(male announcer) Production funding for Rare Visions & 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.

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YRC Worldwide: honored to support the communities we serve.

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(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, does this make 40 or 41 now-- states, that is, whose doors we have darkened.

Hi, Don the camera guy here, the picture-taking part of "we," with those two producers, as always, up front producing, guiding us through a part of Utah that's striking, to be sure, though, from all indications, hard to inhabit, unless, of course, like Moab's Albert and Gladys Christensen, you've chosen to build your home right into it.

(Erik) In 1926, Albert's father homesteaded 80 acres, back when you could homestead, and that's how they came to own this land.

At first, they simply started blasting into the rock for a means of shelter, just, you know, a few rooms to put the kids in.

And then of course, they kept going and kept going and kept going, and that's what it is today.

There's a 5,000-square-foot home in there.

In the '40s, the United States was on a huge uranium hunt.

Moab went from, like, 500 people to 10,000 basically overnight.

These miners needed something to do.

This home was half finished.

They turned it into a restaurant.

It was the Hole n' the Rock Diner.

It was also a watering hole in the evening for all these thirsty miners that needed a little entertaining.

(Randy) Which part of medieval history was Utah involved in?

(Mike) Yeah, I was gonna say... (Randy) I want to give them the benefit of all doubts, because I appreciate what they're doing here.

They took a big rock, put a hole in it, and lived in it.

(Mike) Yeah.

(Randy) Have I summarized it pretty well?

Pretty much.

I think-- I think maybe you could shorten it up a little.

(Erik) The home is carved out of entrada sandstone, which is the hardest type.

It allows no moisture to penetrate, so the temperature stays 65 to 72 degrees all year round.

No heating and cooling are necessary.

Albert was a miner as well.

He engineered the home around these huge pillars, which also acted as room dividers.

This is where the couple slept when they were both here.

They built the fireplace for atmosphere rather than need.

Albert and his brother Leo drilled two 10-inch holes through 65 foot of rock.

Gladys did all the stonework on the firebox, and when she finished, she signed their names and date at the bottom.

This was Albert's studio.

He liked to paint here because he had the natural light from his living room windows.

And those are the hand-cranked drill bits that he used.

This here was Albert's pet donkey.

His name was Harry.

That was his first attempt at taxidermy work, so he's a little rough around the edges.

[laughter] These are two famous movie stars, Richard Basehart and Phyllis Kirk.

They filmed a movie here: Canyon Crossing.

This was the last room that Albert completed.

It was a guest bedroom.

He had plans for a 100-foot staircase up to the 65-foot level for a patio for Gladys.

But he suffered a fatal heart attack and died at the age of 53.

When Albert passed away, Gladys moved the bedroom in here, and that's how she left her doll collection for us.

This planter served a different purpose.

Albert used parts of an old hot-water heater.

He ran propane from outside to here.

This tub was filled with oil that the propane would heat.

It was a deep fryer.

That was a french fry basket that sat down in that kettle.

No beer.

(Mike) Bean dip.

(Erik) As you can see, Albert, he was real fond of Franklin D. Roosevelt, so he carved him out of the rock there.

He started Abe Lincoln up there.

Can you see him up there, in the-- (Mike) Oh, yeah, way up there.

What happened?

He died, though, before he got done?

(Erik) Well, I don't know.

I wasn't here.

[both laugh] (Don) Now, being the new owner of a genuine first-class roadside attraction, Erik has been busy adding more and more shall we say panache to the place.

(Mike) Boy, look at the size of those nuts.

(Don) There's creatures of all kind out here, man-made and otherwise, old salvage signs and distractions galore to help you linger longer at the Hole n' the Rock.

(Randy) Yeah, that whole uranium thing has me a little spooked.

You know those movies where they always run the Geiger counter over you?

Did you bring your Geiger counter?

(Don) Uh, no.

I left it on the counter.

But that might be all we haven't brought along, judging from the cramped quarters back here, which, as usual, I share with the world's largest ball of videotape.

Boulders and buttes are whizzing by with very few signs of life, until, that is, we hit Wellington, where, all of a sudden, quirky constructions start catching our eye, like this grotto in a tree stump.

And just a few miles further down the very same road... (Mike) I like your stuff, Looks good.

(Randy) Good interview, Mike.

(Don) But wait; there's more, like this yard whose owners have clearly been racking up decor for a very long time.

(Mike) That's the deer crossing.

We found it.

(Randy) This is it.

(Don) Bad news for Bambi but good news for us, especially since we'd actually found something we'd forgotten we were even looking for.

We headed on for Helper, passing by the no doubt informative mining museum, searching instead for an even more iconic city symbol.

That's more up our alley anyway.

(Mike) Oh!

Look at that.

