What if… The Thing in the Desert was actually just a tourist trap but a really cool one?
One of the most desolate Interstate Highways in the United States is I-10. Wandering its way across the southern U.S., I-10 covers vast stretches of Louisiana swamp, Texas desert, New Mexico desert, and California desert. Oh yeah, and Arizona desert too… wherein lies the really cool and bizarre roadside attraction called Bowlin’s The Thing Travel Center.
If I have one weakness when traveling, it is that I love the ridiculous, gawdy tourist trap travel centers. The more ridiculous, the better. I have found few as audacious as The Thing, a travel center that (sort of) claims to have a (maybe) alien body in it’s museum… which costs $5 to tour. That’s a bargain folks, count me in.
What if… It’s all connected?
So, my wife Tonya and I (her pictures are featured here in this When It Was Cool exclusive article) did the tour and here is what we found. The Thing travel center has all the stuff one expects from a travel center: gasoline, fast food (a Dairy Queen is attached), tons of tee shirts, caps, statues, gimmicks, rocks, etc., etc. It also has a museum you can tour for five bucks themed around an alien invasion conspiracy theory with a comic book feel to it. WHAT IF… aliens were responsible for, well, literally everything. From the extinction of the dinosaurs to the death (?) of Elvis, what if aliens were behind it all? It’s a fun little exercise in imagination with colorful props, antique cars, and did I mention dinosaurs? And an alien mummy (maybe) of course.
What if… The Thing Travel Center had a What If Sign Explaining What if Stuff?
The Thing is extensively advertised by signs along Interstate 10 between El Paso, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona. Since there isn’t much else to see through that stretch, you can’t help but notice them. It is theorized that The Thing is actually/supposedly a mummified alien mother and child and is believed to have been made by the original exhibit creator Homer Tate for sideshows. But where’s the fun in that?
This is A Thing but not The Thing…
The Thing was purchased by former lawyer Thomas Binkley Prince in the mid-twentieth century who based a tourist attraction around the object. Thomas Binkley Prince died in 1969 but the attraction was run by his wife Janet for many years. Today, The Thing is under the ownership of Bowlin Travel Centers, Inc.
According to a sign inside The Thing museum, T. Binkley Prince acquired The Thing around 1950, although the details of how, are still shrouded in secrecy. In 1965 he built The Thing roadside attraction. Mr. Prince ran the store with his wife until his death in 1969 at just 56 years of age.
The sign also gives us this food for thought… What if… the best way to hide the truth is in plain sight at an obscure roadside stop in Arizona?
What if, indeed?
At long last… What if This was The Thing???
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