I recently spent a week visiting my daughter in Albuquerque, N.M. – a town guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of spelling bee contestants everywhere.

My choice of lodging during my stay in New Mexico was, as usual, based on the three P’s: practicality, price and proximity. Many years on the road have taught me to avoid the more “interesting” and “colorful” local options.

I tend to agree with the copywriters of a popular 1960s ad campaign: “The best surprise is no surprise at all.”

Yet I was pleasantly surprised on my first morning in Albuquerque when I ventured forth in search of coffee, only to discover that I was just a few short blocks from old Route 66. Yes, that Route 66!

The very tarmac upon which Buz and Tod drove their Corvette roadster every week in the TV show of the same name, the fabled “mother road” itself. 

A few more blocks and a few half-remembered verses of Nat “King” Cole’s finger snapping ditty later, I was ensconced in a bright red vinyl booth at the historic Frontier Restaurant, ordering from a menu listing huevos rancheros and green chile stew among other local favorites.

While awaiting the arrival of my carne adovada and eggs, I examined the restaurant’s distinctive décor, an eclectic mix of local artwork featuring lots of elaborately framed paintings and prints, uniformly rendered in the subtle earth toned palate of the Southwestern desert. Providing a visual counterpoint were several XXL amateur portraits of John Wayne.

Feeling oddly comforted by the unabashedly kitschy backdrop, I found myself reflecting on America’s deep and abiding love affair with “roadside attractions.”

Naturally, any classic roadside attraction should reflect the unique culture of its region and I’ll admit to having spent far more time than most locating, exploring and reporting on my own region’s offerings. 

Of course, it helps if your day job involves occasionally sharing the TV screen with such legendary examples of the genre as Ken Brown’s venerable, yellow-slicker-clad, pipe smoking, giant Maine fisherman.

Just like the colorful concrete and fiberglass gunslingers, teepees and dinosaurs along old Route 66, the giant fiberglass fisherman who has been keeping a watchful eye over the Brown’s Wharf parking lot since I was a kid is a larger-than-life caricature of the way we see ourselves and how we want others to see us.

It should come as no surprise then, that some of our most memorable roadside attractions are modeled after the two characters (three if you count the moose) featured prominently on the Maine state seal: the Maine fisherman and the Maine lumberjack.

Some of you may recall the rugged, although somewhat exhausted looking, 22-foot tall “Maine Sardine Man” who once stood stoically, in fair weather or foul, holding a giant sardine can, as the official greeter at the Maine/New Hampshire border. In case you’re wondering where he went, I recently caught up with him, still standing tall, clutching that same can of sardines, in the coastal Hancock County town of Gouldsboro.

Located a couple hours north of Gouldsboro and towering head and shoulders over Maine Sardine Man, Bangor’s 31-foot Paul Bunyan statue cuts an impressive figure (and just about anything else he wants to) with the massive double-bladed ax slung across his right shoulder.

If you’re curious about that strange object he’s holding in his left hand, chances are you’re from away. Any true Mainer should recognize that item as a peavey, the classic logging implement designed by a blacksmith in Stillwater in 1858 and still being locally manufactured and sold over a century and a half later.

Naturally, popular roadside attractions, like Bangor’s Paul Bunyan statue, tend to generate a certain amount of local pride and rivalries have been known to develop as a result.

I experienced this first hand one summer when my wife and I were visiting friends in her home state of Minnesota. Because Minnesota also has several Paul Bunyan-themed roadside attractions, a debate soon arose regarding which state was the famous logger’s original home. Although good points were made on both sides, I had an ace in the hole.

Remember that blacksmith in Stillwater back in 1858? Well, just four years earlier, two enterprising loggers from that same Maine town headed west and founded the town of Stillwater, Minn.

Ayuh, Minnesota’s first town was founded by two lumberjacks from Stillwater, Maine!

Now, I’m not saying I can prove that either of those fellows was old Paul himself. But I figure they were at least passing acquaintances, and when it comes to roadside attractions, being a “passing acquaintance” is pretty much the whole point.