(male announcer) Production funding for Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations has been provided by: (female announcer) YRC Worldwide and public TV are natural partners.

We share the very important goal of connecting people, places, and information.

In this big world, that's a big job.

YRC Worldwide and public TV can handle it.

YRC Worldwide: honored to support the communities we serve.

(male announcer) The DeBruce Companies, proud to serve agricultural communities throughout the Midwest with high-speed grain-handling facilities, fertilizer, and feed ingredient distribution terminals.

(male announcer) And by Fred & Lou Hartwig, generous supporters of KCPT and public television, urging you to become a member today.

(man) ♪ Welcome to a show about things you can see ♪ ♪ without going far, and a lot of them are free.

♪ ♪ If you thought there was nothing ♪ ♪ in the old heartland, ♪ ♪ you ought to hit the blacktop ♪ ♪ with these fools in a van.

♪ ♪ Look out; they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out art in their own backyard.

♪ ♪ Randy does the steering so he won't hurl.

♪ ♪ Mike's got the map, such a man of the world.

♪ ♪ That's Don with the camera, ♪ ♪ kind of heavy on his shoulder.

♪ ♪ And that giant ball of tape, it's a world record holder.

♪ ♪ Look out; they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out art in their own backyard.

♪ ♪ Look out; they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out the world in their own backyard, ♪ ♪ checking out the world in their own backyard.

♪ (Don) Dear TV Mailbag, what did Grant pass, and how should I shoot it?

Hi, Don the camera guy here, rolling along Oregon's south side, searching, as always, for the odd and amazing, which is why we're pulling in here: to gawk at another giant fiberglass figure, the left-hand-up, right-hand-down kind they call muffler men, though this one seems kind of hidden.

(Randy) Who would take a muffler man, put him up on a pedestal, and then cover him up?

Exactly, it's like he's strapped to that lottery thing, that codpiece.

His mighty grasp is obscured.

Exactly.

It's just not right.

I'm telling you.

(Don) These two with the keen insights would be my producers, the TV weasels who plot our course, which now calls for local landmark number two and--I am not making this up-- the town Neanderthal, a civic symbol unlike any we've seen before.

(Mike) I hate to point it out, but it is the world's most unique booster group.

They make their own rules as they go along.

They're always calculated for the most fun.

Why don't you take a look up his skirt?

With each new trick and each visit to a new area, they spread the good word for Grants Pass.

People are enjoying life to the fullest here.

(Randy) With a club.

(Mike) With a club.

The good people at home might like to know that the caveman was built by the same shop that built the muffler man.

They commissioned this.

(Don) How'd you know that?

I read it.

I read it online.

Oh, one thought.

Caveman versus muffler man.

You be the judge.

Yeah.

(Don) Now, that would be a smackdown to ponder, and we'll leave you to it, since we're bound for points beyond.

One thing's for sure: trees do abound down here, and that inspires art of all kinds.

In fact, the Burl looks well worth a visit, but the boys say we're already late, so it's so long, Cave Junction, hello, Takilma-- or a few miles outside it, almost to the California line, where Michael Garnier's Out 'n' About tree house resort pulls in lodgers who dig that bird's-eye view.

(Garnier) I built my first tree house probably--for the kids probably 25 years ago.

And after I seen them play up on it, you know, I took the ladder down.

It was 20 feet up in the air, and it was scary, so...

So it sat there for years, you know, out here in the middle of nowhere, and I was trying to figure out how to make a living here.

I always had to go someplace else and make a living.

But anyway, I started the bed-and-breakfast with the cabin here and horseback riding, and nobody came.

But I'd been looking at that platform for years, and so I decided, "Well, maybe this'd get somebody out here."

Everybody thought I was crazy.

I built it, and they came, and now I got, like, 22 different platforms and tree houses and 12 units, so... (Randy) Some of these reflect what, old TV shows, old things from your memories?

(Garnier) Well, the first one was the Peacock Perch, you know, because it had a peacock on it.

If the couple was up there, if they made any noise in the middle of the night, the peacock would go off, and it wasn't good for business.

[laughter] This is the Balcontree room, which has got a-- it's got a balcony on it, right?

