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Oh, the places you’ll go (and wonder about)

travel quiz: Test your knowledge about the many features of the Evergreen State

IT’S EASY TO TRAVEL AROUND THE STATE AND NOT CATCH EVERY ATTRACTION OR HISTORICAL TIDBIT, TO NOT BE AWARE THAT SKAMANIA COUNTY HAS A LAW AGAINST SHOOTING SASQUATCH, THAT THERE’S A COLLECTION OF 4,000 ROSARIES IN STEVENSON, OR THAT THE | • Published November 15, 2009

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Here’s a little test of your travel IQ about places, things and people in Washington.

1. An unintentional monument to the state’s $2 billion blunder in creating nuclear energy in the 1970s is located near what town?

a. Elma

b. Cosmopolis

c. McCleary

d. Montesano

Answer: a. The 1970s-era hulk intended to be the Satsop nuclear power plant operated by Washington Public Power Supply System (also known as WPPSS or Whoops) sits four miles southwest of Elma. There is a community of Satsop, but it’s not a town.

2. Where are the graves of martial arts icon Bruce Lee and his son, Brandon?

a. Spokane

b. Port Angeles

c. Aberdeen

d. Seattle

Answer: d. After Bruce Lee’s mysterious death in 1973, wife Linda returned to her hometown of Seattle, and had him buried at lot 276 of Lakeview Cemetery. Brandon Lee was buried there 20 years later, after he died in a bizarre accident while filming “The Crow” at the age of 28.

3. Thousands of boxes of Aplets & Cotlets are created here.

a. Wenatchee

b. Sedro-Woolley

c. Issaquah

d. Cashmere

Answer: d. The jellied fruit candies resembling Americanized versions of Turkish Delight are Liberty Orchards’ oldest and best known products.

4. Time has reduced the Hat ‘n’ Boots gas station to a 44-foot-diameter cowboy hat and a pair of 22-foot-tall cowboy boots. Where are they?

a. Tacoma

b. Seattle

c. Spokane

d. Washtucna

Answer: b. Hat ‘n’ Boots is a roadside attraction and landmark in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. They are billed as the largest hat and cowboy boots in America. To preserve this landmark, the City of Seattle moved the Hat ‘n’ Boots to the new Oxbow Park in December 2003. Hat ‘n’ Boots appeared in the opening credits of “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”

5. At what dam can you see a laser light show?

a. Grand Coulee

b. Chief Joseph

c. Ice Harbor

d. Tieton

Answer: a. The 37-minute show runs daily from Memorial Day through Sept. 30.

6. What area of the state is well-known for its lavender farms?

a. Chelan

b. Sequim

c. Pullman

d. Stevenson

Answer: b. The city and the surrounding area are particularly known for the commercial growth of lavender, supported by the unique climate. It is rivaled only in France.

7. What walking and biking trail will one day run from Port Townsend to La Push?

a. Discovery Trail

b. Lewis & Clark Trail

c. Olympic View Trail

d. Tongue Point Trail

Answer: a. Bicyclists, pedestrians and equestrians already use segments of the trail in the Port Angeles-Sequim area. When completed, it will stretch more than 100 miles from Port Townsend to the Pacific coast near Forks.

8. What Olympic Peninsula lodge was built in 1916 as Singer’s Tavern and, in 1937, was visited by Franklin D. Roosevelt?

a. Kalaloch Lodge

b. Quinault Lodge

c. Neah Bay Lodge

d. Lake Crescent Lodge

Answer: d. The ferries on the lake ran to points west from the East Beach dock near the tavern.

9. Eighty life-size metal silhouette sculptures representing the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery outfit are located near what town?

a. Dayton

b. Walla Walla

c. Longview

d. Othello

Answer: a. The life-sized sculptures depict a meeting with the Nez Perce at the explorers’ campsite in 1806.

10. In this town, talking with a bull on a bench doesn’t faze the locals.

a. Leavenworth

b. Omak

c. Pullman

d. Ellensburg

Answer: d. The Ellensburg Rodeo – part of the professional rodeo circuit – has been a town tradition on Labor Day weekend since 1923, and is the largest rodeo in the state.

11. Where can you find cranberry bogs?

a. Cathlamet

b. Westport and Grayland

c. Long Beach Peninsula

d. Skagit Valley

Answer: b and c. Westport and Grayland are in the heart of the Cranberry Coast. Long Beach has a cranberry museum.

12. Willie Kiel was famous for leading a wagon train while he was in a lead-lined coffin filled with 100-proof whiskey. Where can you see a historic marker near his grave site?

a. Between Raymond and Menlo

b. Just east of Centralia

c. Between Ilwaco and Seaview

d. Near Lynden

Answer: a. The pioneers twice met American Indians but opening the black-draped coffin discouraged any negative interaction.

13. Several steel sculptures of horses “race” across a ridge near the Columbia River. What town are they near?

a. Cathlamet

b. Vantage

c. Spokane

d. East Wenatchee

Answer: b. The artwork is called “Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies” by David Govedare. More horses will be added.

14. A Paul Bunyan-esque Radio Flyer Wagon was built using 26 tons of steel and reinforced concrete. It is 12 feet high and 27 feet long. It’s in a children’s play area and popular with kids. Where is it located?

a. Spokane

b. Bellingham

c. Pullman

d. Republic

Answer: a. Wikipedia lists it as the World’s Largest Wagon, and says Spokane also is home to the World’s Largest Milk Bottle.

