foot

Not even Shinnecock Hills and its strongest test of the week in the U.S. Open could match the toughness of Wyndham Clark on Saturday.

Clark had a collection of par saves around the turn as Scottie Scheffler was making a move and poured it on with a fairway metal to get within four feet for eagle on the par-five 16th for an even-par 70 that gave him a six-shot lead.

No one has lost more than a five-shot lead in 125 previous editions of golf’s toughest test. Greg Norman in the 1996 Masters is the only player to lose a six-shot lead in any major.

Shinnecock Hills did its part, even after the strongest wind subsided. Only two players broke par in the third round — Emiliano Grillo in 30 mph wind before the leaders teed off, and Scheffler with a 69.

Clark nearly joined them. After all his great saves, he missed a five-foot par putt on the final hole and finished at seven-under 203, the lowest 54-hole score ever at Shinnecock Hills.

Now he has one more round to add another U.S. Open title to the one he captured at Los Angeles Country Club in 2023. At his side will be Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world, trying to turn Sunday into a most magical day.

Scottie Scheffler watches his shot on the first hole during the third round of the U.S. Open on Saturday at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.

(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)

At stake for Scheffler is a chance — a long shot at that — to complete the career Grand Slam, on Father’s Day, which happens to be his 30th birthday.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on,” Scheffler said with a smile in his interview with NBC. “A special day. The tournament means a lot to me. Going to go out there and try to do my best and execute. I’ve been fighting like heck all week to stay in this tournament.”

Scheffler, who fell nine shots behind with a pair of bogeys at the start, shot 32 on the back nine by chipping in from 65 feet on the 14th for the start of three straight birdies. His one big lament was missing a 4-foot birdie putt on the final hole.

He moved into the last group when Shinnecock Hills did a number on everyone else.

Sam Stevens, who closed within two shots of Clark on the front, started the back nine with three straight bogeys and closed with six straight pars for a 72. Tom Kim dropped two shots at the wrong time and shot 72. Sahith Theegala had one birdie, one bogey and 16 pars for a 70. That usually works at any U.S. Open, particularly this one.

All of them were at one-under 209, leaving only five players under par.

Miguel Rojas had practiced his dance moves in the Dodgers dugout Monday, long before he hit the go-ahead home run. Before the game, he strutted around, at one point even grabbing Dalton Rushing, decked in full catcher’s gear, to get hyped.

Rojas, who pinch-hit for Alex Freeland in the bottom of the seventh and homered to center, was more measured as he crossed the plate without any antics. His veteran steadiness never indicated that he‘d hit a pinch-hit home run only one other time in his career.

The Dodgers’ 4-3 win over Tampa Bay rid them of their middling road performance. The team split a six-game trip, capped by a Sunday loss to the Chicago White Sox, before returning home.

No one found more immediate success than Kyle Tucker, who temporarily put his .227 batting average on the trip in the rearview mirror. For how long remains a question. Tucker’s season so far has looked more like a teenager testing out their driver’s license: stopping and starting and stopping again. Yet everything seemed to be working when the Dodgers (46-27) beat the Rays (41-28).

Of the five Dodgers who’ve played at least 60 games, Tucker has the lowest batting average (.238). Still, he battled in an eight-pitch duel in the second inning before taking a changeup 384 feet over the wall in right-center. His home run tied the score at three apiece, and Tucker wasn’t finished.

The next inning, the Rays’ Ben Williamson hit a two-out single to Tucker in right field, and Tampa’s Jonathan Aranda darted around third toward home. Tucker lasered a ball to Rushing, who tagged Aranda out on the slide.

Miguel Rojas acknowledges the bullpen after homering in the seventh inning.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The defensive play helped buoy an otherwise precarious start by pitcher Eric Lauer. The left-hander had been undefeated in three starts with the Dodgers, a large departure from the 1-5 record he had with the Toronto Blue Jays. After starting his year with a 6.69 ERA, Lauer had dropped it to 2.76 with the Dodgers.

But inconsistencies plagued Lauer’s start, ranging from the three earned runs he gave up in the first two innings to a pitch clock violation in the fourth. While Lauer eventually settled, the command of his fastball remained absent. He normally crosses the strike zone with 53.7% accuracy on his fastball, getting batters to chase about 37% of the time. In the series opener, Lauer threw his four-seamer in the zone only 42% of the time, cutting his chase rate to 23%.

