The movie Big Fish is my favorite Tim Burton movie, Edward Scissorhands being my second favorite, and when I was first planning our road trip across the south I had come across the fact you could visit Spectre. The magical town in Big Fish where Ewan McGregors’s character Edward Bloom stops in for just awhile, until he remembers the life he needs to return to.    I had forgotten about Spectre until we were driving through Alabama on our way to New Orleans and Dan was looking at Roadtrippers. It’s a fantastic app for those that love detours. It tells you anything from points of interests to places to eat along your route, if you’re planning a road trip you must download the app.

Anyways,  Dan had said there is this place called Spectre we could visit, and I lit up! I started to tell him all the things I had learned about the place beforehand and that we had to ask a little old lady for the passcode to get through the gate.  He was up for the adventure and off we went to explore Spectre. It’s a solid 15 mins from the major highway and very secluded. We had no idea what to expect and after crossing over some train tracks we were in this little area with a few houses and a gate that clearly separated us from Spectre. Since the direction on Roadtrippers also confirmed the need to talk to a little old lady, we searched for one and found a woman who was muttering to her dog and picking up her mail. I walked up to her kindly and said that there is a rumor that she was the one who had a code to see Spectre. She asked me, “what?” and I explained to her what the app said and she confirmed she could give us the code. She told us the town was really run down since it’s just a movie set, and that they had to demolish a few buildings. That the church was still standing, but mostly everything else was sad looking. We didn’t care, we wanted to see Spectre.

After a friendly chat, we got the code and followed the one dirt road to Spectre. As we followed the road for a sign of the old set, we saw other trucks and people there fishing and enjoying a beautiful sunny day. Spectre is in the center of this private peninsula and once we spotted the church steeple,  Dan and I pulled over and got out to walk around the dilapidated set. We didn’t go inside any of the building as there was a lot of overgrown plants and honestly, I was chicken, afraid of getting hurt. But still I was just thrilled to say I had made a stop in Spectre.  I went to YouTube to find a clip of Spectre in all it’s glory and saw a few recent vlogs of people visiting the set, it seems like it has been cleaned up a little since we went 2 years ago. Makes me wonder if you still have to talk to a little old lady to get the code.

more photos after the jump…

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