The wildly popular Running of the Bulls takes place each year between July 7-14 in teeming Pamplona, Spain. Over 2000 frantic people on weekdays and about 3500 on weekends run from the Corrales de Santo Domingo to Pamplona’s Plaza de Toros bullfight arena, trying to avoid being gored or trampled by 6 Spanish fighting bulls and 6 commonplace steers. Most of them make it. Since record-keeping began in 1910, only 15 people have been killed in the melee, though injuries are far more common. Last year, 17,126 people participated in the Running of the Bulls, which translates to a ton of tourist money. The San Fermin festival, which includes the Running of the Bulls generates an estimated $78 million in revenue over its nine-day duration. That’s a lot of pintxo with eggs.
The wise city fathers of Anchorage, Alaska took note of this financial phenomenon and decided to liven things up at their annual Fur Rendezvous Festival with The Running of the Reindeer. In the first race, nine reindeer and 1000 humans set off down Anchorage’s 4th Avenue and ran three-and-one-half blocks, first with the animals chasing but then overtaking the palefaces. The goal of the event is for someone to outrun the reindeer. Nobody has done it yet, but it’s fun to watch them try, especially the humans dressed in superhero costumes, longjohns, fur bikinis and jockstraps. Devotees of the old TV series Northern Exposure may remember when tiny Cicely, Alaska had its own Running of the Bulls, the latter being most of the adult male population running naked. In any case, the Running of the Reindeer draws thousands to Anchorage and is by any measure a local tourist bonanza.
It occurs to us here at Flying Pie headquarters that tiny Fairfield, Florida is in dire need of additional tourists and we could profit handsomely from Alaska’s example. There are thousands of athletic alligators in nearby Orange Lake which might be coaxed out of their murky surroundings to participate in The Running of the Alligators (Sorta) if offered a tempting snack or two. Or maybe we should call it The Running of the Rednecks since they’ll lead off at a slow gallop and the gators will come gallumphing after. A rack of ribs fresh off the smoker lathered in Bubba’s BBQ sauce to the winner….the gators get to keep anything they can catch. We can hear the deep-throated race announcer now as the chute opens and the giant reptiles bust loose. He sounds a lot like that guy at the stadium:
“He-e-e-e-e-re come the gators!!” Run, Caleb, run!
Road Trip Adventures
1---Man Beats Horse. You’ll be delighted to know that every June the Man Against Horse Marathon takes place in the stingy-on-vowels Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells, otherwise famous for Bog Snorkeling activities. The race pits human runners against mounted steeds traveling 22 arduous miles through a mixture of pavement, boggy marshes, hiking trails and mountainous terrain. As you might suspect, the horse almost always wins but not so in 2022 when the aptly-named Ricky Lightfoot outran Lane House Boy, ridden by the embarrassed Kim Aiman by two full minutes. Ricky’s time was 2 hours, 22 minutes, 23 seconds and he conquered 1200 other runners and 60 horses. “I’ve never run quite so many hills over a short distance,” said Lightfoot. “My legs are totally ruined, but I’ve been left with a huge smile on my face. Maybe next year I’ll find a horse to ride.” Asked by race reporters if she had any excuses, Aiman said nay, as did the horse.
2---World’s Longest Yard Sale. No, we’re not making this stuff up. The Route 127 Yard Sale spans six states (Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama) and 690 miles with over 300 attractions along the way. The event takes place this year from August 7-10 and has become so popular that motel rooms along the route are often booked a year in advance. Highlights of the trip include Meckley’s Flavor Fruit Farm and Cidery, which has exceptional homemade pies of all descriptions; the Binder Park Zoo (yes, they have dingoes); the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame & Museum for the kids and stoic Pete Rose fans; Spangler’s Candy World (manufacturers of Dum Dum Drops); The Great American Dollhouse Museum, populated with tiny people at work and play; Dead Zero Shooting Park for all you restless gunslingers; Ruby Falls Zip Stream Aerial Adventure to keep grandma busy, and the one-and-only Moon Pie General Store in Chattanooga with more moon pie gifts than you can shake a stick at. While you’re there, you can even See Rock City, the fabled marvel of nature atop Lookout Mountain. C’mon along and catch the Chattanooga Choo Choo…Track 29, and it’s a-comin’ on time.