In other words, the best pitch in Lauer’s arsenal became one of his worst, and the Rays took advantage. Junior Caminero doubled in the first inning, and Ryan Vilade followed with a home run on a cutter, silencing a sold-out Dodger Stadium before the game could even heat up. The Rays tacked on another run on a safety squeeze, taking the lead until Tucker’s home run. Lauer finished after six innings, giving up the three earned runs on six hits and three walks, striking out four.

Tampa Bay starter Nick Martinez fared about as well. The right-hander lasted 5-1/3 innings of three-run baseball, striking out six and walking one.

While there was movement on the bases for both starters, the game lulled until the seventh. A couple of feet separated Rushing’s foul ball from a home run. Reliever Steven Matz didn’t get so lucky with Rojas, who delivered his first homer since April 20.

From the graveyard of St Michael’s in Ynys, Wales, the view was ravishing: the Italianate oddity of Portmeirion sparkled on the opposite shore; the peaks of Eryri (Snowdonia) rippled in the distance; and, within the River Dwyryd’s broad swirl, sat the tidal island of Ynys Gifftan. “No one’s lived there for years,” said a passerby pointing to the isle, “but it’s just been put up for sale – £350,000, if you fancy it.”

I rather did, but sadly my modest savings don’t stretch that far. Wales’s “armpit”, geographically speaking – which is how some people refer to that chunk of Gwynedd where estuaries perspire into Cardigan Bay before it curves round the outstretched Llŷn peninsula – looked like a spectacular place to be marooned.

I’d come here because I thought it might be a particularly good place for coastal exploring by rail and on foot. The Cambrian Line, which starts in Shrewsbury, runs west to the bay, before turning north along Gwynedd’s shore. Here, it’s accompanied by the Wales Coast Path and, launched in 2024, the Cadfan Way, a 128-mile (206km) pilgrimage following sixth-century St Cadfan from his church in the seaside town of Tywyn to the ruins of the monastery he founded on Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island), off the Llŷn’s tip.

I began in Machynlleth. This handsome market town by the River Dyfi is where the Cambrian Line begins to feel connected to the sea. It also has a disproportionate number of excellent indie shops, and one of the country’s best restaurants – though I skipped Gwen’s 20-course, £295 feast and grabbed supplies from the Royal House deli instead (very tasty, very good value). Then I boarded the train.

I was soon rattling through an increasingly saturated land. The mouth of the Dyfi began to yawn into bird-beloved mudflats, salt marsh and sandbanks; the train passes right between the Dyfi Osprey Project’s 360-observatory and the osprey nests it observes. Wider and wider the waterway became until, eventually, at white-washed Aberdyfi, the line hit the coast, sometimes running so close to the sea’s edge that you couldn’t see the join.

We pootled north, via towns like Tywyn – starting point for St Cadfan pilgrimages – and teeny halts like Tonfanau, site of an army base during the second world war, now sheep-grazed ruins. Like many Cambrian Line stops, Tonfanau is request only; those on the platform should stick out an arm.

At Harlech, no requests are necessary – the train itself couldn’t help but be halted by the vision of Harlech Castle. Edward I’s crag-top stronghold was started in 1282, took seven years to build and still looks fearsome. I disembarked here, hiked up to the fortress and entered with ease via the modern floating bridge; back in the day, would-be intruders faced concentric walls, portcullises and a “killing zone” where arrows were fired from the sides, missiles dropped from above. The weather was gloomy, curtailing the views but piling on atmosphere. I spiralled up the dark stone staircases and circled the battlements, alone but for the hooded jackdaws. It gave me the shivers.

I spent the night at Y Branwen hotel, in the castle’s shadow, and left Harlech the next day on foot, murk replaced by blazing sunshine. I was headed north along the coast, although the rocky Rhinogs rising behind the village looked tempting … “There’s no one in those hills,” Branwen’s owner David Penny told me. However, I stuck to Plan A, and wasn’t disappointed. Rounding Harlech Point, I was slapped by that view down the Dwyryd, soon passing isolated St Michael’s and my fantasy island.

Following the Cadfan Way for a while, I hiked from Ynys to St Tecwyn’s, an even lonelier church, seemingly ministering to no one from its eyrie above the estuary. It was here that poet and priest Jim Cotter was inspired to found the Small Pilgrim Places network; he wrote of St Tecwyn’s: “I’m at what must be one of the most extraordinary places in the whole of Wales.”