15. These sculptures have been Waiting for the Interurban for a long time in what neighborhood of Seattle?

a. Wallingford

b. Beacon Hill

c. Fremont

d. Queen Anne

Answer: c. The 1979 cast aluminum sculpture collection by Richard Beyer is located on the south side of North 34th Street, just east of the northern end of the Fremont Bridge. It consists of six people and a dog standing under a shelter and waiting for the Seattle-Everett Interurban. The figures would have waited for a very long time. The Interurban ran on Fremont Avenue and never turned east on 34th.

16. Imagine cracking and scrambling the world’s largest egg, weighing in at 1,200 pounds. Where is it?

a. Moses Lake

b. Winlock

c. Everett

d. Yakima

Answer: b. Its competitor for the title is in Mentone, Ind., which proclaims itself Egg Basket Capital of the Midwest.

17. More than 200 species of petrified wood and plants are found in a state park near what town?

a. Lynden

b. Richland

c. Camas

d. Vantage

Answer: d. The 7,500-acre Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park includes 27,000 feet of shoreline. The petrified wood was discovered in the early 1930s by a road crew, and is the official gemstone of Washington.

18. This town was home to one of the largest asparagus canneries in the world. The Jolly Green Giant still commands the hillside.

a. Dayton

b. Colfax

c. Kahlotus

d. Moses Lake

Answer: a. It’s about 300 feet tall on land too steep to farm outside of Dayton, the Gateway to the Blue Mountains.

19. In 1893, dozens of men crossed Willapa Bay and stole records from the Pacific County courthouse. Where was the courthouse?

a. Seaview

b. Oysterville

c. South Bend

d. Raymond

Answer: b. Oysterville was losing residents when the oyster beds declined from overuse and the railroad stopped short of the town. Yet it didn’t want to relinquish its county seat stature. With some legal maneuverings and the theft of records, South Bend became the county seat.

20. Where is Seattle’s guitar phenom Jimi Hendrix buried?

a. Renton

b. Seattle

c. Bellevue

d. Edmonds

Answer: a. Hendrix was born on Nov. 27, 1942, in Seattle while his father was stationed at an Army base in Oklahoma, but he was interred in Greenwood Memorial Park in Renton.

21. Where was the Pig War held?

a. Long Beach Peninsula

b. Ritzville

c. Union Gap

d. San Juan Island

Answer: d. The Pig War was a confrontation in 1859 between American and British authorities over the boundary between the United States and British North America. The specific area in dispute was the San Juan Islands. The Pig War got its name because it was triggered by the shooting of a pig. The pig was the only “casualty” of the war, making the conflict bloodless.

22. This town was named after a 19th-century Yale graduate and author. It’s also the town where Owen Wister came up with the idea for his first Western novel, “The Virginian.”

a. George

b. Brewster

c. Sprague

d. Winthrop

Answer: d. The Old West-themed town also recorded the coldest temperature ever measured in Washington state at minus-48 degrees Fahrenheit on Dec. 30, 1968.

23. Where is the World Kite Museum and Hall of Fame located?

a. Long Beach

b. Westport

c. La Push

d. Ocean Shores

Answer: a. It also hosts the Washington State International Kite Festival the third week of every August.

24. The last domed capital built in the U.S. was in …

a. South Bend

b. Rexville

c. Olympia

d. Waterville

Answer: c. The Legislative Building was completed in 1928.

25. What town holds the Cowboy Caviar Fete, which features the spicy Balls of Fire?

a. Winthrop

b. Conconully

c. Oroville

d. Kettle Falls

Answer: b.

26. The Stonerose Interpretive Center near Republic allows visitors to …

A. Create impressions of real bear tracks

B. Take classes in survival skills

C. Join a weeklong geology workshop

D. Rent tools and dig for fossils

Answer: d. National Geographic featured the center, which has 50-million-year-old fossils, in 2002.

27. This castle-like millionaire’s mansion is now a museum for Auguste Rodin’s art, American Indian artifacts, and gilt-edged furniture. What is its name?

a. Whitman Mansion

b. Maryhill Museum of Fine Arts

c. Julia Butler Hansen Collection

d. Columbia Crest Museum and Art Gallery

Answer: b. Samuel Hill, as in Sam Hill, was the millionaire. It overlooks the Columbia River Gorge south of Goldendale.

28. Where is the world’s oldest strain of Delicious apples still growing?

a. Chelan

b. Toppenish

c. Stehekin Valley

d. Wenatchee Valley

Answer: c. The abandoned Buckner Orchard still has trees of the green-and-red striped apples, also popular with bears.

29. This town sits at the highest altitude of any town in the state.

a. Waterville

b. Packwood

c. Marblemount

d. Skykomish

Answer: a. This town of about 1,200 people is at 2,625 feet elevation. Its signature historical event was the winter of 1889-90 that killed most of the local cattle and led to agriculture becoming the dominate cash source.

30. Our official state song, “Washington, My Home,” was written by Helen Davis, who lived in what town?

a. South Bend

b. Seattle

c. Ellensburg

d. Bellingham

Answer: a. Yes, there was an effort to make the state song “Louie, Louie” by the Kingsmen in the 1980s, but it failed when the state Senate approved the resolution but the House did not.

31. Father’s Day was created in 1910 by Sonora Smart Dodd, who wanted a special day to honor her father. What city did she live in?

a. Everett

b. Pullman

c. Spokane

d. Arlington

Answer: c. She thought of the idea after listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Nationally, Father’s Day was recognized in 1956.

Travel writers Sharon Wootton and Maggie Savage are authors of “You Know You’re in Washington When …” and “Off the Beaten Path: Washington.” They can be reached at 360-468-3964 or songandword@rockisland.com.