Billboards are not legal in Alaska, Hawaii, Vermont and Maine

The gift shop, which of course serves as the entrance and exit to The Desert Of Maine, is mobbed with school kids. An old man in a safari hat named Bill taps me on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, they will be gone soon. Next tour should start in about ten minutes. They won't bother ya."

I immediately like Bill as he wanders away to find some warmth under a space heater. When I meet back up with him, he has a tram car connected to a Jeep fired up outside. He hands me a couple of Mexican blankets.

"You'll probably need these today in the desert. Where ya from?"

I tell him Tampa, but that I once lived in New England. It turns out Bill had spent many a warm day in Florida prior to being banished here. Before I have time to wonder why anyone would make the transition north, we are moving.

Bill starts a spiel about how a desert ended up in the middle of Maine over the tram's intercom. He stops periodically to get out into the oasis and show some visuals which he can hardly hold onto in the violent breeze. Bill himself looks like he could be airborne any second given his thin and fragile stature.

"They used to take people out here on camels but camels are mean and spit a lot. So, they tried donkey drawn carts but donkeys are stubborn animals and they sometimes would not make the return trip."

The desert was created quite by mistake. In 1797 the Tuttle family began farming the land and never bothered to rotate their crops. The eventual soil erosion exposed a hidden desert below. Geologists claim a glacier must have slid through at the end of the Ice Age leaving the mineral deposits you see today. The sand spread and keeps on spreading.

"It grows about an inch a year!"

I give Bill a couple of bucks as he pulls back up to the gift shop door. Not because the sign mounted to the top of the tram says it is allowed but rather for keeping the pack of school brats at bay.

He tips his safari hat and points the way to a small barn museum. Inside is part of the original Tuttle home, a framed comic from Ripley's Believe It Or Not about the desert and perhaps the most intriguing display of all - a collection of vials filled with sand from around the world. Believe it or not.

What is this button?