I had to agree, though Portmeirion, across the Dwyryd estuary, gives it a run for its money. This fantastical resort village, the trippy creation of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, celebrates its centenary this year and remains wonderfully weird, with its candy palette, tricks of perspective and salvaged architectural paraphernalia. I popped into the Prisoner Shop, which sells memorabilia related to the cult TV show of the same name, filmed here in the 1960s. I wondered if it was still popular? “Oh yes,” the cashier confirmed. “Even with young people, they watch it on YouTube. Its themes – surveillance, freedom – feel relevant today.”

I stayed at Portmeirion’s Castell Deudraeth, a Gothic pile with big rooms, a good restaurant and The Prisoner looping on channel 801. But best was strolling into the village at sunrise, no one around, watching the sun crack the opposite hills, hit the top of the campanile and flood into the hot-pink camellia groves.

Porthmadog station wasn’t far, a short walk through the woods and across the mile-long cob that fords the Glaslyn estuary, Eyri summits keeping watch. From here on, I used a mix of train and boot to reach Pwllheli, the end of the Cambrian Line.

That wasn’t always the case. A horse-drawn tramway, built in the 1890s by businessman Solomon Andrews, used to run farther west to his estate in Llanbedrog. Andrews turned the site’s Victorian mansion, Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, into an art gallery and charged a shilling for a combined tram and gallery ticket. Now, 130 years later, I paid nothing at all. The old tramway track is part of the Wales Coast Path – an easy, breezy four-mile stroll along the bay – and Plas Glyn-y-Weddw is free entry. Saved from ruin in the 1980s, it’s one of the oldest galleries in Wales, showcasing work by Welsh artists, and serving great cake inside its modern cafe, which squats beside the house like a giant silver sea urchin.

I scoffed a scone, then ambled through the Winllan woods on trails first developed by Andrews for his paying visitors. Andrews also placed the figurehead of an old ship on Mynydd Tir y Cwmwd, the heathery headland above. It was eventually destroyed and now the twisted metal Tin Man, or Iron Man, stands in its place, enjoying quite the spot. I could retrace my route from here, Cardigan Bay arcing away into a mountain-backed haze. It made a pleasing journey’s end, with the knowledge that getting home meant riding that charming train line back again.

The trip was supported by the Wales Coast Path. Cambrian Line tickets are cheaper bought in advance; a day rover ticket costs £21. Y Branwen in Harlech has doubles from £110 B&B. Castell Deudraeth has doubles from £208 B&B, including Portmeirion entry

Three weeks ago The Times published an article in which general manager Perry Minisian said the Angels are “very competitive” and “our best baseball is in front of us.” He then cited run differential and team ERA as examples. After getting swept by the Dodgers by a combined 31-3 the Angels had the worst run differential, worst won/loss record and are at or near the bottom in all pitching and hitting categories in MLB.

Since owner Arte Moreno believes that “winning is not a top priority,” he must be very pleased with both the work of his GM and the team’s performance so far this season. That the three games against the Dodgers were sold out was not because of fans’ desire to see this “very competitive” Angels team.

Rob Nelson
Dana Point

The Angels’ ultimate indignity is its own hometown newspaper doesn’t regard it highly enough to staff its games with a full-time writer. The Angels are irrelevant in Southern California and the owner isn’t self aware enough to realize it.

Ron Yukelson
San Luis Obispo

I just wanted to give praise to the Angels TV and radio broadcast teams. Even with the Angels having the worst record in baseball, and having suffered 10 straight losing seasons, the broadcast teams approach the games professionally and always with a positive attitude. As a lifelong Angels fan, it always reminds me of that saying “hope springs eternal.”

Steve Shaevel
Woodland Hills

When Lawrence Kensinger stepped into the circle for his last throw of the City Section shot put finals on Thursday afternoon in Lake Balboa, he felt a surge of adrenaline like never before.

Energized by spectators and fellow competitors clapping behind him, the Venice High senior gave them reason to cheer with his Herculean heave of 65 feet, 11 inches, breaking a 53-year-old City record and taking over the state lead in the event.

“Number one baby!” Kensinger screamed as he hugged his dad, Cliff. “When you release it, you don’t even feel it coming out of your hand … it’s like air,” he said. “That’s how you know it’s good. It felt amazing!”

