11/30/13 Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Santa Cruz

If you watch the show "Finding Bigfoot" then you may recognize the Bigfoot Discovery Museum pictured below. It was featured this season and is the creation of longtime Sasquatch enthusiast Mike Rugg. Time to go check it out.

Busy day, all 3 parking spots were full.

I had never been to Santa Cruz and it wasnt what I expected.  Since it's known as a surfing town with a beach type vibe, I didn't think it would be so far up north. Its about a 4.5 hour drive from L.A.
Santa Cruz is south of San Francisco, but it has a vibe of the Pacific Northwest.
We made a pit stop in the redwoods before going to the museum.

There are over 15 Sasquatch hiding in this picture. 

Now its time to head to the Museum. I wasn't expecting much, because on the show the Museum looked pretty small. But they actually got a lot of cool shit packed into such a little place. And no Bigfoot Museum would be complete without life size statues out front.

No snuggling with the statues allowed.

Inside the Museum is an A to Z history of Bigfoot. Documenting its place in news and pop culture. They had a glass case of some toys representing them through the years along with different pictures, articles, gadgets and other useless bullshit to fill the place. But a lot of children come to the museum so you have to keep them happy.  But how bout something for the "Man Children!"

Reading a National Enquirer from 1986
 where "Burt & Lonnie" saw a Sasquatch.

After browsing a bit, I turned the corner and saw a looping video of the word famous "Patterson/Gimlin" footage. The holy grail of Bigfoot videos. I chatted with one of the guys who had just heard a Squatch this past week in the Santa Cruz mountains.

This beard is used to catch cereal milk.

The Museum started to get busy so I made my way over to the checkout counter to talk to the man himself, Mike Rugg.  Thus beginning the 420 portion of the tour. Mike had a lot of cool things to say and we talked for about an hour. He saw a Bigfoot when he was 4 years old.

 I asked him what he thought about the correlation between Bigfoot sightings and people being high on mushrooms.  He confessed to being high basically 25 hours a day.

Mike shows me a Sasquatch tooth.

In all seriousness, the Bigfoot Discovery Museum rules and if you're ever in Santa Cruz make sure to swing by and say hello to Mike & the gang.  They're super nice and have a ton of stuff that verifies the existence of our "Hairy Friends", and I don't mean the employees.