As a rule, I tend not to engage in any of the interactive costume-wearing portions of the attractions I visit. This comes across as being a bit of a spoil-sport somehow, and despite my travelling mostly alone all these years, there is a tendency for other visitors to sense my hesitation and to take it as an opportunity to offer to hold my phone and take my picture or otherwise call me out on my perceived unwillingness to dress up for a photo-op. 

The thing is: travelers are dirty. Grime is unavoidable on the road and I say this as a usually-filthy person myself. I sweat, sometimes, my back sticking to the driver’s seat of the camper when the sun shines through the windshield and heats up the cab. I drop crumbs on myself and spill drinks and sometimes wear the same shirt for a day or two on end. I rarely change my pants. I wear the same shoes every day- their reeking inners plugged up by my feet.

I do change my socks. 

My point, in all this, is that I wouldn’t want to wear a costume after somebody like me has worn it. There are parasites out there. And communicable skin diseases. Bad vibes, even- they could permeate the clothes and make for a rough day. I avoid costumes where I can but, as I pull into the parking lot of ‘Dress Like Me,’ I get the distinct sense I won’t get out of it this time.

‘The general consensus on ‘Dress Like Me’ is that it is one man’s fetish put on display in such honest terms that there is something almost wholesome about it. The owner, Freddie Lawson, does not agree. He claims that there is nothing sexual about his business, has chosen, instead, to think about it as a sort of art project. This, he explains to interviewers who are dressed in his clothes- they must be in order to secure the interview. Lawson does not speak to women who aren’t dressed like him and rarely speaks to men unless they do the same. He’s quick to end any interview that suggests there is a deviance in this hobby of his. Sometimes he posts rambling political tirades online. Reading them, you wouldn’t think he’d be so hung up on clothes. 

Lawson doesn’t have much in terms of style. This is not to say his clothes are out of fashion, though some certainly are. It’s just that his wardrobe is, at once, eclectic and run-of-the-mill. The wildest items he owns tend to be t-shirts from dive bars and old shirts featuring the patterns of yesteryear. His weirdness leans vintage, which makes it a little hip, even, but not any more interesting than one might find at the local thrift store. If one were to dress as Lawson for the day, the costume would be unlikely to raise the eyebrows of the general public, which brings us back to the question: why?

We know, of course. We just want Lawson to admit it.’

“Well a fine welcome to you, young man.” Lawson is older than I’d imagined, likely in his late seventies. He’s built like an old farmer gone soft and he walks with a frailness that he doesn’t seem entirely used to. He’s the sort of man that slaps a stranger on the back when he greets them. He meets me in the parking lot, “Just you, eh? That makes it easy. And you’re round about the right size. Come on in and we’ll see what we’ve got for you.”

The ‘Dress Like Me’ experience costs five dollars. The payment is comforting, somehow, placing this in the sterile realm of business transactions rather than whatever else it might be construed as. Less comforting is that there is no ticket- that Lawson simply tosses the bill loose on a table in his excitement to get me to the bedroom.

“Had some people in to do up the closet.” Lawson takes the stairs slowly. “Everything hanging and in order now. Kneeling over those old plastic boxes were aggravating my knees and everything came out creased. Now you and me get to enjoy it all hung and ironed.”

He opens the door with a flourish and, indeed, I see that he’s got several closets and that each is packed tight with clothes hanging on reinforced bars. In the center of it all is one of those full-length, multi-angle mirror situations one tends to see in stores.

There’s a camera and he sees me see it. “No worries about that one. Just some security.” Lawson walks over and produces a small piece of paper with a strip of painter’s tape already adhered to the upper side. He uses this to block the camera.

“You’re not worried about me?” I ask. They may be the first words I’ve spoken to him, and they produce a belly laugh. 

“Let’s get you dressed.”

-traveler

‘Rarer, now, but not entirely gone are the deep South’s ‘Play-dough Separating Machines,’ largely placed in gas stations and in the foyers of highway diners. These machines stand about the height of a man and feature a simple set of illustrated instructions, indicating that a user might dump their rolled up balls of mixed-color play-dough into the cavernous mouth of the machine, place a number of little tubs equal to the number of colors represented in the ’return’ area at the bottom, and then work the crank until all of the play-dough has been processed. In a properly functioning machine, the amalgamation will be separated into the sum of its parts and a small drawer off to the side will fill with hair and dust and whatever else non-play-dough may have happened to have been mashed into the clump prior to separation. 

