BELLINGHAM, Wash. _ Talk about a shocking experience. But, happily, it wasn't.
I felt like Houdini, in one of those old movies, where they wrap the master magician in 20 feet of chain secured with 20 padlocks, drop him into a swimming pool, then wait for him to swim victoriously to the surface.
But I was inside a cage _ playfully called the "Cage of Doom" _ perched on what looked disturbingly like an electric chair (it was really just an old barber chair).
The crackling bolts of electric energy zapping the outside of the cage were fully authentic, however. Zapping, to the tune of 4.5 million volts, from a Tesla coil, an electrical transformer named for Nikola Tesla, the mad-scientist inventor of the late 19th century.
This device is dubbed the MegaZapper, and it's the big draw at downtown Bellingham's Spark Museum, dedicated to electrical inventions through the ages.
Sample the town's burgeoning craft-beer scene. Detour to Mount Baker for skiing. Enjoy the excellent farmers market. But go for this titillating demonstration of electronic wizardry you won't find elsewhere. It's worth the trip.
