OUT THERE!

ARIZONA'S BIGGEST TIKI HEAD
Giganticus Headicus, Kozy Corner Mobile Home & RV Park, Kingman

If you’ve driven it before, you expect to see roadside oddities on Historic Route 66 — or at least things that make you turn your head and then stop the car for a photo. The giant Tiki head at the Kozy Corner Trailer Park, located 15 miles east of the Kingman airport, is one of those head-turners. The 7-year-old sculpture, painted green, is officially known as Giganticus Headicus. It’s an oddity, for sure, one that even attracted the attention of Hollywood — G.H. was photographed for the 2007 television show Space Pirates. Owner Gregg Arnold, originally from New Jersey, says he imagined something larger than 14 feet, “but that’s the largest two-by-four I could get without special delivery.” It was also the first time Arnold had worked with stucco, Styrofoam and chicken wire. “I couldn’t get any help from the guys at Home Depot,” he says. “They thought I was nuts.” Tourists might beg to differ. From the girls who stopped by to pose topless to annual visits from David Childress, who hosts Ancient Alien Technology on TV, the giant head has some serious fans.
Information: 928-681-4298 or www.giantheadonroute66.com
 

LARGEST LOG CABIN IN ARIZONA
Museum Club, Flagstaff
It’s been a museum, a home to a couple who died there and a roadhouse. The bar has served celebrities and college students alike. The place even picked up a nickname, “The Zoo,” during its 95-year-history. Some people even say it’s haunted. The one thing that hasn’t changed since Dean Eldredge, the original founder of Arizona’s largest log cabin, decided to house an odd collection of taxidermy there in 1915 is its front door. You still enter through the pine branch that’s shaped like a wishbone. An icon on Historic Route 66, you probably can’t find a graduate of Northern Arizona University who hasn’t bought a beer or two at the Museum Club, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. To see more of its quirks, step inside. There you’ll find a fireplace with lava formations and petrified wood embedded in the mantle, several antler chandeliers, pine trees on the dance floor and plenty of stuffed buffalo heads. Bands play live music every weekend, and customers come from all over the world for a chance to hang out at this quirky old bar.
Information: 928-526-9434 or www.museumclub.com
 

WORLD'S BIGGEST BABY
The Roadside Baby, Goodyear
Although he’s now almost 12 years old, the big baby sitting in the middle of a field on the north side of Interstate 10 and playing with a yellow tractor hasn’t grown an inch. At 20 feet, he’s just as tall as he was when he first started playing out there in 1998. And consider him lucky — he wasn’t supposed to live this long. That’s because he’s made of plywood and painted in acrylics. In fact, John Cerney, the California-based mural artist who created the big baby, didn’t expect him to last more than 5 years. If you’re not looking, you might miss the cute blond kid in blue-and-white-striped overalls near the Cotton Lane exit, despite the baby’s height. Modeled after Jaymee Lawton, a 13-year-old Goodyear resident whose grandmother worked at Duncan Family Farms, the baby was commissioned to be a marker to call attention to the farm’s exit. The 2,000-acre farm offered you-pick vegetable fields, a play area and a petting zoo. At one time, there were several other plywood cutouts that played in the field with the big baby, including one that must have been his mother. Today, only the baby and the tractor are left, and the farm is closed.
Information: 623-932-3910
 

TALLEST COWBOY IN ARIZONA
B.J. the Giant Cowboy (a.k.a. Muffler Man or Big Johnson), Prescott

You won’t be able to get much information out of this cowboy, whose owners have left the building. You can, however, take a good look at him, just standing there in front of what used to be Johnson Realty on Fair Street in Prescott. According to the locals, the big fiberglass fella has been overlooking the street since the 1970s. His only hiatus was a month in March 2009 when he was hit by a car. The 20-foot-tall cowboy suffered a broken leg and scratched fiberglass, but Brackman’s Paint & Body came to the rescue, sending him home with a new pair of bluejeans and a freshly painted orange shirt. The folks at the body shop didn’t work on B.J.’s cowboy hat, though — his former owner reportedly said it needed to maintain its worn character.
Information: The Giant Cowboy is located at 947 Fair Street in Prescott.
 

