The Abita Mystery House is the brainchild of artist John Preble. When creating the Mystery House, a large amount of his artwork his based around my favorite medium: Alligator.
The first thing you see when entering the Mystery House is this lovely Alligator Women in an evening gown.
There is a whole collection of wonderful alligator creations including the famous "Darrell the Dogigator"
You have your standard bassigator.
The two headed variety....
And the grandaddy of them all..........The 22 foot Buford the Bassigator.....
An let's not forget Thelma the 32 foot alligator.
Then of course there is the Duckigator....
And his dangerous counterpart the Alligduck....
There are plenty of other indescribable alligator creations.
There are non-alligator related examples of Cryptotaxidermy as well.....
This includes a good old fashion Fiji Mermaid.
The museum includes an authentic footprint of the Honey Island Swamp Monster, which was featured on the Travel Channel's "Mysteries at the Museum".
Another major part of the attraction are Preble's motorized dioramas of miniatures that portray Southern Life.
And then there is the awesome Aliens meet Airstream exhibit....
When we visited we got a special treat....John Preble invited me and my wife back into his wrokshop and showed me some of his works in progress.
Here is John with his "Big Mouth Bass"
Here is me with one of John's horrific works in progress....
John was very friendly and even showed me what he uses to create his works. I told him it was my dream to operate a roadside attraction and he told me that I should open a Hillbilly Museum (he felt it would do well in my part of the country). Maybe someday......
I would definitely put this amazing place in my top five favorite roadside stops of all time. More then worth the trip.
The Carpetbagger
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