Gravity Falls: A.K.A The Oregon Vortex & Confusion Hill

Gravity Falls first premiered on the Disney channel in 2012.  At the time our family was living in the Pacific Northwest and I walked through our living room during my daughters' t.v. time and happened to catch a few seconds of the Summerween episode (S01 E12).  I laughed so hard that I sat down to fininsh the rest of the show.  It very quickly became a family favorite.  

The story in a nutshell is about two kids who go to visit their great uncle for the summer at his roadside attraction, the Mystery Shack.  Intelligent humor that worked on a level that the kids enjoyed as well as the adults, it was originally intended to be a three season show with each season representing one month of summer.  Unfortunately the show was prematurely canceled by some brainless executive, so the writers had to shoehorn two seasons worth of story into one in order to give the fans a proper ending.

As it turns out, the Mystery Shack is based on two real roadside attractions, The Oregon Vortex near Rogue's River in Oregon, and Confusion Hill in California.  I grew up in the 80s when the interstate wasn't really a thing and stopping at the roadside attractions was way more fun than where ever we were acutally headed.  I've been really sad to see that this form of travel fun has fallen by the wayside as we race down interstates at breakneck speed, eyes glued to various screens, not stopping until we reach the destination.  We've definitely had our fair share of those, but this time we decided to load up our days with places to stop and since we were all Gravity Falls fans, we knew that we had to make time for both these great stops.

Both locations embraced the homage from Gravity Falls, especially since the creator, Alex Hirsch, left clues throughout the show as to the whereabouts of the show's villain, Bill Cypher, and led fans to a statue at The Vortex and later relocated to Confusion Hill.  And both offer a great opportunity to stretch your legs and be amazed!