Text File

Newsgroups: rec.travel From: lorange@spot.Colorado.EDU (Hans L'Orange) Subject: SUMMARY - Strange and Unusual Stops in U.S. Message-ID: <lorange.723426572@spot.Colorado.EDU> Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992 23:49:32 GMT Lines: 318

Thanks to all who responded to my request for strange and unusual stops that I used to create a joke travel book for some friends.

Here is a summary of all the responses I received.

Hans

----------------------------------------------------------

Ok, Kansas has its share of this sort of thing.

West Mineral, near Pittsburgh, has what was at the time of its construction (1962), the second largest strip mining coal shovel in the world. It's nicknamed Big Brutus, and is now open for tours. If you want (I definitely didn't) you can ascend the 16-story tall boom.

Cawker City has what used to be the world's largest ball of twine. I think it's dropped to second largest these days.

The city cemetary in Lincoln has a little stone monument to a travelling salesman. It's a perfect little stone suitcase with the inscription "This is where he stoped (sic) last."

Along the same lines, Hiawatha has the Davis Memorial, which supposedly cost $250,000 to build in the 1930s. As a memorial to his wife, John Davis ordered Italian marble sculptures of the two of them at different stages of their lives. The final set has Davis as an old man, missing an arm, sitting in a stone overstuffed chair. Next to him is another stone chair inscribed "The Vacant Chair."

Oakley has the Fick Fossil Museum, mostly devoted to fossil-paintings made from painted fossils glued onto boards and framed.

The list could be endless, but...if you're going to see one thing in Kansas, it should be the Garden of Eden, in Lucas, near Wilson Reservoir. S.P. Dinsmoor, a Civil War veteran, build the Garden in the 1930s, around his house. The concrete figures depict biblical figures in some cases, but the real themes are decidedly populist. There's Labor Crucified by the Doctor, Lawyer, Preacher, and Banker. The Goddess of Liberty is cutting of a tree limb that support an ugly spider labeled "Trusts". The saw is labeled "Ballot". And so on. Dinsmoor himself is entombed in a glass-topped concrete coffin, and you can see him for the modest price of admission. He wrote before his death that if he saw you hand over the money, he'd smile through the glass.

If you go from Salt Lake City to Reno along I80, right in the middle of the salt lake flats, this totally barren wasteland, there is this big sculpture of ??? I dunno what it is. A big huge tree with giant multi coloured baseballs hanging from it. It's so completely out of place. Very strange. That would be the most strange thing I saw driving that way...

I guess you could add all the CHEESY places, of which there are a billion. Mendocino County in California and even further North is full of Mystery Houses, Enchanted Forests, a Redwood tree you can drive through (we did), and lots of other ridiculous places. Really funny.

Somewhere in New England, I think maybe in western Massachusetts, is a small house, all of whose furniture is made of rolled-up, lacquered newspapers. Chairs, tables, sideboard, lamps, the works, all made entirely of newspaper.

"See the THING!"

I wish I could remember exactly where it is, but I think it is east of Phoenix on the 40 (?). As you drive through Arizona you are accosted for miles upon miles with billboards advertising "The THING!". It's housed in a little tacky yellow building off the freeway in the middle of nowhere. I've never seen the thing but it sounds like the sort of *thing* you're looking for. (Who knows, it might even been some ugly nocturnal insect)

The Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD Wall Drug, Wall, SD Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, CA US Public Health Museum, Walter Reed Army Hospital, Washington, DC Cornell Brain Collection, Uris Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Not just in the midwest US! I saw an inconspicuous sign on a telephone pole near the Amsterdam train station that said "WALL DRUG 6387 MILES." (Just guessing on that mileage, don't quote me).

I got sidetracked travelling on I 95 North near Philadelphia and by chance got on US 1. There was the "Mushroom Museum" which I always wanted to go back and check out if it was truly for real. I don't know the exact location, but Philadelphia tourist bureau might know.

Last year I drove from Illinois to New Mexico to begin a new job. Definite "can't miss" stops are the world's largest McDonalds on route 44 in Oklahoma (I forget the exact town name (Vidalia?) but there are signs for MILES before it. It's basically a normal-sized McD's with HUGE hallways (it's OVER the highway). Quite humorous.

Also, there's the Cadillac Ranch just west of Amarillo on I-40. Eight Cadillacs partially buried in the ground. Absolutely no signs; you definitely have to watch for it and get on a frontage road to get to it. It's on private land, but the owner supposedly doesn't mind people walking up to it. The real shame is that it's covered with graffiti....

There's also a Barbed-Wire museum somewhere in Texas near I-40; it might be in McLean.

And right outside of town here is the worlds largest statue of A. Lincoln. So if your friends want a visit to the largest Lincoln statue send them to Charleston IL. (it is made of fiberglass and really ugly)

Your name reminded me of a strange place to visit here in Houston. A retired man, Jeff McKittrick, made modifications to his house for years, as a hobby, and created a monument to the orange. It's just a little frame house on a side street, but the house is filled with murals and decorations and signs honoring the orange. McKittrick let people visit "The Orange Show" when he was alive, and then when he died so many people were familiar with it that an entrepreneur bought the house and turned it into an entertainment place. This is really true.

