July 15, 2004 - It?s A Bird, A Plane, A Frog!

As the bumper sticker says, ?You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you get your prince?. Well, if you?re looking for a lot of frogs to kiss, you might want to go up to Paterna Road on the Riveria. There, tucked away along a stone wall, you will find the most fantastic frog collection this side of Hogwarts. There are plastic frogs, rubber frogs, stuffed frogs, ceramic frogs, frog thermometers, frog PEZ dispensers, frog piggy banks, and frog potholders.  The frogs are on the ground, in an alcove, on top the wall, stuck in crevices in the rocks, in the bushes, and hanging from trees.

Yesterday was Bastille Day, an appropriate day to focus on frogs.  The dedicated staff visited the frog shrine and did a little counting while we were there. We tallied 253 of them.  Actually, the count was 252 because one of the PEZ dispensers was really a ninja turtle, not a frog at all.

On top of the wall, directly above the frog alcove, there sits a frog statue.  He sits symmetrically, looking up with his hands stuck together in prayer position.  If you were looking for a frog-to-prince transformation, he is the one you?d kiss first.

Frog worshipers have placed the frogs there over time.  There?s no sign that any particular individual or corporation claims ownership of the frog shrine.  It?s not clear who owns the movie or the merchandising rights.  While some of the frogs are glued into place, most remain there out of the good will and honesty of shrine visitors. There is also rumor of a curse.  One frog with a secret compartment contained a note warning that anyone who removed the frog from the shrine and kept it more than two days would face certain death ?for the rest of their life?.

The frog shrine was brought to our attention by one of our dedicated subscribers who is into the sport of geocaching.  Geocaching, for those who don?t know, is the game of finding hidden objects, or caches, in secret locations, using latitude and longitude coordinates. Sound fun? Well, the dedicated staff was looking for other reasons to use our new handheld GPS than mapping abandoned shopping carts.  The frog shrine turned out to be an easy thing to find.  Later in the day we tried to find another cache by the Mission. The dedicated staff, usually known for our observant nature, was unable to find the hidden object even though our GPS device said we were standing right on top of it.

For more info on geocaching, check out
http://www.geocaching.com

If you have a GPS device, the coordinates of the frog shrine are N 34° 26.309 W 119° 41.962.

If you don?t have a GPS device, just take APS from the Mission, turn left onto Alvarado, and before you get to the El Encanto, turn right on Lasuen.  You will go through a funny intersection before turning right on Paterna.  The frogs are on the left, but drive slowly because they are easy to miss.

Subscribers Madrona Drive, Raoul, edBoo, sbHeather, Panda, and Pope all were able to correctly identify the frog location.  They all guessed low in the ?how many? tiebreaker.  Raoul?s guess of 155 was the highest.  He wins the edhat.com hat and shirt ensemble.

Here are all the responses to our contest.

Click here to see updated pictures of the Frog Shrine (July, 2009).

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