roadtripping.

Funsters ISO kitsch: a trip to the grooviest motel in Wisconsin.

continued from page 2

By the time I realised where I should have turned, I couldn't. So we headed north of the I-90, and did a U-ie in the parking lot of some nasty nowheresville mall. Back south, hyperventilating with excitment, I signalled a right turn and we made our winding way up the hill on which perched the sistine chapel of the tiki-and-fake-rock set: the Gobbler.

Our eyes popped. We couldn't believe it. We were so awestruck by our discovery that we did not at first notice how shabby our dear gobbler had grown. Weeds sprouted from cracks in the asphalt. One of the smoked glass windows was cracked and broken. There was a hand-written sign in the window directing travellers to the boring chain motel on the other side of the highway.

The gobbler was abandoned, locked up. Was there no way inside?

We considered taking advantage of that broken window, but the gobbler was built to be a classy joint; double-glazed windows, only the outer pane was broken. We pressed our faces up against the windows, to see what we could see. I took a photo, which (unsurprisingly) did not come out well. You can see that someone bought new boring in the late 'eighties, but the eyeball-themed wrought-iron railing is still there,

It hardly seems real.

We decided to circumnavigate the building, our moods wandering from cautious to jubilant to oh-my-goodness-can-you-believe this place. The Gobbler Motel is designed to look like a modernist adaptation of a turkey from the air. There is a circular building (the turkey's body) which houses the pool (and has oddly oppressively low ceilings), around which the motel itself extends halfway, in two arms which are meant to describe the turkey's tail.

That's our best guess, at any rate.

It's very odd, visiting a place that has been, for all intents and purposes, deserted. There is something of the air of the cemetery, especially when there are actual dead bodies lying around. The only sound on this windy sunday morning is the sound of the pigeons, the many, many pigeons who now call the gobbler their home. They flutter out from under the eaves as we approach. Heading towards the glass corridor which connects the pool to the main building, a wee flock flew away, leaving behind their dearly departed feathered friend. We paused for a moment of silence, before continuing to snoop.

We couldn't find a way into the building, being law-abiding Canadians and all, so had to content ourselves with peering into the pool house (still water in there, but all very dirty and dusty looking, with nasty plastic chairs stacked on the deck). Around back there was a

We were still hopeful, however. After all, There was that listing in the 'phone book.

continue to page 4

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