(Mike) Yeah, yeah.

(Garnier) I have the Treezebo, the Forestree, which is off this way, which is going to go to the Toiletree, which is going to go to another one.

This is my suite, the Tree Room Schoolhouse Suite, 'cause it's got "tree" rooms.

The one that took the longest was the Serendipitree, which is this one here.

That's my Treeway, Mountain View Treeway.

But to get up there, one of the things is, to get up that high, a set of staircases is tens of thousands of dollars to get up there.

And so once I'm up there, then I'm doing this walkway out to different units.

One of the shows that I made it on was World's Ten Best Bathrooms.

My first ones didn't have bathrooms at all, and people still came.

Everybody thought I was-- you know, they wouldn't come if it didn't have a bathroom.

People do, and I do have a bathroom for them; they just have to walk for it.

They have to work for it.

But let's say this: the ones with the bathrooms do book up first.

This is the kiddie tree house.

There's a lot of head scratching that goes on to make these things.

You know, the first couple, it was easy to see where they'd go, but then I had--you know, I was running out of-- I had to come up with, actually, a new technology which enables me to do these other trees, so...

I guess I'm part arborist, part engineer, you know, part carpenter.

(Randy) How about professional punster?

(Garnier) You got to make your own jobs for that.

(Don) Now, playing with words is one thing.

Zipping along between the trees is another.

But Michael says it is the e-ticket ride out here.

And our Mr. Murphy, having survived that backyard roller coaster a few years back, is set to give it a go.

Whose idea was this?

Whoa!

(Don) Actually, it was his.

And even though he did sign a waiver, I'll be sure to roll for insurance purposes.

Not bad for a TV weasel.

So while Mike defibrillates and dries out his skivvies, the earthbound portion of our crew has grabbed up the world's largest ball of videotape and headed for the fire to soak up some Swiss Family ambience.

Pass the s'mores; it's a real Kodak moment.

(Mike) Last night, we could have stayed in a tree house, but instead we opted to stay in a Butler building.

Not that there's anything wrong with Butler buildings.

(Don) You had a butler?

It's true; our accommodations were uber generic, in part to accommodate all this crap it takes to make TV, which somehow each day fits into the Freestar, and then we're at it again, feeling ever so Midwestern as we gaze upon that vast ocean blue and the shimmering sea of green.

Redwoods galore, and then, all of a sudden, a pair of familiar faces begin to emerge.

No, not these two.

Bunyan and Babe, and he's really quite chatty.

Hey, Paul.

(Bunyan) How are you?

How you doing this morning?

(Don) I'm pretty good.

(Bunyan) Oh, all right, excellent.

(Don) I was worried about you.

I heard that Paul was dead.

(Bunyan) A little under the weather.

(Don) That's enough mystery for now but not near enough trees, so it's back out on Highway 101 and into the Redwood National Park with one eye out for Bigfoot and a guest glove just in case.

What a place to play some catch.

(Randy) A high pop-up just doesn't seem very high in this environment, does it?

(Mike) I was just thinking Paul Bunyan missed a few trees.

(Don) Cincinnati redwoods.

(Randy) People really like to see us move, don't they?

(Mike) They do; they love this part.

(Don) The jury's out on that one, but it is, after all, our show, and throwing the horsehide all across this great country of ours is part and parcel of it, much like Carol's cool maps, which tell you where we've been and what comes next-- in this case, Humboldt County, known for, among other things, the annual kinetic race from Arcata to Ferndale, right through Eureka, which is where we are now, looking for our kinetic connection and coming up dry, which explains why we've come to the loudest corner in town to corner this guy: mural-painting, sculpture-making, eggbeater-playing Duane Flatmo, who carries a high-test résumé.

Yeah, Tom Green came up here and hung out in our lab for 2 1/2 hours.

And he was--he picked me as California's most interesting person, and I got to go to the Leno show and ride one of my weird contraptions on there.

We got--we were on Junkyard Wars, that show Junkyard Wars, a whole season of that.

Then they did this thing called Strange Vehicle Games over in China.