After scratching on his first two attempts by stepping over the board, Kensinger played it safe on his third, then let loose on the fourth to shatter the section record of 64-08.75 set by David Gerasimchuck of Narbonne in 1973. That was the second-longest standing City record behind only the boys pole vault which dates back to 1969.

“I got 62 [feet] on my first attempt so even though it didn’t count I felt pretty good,” said Kensinger, who won with a throw of 55 feet at last year’s City finals after a 55-09 effort at prelims. “It did get in my head a little but the third throw I just wanted to get a mark out there. Then on the last one I was told just go out there and rip it.”

Kensinger played football in ninth and 10th grade but quit to focus on the shot put. His goal at last year’s state meet was to qualify for finals. This time, he wants to be on the top step of the podium.

He works with Nick Garcia, the strength and condition coach at Notre Dame High in Sherman Oaks. “I’ve been throwing since my freshman year and go to his clinics and train with him once a week. He gives me my lifting program. I send him videos and he does technical analysis. Having a good coach is vital. I couldn’t have done this without him.”

Venice senior Lawrence Kensinger puts the shot 65-11 in the City finals Thursday at Birmingham High.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Kensinger bettered the 65-3.5 thrown by Case Jacobson of Mountain View St. Francis at the Arcadia Invitational in April.

“I’ve been eyeing that number … he beat me there,” added Kensinger, whose prior best was 59-08 at the Irvine Invitational earlier this spring.

“I like to say it’s just small steps, but 65 is top tier in the country. I was throwing 60 consistently in practice so I knew I could do it.”

The current national leader is CJ Williams of Frisco Heritage High in Texas with a mark of 72-0.25.

Kensinger wants to go to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where his father played football, but he has yet to sign with the Mustangs.

“I’m just a shot guy right now, but I’d like to do the shot and hammer throw in college,” Kensinger said. “Hammer’s very technical because you do four spins instead of one.”

Was the record-setting throw the highlight of his career?

“So far,” he said. “But I have plenty more to accomplish.”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts on Thursday approved the design for the triumphal arch that President Trump wants built at an entrance to the nation’s capital.

Commissioners, all of whom were appointed by Trump, approved the design despite overwhelming opposition from the public. Approval is a key step in the project’s process.

The proposed arch is one of several projects the Republican president is pursuing alongside a White House ballroom to leave his imprint on Washington.

He has said some of his other projects, such as adding a blue coating to the interior of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, will beautify the city in time for July 4 celebrations of America’s 250th birthday.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts approved the concept for the arch at its monthly meeting in April.

As presented to the federal agency, the arch itself would stand 250 feet tall from its base to a torch held aloft by a Lady Liberty-like figure on top of the structure. The statue would be flanked on top by two eagles and guarded at the base by four lions — all gilded. The phrases “One Nation Under God” and “Liberty and Justice for All” would be inscribed in gold lettering atop either side of the monument.

A public observation deck on top would provide 360-degree views of the surroundings.

The commission’s vice chairman, architect James McCrery II, said in April that he preferred the arch without the figures on top. Removing them would significantly reduce the arch’s height by about 80 feet. Critics of the project, including an overwhelming number of people who submitted public comment in April, said the arch would be taller than any other monument in the capital city and dominate the skyline.

At a height of 250 feet, the arch would dwarf the Lincoln Memorial, which is 99 feet tall, and be close to half the height of the Washington Monument, an obelisk that is about 555 feet tall.

McCrery also recommended that the lions on the base be removed because that animal is “not a beast natural to the North American continent.” And he objected to plans for an underground tunnel for pedestrians to get to the arch, which would be built on a traffic circle between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Preliminary surveys and testing of the site began last week.

A group of veterans and a historian have sued the Trump administration in federal court to block construction on grounds that the arch would disrupt the sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House at Arlington National Cemetery, among other reasons.

Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have argued that Washington is the only major Western world capital without such an arch. Burgum’s department includes the National Park Service, which manages the plot where Trump wants to put the arch.

Trump’s rehab of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is also the subject of a court challenge brought by the Cultural Landscape Foundation, which said the administration’s moves to repaint the bottom of the Reflecting Pool blue without first undergoing relevant reviews ran afoul of federal preservation laws governing historic sites.

The nonprofit group argued in a lawsuit filed last week that the changes at the Reflecting Pool are part of Trump’s broader effort to push through dramatic renovations in Washington without proper reviews and undermine the tone of the area.