These machines, which have no electronic components, have been the source of a great deal of head-scratching by interested engineers. Several have been taken apart in an attempt to understand their technology but, in all cases, this has resulted in the destruction of the machine. Once disassembled, nobody seems quite sure how to fit the things back together. The consensus is that they shouldn’t work. 

But they do.

‘Play-dough Separating Machines’ have recently lost some respectability for being associated with a network of militias that won’t quite admit to being white-supremacist, but which freely suggest there might be a great deal more harmony and progress if human races did not mix. It’s unclear whether these machines originated with the racists, or if they’ve been adopted as a convenient mascot in retrospect.

Well-intentioned backlash has led to the destruction of several ‘Play-dough Separating Machines.’ Seek them out now before they’re gone for good.’

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

When the first shovelful of dirt hits the surface above me, I wonder if I wasn’t wrong in springing for the glass coffin option at ‘The Graveyard Capsule Hotel.’ My instinct was that the glass would provide some relief from the oppressive claustrophobia of the situation, at least at the outset, but a traditionally opaque coffin would have given me the opportunity to pretend that something else- anything else, really- was happening. With the dim light allotted to my “room,” which, to be fair, is bigger than a coffin should be, I pick up the check-in information and attempt to focus on the information presented there. It reminds me, in words that are infuriating in their calm, that the concierge will be using only enough dirt to provide even coverage and that I won’t be a full six-feet deep. 

It also suggests ringing the front office a full 30 minutes before needing to use the restroom. The coffin door can be opened at any time, it reminds me, but I’m on the line for sheets that may be muddied by dirt that hasn’t been properly cleared away before exit.

A rock thuds down on the plexiglass above me and I click off the light to find myself in the pitch dark of under-earth. I recommit to my plan to just fall asleep and get it over with.

Glad I’m not wearing a suit. 

‘Travelers are advised against ‘The Graveyard Capsule Hotel,’ which bills itself as a pop-up mortality experience. ‘The Experience’ appears suddenly in different parts of the country, always leaving before inquiries about public land usage can be made, and there have been at least three confirmed instances of ‘accidental abandonment,’ meaning that three people were forgotten in the ground past their normal check-out time and, for one reason or another, were unable to immediately free themselves. 

“We think of that as part of ‘The Experience,’ you know,’ said Peter Dahl, owner and operator of ‘The Graveyard Capsule Hotel.’ Not everyone who dies gets flowers on their grave.”

When sleep proves difficult I order a mug of ‘sleepytime’ tea from the room-service line, without really considering the logistics. There is something chemical about the brew, I note, and then I wake up nearly a full day later, well-rested and wet with spilled tea. A note pinned to my pillow suggests the money for the tea has been withdrawn from my wallet.

Not bad, from a service perspective.

-traveler

‘It’s reasonable to worry about when, seasonally, to visit ‘The Pupate Garden’ in eastern Massachusetts, given the normal lifecycle of a butterfly or moth. Rest assured, however, that ‘The Garden’ is always the same in that every visit leaves a traveler wondering if they wouldn’t have experienced something prettier if they had simply waited a few weeks for the insects to ‘hatch.’ This time will never come and, having spent your money on an entry ticket, the employees tend to be fairly forthcoming about this little white lie.

‘The Pupate Garden’ deals in cocoons and the like and has no room for caterpillars and grubs or butterflies and moths. They are a specialty business and the tour is more about community outreach than it is about the cost of admission (though, they tend to do a lot of deflection when asked about their primary revenue streams or the legality of certain species on display). 

Less a zoo and more an eerie zen garden, the few regulars who frequent the location may be are sometimes seen in deep meditation, attempting to harness the well-trodden natural metaphor of the pupate cycle. As to whether any have succeeded in that transformation, it certainly hasn’t occurred on site.’

‘The Pupate Garden’ is situated in the center of a strip mall on a desolate street in a town called Charles (or ‘Chuck’ by its residents). It’s a place formed as an afterthought to the many historical cities nearby, containing all the trappings of a real-deal town but none of the culture. Everyone was in a hurry to leave when I arrived, but I suppose that’s just morning traffic and I make a note to be out by early afternoon so as not to be stuck longer than I have to be. 