3---World Famous Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada is a test in courage for the clown-fearing legions. Not only is the place full of big clowns, small clowns, evil clowns, happy clowns, thousands of clown dolls and clown paintings on the walls, but the motel is parked right next to Tonopah’s dusty, unlit cemetery, abandoned for over 100 years, packed with the graves of pioneers of this desert boom-and-bust town who died unpleasantly from murder, mine disasters and a mysterious plague that turned its victims’ livers black. Just the place for your clown-intolerant Aunt Betty or Grandma Bubby, who always wears her button proclaiming “The only good clown is a dead clown.”
The motel has gradually developed a following among travelers who find clowns interesting, not because they are delightful but because they are terrifying. It’s alleged that at least four of the inn’s 31 rooms are haunted and every part of the place is swooping grounds for ghosts floating over from the graveyard. “Some people won’t even come in, they sit in the car,” claims co-owner Hame Anand, who has recently set aside a few clown-free rooms out of pity. “Most of our visitors, though, have a lot of fun.” For a slight fee, guests can rent an EMF ghost-hunting meter at the front desk to detect posthumous paranormal activity. A stroll in the cemetery is de rigueur for most visitors. Tonopah is so isolated that its nearest civic neighbor, Las Vegas, is 200 miles in the distance yet travelers go far out of their way to visit the scary Clown Motel. Hama Anand understands because he feels the “bewitchery” himself. “My soul lives here,” he admits. “It’s like this piece of ground, this motel wanted me. Hundred percent, this was meant to be.”
Y’all come and see us now and then.
Try Door Number 3.
You, like Hank Snow, may think you’ve been everywhere, man, but you haven’t. Did you ever think of tossing a dart at a map or picking a random page in your atlas and going there? Okay, if the dart lands on Tulsa, you get a mulligan. We knew a guy who tried the airport version of this in the 1980s and wound up in Rangoon. He got there in the middle of an assassination attempt against Chun Doo-hwan, the fifth president of South Korea. “Everybody was running around hollering Doo-wah! Doo-wah! and I got very excited. I thought Little Anthony and the Imperials were coming to town.” He wound up in a root cellar with a few dozen hiding students and had nothing to eat for three days. “All things considered,” he admitted at the time, “I’d rather be in Philadelphia.”
Even better… if you’re currently single and have no terminal diseases, how about setting out to find The One Who Got Away? This usually involves a lot of frustration negotiating blind alleys, but that’s what the Sharon Bauer Detective Agency is for. Companies like ASG Investigations or LA Intelligence will scour online reunion registries, interview family, friends and associates of the sought party. You can personally search social media platforms and explore online databases like Ancestry.com or MyHeritage.com, which may contain information about long-lost loves.
We know a man named James Hennessy who took this course. “I never forgot about cute Ruthie Kelly, who I had a crush on in high school. She was out of my league but always very nice to me. She had a spat with her boyfriend at a school dance one weekend and we danced and talked for hours. Two weeks later, she was off to college and I never saw her again. I got married after college and spent 45 terrific years with my wife before she passed. A few years later, I was looking through an old yearbook and there was Ruthie. I thought what the hell, if she isn’t dead I’ll try to find her.”
It was no picnic. A year went by with nary a clue. Then, at a high-school reunion, one woman who had stayed in touch with Ruthie over the years came to the rescue. “She lives in Colorado Springs. She lost her husband several years ago. I think she’s well. Her phone number is listed under her married name.”
James was happy and also scared to death. “It’s one thing to fantasize about these things but something else when you realize the person might be available,” he said. “And what will they be like now? I mean, I realized she wouldn’t look like Olivia de Havilland any more but how might her personality have changed? Would she even want to see a visitor? Then I remembered an old quote from a Dryden poem: ‘none but the brave deserve the fair’.”
Hennessy teetered on the brink for two weeks, then called. Ruthie seemed delighted to hear from her old high-school friend. He flew to Colorado and never left, not even to retrieve his things, which a friend trucked west a month later. “It’s a dream come true,” James smiles. “I know it’s corny to say this, but it seemed like no time had passed since that night in high school. She’s a great partner. And I was totally wrong about one thing. She still looks just like Olivia de Havilland.”
Game, set and match. You should be so lucky. If you’re still looking, The Grand Finale reunion is coming on May 2, 2026. Who knows what romance lurks in the hearts of attendees?
That’s all, folks….