Oh, man.

Oh, muffler man.

Oh, mining muffler man.

He's got a hollow leg, doesn't he?

Huh, huh, huh.

(Mike) No w, did I tell you you'd never se en one like this or what?

(Randy) No, you were right.

You were right.

Well, what do you think, Do n?

(Don) I'm taking a good pic.

We left the big guy on guard against overdue books with just enough time to make Salt Lake by dark, planning to pay tribute there to one of our own, Herk Harvey from Lawrence, Kansas.

It was on this spot back in 1960 that seeing the old Saltair dance pavilion inspired Herk to create his one and only feature film, Carnival of Souls.

Never made him a dime, but today it's known as a true cult classic.

And I have a pair of his shoes.

These are his rumba shoes, he said.

Saw the shoes, and I said, "Herk, why are you selling these shoes?"

And of course, the answer was obvious: he had already sold the suit.

(Mike) "May you do the dance macabre.

--Carnival director, Herk Harvey."

(Don) Happy dancing, Herk.

This wave's for you.

Now, theologically speaking, when it comes to the Mormon Church, this would be the big enchilada.

The LDS world headquarters here pulls out all the stops.

More Mormon doctrine is also on display a few miles away in a most unique set of sculptures that signify what mattered most to one Thomas B. Childs, who built what he called the Gilgal Sculpture Garden in his own backyard.

(Mike) Those arches are cool.

(Randy) The arch is amazing.

Look at the size of the rocks he put in there.

(Hortense) He was a man of deep intellect, keen intellect.

He chose to follow the trade of his father, which was masonry, or a bricklayer, and learn the trade instead of going on to advanced school.

He kept learning all his life, and he knew the apostle Paul as well as he knew me.

He knew Gaeta as well as he knew me.

The old philosophers, he studied them deeply and was very intense about it.

And it reflects in his writings here in this garden.

He said, "If you want to be brought down "to the very depth of your feelings, learn to express yourself with your hands."

And that's what he did here.

He took inspirational ideas from great literature, from scripture, from many different sources, and wove them all into this dream of stone.

Did he dream about grasshoppers?

(Brian) Actually, that comes from scriptural references.

And all of those symbols there, the broken wheel in the well, the old man, the grasshopper, all those are symbols of either old age or passing away.

The sphinx gets lots of people's attention.

(Hortense) You know, the sphinx stands for the unanswerable questions of life: who we are, why we're here, and where we're going.

If you read the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson there, he says, "I awaited the seer while they slumbered and slept."

And so he put the face of Joseph Smith as the seer that has brought the answers to the unanswerable questions of the sphinx.

That's why Joseph's face is in the sphinx.

(Brian) He loved stones.

He would search the mountains for stones.

For him, it didn't matter how large the stone was.

[laughs] I mean, this stone over here weighs over 60 tons, the stone that's in the back of that monument there.

I think the weight of this stone up here is about 40 tons.

So we're talking about a 40-ton rock, and you're going to take it from wherever it is and lift it into place here, in the middle of a city.

(Hortense) He didn't have a complete design of what he was doing.

He just went from piece to piece.

He had a son-in-law who was very gifted in welding and the torch work, and he devised a special head that made it possible for them to cut the stone.

And all of these sculptures here were done with fire, with the oxyacetylene torch.

There were people who said to him, "Tom, why do you put that in your backyard?

"Nobody's ever going to see it.

"Why don't you put it out in the public someplace, where people will see it?"

And he said, "This is my home.

This is my ground.

This is me.

I want it here."

(Randy) Does it look like him?

(Hortense) Uh-huh.

Mm-hmm.

(Randy) Pretty good likeness.

(Hortense) I'm amazed.

And that was done with an oxyacetylene torch.

You'll notice the pants are brick.

He said, "I've been through Europe.

"I didn't ever see a coat that was like that one that they put there."

(Don) Gilgal, in case you're wondering, is another scriptural reference that went right past us.

What hasn't escaped our attention is the group effort that's gone into preserving it.

First the Fetzer family, then the Friends of Gilgal, including some true master gardeners, all working together to keep it open nearly every day of the year.

That's inspiring to us and motivation enough to set off in search of SLC's famed Gravity Hill, one of those phenomenal spots where, according to legend, cars can roll uphill.

But "one way" and "road closed" signs make just getting there difficult, only to find that if gravitational laws have been repealed, you can't prove it by us.

Go ahead.

[both laughing] Give it another try.

[both laughing] (Don) It's this big ball of tape back here.

Looks like a serious strike-out on this one, but that's okay.

We've got a new game altogether now: searching Salt Lake for another local landmark.

I'm talking about the Summum Pyramid where-- and I'm not making this up-- mummies are being made: permanent preservation for pets, parents, probably producers, and this has to be it.