The windows of ‘The Pupate Garden’ are tinted near-black, which means they take the health of their mid-life creatures seriously or that this lot used to be one of those crappy little casinos that thrive in the Midwest. The historic smell of old cigarette smoke upon entering makes me think it’s the latter. 

Certain venues, for lack of space, are situated such that the ticketing counter is well within the actual confines of the exhibit, and this is true of ‘The Pupate Garden.’ Once my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see a shriveled, blotchy man at a desk ahead of me and shelves of insects, each quietly rearranging their body. There is a second where I might turn and leave, having seen what there is to see, but I step forward and pay the man and resign myself to looking more closely at this collection under his watch. 

He doesn’t speak, which is a relief. 

The insects are more interesting than I expect. The stillness of this stage of life gives me time to admire the colors and patterns of each chrysalis and to consider the likeness to the larvae and the eventual form, be it moth or butterfly. The only distraction is, at first, the silence of the room, and then a quiet crackling that disrupts it. I follow the sound between the shelves, thinking I’ve arrived in time to see one of the specimens hatching. 

Instead, the sound leads me back to the desk, where the attendant is deadly still and leaned forward, his features locked in the difficulty of some internal struggle. I wait and I watch and the man’s face grows red, as little grunts escape his lips. Finally, he leans back in his chair and sets a little bag of chips on the desk. 

“Can you help me open these?” he asks. “Arthritis.”

-traveler

There’s this collection of Hot Wheels-style tracks and cars at a place in northern California. The owners can’t quite decide on a name. The guide calls it ‘Race Town’ and I’ve seen everything from ‘Carville’ to ‘A Place for Speed.’ Some ideas work better than others. This time around, the sign says ‘Live Free or Die-Cast’ and it’s difficult for me to tell whether that’s the new name or just a motto they’re throwing around.

The inside is the same every time. 

A thousand cars. A thousand, thousand miles of flexible orange roadway. The whir of those spinning foam boosters that propel inanimate cars along their tracks. A distant smell of candy from the gift shop. The trouble with this car place is a well-meaning gimmick- an AI that analyzes reported traffic patterns from the city nearby and changes up the placement and speed of cars based on its understanding. It’s not real life, exactly, but it’s a sort of symbolic representation. 

And every time I’m stopped by, it’s been gridlock traffic. 

-traveler

I’m not used to the traditional National Park Services anymore, that much is clear. It’s made clear by the oppositional vibes of the people around me, the families pulling their children just a little closer- maybe not even realizing they’re doing it. I step into the restroom and look at myself in the mirror and see I’m much as I have been. I try to make myself objective, try to remember a way I looked before the way I look now. I’ve certainly been neglecting my beard and my clothes are in tatters but they are clean and I am clean. That’s the one promise I made myself, leaving for this trip.

That I wouldn’t let myself stink. 

‘What is this? A common National Park Site in this, a normally non-normal guide to America’s roadside attractions?

It’s true, and it’s not the only one. There are gray areas when it comes to the Wayside and whole sections of this book are devoted to the complexities of understanding them. This, though, ‘The Glass Anthill,’ isn’t so gray as all of that. It just so happens that the National Parks set up shop next to the Wayside and, in doing so, became an extension of the long road we champion in this publication.

Pay the fee for ‘The South Nevada Fossil Beds’ but ignore the old bones- they’re just like all the others you’ve seen. Turn your attention, instead, to the corner in the southeast. There, you’ll find ‘The Glass Anthill.’’ 

What the guide neglects to mention is that ‘The South Nevada Fossil Beds’ is mostly subterranean. There is a welcome counter on the surface and a few rooms for glancing at fossilized specimens and watching a looping documentary about the site’s discovery that feels much longer than its 20-minute runtime. The man at the front welcomes me and guesses right away that I’m here for the anthill- this is the first indication that my appearance is giving away more than I know. 

“Our manager has put a screen on the glass,” he says, “And you’re not supposed to pull it back because it might disturb the ants.” The man looks over his shoulder. “Just be quick about it if you do.”

When the man hands me my change I note several small ants tattooed on his knuckles and wonder if I shouldn’t have done a deep dive regarding potential cults or ant-based secret societies. Too late now, but I pointedly spend several minutes glancing over the displays and watching the slog of a video in the viewing room before descending the grated metal steps that lead to the wider display. 