A PRETTY BIG SUNDIAL
Carefree
In terms of giant time-tellers, Carefree’s famed sundial might not rival Big Ben, but it does boast the title of “America’s Largest Sundial.” A plaque on the famous dial reports that a solar engineer named John Yellot and architect Joe Wong designed the sundial for K.T. Palmer, one of the town’s founders, in 1959. At the time, it was the largest sundial in the world. One built in India has since claimed the title. Whatever its title, it is big — it stretches 62 feet and has its own motto: “Marking time by day and the North Star at night.” Located at the corner of Easy Street and Sundial Circle, the dial was once used to help heat a solar-powered business behind it by piping water to the business and back. Today, it’s simply used to tell time. The colored-glass starburst that once hung from the gnomon, the stationary arm that casts the time-telling shadow on the ground, is now on display at the Cave Creek Museum.
Information: www.carefree.org
 

WORLD'S LARGEST ROSEBUSH
Rosetree Museum, Tombstone
You'll see her when you reach the corner of Fourth and Toughnut streets - the largest rosebush in the world. Called Lady Banksia, the plant now covers 8,400 square feet and is held up by an arbor made of galva-nized piping and patio posts. Last August, landscapers added another row to the arbor on her west side to make room for continued growth. The rosebush, which was planted from the root of a bush that came from Scotland in 1885, is watered about once a week and pruned once a year. The original root was planted by Mary Gee at her Tombstone boardinghouse. The best time to visit is in April, when the miniature white petals on this rambling rose are in full bloom.
Information: 520-457-3326

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”

— DR. SEUSS
 

STRANGEST SIGHT TO SEE IN A SERVICE STATION
Giant Ball of Tire Stickers, Eddie's Tire Shop, Williams

In addition to filling up your gas tank, purchasing a new tire or having your windows washed, you can also stop for a photo-op at Eddie’s Tire Shop in Williams, home of the “Giant Ball of Stickers.” Owner Eddie Sandoval, who was born along Historic Route 66, began constructing the ball 3 years ago. “I used to put the stickers on the wall, but then just decided to make a ball. I should have done it years ago,” he says. Why? “Because that giant ball of stickers sure gets a lot of attention.” People from across the United States stop by for a look at the 50-pound, beach ball-sized creation every day. Ask the 71-year-old why he started it, and he’ll tell you, “I’m just that way.”
Information: 928-635-2531
 

STRANGEST FANTASYLAND
Valley of the Moon, Tucson

They call it 2.7 acres of wonderland, but it’s actually George Phar Legler’s idea of a place where children’s imaginations can work overtime. Legler, an Indiana native who moved out West, conjured up Valley of the Moon in the 1920s. Built from concrete, metal, wire, river rock and whatever other items Legler could recycle, reuse or find someplace else, Valley of the Moon features castles, towers, rock cliffs, caves, pools, gardens, gnomes and fairy houses in the middle of the desert. The landscape was designated an Arizona Historic Place in 1975 and represents Legler’s idea that “kindness to all is the golden key to happiness.” For 40 years, he hosted free tours in costume, acting as the characters dreamed up by his favorite childhood authors, including Robert Lewis Stevenson, C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll. Today, volunteers continue to operate Valley of the Moon. The tours are still free and offered the first Saturday of every month. Local actors now perform the interpretive walks through the park, which last less than an hour.
Information: 520-323-1331 or www.tucsonvalleyofthemoon.com
 

LARGEST, OLDEST, DEEPEST, DARKEST, QUIETEST MOTEL ROOM IN THE WORLD
Grand Canyon Caverns Suite, Historic Route 66

Think you could spend the night in a 65 million-year-old cavern, 220 feet below ground? The first people to attempt it — a mother and her young-adult daughter — didn’t want to leave the furnished hideaway. For $700 a night, who would? In the cave, you’re assigned a personal attendant, so you know you can leave by elevator at any time, day or night. You can play the vintage record player or old-fashioned board games. You’ll get a private tour to see parts of the cave the average touring guest won’t. After that, you can order champagne, the bottle delivered to your very own 400-foot-long underworld. Since the Grand Canyon Caverns opened its new “suite” — tucked within the so-called largest deposit of selenite crystals in the world — to guests last January, the operators have accepted 10 reservations. The suite sleeps six.
Information: 928-422-4565 or www.grandcanyoncaverns.com

WORLD’S LARGEST KOKOPELLI
Krazy Kokopelli, Camp Verde
With the power to bring rain to dry lands, this giant being, modeled in the Hopi Indian tradition, appears to be dancing while playing the flute near the intersection of Interstate 17 and State Route 260 in Camp Verde. According to Hopi legend, Kokopelli only appears during the first half of the year, but this version dances year-round. The 32-foot-tall steel structure stands in sharp contrast to traditional kachinas, which are commonly carved from cottonwood roots. In Arizona, the Kokopelli has become a popular trading-post staple. Icon or eyesore, this giant perches atop a pedestal next to the Starbucks sign in front of the Crazy Kokopelli Trading Post, and was commissioned by a man whose business on Finnie Flats Road is now closed.
Information: 928-567-5846