A hearing in the case was scheduled for Thursday afternoon in federal court in Washington.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

The snow was flying sideways and he had no jacket, but this lumberjack did not shiver. He stood about 25 feet tall, ax in hand, wearing a red hat and rictus grin. And he was made of fiberglass.

I stood at his feet on the Northern Arizona University campus in Flagstaff, full of the satisfaction that comes at having accomplished something truly trivial: At last, I was face to face with the original Muffler Man.

Stories, photos and travel recommendations from America’s Mother Road

Easter Island has its stone-faced monoliths. China has its terra-cotta warriors. And we Americans have these roadside giants, also known as Paul Bunyans, Uniroyal Gals and most commonly, Muffler Men. Manufactured in Los Angeles, they first appeared on the highways of North America in the early 1960s as an advertising gimmick, often promoting car lots or car parts. Now they’re rising again, a battalion of restored and replica specimens, beloved by road-trippers, kitsch aficionados, artists, preservationists and savvy entrepreneurs.

“To me, they’re kind of instant friends,” said Amy Inouye, the designer and artist who rescued L.A.’s most iconic Muffler Man, Chicken Boy, a chicken-headed statue that stands atop her gallery in Highland Park. “They’re really tall and they just want to be accepted for who they are.”

The Northern Arizona University campus in Flagstaff includes the first oversize fiberglass Muffler Man, who has long been outfitted as a lumberjack.

These figures are especially plentiful along Route 66 this year as it turns 100 — there was a “pre-centennial frenzy” in the words of roadsideamerica.com, which coined the term “Muffler Men” and tracks them on a map. Nobody’s certain how many figures were made during the golden age of Muffler Men, but since 2020, the tally of giants has climbed above 250, including “a few dozen” rediscoveries since 2010, according to Doug Kirby, the co-founder and publisher of the site.

“Just in the last year or two, all these Muffler Men are being added,” he said. In addition, more than a dozen giants are currently in transition — that is, getting reconditioned or relocated.

1.) Cigars and Stripes BBQ in Berwyn, Ill., features a Muffler Man smoking a cigar and holding a jumbo bottle of barbecue sauce. 2.) The Gemini Giant stands along Route 66 in Wilmington, Ill.

On a recent westbound journey from Chicago on Route 66, I started seeing them almost immediately.

First, on Ogden Avenue in the Chicago suburb of Berwyn, there was the Cigars & Stripes Muffler Man. He stood on the roof of the Cigars & Stripes BBQ Lounge, brandishing a chicken wing and a fridge-size bottle of barbecue sauce while chewing on a stogie.

Next, in Wilmington, Ill., came the Gemini Giant, who stands 23 feet tall above a tiny park. Made for a Wilmington diner in 1965, he was auctioned off for $275,000 in early 2024 and placed in his current location later that year. He wears a clunky silver space helmet and holds a rocket in his hands.

I had come across a few Muffler Men before this trip, including Big Josh, who looks down upon Joshua Tree from the Station gift shop on State Route 62. But now I was paying more attention.

At first, I learned, these giants were all men, conceived around 1962 by a Lawndale entrepreneur named Bob Prewitt and made popular from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s by a company in Venice called International Fiberglass.

Made from a standard set of molds and held together by steel frames, most Muffler Men are assembled from three or four pieces. Besides those figures holding mufflers and tires, others were outfitted as cowboys, Indians, lumberjacks (often known as Paul Bunyans), astronauts, chefs, dentists, golfers, hot dog vendors, race-car drivers, pirates and service-station attendants. Then there were the jug-eared goofball characters, which some scholars of the art form call halfwits, while others prefer snerds.

As interest in this kind of advertising grew, female giants followed, including Uniroyal Gals and Rosie the Riveters. Oversized animals, including dinosaurs, bulls, roosters, hens and seals, also multiplied.

Juni Peraza, 25, works at the Meadow Gold Mack retail shop on 11th Street in Tulsa, Okla. She said she has only recently realized the possibilities that come with 11th Street being part of Route 66.

All that action faded in the 1970s. But in about 1989, the seeds of a new Muffler Man era were sown.

Kirby, Mike Wilkins and Ken Smith, who had worked together on the 1985 book “Roadside America,” were building a database for a follow-up project when they realized, “Hey, wait, this configuration of statue we’re seeing in a lot of places,” Kirby said. “We decided we’d better start keeping track.”