They gave me $2,000, and you had to go find an old truck, build it, and come compete in these games.

And we took that little Ford.

That's that Ford, and we tore it apart and built this out of junk from the junkyard, free.

I'm in this book.

(Randy) Yeah, get a shot of that.

Eccentric America, two pictures.

You got any giant kinetic machines in there?

Nothing.

I went camping with a bunch of guys, and as I was talking to them, I made this sculpture out of all the rocks laying around.

Oh, look at that.

Got my picture of Hasselhoff when I was on America's Got Talent.

[laughs] Wait till you go to Arcata, though, and see the lab.

You'll love it.

You'll love it.

(Randy) What do you mean, wait?

So what time?

10:00 tomorrow morning?

(Don) Now, Duane swears he'll get us hooked up with the lab tomorrow.

But for now, he's got a mural that's got a deadline, and, well, we're welcome to watch.

Just watch where you step.

Welcome to the waiting part of the show.

Color us patient.

Morning has come plenty soon enough here in old-town Eureka, where a strange sight is starting to unfold with the boys throwing their weight around to help open up a glassed-in folk art garden, or what remains of the fabulous figures and faux flowers from Romano Gabriel's yard.

(woman) First of all, I should say the man was a gardener.

He did gardening in Eureka.

He very much stayed to himself.

He wasn't a part of the Italian grouping here in Eureka.

He was very much a loner.

If you walked up to his fence, he'd be in the back, where you couldn't see him.

It was such a thick group of things.

And if you leaned over the fence, he would come out and greet you...physically.

It feels Italian to me when I look at it and I see all the different things.

He had slogans he wrote.

Well, here's a priest here.

There's little bits and pieces of everything.

Of course, there's redwoods.

There's lumberjacks from this area.

Obviously, that is a theater scene, people at a theater sitting there.

(Randy) Oh, he was into astronauts?

Did I see James Lovell over there?

(Vellutini) He did the astronauts of the time.

A lot of the pieces-- like, you see the carousel.

(Randy) Yeah, I love the carousel.

(Vellutini) Those things went around, and there were little motors to them, and they could rotate.

I have no idea what the rest of his things are except, you know, trees and flowers.

It was a real, you know, group of incredible work that he did for whatever reason; I don't know.

And no one really knows except Romano.

The wood is just old crates, wooden crates.

He would go to the grocery store, get the crates, disassemble them, use them for his project.

He worked on it all the time.

He would repaint it and repaint it and redo and add.

It just grew and grew and grew.

Obviously, the more it grew, the more people came around, and the bigger kick he got out of it.

There was a little bus at the time, a jitney, and he would get on the bus, because it went by his house.

And he got on the bus 'cause he wanted to hear the reactions of people on the bus.

(Mike) Obviously, he cared about what people thought.

(Vellutini) Obviously.

He enjoyed--he got a kick out of it, you know.

Yet if you approached it closer than this fence, if you tried to go, he'd be right there with a-- something in his hand.

Here's his fish bowl.

I love his fish bowl.

See, he has little fish in it.

[laughs] He was whimsical.

The Italians had a different name for that.

[laughter] (Mike) What would that be?

(Vellutini) The Italians thought he was crazy.

(Mike) Crazy, oh.

(Vellutini) They thought he was crazy.

(Mike) Well, what did the neighbors think of it?

(Vellutini) I don't think he had much to do with his neighbors.

(Randy) But you never actually got to speak with him.

(Vellutini) I did not speak to Romano.

I did not know him.

(Don) He never chased you from the yard or-- He never chased me from the yard.

I went by it often to see it with my husband, but I didn't really know him at all.

(Don) And yet somehow, when Romano died with no relatives around, his yard ended up in her garage.

And to make a long story short, Dolores did-- with help from the city, the heritage society, and a museum curator from Oakland-- safely transplant Gabriel's garden here.

(Vellutini) It wasn't something I wanted to have happen, but it had to be saved, you know?

It had to be saved, and it would have been gone.

(Randy) This needs to not have gone away, so good job.

(Vellutini) Thank you.

(Mike) And Romano, I think he'd be smiling somewhere, wouldn't he?

