If You Knock a Hole Through It, They Will Come

Originally published at Route 96. You can comment here or there.

The long drive up northern California is a lot like the Ozarks in its juxtaposition of intense natural beauty and surpassing tourist trap tackiness. The first sign of the latter was the World Famous Drive-Thru Tree. For those of you having trouble picturing this natural wonder, it’s a tree. And you can drive through it. In fact, you have to drive through it, in order to get to the World Famous Drive-Thru Tree Gift Shop.

What a fantastic, and fantastically American, concept: something is made more interesting because you can drive through it. Why can’t you drive through the Statue of Liberty? Or the Parthenon or the Louvre? Tourist dollars down at the Great Pyramids? Here’s a tip, Anwar: knock a big hole through those suckers and lay down some asphalt. The world will beat a path to–and through–your door.