Soap Lake urban legend

We saw no lava lamp. We drove through Soap Lake yesterday, and I craned my neck in all directions, looking for lava lamp signs. No deal. We really didn't want to go on the town tour, but I figured if the World's Largest Lava Lamp lived there, certainly billboards would start advertising it at least ten miles out---much like the old Snake Pit Days.

How many remember road trips from the Midwest or East with some Western community as a destination. Probably around North Dakota the signs would begin the drama: large letters on a series of roadside billboards would start prepping all tourists to look ahead to the Snake Pit in Eastern Washington as a "must stop." Every hundred miles or so, they'd reappear in bigger and better quantities.

I never did go to the Snake Pit, but I do remember the signs, just as I'll never forget the Burma Shave jingles. So, as we drove through the desert yesterday, I kept a watch out for any information about the Lava Lamp. I didn't cry or anything about not seeing it, but I did inquire among family reunion members as to the whereabouts of said lamp.

"Aw, that's an urban legend," Doug Miller told me. "There's no lava lamp; well, at least there's no lava lamp now. They did have a ground-breaking ceremony for it four months ago, he added. But as yet, the famous lamp, which can no longer be called a "lava lamp" because of trademark problems has not made an appearance in its new home. It's supposed to come from its original setting in New York's Times Square. Doug told me that the whole fiasco is just a "Soap Lake thing." That came from a lifelong Ephra-ite who lives ten miles away from Soap Lake. I think there must be some intense town rivalry going on there.

By the way, I must brag about my cousin Doug (well, actually he's married to my cousin Madalyn). He distinguished his hometown far more than the lava lamp will ever help Soap Lake's national image. On May 18, 1980, Doug snapped a few pictures of a rather famous volcano cloud which passed from Southwestern Washington clear into Montana. His picture of the Miller family's crepe myrtle tree with the ominous black cloud in the background was printed on the cover of National Geographic magazine in Jan. 1981. Mark my words, that's no Ephrata urban legend.

Anyway, back to the lava lamp---I guess there's a website about it, but I'm too lazy to look it up this morning. For some reason, I just keep thinking about that giant Holstein cow alongside I-90 in North Dakota near New Salem. The fiberglass bovine needed no advertising for miles ahead or even advance promotional blitz---mainly because travelers can SEE that giant cow from miles away. I've never forgotten that cow, and if I go on any road trips to the East, I'll be happy to behold it once more.

I don't think I'm ever going to take any more trips to Soap Lake though to see some dumb lava lamp or whatever they want to call it. So far, it's all talk; no action. Such a disappointment.

Very much unlike the family reunion. We met and visited with so many nice people from at least four generations of Browns yesterday that thoughts of lava lamp impairment quickly diminished. We talked, we ate, we sat around a pool, we watched a video, we talked some more, ate some more, talked some more and then planned to get together once more this morning for more conversation.

The trip through Washington's desert and wheat fields was well worth it, even if we didn't see Soap Lake's corny urban legend.