Hopefully.

(Randy) And then chasing you away.

(Mike) Yeah, then say, "Get out of here.

You're standing in my stuff."

"You're standing on my porch."

(Don) Mr. G's porch doesn't get much foot traffic except for occasions like these, since it is sealed for your protection, which means the closing of the gates is now under way.

And before you know it, we're moving on down Third Street to a place we've been told sees plenty of action.

No, not that one.

The studio across the street.

Inside, it's like a beehive humming, best explained by the lady who started the buzz.

(woman) Back in 1997, I was working with a bunch of people with developmental disabilities doing employment.

And I had an aunt with a developmental disability, and I realized that almost everybody I worked with was totally creative and had so much to share.

And they didn't have any outlet, so I thought, "Oh, I'll give them an outlet."

So I started it.

It was a really tiny program on Saturdays, and it's grown since then.

Now we have a building and a gallery, and we have over 40 artists that come.

I mean, the people here don't have any preconceived ideas about what art is, what it should be.

They don't have any thoughts about limitations as far as what they can do.

So the art here is incredible.

(Randy) And your teachers sort of direct?

Or how does that work?

(Patterson) It's more like facilitation.

They're there with the supplies and the knowledge.

They're all professional working artists, and so they're there to just guide people and help them do whatever they want to do.

(Randy) Do they come back and go, you know, "I just saw the coolest thing?"

Or do you get a lot of feedback?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that the artists here inspire the teachers even more so than vice versa.

(Randy) Ar e you doing a portrait of somebody right now?

Oh, yes, I'm doing one of your camera crew.

(Mike) That's me.

That's me; I know that.

And this is you.

She made me ten pounds thinner.

And this is one of your other camera crew.

All those little paintings you see on the wall, they're mine.

And all these things up there, I did with clay.

And I also go bowling.

This is Alaska.

I went to Alaska, and this is the Alaska I went to.

It's New Orleans.

And this is my favorite.

(Mike) Now, who would that be?

(Sadler) Oh , that's Elvis Presley.

We have a good time here.

Keeps me out of trouble.

[laughs] (Randy) So how often do you come here?

I come four days a week.

I do the paintings first, and then I do them in clay.

Betty's Banquet.

(Randy) Boy, that is a big burger.

(Kuhnel) Yeah, it is.

It's four--three strips of bacon, lettuce, tomato, onion.

Loaf of bread, cheese ball, knives.

And this is the fruit.

This is taco salad.

This is rum and Coke.

And this one is Long Island iced tea.

[making motor noises] It's a tail of a plane.

Plane float for our parade.

[motor noises] (Randy) Do you have a blueprint that you're working from?

It's just in my head.

It's in my head.

That's a Helena plane I'm working on.

(Randy) Do you love airplanes?

Oh, absolutely, I love them.

(man) So how are you going to ride this?

Someone's going to pull me, or I'll get a goat.

Get a goat?

Yeah, to pull me along.

(Don) Now, usually getting your goat is my job.

But this time, I will acquiesce.

And though aviation experts might disagree, I foresee high flying in Helena's future and, we hope, good things for the ground crew too.

(Patterson) It hasn't been easy, especially for the two years that we didn't have any money.

[laughs] But, you know, we had some really good people who believed in it and who believed in the power of art.

And so we've kept it going.

We get a lot of visitors.

Our guest book in the gallery has a lot of great comments about how the art here is the best in the county.

I agree.

[laughs] (Don) Of course, it is not a competition, and we're not here to judge.

In fact, we're not here at all anymore.

We're winging our way across the bay to Arcata, looking for that lab, and I think we've found it.

Flatmo's a no-show, but his pal Ken, who's married to June, who makes stuff out here too, is ready, willing, and able to show off the fruits of their labors.

Animals, vegetables, minerals too.

(Mike) What the hell do you do with a gourd?

(Beidelman) Well, Flash Gourdon.

(Mike) Flash Gourdon?

(Beidelman) Sure.

Some people wouldn't get it, you know.

But Flash Gourdon, a lot of people got it, especially when I painted the name on the side.

(Mike) That helps.

