Do you remember the dreams you had as a child, where suddenly you were with your cartoon character friend, walking through their homes and catching up on old times like you were friends forever? For some, those dreams include skipping through the woods with the Gummy Bears, to others, their nightly thoughts rest on dodging laser bullets with the cast of G.I. Joe. (Seriously, how do you dodge bullets traveling at the speed of light?)

Others, for decades, dreamt of playing with the Flinstones.

As I got off the highway and drove a local road to the Grand Canyon’s park entrance, I silently took note of the street’s predictable storefronts of fast food restaurants and budget hotel chains. Yet in between yawns and disgust for the loss of America’s regional uniqueness, I caught a glimpse of the oddest moment of my trip.

To my left, surrounded by muddy puddles and a multi-colored fence, stood the great land of Fred Flinstone.

The Flinstones themed park was built with rock-like structures, some representing a souvenir shop, others forming the bathrooms, and some just playing the part of randomly scattered boulders of a time when “Flinstones Land” could be real. Fake dinosaurs, replicas of the cartoon’s homes, and play rides for children lied behind the park’s entrance.

Being too old to pay for the park’s tour, but young enough to get excited enough to explore, I stepped out of my car and entered one of the stone structures. Stepping inside the door I noticed a massive tourist shop, full of Native American creations, Grand Canyon souvenirs, and Flinstones-themed merchandise. Behind the desk was the shop’s owner, an energetic and spontaneous speaking woman who watched over the site. Her energy led me to the back of the store, where a Flinstones diner hid, separated by the tourist shop via a real working fireplace. As I blocked out the sound of ceiling water dripping into flood buckets, I picked out my lunch and rested in a booth against a fictional stone wall.

***

The fictional Flinstones stop was a spontaneous occurrence on a dull road – one I may have driven past if I was in a rush and less wide-eyed towards the scenery. Later, while climbing through the Grand Canyon, I forgot all about this “dream land”, but the second I said goodbye to the park and drove by the canyon’s exit, I felt a longing to dream the dream again.

That new morning, refreshed from a good night’s sleep and clear of any anxiousness of locating the park, I returned to the shop, this time with a familiar welcome from Fred and Wilma’s real-world owner. When I asked her for egg whites she said she never heard of them, but luckily the chef knew how to cook the yolk-free concoction, and even volunteered to add milk to the eggs if desired. I was surprised again that morning when I noticed the coffee in the diner was only five cents (and self service). In addition, the diner had apple cinnamon jelly, a combination that makes so much sense that I wondered where it was all my life, and I enjoyed the new flavor as I spread it over my whole wheat toast.

Full from hunger and appreciative of my new jelly flavor, I rested in my seat and took in the heat from the Stone Age fireplace. Finally my surroundings were no longer a surprise, instead they were clues from a past dream floating by my eyes. As I sat I heard the owner ask a customer to name the cartoon’s pet saber-tooth tiger for a food discount. Neither he nor I knew the answer. In the corner of my eye I saw a grin from the saber-tooth tiger painted on the wall. I watched as the men sitting across from me rolled cigarettes on the table, with the light of the fireplace ricocheting off their heavy beards. I noticed the now dormant buckets lining the floor, no longer needed from capturing the rain the day before.

The lesson is to slow down and look around. There are surprises anywhere (even between two budget hotels), and not discovering surprises is almost as bad as not giving them a shot.