Lose your balance at the MYSTERY SPOT
You’ve seen the yellow-andblack bumper stickers. Now feel the “gravitational anomaly” that has kept this roadside attraction going for decades. The main attraction of the Mystery Spot is a small cabin that wound up tilted on the slope of a forest hill in 1939. Seeing the optical illusions it made possible, the property’s owners opened it as a tourist attraction in about 1940, telling tales of strange compass readings and more. Guides demonstrate tricks of balance and perspective and speculate about mysterious forces. The tall may feel smaller. The small may feel taller. Selfies will be snapped. All will find their wallets $10 lighter.
It’s good, clean, kitschy fun (“nature’s black magic”), neighbored by a 30-minute hiking trail amid redwoods, oak and eucalyptus. It’s open daily with tours every half hour, reservations recommended. Besides the $10 admission fee, parking costs $5 per vehicle (cash and checks only). But you do get free bumper stickers at the tour’s end. And the gift shop — it’s as cheesy and extensive as they come. I went home with a tilted coffee mug.
BONUS TIP: Unique as it may seem, the Mystery Spot is part of an entire genre of roadside attractions based on optical illusions and gravity and born in the 1930s and ’40s. Others include the Oregon Vortex (since 1930 in Gold Hill, Ore.), Trees of Mystery (since 1946 in Klamath) and Confusion Hill (since 1949 in the Mendocino County town of Piercy), and Mystery Hill (since 1958, or perhaps earlier, in Blowing Rock, N.C.)