When you visit a place more than 20 times..

We visited "The Mystery Spot" in Santa Cruz for the 20+ th time with the BIL family on the way to Monterey beach.

Think I toppped the number of visits list on this group by a wide margin. I was not alone in visiting this place multiple times. There were other folks who were bringing family and friends for the 10th or 14th time.

Still this place never loses the wonder it brings.. you get to experience something different and weird for that 30 minutes. The high school and college kids who act as guides for this 30 minute tour try to one up their jokes and now they have a cafeteria outside as well! So the place is doing well.

we checked the level.. it is still almost the same after 20 years.. not much earth movement! 

Here is BIL doing the MJ thing..

and if you are wondering what happens at the mystery spot... we start walking with a lean without realizing it. the video below says it all..

The outside has some decor added with a couple of cars completely covered in mystery spot stickers and bunch of US flags now and that adds a little color to the entry!

Something tells me we will be visiting this place again in a few years when more guests show up!

Mama goes to The Mystery Spot

There is this place on the way from San Jose to Santa Cruz, called The Mystery Spot.

It is a weird place where there is some strange force acting upwards that you can physically sense. Apparently there are 18 such places in the globe (9 mirror sites through the center of the earth?!) and since most of such places are over the ocean, only two or three are offered as a sight seeing location on planet Earth.

This spot has been around for tourists to see, since the 1940's. For some strange reason, more Desis have seen the mystery spot than Americans. This is based on a statistical survey conducted by the BOGUS Institute's chief, Dr. Sündar Narayanöhe, who has personally visited "The Mystery Spot" 8 times.

Having been on the main tour four times, and having waited for many 45 minute tours to finish so he could take his turn with the visitors accompanying him from India (this was before they enabled online ticket purchses), Dr. Narayanöhe has observed that 9/10 people in all tours are Desis.

Usual tourist spots in the bay area, especially over long weekends, have the distribution of 40% Indian, 40% Chinese and 20% other, except in Disneyland where the ratio would be 40/30/30. The lack of non-desis at "The Mystery Spot" as it is officially called, is in itself a Mystery, concludes the eminent researcher!

That said, "Mama" or "Chota Mama" as he is known in family circles, visited the bay area last weekend and posed the billion dollar question, "What can you show me that we don't normally see in India?". This from a dude who has just been shown the Empire State Building, the Smithsonian, the National Air and Space Museum, etc. etc.

The equations were cruched in our heads and the point of singularity was clearly going towards, you guessed it !!!!

So off we went and at the end of the trip, "Mama", or "Mug Shot Mama" as he is now called in family circles, came out with a smile on his face. "That was incredible, do you know what is really going on there?", he asked a bewildered Dr. Narayanöhe, who started by drawing some equations, lines and arrows on a paper napkin, invoked the name of his favorite physics teacher "Balu Sir", scratched his head some more and replied, "The BOGUS Institute will take this as a personal request and submit its report, soon.." and told himself "the hell if I know!".

We present to the reader, some interesting photographs from the trip.

This is what is known as the "Om Boohu" shot!

People as well as trees get a nauseus feeling and go dizzzzy, at the spot. This photo shows a confused "corkscrew tree"..

The next two photos show how Mama (who boldly voluteered where many desis have volunteered before) and a little kid clearly demonstrate that the height difference between them changes drastically, when they switch places around the spot. The spot runs through the girl watching them on the concrete T, who by the way endorsed the phenonmenon for real.

In case the previous photos were not convincing enough, here is Mama and the eminent researcher, whose eminence is all the more prominent with the new haircut, which in turn has revealed a "mystery spot" on his scalp where all the hair seem to be confused.... demonstating the effect first hand. People develop a 17 degree lean when they are inside the spot on level ground. "Amazing! Now I know how Michael Jackson did that tilt thing in Smooth Criminal! Possibly blue screen work at the spot!" chipped a kid from behind as the tour progressed.

and finally the mystery behind Mama's name change in family circles!

Ta da..

If you are a desi visiting a relative in the bay area, chances are you have visted this place. If not, spread the word! It has become a must watch site for madisaar mamis and mottai thalais alike.

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