On our way driving home from the Grand Canyon, we found ourselves passing through Needles, California, and so of course, I couldn’t resist visiting Spike. The statue resides in a Subway sandwich shop. The town is into their relationship to Snoopy’s brother in a number of ways. The adjacent convenience store has Peanuts strips hanging from the ceiling… but better still are the billboards along the highway, which focus on promoting the fact that Needles is the home of Spike. Pulling out of town, I even saw that a local-storage facility was “Spikes Storage” (that’s how it was on the building, no apostrophe.)
As we drove past the open desert portions of the town, my wife noted that she couldn’t see Spike’s cactus. I pointed out that it’ll probably be more visible once he gets his holiday lights up.
