I’ve traveled this grand continent of Northern America far (though not wide) and I’ve seen everything from wicked, steep mountains to tapers in heat, but I’ve never found a place capable of knocking me off my feet quite like the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz. Call me one year old if you like, but I know gravity, and this place has it all wonky and then some.
If you head a mere hour south of San Francisco, which I never advise that you do, there are only a couple things worth seeing. One is the Winchester Mystery House, the finest testament to tolerance of insanity in the modern era, and the other is this strange place. When they say it’s a mystery spot, they ain’t kidding.
They’re pulling your leg a bit, but they aren’t kidding you. Take it from me, I’m a kid myself, so I spot kidding a mile away.
From the outside it looks like a standard, run of the mill roadside attraction, but with one notable exception. The parking lot is forever filled with an endless parade of tour buses. Whether their claims are valid, fraudulent, questionable or, if the jury is still out, there’s something to be said of strength in numbers, and the numbers don’t lie, this place is popular with locals, visitors and tourists from Asia alike.
Then you walk in, but you have to check your reality as you know it at the door. It’s not an official reality check, they don’t give you a number for pickup or anything, but it falls by the wayside no less. Wayside, I’ve just deduced, is a place somewhere between the entrance of the Mystery Spot and wherever you parked. That’s where you’ll find your reality on the way back out. Don’t worry though, nobody’s going to steal it. They’re too desperate to reclaim their own.
From the minute you pass through the gates, things start falling out of place. Short people become tall, tall people become out-of-focus midgets, water runs uphill, and standard grades of sidewalk become sickeningly steep. This place is really out of whack, and I know whack; I do it to my brothers all the time when nobody’s looking.
I won’t ruin any of the surprise for you, but consider that you may get a new perspective when you visit this place, even if it has to be forced upon you. And there’s no greater opportunity for considering what is real or illusion than forced perspective, the one thing they do have on tap. Seriously, there are fountains of the stuff all over the place.
The Santa Cruz mystery spot is located in the Redwood Forest outside of Santa Cruz,* open daily with summer hours of 9 to 7 and admission prices ranging from free to $5; you can even buy tickets at their website. My own Daddy-O came here himself so long ago he barely remembers it but, according to him, he loves it as much now as he did back then… though he added that he has a “different appreciation for it now than he did as a [dumb, suggestion susceptible] kid.”
*For directions to the Mystery Spot click here.
Above – The weather was the biggest thing that distracted us from our own best perception of the place, but the sign should say it all; it’s got mystery and it’s got a spot.