There's a whole book of this sort of stuff. It's called _Roadside America_ and should be fairly easy to find. If you can't dig it up elsewhere, I know it's in the current Chicken Boy Catalog for a More Perfect World.

In L.A. one shouldn't miss The Museum of Jurassic Technology on Venice Blvd. at Bagley. It's a parody of a natural history museum and is very very funny.

In response to your net news posting, how about recommending the Road Kill Cafe? I don't remember where it's at (and have never been there) but recently read about it in a magazine.

This isn't _too_ weird, but how about Dry Falls? This is the site of a huge ice-age waterfall. Best of all, it's in the middle of nowhere. Nothing beats driving all day to look at an ancient dry waterfall.

Location: Central Washington State (near Grand Coulee Dam).

I don't know about museums, but I have seen a few interesting roadside sights. How about:

a huge (read 15-20 feet high) cow and calf in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. Our family tradition is to stop, climb up on the calf, and take a picture every time we go through there. Sorry I can't remember the exact location, but we happened upon it one time while traveling west - we didn't go out of our way to find it, so it's got to be close to the highway. As I recall, it's right next to the State Fairgrounds.

On I-85 in South Carolina, the "Peachoid" - a water tower shaped and painted like a peach. I think it's even open for tours. It's about 20 miles inside the South Carolina border from North Carolina, on the west side of I-85. We thought that, from the right angle, the peachoid looked more like someone doing the "full moon" at the highway (you know how peaches have that crack? well...)

There's a place in Swan Valley, Idaho, (just north of Star Valley, Wyoming, I think - this is from my childhood) where you can get square scoops of ice cream. Kind of a novelty. It's pretty much the only store in the area, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

Niles, IL (near Chicago) has a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, about 1/4 size but extremely accurate.

Corn Palace (Pierre, SD) building made out of corn.

Spooner, Wisconsin - Rope Jumping capital of the world (self proclaimed)

Helen, Georgia - it tries to be a bavarian town, in the foothills north of Atlanta. Real kitsch and tacky.

Wisconsin Dells - Real nice natural cliffside riverbank setting - but they put plastic dinosaurs all over the place and you take car-boat (aquaduck) rides to see the natural beauty and man made crap.

Bimidji, Minnesota - home of the giant (life sized) statues of Paul Bunyon and his Blue Ox, Babe.

-- try a post in alt.tasteless - a few weeks ago someone posted info on a tasteless museum - a museum devoted to things like: pictures of canibalistic serial killer victims, part of general custers spleen, preserved in formaldihyde, etc..

Kokomo, IN has a large stuffed longhorn steer encased in glass under a pavilion in a city park. I can't for the life of me remember why it's there.

Near Mansfield, Ohio, at Malabar Farm, former home of author Louis Bromfield, you can visit the site where Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall got married.

In Cumberland Falls State Resort Park, KY, you can see one of only 2 moonbows in the world. This is a whitish rainbow over a waterfall seen only under a full moon.

America's Stonehenge in N. Salem New Hampshire is an interesting place. It has an arrangement of New England rock walls said to resemble an astrological clock, and a large stone slab table that is either a sacrificial table or a cider press. The fellow who owned it in the 19th century spent about 20 years moving rocks before announcing it as a Wonder of the New World, so carbon-dating has been a bit patchy. Still, it might have been built by ancient druids. They sell some interesting literature too...

Afton, Wyoming (about 50 mi. south of Jackson Hole) is home of the World's Largest Elkhorn Arch.

How about the Kentucky Fried Chicken Museum located in KFC corporate headquarters in Louisville KY...I went a couple of years ago and it was kinda fun (O.K., so I have a bizarre sense of fun !!) !!

earlier, someone mentioned the US version of Stonehenge. It might be nicely followed up by a visit to the half-size, reconstruction of the English version in southern Washington on the North side of the Columbia Gorge (west of the Tri-cities). It is made entirely out of concrete and looks quite silly up there on the hillside.

Well there's Mount Rushmore, and if you get as far south as San Antonio there's the Buckhorn Hall of Horns, part of the Lone Star Brewery. It is a museum devoted to furniture made of horns, wall hangings made of rattlesnake rattles, wax figures in scenes of Texas history, stuffed animals, all kinds of rustic oddities.

There's a series of tour guides specifically devoted to the strangest and most eccentric sights. America Off the Wall.

Go to Vegreville, Alberta (it's **almost** the US), and see the giant Pysanky (intricately-decorated-egg-shell) created by the Ukranian community in Vegreville. It's huge!

The 177 mile marker in Nevada - look south and see something that can't be described.

Lincoln Hwy between Cheyenne and Laramie has a tree growing out of the rocks.

Wendover - UTAH side - look at the huge rock that blown up by dynamite when they built I 80 - on the north side about 30 feet in and maybe 20 up is a pickax.

-- ****************************************************************************** * "I have always imagined that Paradise * "Let there be songs, * * will be a kind of library" * to fill the air" * * Jorge Luis Borges * Garcia - Hunter *