The first few they saw were holding mufflers. Thinking of the old nursery rhyme “Muffin Man,” and a Frank Zappa song of the same name, Kirby decided to call them Muffler Men.

When the roadsideamerica.com website launched in 1996, Muffler Men were part of it. By 2000, Roadside America had uncovered their origin story and interviewed Steve Dashew, former president of International Fiberglass. And readers had embraced the giants in a big way.

This fiberglass Rosie the Riveter figure went up on 11th Street in Tulsa in 2025.

“It was like a religious epiphany for some people. For years, they were driving past these things,” Kirby said. “As soon as they realized it was part of an uncharted network across the country … it’s like your third eye has been opened.”

Ken Bernstein, principal city planner for Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources, calls Muffler Men “monumental and distinctive representations of midcentury car culture, especially along auto-centric corridors where it was important to catch the eye of passing motorists.”

New giants, known as custom jobs, are being steadily manufactured now. There’s an entire economic community emerging around their restoration, replication, sales, transport and display, including companies like (Re)Giant and sculptor Mark Cline’s Enchanted Castle Studios. (To confuse matters, many Southern California mechanics woo customers by welding together mufflers to make human figures. Those creations, too, are often called Muffler Men.)

The American Giants Museum in Atlanta, Ill., created in 2024 by Bill Thomas of the Atlanta Betterment Fund and collector-historian Joel Baker, is devoted to the fiberglass figures. The museum, open April through October, includes four standing Muffler Men, with two more expected around Memorial Day.

Because the giants stand in the open air, visitors who show up after hours — as I did — can ogle them any time.

Atlanta, Ill., is home to the American Giants Museum, which celebrates the Muffler Men and Uniroyal Gals that were common roadside advertising features in the middle 20th century.

“I love history. I love anything to do with cars and old advertisements. I think it just takes people back,” said Lee Woods, 55, who jumped on the Muffler Men bandwagon about five years ago and owns the museum.

Woods and his wife, Diane, who have a fleet of tow trucks in Hot Springs, Ark., were collecting old porcelain gas station signs, gas pumps and old cars in 2021 when, on a drive through Illinois, they laid eyes on the Gemini Giant.

“I told my wife I would love to have one of them things to represent our tow company,” Woods recalled.

Before long, they had hired someone to build a custom tow-truck-operator Muffler Man. And before that Muffler Man was done, Lee Woods had bought another one — a Paul Bunyan in Oklahoma. Then in 2023 he got a hold of a Muffler Man Mr. Spock from Rainbow Neon in Salt Lake City. Now Woods has eight Muffler Men in Arkansas.

“Sometimes I get carried away, my wife says,” Woods said.

Last fall, he bought the museum, where he collaborates with Baker, who is founder of the American Giants website, creator of a Giants YouTube series and serves as a Muffler Man broker, consultant and transportation specialist.

“When people see these things, they think they’re the coolest thing out there,” Woods said. “Today we’ve had people from six different countries here.”

1.) Cowboy Bob, who is about 20 feet tall, plays guitar and wears a bolo tie, is one of several oversize fiberglass mascots along 11th Street in the Meadow Gold District of Tulsa. 2.) Meadow Gold Mack, a friendly lumberjack, is mascot for a shop of the same name on 11th Street in Tulsa. 3.) A Muffler Man near Gearhead Curios in Galena, Kan. 4.) The 2nd Amendment Cowboy is a fiberglass giant that stands at the entrance to a trailer park near the art installation Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas.

From here, the giants seemed to come fast and furious. One in Galena, Kan. Two in Vinita, Okla. (which has since added a third). Five in Tulsa’s Meadow Gold District (including one with an 8-foot-long guitar).

Then in Weatherford, Okla., came a 30-foot astronaut. In Amarillo, a “2nd Amendment Cowboy” with a pair of big pistols at his feet. In Gallup, N.M., a giant on the roof of a used car lot.

By the time I’d reached Flagstaff, my count was 18.

Then came my snowy moment with the original Muffler Man, whose nickname is Louie. Experts agree that he was produced in about 1963 and sent to a Flagstaff cafe with a lumberjack theme (and yes, that cafe stood along Route 66).

Louie stood there until the cafe closed more than 10 years later. Then he was donated to NAU and stationed by the ticket office of the university’s Walkup Skydome. Another lumberjack stands inside.

But after Louie, I hit a drought — no more giant sightings in Arizona and none on the Route 66 alignment I followed into Southern California.