‘The South Nevada Fossil Beds’ distinguish themselves by this viewing area where the fossils can be seen in the undisturbed earth and among the various rock and mineral layers that several geologists insist are very important to their formation and really very interesting overall. It’s the sort of thing a normal person can look at for about a minute before the novelty wears off and, considering this location doesn’t even have a gift shop, I imagine somebody at the National Park Service agrees with me. This place isn’t making any best-of lists. 

I do my lap around the main attraction before doing a 360 and realizing I have no sense for the cardinal directions underground (or ever, really, even on the surface). I pull up an app on my phone that points me toward a cardboard standee of a poorly designed fossil mascot, enthusiastically reminding children not to take fossils from public land. The ‘screen’ on either side of the mascot is a vaguely translucent pattern of dinosaurs marching about a prehistoric wasteland, most likely intended for windows in children’s rooms. 

Most of my fellow visitors are busy on the other side of the exhibit and seem to be ignoring me anyway, so I make my way over to the standee and, rather than push behind it, which seems infinitely more suspicious, I confidently pick it up and move it to the side and start the arduous process of pulling up the corner of the fossil film with the fingernails I’ve kept chewed down to skin for as long as I’ve been alive. After only a moment, I notice that the whole wall seems to be moving behind the screen and I take a step back, some instinct for danger or disgust suddenly taking control. I press my hand to the screen and am reassured by the smoothness of glass behind it and, when I finally can peel it back, I find the massive ant kingdom the guide suggested would be there.

It’s bigger than I expected and somehow clearer than I expected too. I trace the paths of the ants to little chambers and, without any more knowledge than anyone else who was once a boy child in a world with ants, I am able to understand what those chambers are for. I see a resting chamber. An eating area. A place for burying the dead. I follow grander dirt paths to where the queen is birthing eggs and I follow those same paths back to where the eggs are being nurtured to maturity. 

The longer I look, the more I see things that simply can’t be true. One chamber looks like a little ant gym. Another holds a vacant pavilion, maybe and empty theatre? Far off in the distance there are smaller chambers with insects that aren’t ants at all and I wonder if it’s a prison or a zoo.

My attention is so focused at this point that I don’t notice a child at my side before they shout back to their friends or siblings:

“Come check out what the weird guy found!”

Before I can put a word in, there are several more kids around me and they have toppled the standee and begin to tear at the plastic screen. To reveal depressing ant suburbs and long tunnels that must lead to other ant cities. I put enough space between myself and the chaos that, by the time parents and employees of the site arrive, nobody remembers it was me who started this.

That is, until I notice an ant on the floor, seeming to consider me to whatever extent its tiny senses can comprehend a behemoth. The ant seems curious, at first, and then accusing and, as it turns to move back toward whatever crack in the wall must allow them to walk freely in the exhibit, I step on it and leave. I don’t know what hell the ants can bring down on me, but I don’t need it today.

-traveler

‘Wayside destinations, by and large, keep to the interstates and outskirts of places where more normal life tends to occur, but there are certain points of interest that thrive in the cities as well and that is the case for ‘The Missing Piece,’ a store located and prominently advertised in Dallas proper. Listed separately as a ‘boardgame’ and ‘toy’ store, the owner, Patricia Sorgen, tends to disappoint potential customers and then leverage that disappointment to wow them. She does stock pieces that, taken in total, likely add up to thousands of boardgames and toys. Individually, though, these pieces are not much to look at. 

To be inside ‘The Missing Piece’ is to be inside one of those old library card catalogs. It is roughly the size and shape of a studio apartment but it is chock full of shelves and each shelf has a series of little drawers with cryptic labels that mean something only to Sorgen. Sorgen herself greets customers and, after explaining that, no, she doesn’t sell whole toys or boardgames, usually performs a medium-like trick in which she guides visitors to a game or puzzle or favorite action figure of their past and asks them to describe when and where a piece of that item went missing. Often with very little to go on, Sorgen is then able to produce that piece from one of her drawers and, though the actual toy or boardgame may be long gone, the visitor tend to pay for it, just as a souvenir, and that is how Sorgen makes her money.

As to how she manages to keep such an inventory, well, that’s up to some debate.’

