See Hidden Bike Eating Tree That Inspired Beloved Children’s Book

There is an old tree that has eaten a full size bike and is hidden in the forests of Washington State. That secret tree even inspired a well known beloved children's book called "Red Ranger Came Calling." The tree is located "at Vashon Highway Southwest and Southwest 204th streets, near the north end of the parking lot behind a building called Sound Food." Look for an old bike swallowed inside of a large tree about 7 feet off the ground just across the footbridge about 50 to 60 feet into the forest.

According to Snopes, the story goes something like this.

"Tales abound explaining how a red bicycle came to be lodged in a Vashon tree a dozen feet up. Some say it ended up there by chance, while others contend in was intentional cleverness. One former Islander, Berkeley Breathed, even wrote a children’s book about the mystery.

But one longtime Island family had laid a solid claim to the bicycle in a tree just north of Sound Food. Two generations concur that the bicycle belonged to Don Puz, who in 1954 left his bicycle in the woods, forgot about it and never went back looking for it.

Don received the bicycle as a donation after the family home burnt down, he said.

The bicycle wasn’t his favorite — it had hard, solid rubber tires “and skinny little handlebars like a tricycle,” he said. “I was too big a kid to ride it.”

As his mother Helen Puz tells the story, Don and his friends were playing in the woods together, and Don was the only child who had ridden his bicycle there. When the boys left, Don left his bike behind, walking home with the other boys.

“Apparently, he wasn’t too excited about that bike,” she said.

After the bike was discovered, making headlines, both mother and son paid it a visit.

“We went down there in the woods, and there was this bike in the tree, and I said, ‘That’s my bike,'” Don recalled. “I recognized it immediately. When I saw that bike, I recognized it, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen another one like it.”

If you do a search of pictures from the tree, you'll notice that the bike seems to change slightly over the years. That is because people visiting sometimes steal parts from the bike. A man that owns a local bike shop keeps checking on the bike and replacing the parts when they are stolen.

Some people don't believe that the bike could have ended up swallowed by the tree in that position without help from people. They think that multiple people through the years changed the bikes position so it could be enveloped by the tree. Others argue the tree, which is estimated to be planted in 1910, was so small that the branches could have easily weaved into the bike like we see it today without human help.

However it happened, it remains one of the strangest and coolest stories to originate from the Northwest and attracts visitors from all around the world.