Photo Essay: Hoppy Holidays from The Bunny Museum [Updated for 2025—New Location Burned Down]

[Last updated 1/8/25 2:34 PM PT—The Bunny Museum had moved out of the founders' private home and into a proper museum commercial property in 2017. Tragically, that location was tragically lost in the Eaton Fire in January 2025. According to a Facebook post, only a few items were saved—but fortunately the museum's founders Candace and Steve got out safely with their furbabies.]

A private residence in Pasadena, CA houses the world's largest collection of bunny-related items - nearly 30,000 ornaments, figurines, stuffed animals, ceramics, garden gnomes and more - in addition to a rotating cast of seven live bunnies.

And, like real rabbits, the population of their bunny collectibles is multiplying daily.

The record-breaking collection arose out of the love story between its owners and the proprietors of The Bunny Museum, who have given each other a bunny in some form or another first on holidays, then every day for the last 20 years.



Outside the private residence which houses the museum stands Roller Bunny, one of the many former Rose Parade floats on the property (including some heads in the backyard, one of which has been stripped, plunged into the ground, and is being transformed into a sculpture piece).

Photo Essay: The Bunny Museum Strikes Back [Updated for 2025—Burned Down]

[Last updated 1/8/25 2:29 PM PT—The Bunny Museum was tragically lost in the Eaton Fire in January 2025. According to a Facebook post, only a few items were saved—but fortunately the museum's founders Candace and Steve got out safely with their furbabies.]

I've always been more of a generalist. I know a little bit about a lot of things.

My father was the same.

My uncle was like that too.

And while I admire others who also have a wide breadth of knowledge, there's something to be said for someone who picks one thing and just goes with it.

I developed an affection for cute pigs sometime in high school or early college, but I was very particular about it—I didn't like (or want to collect) just any pig. It was only certain kinds.

But friends and family picked up on my small and highly curated collection and began giving me porcine gifts without regard to my particularities of taste, until I finally got maxed out on pigs.

For some people, it's horses, or cows, or yellow chicks, pink flamingos, black cats, and other such spirit animals.



For Candace Frazee, it's bunnies.

Photo Essay: Clown Motel, Gateway to the Haunted Miners' Cemetery

For nearly three decades, the Clown Motel has been scaring the bejeezus out of weary travelers along the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, a.k.a. US-6.



At least, those with coulrophobia—a fear of clowns.



I feel rather indifferent to clowns, having grown up with my mother's obsession with Emmett Kelly, surrounded by the Pierrots and Mira Fujita harlequins that were so popular in the 1980s, and falling asleep to the dulcet tones of "Send in the Clowns" on WEZG-FM.
 


And I particularly like the iconography of circuses and carnivals, so how scary could a clown be?



And how creepy could a clown-themed motel be?



I found the whole experience quite friendly.



Though, in retrospect, maybe some of those clowns weren't just clowning around.



Maybe they were trying to scare me.



But if I could survive being trapped with hundreds if not thousands of Ronald McDonalds in the unofficial McDonald's museum in San Bernardino...



...I would be just fine for a few minutes, alone with shelves full of clown dolls and figurines.



To me, the Clown Motel is just another example of a collection taken to the extreme—like the Bunny Museum or the Banana Museum.



Only—you can spend the night surrounded by these hoarded collectibles.



I chose to limit my visit to the daytime, making sleeping arrangements elsewhere down the road.



Too often, my imagination runs wild.



I see too much life in inanimate objects.



Those clowns might seem safely perched on the shelf during the day...



...but who knows what they'll do while I dream?



Who knows what they'll do in jest?



But my suspicion doesn't stem from these figures being clowns, posing as clowns, or identifying as clowns.




I'd feel the same if there were that many collected chickens being held captive in the lobby of a Cheep Motel. Or miniaturized kings and queens at a Crown Motel.



The owners say that all the clowns at the Clown Motel are happy clowns...



...but that's not necessarily true.



It's not even open for interpretation.



And some of those clowns have seen better days.



Besides, aren't all clowns sad on the inside?



If that's what scares people about clowns, then I get it.



How can you trust a clown who's crying inside but tries so hard to outwardly cheer other people up?



Of course, the creepiest thing about the Clown Motel might not be the clowns at all—but rather, the neighboring cemetery.



Contrary to what you might've heard, it's not "abandoned."



Just nobody gets buried there anymore.



After all, it was Tonopah's first such cemetery...



...when the town was known more for its silver mines than as a truck stop midway between Vegas and Reno.



Back at the turn of the last century, people in mining towns like Tonopah died in all sorts of horrible ways...



...whether from illness (including the "Tonopah Plague" of 1902), old age, or murder...



...or from accidents like runaway ore carts, mine fire, and faulty hoisting devices.



Whether they came from Finland, British Columbia, or New York, for them, Tonopah was the end of the line. Most of them were miners or mining family members. Some were railroaders. There's no telling whether any of them ever masqueraded as a clown.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: How Billions of Burgers Got Their Start in Southern California
Photo Essay: The Museum That's Gone Bananas
Photo Essay: Hoppy Holidays from The Bunny Museum
Photo Essay: The Bunny Museum Strikes Back
Photo Essay: The Death Toll of Tombstone

Photo Essay: The California Museum That Celebrates the Art of the Clown

There's something so appealing to me about single-genre museums—like the Bunny Museum or the Banana Museum—and narrowly-curated collections, like the Crochet Museum or the Beauty Bubble Salon and Museum. 

So, despite having no particular affinity to clowns (other than dressing up as one last Halloween), visiting a clown museum in Barstow was still a must-do detour on my way back from Death Valley this past summer.

Photo Essay: The Museum That's Gone Bananas

I guess you'd expect to find a wacky collection of tropical fruit out in the desert.



But while the area surrounding the Salton Sea is generally dominated by palm date groves and offerings of date shakes, there's only one place where you can have your pick of a banana sundae, a banana shake, or a banana bread muffin: the International Banana Museum.



In the town of Mecca near the North Shore of the Salton Sea (just up Highway 111 from the failed balloon festival grounds), just look for the bright yellow robot banana, a creation of outsider artist Kenny Irwin of Robolights fame.



Past that and through the door, you're welcome to "go bananas" for a nominal fee of $3 (waived if you buy something, which you definitely should)...



...and surround yourself with the world's largest collection devoted to the banana (or, any one fruit, for that matter).



Of course, you'll be in good company with other banana lovers...



...and every kind of banana-fana-fo-fana you can imagine...



...from Chiquita and Dole...



...to bananas in disguise...

...banana splits...



...and way beyond.



They're all ready to party with you.



Some might even sing to you.



But you have to be sure it's a real banana...



...and not just somebody dressed up as one...



...or some monkey dressed as one, for that matter.



Of course, there's plenty of opportunity to monkey around at the Banana Museum...



...but the "top banana" here, of course, is the fruit.



And that includes not only how it looks in various commercial and artistic renderings...



...but also how it tastes.



If it's not the most a-peeling destination in the world, it certainly is along the eastern shore of the Salton Sea—especially if you're looking for some refreshment beyond what Bombay Beach has to offer at the Ski Inn.

It's a new discovery for me at the Salton Sea, as its current iteration opened in 2012, during a nearly six-year period of me being absent from the area. And now, I'm glad to see that it fits perfectly here, in this land—and sea—of misfits, misunderstandings, and tropical heat.

After all, nobody needs a fruit shaped like a smile more than the denizens of the Salton Sea.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: The Bunny Museum Strikes Back
Photo Essay: Hoppy Holidays from The Bunny Museum
Sunrising the Salton Sea and Its Forever Folly