Sorgen is thin- her hair straight and white and her clothes simple but carefully ironed. She navigates the shelves with a precision that must come from decades of this work. She opens a small drawer in the back and it rattles, plastic on wood. She withdraws something small and returns. 

“Was it this one?” She asks. It’s not really a question. She knows that it is. 

Sorgen places, in my hand, the small green projectile I described as having lost on a road trip with my parents. It is rounded and translucent, meant to be a sorcerous fireball launched from the hand of an old wizard robot I owned when I was seven. The fireball was lost between dinner and dessert at a restaurant and then, because we still needed to get to the hotel, there wasn’t much time to look for it. I’ve thought a lot about this fireball over the years. 

And it is the same fireball. I turn it over in my palm and run my finger over the divots my sister left there, briefly chewing it before the plastic was snatched away from her. 

“Do you… take these things?” I ask.

Sorgen smiles. “Of course not. That would be a very difficult way to make money.”

Money is not the only thing that is traded on the Wayside- I’ve learned that much between then and now. I wonder if Sorgen isn’t some sort of emotional vampire or some demon that thrives on the fulfilment of old debts. She is visibly upset when I hand it back to her.

“I think it was a different color.” I tell her. “But thanks for checking.”

I suppose it will sit in the back of my mind a while longer, that little piece of plastic. And I’ll always know where to get it when I’m ready to pay the price.

-traveler

‘People like animals. People like videos of drowsy and sleepy animals. People must like sleepy animals. 

This seems to be the entire logical skeleton of ‘The Sleepy Animal Zoo’ outside of Philadelphia, where several dozen vaguely exotic animals doze in their cages during the daytime, attempting to ignore the gawking patrons and their unruly children in order to catch a few moments of shut eye. ‘The Sleepy Animal Zoo’ is a private affair which means that it’s not subject to some of the same regulations one might take for granted, having seen what Pennsylvania’s public options have to offer.

Tickets are very cheap, which is good, yes, but they are so cheap that patrons can’t help but wonder where the money comes to maintain the animals’ habitats and, upon seeing them, understand that the money simply doesn’t exist. ‘The Zoo’ hasn’t aged well in the decade or so that it has been in operation and the bones were never exactly good. Visitors are left with the sense that the bears and the tiger could likely escape and maul everyone nearby if they were so tired. But they are tired and that is its own concern. 

The animals are less dozy, really, than nearly unconscious. They rarely wake and when they do they seem to hardly be able to lift their heads. Then, there was the case of little Davey Maker who, like so many children before him, decided to crawl into the monkey habitat and, rather than be adopted or consumed by angry, frightened monkeys, simply fell asleep on the hot cement and dreamt until zookeepers came to fetch him.

There is an amount of cuteness, here. That can’t be denied. The animals appear well fed and none perform the manic pacing that is sometimes noted in creatures brought to the very edge of insanity by the cage. At its worst, ‘The Sleepy Animal Zoo’ probably has its animals on a constant cocktail of sedatives that keeps them cozy and docile. At its best, ‘The Zoo’ is kind of boring and, as many visitor reviews indicate ‘not that different from any other zoo.’ 

Rumor has it that the animals are kept awake at night by wild, private dance parties for celebrities and politicians, these gatherings sometimes bordering on the occult. These are rumors, though, and one has to imagine that the entry price for admission to these ritualistic raves is so high that it would likely exclude anyone reading this book.’

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

I imagine there will be a time when cameras exist that can capture the full majestic silliness of ‘The World Hat’ and I, the aging millennial, will go white in the knuckles as the new generation makes a trend of posting those pictures until something happens to the site, accidentally or otherwise, that ruins it.

Just the hypothetical makes me angry.

I’ve been feeling that a lot, lately. The anger at imagined wrongs. I suppose some of it is the helplessness I feel when I read the headlines. I suppose some of it is this unending road trip. The loneliness. It’s been some time since I had a traveling companion or even a nemesis and now, with the camper, I’ve got all this room for either. It’s like driving a haunted house across the country. 

And I suppose all of that comes suddenly into focus because I find myself upside-down with my head in a hole and there’s nobody to take my picture from the viewing deck. 