Oh, well, science never was our strong suit.

We'll leave this one for the boys from National Geo and resume the driving portion of this show.

Watch the postcard, and you'll see where.

[water drips] I know; you're coming up here.

But I don't have any coffee yet.

How can I do this without coffee?

Don't you think there's coffee over there.

It's coffee for every journey.

It's not just any coffee.

If I just stand there, another cup will-- Stand there long enough, someone will bring you coffee, I think.

(Don) So that is why Randy is hanging around the grounds.

Kind of pathetic, but wouldn't you know... once again, being a TV weasel pays off.

Wait, you guys.

There you go.

Oh, man, look at that.

(Don) No actual beverage, but a fine container for it, which, apparently, the plan calls for filling up in Blackfoot... [softly] Here's your damn water tower.

Maybe at Martha's, where a comely fiberglass giantess hails all who pass her by.

Whatever she is.

Martha.

Martha Jackie.

But she's kind of a Scandinavian Martha Jackie.

Does she have waitressing shoes on?

(Mike) I don't know.

(Randy) Now, when you had Jackie fantasies as a child, Don, did she ever look quite like that?

(Don) Uh, she had different lipstick and no french fries.

Actually, it was a bowl of chowder.

Martha's did indeed dispense some Joe to go, which barely had time to cool before we were stopping again.

And who wouldn't when the World Potato Expo was calling your name?

(Norma Jean) We are the Oregon Short Line railroad depot.

It's where our expo is.

And we grow more potatoes in this area that any place in the world.

They brought them up from Utah, which they didn't do real well in Utah, but they did great up here.

(Mike) Nobody ever hears of Utah potatoes.

(Norma Jean) You don't hear of Utah potato.

(Randy) Those are some pretty girls there, with the potatoes.

(Norma Jean) Aren't they?

And how do you like the size of those potatoes?

(Randy) And here's a sense of how they truck them.

[Jones laughs] Yeah.

(Mike) This apparently is a world record holder.

It's the world record holder, uh-huh.

But I don't know either how they got all that squished together, but they did.

This was made specially as the field representative for the Potato Commission.

What size is that?

(Don) Can you rent it?

(Norma Jean) This was grown in 1795.

(Randy) They took a picture of it in 1795?

Show-- I gotta point there.

You've got a point there.

Did you have to bring that up?

[all laugh] (Mike) A potato signed by... Dan Quayle.

When he didn't know how to spell "potato," yes.

(Randy) He'd be president today if-- That's right, if he'd just known how to spell "potato."

P-O-T-A-T-O.

(Randy) Ca n we smell the potato cellar?

(Norma Jean) Sure.

[sniffing] Does it make you proud that potatoes are such a big thing?

(Norma Jean) Yes, it does.

I'm proud to be a potato eater.

[chuckling] (Don) Now, until their kitchen closed down, the Expo would cook up free taters for out-of-staters.

But these days, they simply hand out freeze-dried hash browns and load you up with all kinds of tuber-rific paraphernalia.

What's not to like, especially now that I've got Marilyn in the sack to make those miles and miles of prime potato fields fly by?

Next on our none-too-specific agenda would be Arco, a town whose fame came from being the first to run on nuclear juice and the first to feed me an atomic veggie burger.

Plus, how's this for an annual rite of passage?

Every year since 1920, nimble Arcolites have scrambled up here to paint their class numbers for all to see.

(Randy) Do you think the class nitwit is chosen to go up there?

[Mike laughs] Yeah.

(Don) Just one topic for discussion during some quick catch in the park below, the one with parts from an ominously marked undersea vessel smack-dab in the middle of it.

(Mike) Oh.

(Don) It's a nuke-ular sub.

(Mike) It's the Hawkbill.

This submarine was just decommissioned in 2000.

(Don) So this would be an ex-con tower now, right?

(Mike) It's an ex-conning tower.

You know, I was a pitcher.

(Mike) Re ally?

I didn't have a submarine pitch; I had a subpar pitch.

When this TV thing doesn't quite work out, we're going to get a submarine.

Shift.

Nuclear shift.

Just like the atoms-- not the Addams family.

[laughs] The Addams family.

(Don) We finished up with a round-the-horn tribute to our all-time favorite submariner, pitcher and poet Dan Quisenberry... Oh!

For Quiz.

(Don) Who left us much too soon.

But leaving is what we soon did too, trading Arco's urban allure for more outdoor Idaho, crossing a part of the state whose lava-laden landscape has justly earned it the name Craters of the Moon.

(Randy) According to that sign, it's the strangest 75 square miles on the North American continent.

Really?

Why is that?

Does it say why?

No.

