whatever drive option Vic had, it held rank over “Windsor” or “Highlander.” Fluid Drive is what really mattered.

 

 

By the summer of 1953, Harry was driving a 1950 DeSoto. This would have been a huge step up from the old Ford, which would have been at least 15 years old by then.

 

 

Lennie never got her driving license, but she did tell me the story of once steering “a Maxwell car” back in the teens or twenties. Harry was a rock-hound and Lennie accompanied him on his many trips to “carnelian country.” Every time I went to their house, the first thing I checked was the rock tumbler.

 

 

Though it took a lot to make Harry smile, he was not averse to some good family fun. Not only did he and Lennie hit the redwoods in northern California, they drove their precious DeSoto through the base of the Chandelier Tree in Underwood Park. This big sequoia was in Leggett, Calif., but it’s apparent by the “bumper sticker” that they’d already been to see the Trees of Mystery.

 

 

Trees of Mystery was a roadside attraction in Klamath, Calif. on the Redwood Highway. This route was also known as Highway 101. Either way, Paul Bunyan was there to “guide you through a huge hollow entrance log to see the many oddities of Mother Nature.” There was also a connection to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Who among you could resist this spectacle?

 

 

At 34 feet tall, Babe the Blue Ox was said to “nod his head and tail to the many visitors at the Trees of Mystery.” An AI Overview of these folk figures states that “Paul, a giant lumberjack, and Babe, an equally immense blue ox, are symbols of strength, ingenuity, and the spirit of the American frontier.” I’ll buy that.

 

 

Not satisfied with their postcard, Lennie and Harry snapped a shot from the parking lot. Trees of Mystery is still going strong in northern California, with a Sky Trail gondola ride and a forest cafe. My wife and I stopped there in 2000, and I brought home a souvenir burl that almost lived.

 

 

Elsewhere in redwood country, the pair were pictured near a brass-era runabout. This was in front of a “Redwood Burl Gift Shop,” possibly in Crescent City, Calif. Lamps, bowls, and other household items were apparently fashioned from burlwood. Some of these items still turn up in antique malls along the west coast. Or Goodwill.

 

 

Here’s my Aunt Helen and a better look at the sign. I think there are about eight more variations of this photo, variously noted on the back as either a “Cadillac” or a “Rolls Royce.”

 

 

Somewhere along the line, Harry posed the DeSoto in front of what I think is the Grand Coulee Dam, on the Columbia River in eastern Washington.

 

 

Now we know the real reason for those versatile wing windows. Feeding wildlife. The ribs showing on that deer must mean he’s really hungry. Notice how Harry played it safe and turned his spotlight away from the thundering herd.

 

 

In 1956, Lennie and Harry met up with Vic and Maude in Reno, Nevada, “The Biggest Little City In The World.” Having been a performer all his life, Vic was never shy about hamming it up. On this trip Harry took a whole mess of color photos, which must have been an extravagance for him.

 

 

Vic and Maude made their home in West Sacramento, in the old town. Above is Vic entertaining the whole gang with his piano virtuosity. There are other pictures of Maude dancing, but not Lennie and Harry. No way.

 

 

Vic and Maude found their place in the sun and enjoyed sharing it with their relatives. My mom always said they were true characters and a lot of fun.

 

 

Vic and Maude were old-time show people, and I did everything possible to find mention of them in “Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush.” The family lore was that Maude met Vic in Fairbanks, Alaska, when she was a madam and he was a piano player. Maude was my great-great aunt, born in Kansas in 1883. She was the right age for the gold rush and I’d like to believe that all of it is true. Vic and Maude visited me and my family in Hawaii when I was a toddler, so I have a personal connection with them.

 

 

Vic and Maude both passed away in the late ’60s. Lennie and Harry followed suit about 20 years later, with all of their photos coming down to me. And lest you think I’ve forgotten this is a car site, here is one last shot of Harry when he was younger.