‘Given the gaudy extravagance inherent in certain Wayside destinations, ‘The World Hat’ is something of a palate cleanser. It began with a naturally formed stone divot at the top of a rock formation on the edge of private land, owned by a woman named Rhonda Lasser who has never been seen on the property nor quoted speaking about it. Timothy Cortez, whose relationship to Lasser is unknown, is credited with finding the divot and recognizing that it was about the size of a one-size-fits-all hat and, eventually, installing two handlebars on either side of the divot so that he could flip himself upside down and briefly claim to be wearing the planet like a hat. This all happened with relatively little fanfare until a local news article chronicled Cortez’s attempts and failures to be recognized for this feat by a publication like the Guinness World Book of Records (he had broken no record) or Ripley’s Believe it or Not (this was not exactly unbelievable). The story did some rounds on the morning news programs of several neighboring counties and Cortez excitedly showed off pictures of himself wearing the world until the question of landownership came up and then he promptly disappeared from the public eye. 

‘The World Hat’ has never quite reached the viral draw that other picture-specific destinations have. Despite Cortez’s bars, standing on one’s head on a stone surface is difficult and uncomfortable and subjects of pictures tend to be red-faced and straining, leading to a secondary nickname: ‘The Space Toilet.’ It doesn’t exactly draw the social media crowd. 

At its heart, ‘The World Hat’ is a stupid idea executed with genuine intentions and its construction guarantees that it will be a Wayside destination for some time. Travelers are recommended to bring a friend, both for picture-taking and for spotting. Slipping out of ‘The World Hat’ at just the wrong angle may result in a bone-breaking fall and the nearest hospital is 50 miles down the interstate.’

There is something about wearing ‘The World Hat.’ When I turn upside down, I expect to feel the weight of my body like the weight of the world and to be reminded of all the troubles ahead of us. Instead, I find my worries pushed away as my body strains to stay in position and the horizon stretches out before me like the wide brim of a hat. 

-traveler

It is a good day for the beach. It’s more warm than I normally like, but the sky is speckled with clouds that allow for an occasional reprieve from the sun, and a breeze tends to appear when it’s most needed, playing over the ocean and cooling the people at ‘The Slight Beach.’ I glance up from my towel and think that this could be a picture taken from a postcard, if it weren’t for all the warning signs. 

‘One of nature’s deadly little illusions, ‘The Slight Beach’ is named for the grade at which the sands drops into the water past the shore. In a word, it is ‘slight.’ So slight, that one’s descent into water that covers anything above the waist takes a concerted hour’s walk straight into the ocean, by which point, many beachgoers find themselves exhausted and even a little lost. Far enough away from land, and without any sort of tangible slope, it’s common for visitors to become lost, wandering around in water that is only four feet deep but unable to drink or rest or even swim very comfortably. 

Those who choose to enter the water are advised to do so with a lifejacket and one of the many specially-designed shore-pointing compasses sold at the local souvenir shops for exhorbitant prices. Rescue boats leave the shore at 5pm but space is limited.’

I forgo the life jacket but do buy one of the compasses fro mthe local Ranger’s outpost, only because it has a picture of a disapproving looking Ranger and the words “Wish you were here” under the arrow pointing at the shore. The man who sells it to me asks me not to go in the water, explaining it’s his job to ask that and that there is nothing legally he can do to stop me but it’s really pretty dangerous. I point out that he waited until after he sold me the compass to start on the warnings and he gives up, suggesting I should skew northwest if I want a good seat on the rescue boat when it comes by. 

Once I’m on the water, I start to realize what the temptation is. Standing ankle-deep is supremely unsatisfying and, the further I walk, the more the sounds of the coast begin to recede. The experience is comfortable isolating and the view gets better past the signs. I take a few pictures at knee-deep and determine to go a little further, keeping the colorful umbrellas behind me in sight as I walk. 

The trick, of course, is that between the heat and the water, those indicators of land are there one moment and then gone the next, melded into the vague technicolor of light playing on water. Something brushes past the back of my knee and I nearly drop my phone. 

I hear someone yelling in the distance and see a man struggling to swim in the water. He says he’s gone too far out- is too tired to swim anymore. I motion for him to stand and he does, looking slightly embarassed. I check my compass and point him back to shore, glad to see that he isn’t compelled to talk to me or thank me for saving his life or anything like that. He waves and wanders off and fifteen minutes later I realize I was reading the compass upside down. 

-traveler