Thursday, March 20, 2008

Flintstones Bedrock City


When I was about 10(?) my family took a road trip to Yakima, Washington to visit my grandparents and we took the long way, hitting the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Hoover Dam, and Idaho. We also stopped at Flintstones Bedrock City, easily the creepiest place I've ever been.

It's basically a homemade theme park with a backdrop consisting of absolutely nothing as far as the eye can see, just the sound of the wind, and it felt like I was on the moon. When my family showed up we were the only people in the park so the emptiness was amplified, that coupled with the warbled voices that would play when you pushed a button to make Fred talk, made for a pretty strange experience. Here's some background info.

"Bedrock City stands out on a flat, windy, rocky plain south of the Grand Canyon. Built in 1972, it originally had a live Fred & Barney like the Custer Bedrock -- but the isolation of the site and the lack of local workers quickly made that impractical. All of the buildings -- post office, jail, beauty parlor, houses -- are barren, except for a few sturdy concrete items and worn out pieces of junk. They're painted in garish colors with Kelly Moore paints. Still, this Bedrock is far from extinct. The Fredmobile tram loops through a volcano and the Bedrock Theater plays cartoons; audio is broadcast over loudspeakers. U-B-The-Flintsones photo cutouts are available for treasured video and pix mementos."


Here's some pictures I've picked up on the internet, I plan on going back someday and taking some of my own. But the Google map is priceless, you can see what looks like an abandoned airstrip and then the blur of land, because I guess google didn't want to waste bandwidth.

















2 comments:

Castle Bumbai said...

That's like what Disneyworld would've looked like if Walt Disney was a manic-depressive.

Catman Scratches said...

Ha! Great pics. We stopped to use the bathroom (and take some random photos) at some Bedrock Campground on the way to the Grand Canyon in 2003. Not sure if this is the same place, but the bathrooms were easily the filthiest bathrooms I've ever had the (dis)pleasure of seeing. Poor Wilma...