(Don) Very Robinson Crusoe on Mars.

And here's more pictures of it, since, thanks to road builders building roads out here, we are stuck in a line and, next thing you know, engaged in some very silly stuff.

Can't... get it...out.

Special discount for cyclists.

T-shirts, DVDs.

(Don) No, sales were not what you'd call brisk, but movement did eventually resume, though any schedule we might have been on was dashed to the rocks, not unlike ol' Evel Knievel, who, you may recall, failed to clear this same Snake River Canyon, home of a famous falls we might as well see while we're here.

(Randy) It 's the Viagra of the West.

(Don) Clearly, someone's very confused, but the lure of rapidly rushing water is hard to resist.

(Mike) Now, can you go over the falls in a barrel?

You can if you want to.

I ain't going to come rescue you.

(Don) So, with generous assistance from viewers like you, we saw the sights, and they were spectacular.

Shoshone Falls, and, assuming we don't, we'll be back to wrap this up tomorrow.

[train rumbling on tracks] Well, here we are, heading back to that old Snake again.

But it's much, much tamer here.

The road past Dan's Ferry Service leads down to Cleo's Ferry Museum, which we know next to nothing about, except that it starts somehow with her late husband, Doc "Pappy" Swayne.

(Steve) Yeah, he had a practice in New York, and that's where he did his internship.

And then he moved out here.

Dr. Swayne bought this place in 1927.

He had ducks, mules, horses.

I think a lot of times he had the animals because that's how he got paid.

It just kind of grew like that.

It was--he called it a private museum.

Then when he and Cleo were married, she collected stuff too, so they added things together.

It was was his idea to build a house with-- I mean the building-- with rock.

It was not my idea.

When he retired, then he built the first building, which was the clock museum.

And when--after the clock museum was there, I said, "Now I'm going to put some style in here."

The mere mention of an antique show or an antique sale-- you'd have thought we were crazy-- we'd tear off and go.

(Randy) And come back with something.

(Cleo) Yes.

[peacock keening] Hush!

[laughing] They don't pay much attention.

Let me get that for you, squire.

[squeaking] (Steve) There's the nature trail.

The nature trail started, really, after Dr. Swayne died.

She poured herself into that.

I remember the first time I went on it; I couldn't stop laughing.

I just--you know, I was just like, "This is great.

I've never seen anything like this."

She's got a great sense of humor.

If she's slowed down any, I can't imagine what she would have been like when she was, like, 60 or something.

(Mike) Look at all this-- look at all this stuff.

Kids, here's how you do the seven-ten split.

(Steve) I think that's the whole wide world in His hand.

(Mike) Our angel of the artichoke.

This is nice.

This is nice.

I like this.

(Randy) Tell me about all the birdhouses.

(Steve) Those are made by Lita Hoagland.

She lives in Melba.

From what I heard, she works out of her kitchen, and I kind of figured that she'd have kind of a shop and things, but she just creates a different project every time she builds a birdhouse.

Somebody counted 240, but I know they missed a few.

(Mike) How about the totems?

(Steve) They're fairly recent.

They were carved around '95, I think.

The other sculptures-- there's a lot of bronzes there by Gary Price.

He's in Utah.

(Randy) Does Cleo just go solicit these people?

How does all this stuff appear?

(Steve) Well, she wanted to build something, and she felt like the Lord-- it was a purpose.

It was a calling for her to do it.

And so she took what she had and did it.

Like that saying on the garage there: it says it's a faith adventure.

And she poured herself into it, and God supplied her needs.

(Cleo) I'm always thinking something.

Steve probably wishes I'd quit.

I hoped that I'd be doing something for someone, and I get lots of comments that say, "I found God out there."

(Randy) You're not doing it for the money, I don't suspect.

[Cleo laughs] Oh, you don't get any money.

Well, yes, you do.

One time I got $50, and I thought, "I better take a picture of this."

(Randy) Th en you have to put up wi th guys like us coming out and making you si t in the sun.

Yes, and I'm going to have to quit pretty quick.

I burn so easy.

(Don) Cleo was still giving tours till she hit 86, some seven years back.

Today it's wind, not sun, that's keeping her off her red scooter.

There's new stuff to install: a rhino, for one, and signs, always more signs.

Here's one that looks good to me.

And I am Don the camera guy, signing off.

(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 T-shirts.

T-shirts.

World's largest ball of tape.

T-shirts.

(Randy) Is that Mike?

(Don) What's he--how'd he get out there so quick?

What the heck is that iron lung doing in there?

Medical museum.

Pappy was a doc.

Pappy was a doctor, and I guess he had the extra iron lung when all was said and done.

(Don) Well, I heard-- ♪ Pappy was a rollin' stone.

♪ ding 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.