This seemed wrong, because there are so many giants along the byways of Southern California and because this is the land of their birth. Besides Big Josh, there’s the Paul Bunyan in Mentone, the empty-handed Muffler Man known as Kevin on Sherman Way in Van Nuys. There’s the flag-wielding Porsche Muffler Man in Carson (who previously served in the same spot as a club-brandishing Golf Man). And there are plenty of others.

It didn’t seem right to end the journey without another sighting. So I made my way to Highland Park to meet the one who rules the roost.

More specifically, I headed for 5558 N. Figueroa St., which was on the path of Route 66 for several years in the 1930s and which is the home of Chicken Boy.

Blessed with the customized head of a chicken, the body of a Muffler Man and a bucket in his hands (for eating chicken?), Chicken Boy stood for years atop the Chicken Boy fried-chicken restaurant on Broadway downtown, inspiring writer Art Fein to label him “L.A.’s Statue of Liberty.”

After the restaurant was shuttered in 1984, Inouye swooped in to rescue Chicken Boy and place him in protective storage — for years, as it turned out.

The fiberglass statue known as Chicken Boy stands on the roof of artist, designer and gallerist Amy Inouye’s studio on Figueroa Street in Highland Park.

In October 2007, after she and longtime partner Stuart Rapeport had bought the Highland Park studio space and pulled permits, Inouye put Chicken Boy back together again and set him up on the roof. There he remains, sharing space with a billboard, visible up and down the block between Avenue 55 and Avenue 56.

If a nomination by L.A. preservationist Charles J. Fisher goes through, Chicken Boy could become the first Muffler Man declared a city historic-cultural monument. And if you drop by the Future Studio Gallery on a Saturday between noon and 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., you’ll likely find Inouye, now 74, along with a trove of Chicken Boy T-shirts, patches, pencils and ceramic treasure boxes.

But seeing Chicken Boy is its own reward, especially after seeing so many of his fiberglass cousins. I got there on a balmy afternoon, beheld Chicken Boy’s beak gleaming in the sun, and knew my mission was complete.

Ohio State tight end Max Klare speaks during a new conference at the NFL scouting combine in February.

(Eric Gay / Associated Press)

6 feet 4, 246 pounds | Ohio State | Round 2, Pick 61

Notable: Klare began his career at Purdue and played three seasons for the Boilermakers before transferring to Ohio State.

Last season: Klare caught 43 passes for 448 yards and two touchdowns for the Buckeyes, who finished 12-2.

Why the Rams drafted him: McVay at times used a tight-end heavy offense during the latter part of last season, so the Rams need reinforcements for a position group that includes veteran Tyler Higbee, Colby Parkinson, Davis Allen and Terrance Ferguson. Higbee is at the far end of his career and Parkinson is in the final year of his contract, and none of his salary is guaranteed, according to Overthecap.com.

The 55-minute treatment promises to improve circulation and relax muscles, helping to plump the skin while lifting and firming, “giving it a more contoured appearance,” Kosha owner Anastasia Talan told me.

It starts with a short grounding meditation before a cleansing of the skin and a light scalp massage. It then transitions into a wonderfully relaxing neck, shoulder and face massage, with an emphasis on the face. (The actual “buccal massage” part comes later.) Talan said the overall treatment blends multiple types of massage, including European “contouring and lifting massage,” lymphatic drainage, acupressure and myofascial release as well as light stretching.

As she worked on my face, Talan applied pressure while stroking under my cheek bones, along my sinuses and up, down and around my cheeks and jaw area.

The “buccal massage” portion was about 15 minutes. It’s also called “intraoral massage” because it takes place inside of the mouth. Talan donned blue plastic gloves and then pulled my lips apart, massaging the inside of my cheeks, lips and around my jawbone and temporomandibular joint. Relieving tension there is helpful in aiding TMJ and other temporomandibular joint disorders. Another benefit, says Talan: clenching the jaw, a stress reaction, can enlarge the masseter muscles on the jaw, leading to the lower part of the face looking heavy. Relaxing those muscles could preserve slimness of the face.

But go for the sheer relaxation of it. Once the (admittedly awkward) intraoral massage part was over, Talan spent a few more minutes massaging the outside of my face and neck. The treatment was so dreamy, I nearly drooled while fighting off sleep.

Treatment name: The Buccal Facial

Price: 55 minutes, $195