[laughter] (Beidelman) The races started in 1969.

I started in 1982. to be able to create a machine that you could take for a camping trip and take everything with you and go there and come back and not have to be dependent on an automobile.

That was kind of the whole concept, and it just kind of grew into this big thing, and now it's an engineering challenge.

And we've got a family of 500 people that I see every year.

I've been seeing some of them for 25 years.

They keep coming back.

(Mike) How long is the course?

(Beidelman) It's 42 miles.

(Mike) 42 miles?

42 miles--4 1/2 miles of water and about 4 miles of sand.

And if you've ever walked across sand in your bare feet, try doing it with 1,000 pounds.

There are particular points that are extremely exciting, and that's where the big crowds go.

Dead Man's Drop is one of them, obviously.

The plaza's another spot.

And the water entry, there's always a gigantic crowd there.

And then you've got the entire waterfront that you get to go by, and there's thousands of people that watch it there.

And then once you head out of town, the race is over for the spectators until we come into Ferndale, because there's really no way to see it.

We're out in the middle of nowhere.

(Randy) Bet it's a great party.

(Beidelman) Yeah, it's a great party.

Oh, man.

It is a bicycle of sort.

You know, it's got bicycle components.

(Mike) It's quite a feat of engineering, though.

I mean, look at th e frame on here.

Yeah, this is a four-wheel-drive center articulator.

I got--this is my Indy car type steering wheel, you know.

So I can pop on.

But it center-steers.

Each pilot has 588 different gear combinations.

You know, sand, mud, water, gravel, pavement-- you name it, it does it.

I mean, it does everything but fly, obviously.

If we put a big enough motor on it and wings, it probably would, but... [horn honking] This is the triathlon of the art world.

It's the hardest thing we do every year, and we're never ready for it.

I mean, it doesn't matter if you work out or not.

You get out there, and you do it, and every time, it's, "Oh, my God, I forgot how difficult this can really be."

And it gets harder and harder every year.

That's probably why we get more and more gears and we go slower and slower and slower.

Actually, I got into the sign-- the graphics business and started a sign business, and it kind of led me to this in a weird sort of way.

Actually, it was a woman.

That's where I met June, was in this race.

The first year I did it was the first year she did it and the first year Duane did it, so we're all out there together when you didn't know anybody.

And I thought, "Duane, he's crazy, and she's really cute."

And so it went from there, and we're still all together as a nice big happy family.

[retches] (Randy) So five-time winner.

(Beidelman) Five-time winner, grand champion, world champion, and this year's best art, so-- and I beat Duane.

And last year, June got best art, and she beat Duane.

And two years, he's been second, and it's just chewing on him.

So he's got to get a different act.

'Cause it's for the glory.

This is all you get.

You don't get a fancy car or, you know, $1 million or-- (Randy) There's no money at the end of this race?

(Beidelman) None, zero.

It's all for the glory.

(Don) Sounds kind of like public TV without the pledge drives, which could help them snag some kinetic contributions.

That's hard to say, but this isn't: the big ball knows a first-rate recreational opportunity when it sees one.

[groans] Oh, my God!

[laughter] (Don) Glad that wasn't me.

And I am still Don the camera guy signing off.

I feel like I've given birth.

(female announcer) To learn more about the sights on this show and how to find them, visit us on the web at: DVDs, tapes, and a companion book to this series are available by calling: Captioning byCaptionMax www.captionmax.com Is that Bigfoot?

I tried to write a song in 1966, but there were too many songs being written at the time and not enough words.

I've seen many gallery openings, but this is highly unusual.

(male announcer) Production funding for Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations has been provided by: (female announcer) YRC Worldwide and public TV are natural partners.

We share the very important goal of connecting people, places, and information.

In this big world, that's a big job.

YRC Worldwide and public TV can handle it.

YRC Worldwide: honored to support the communities we serve.

(male announcer) The DeBruce Companies, with facilities providing customers with market information and marketing opportunities for domestic and international grain, fertilizer, and feed ingredient businesses.

(male announcer) And by Fred & Lou Hartwig, generous supporters of KCPT and public television, urging you to become a member today.