Pay Binocs

Written 22 August, 2010

Pay Binocs

When I was a child my family traveled-- a lot-- and we made frequent trips to and around our ancestral home of Asheville, North Carolina.

In those days the mountain roads abounded with tourist stops. I remember a bear in a cage at Soco Gap. You could buy a bottled drink for a dime and feed it to a bear in a cage. That bear drank dozens of sodas an hour and no doubt expired early of bear diabetes.

But enough of unfortunate bears in cages. The tourist store at Soco Gap featured-- and it may still be there, was as late as the 90s-- a pay binocular. You could put in a dime (later, a quarter) and spend five or so minutes getting close-up views of Maggie Valley, about one thousand feet below.

I thought it only appropriate to put such a binocular on Whimsy. That's it above, in all its glory.

I made the binocular and then cannibalized a viewer made by Skidz Partz and used it to set this view. Visitors see it when sitting on the poseball in front of the binocular.

If you look closely the the photo, you'll see the binocular is focused on Dharmadog Dankner's beautiful Japanese house.

And that's just what you see when you sit on the poseball.


Best of all, it doesn't demand to be paid a quarter!