Sweet allure of the road
Ahh, road trips -- I love them. I've participated in more than my fair share, and those two sweet little words cause an instantaneous flood of wonderful memories. I honestly have no idea how many road trips I have experienced, can't really recall all of the places I've visited, and wouldn't remember many of the details even if I remembered the places. But hey, they had to be good times or I would remember the pain, right?
I contend there is something liberating about spur-of-the-moment adventures that are not constricted or stifled by schedules or itineraries. There were and still are so many fascinating things to see, things right here in the U.S. of A. that I never encountered in any of the many other countries I have visited.
Do you honestly believe the snotty French would ever condone the roadside Dinosaur World we have in Plant City, Florida -- complete with huge, fiberglass-constructed monsters? Or that the constipated Brits would pay tourist homage to an enormous peanut statue on a pedestal in Ashburn, Georgia, named the King of Giant Peanuts?
Americana meets the automobile
Roadside attractions stemmed from America's post-war boom in the 1950s and our love affair with the automobile. Even before the completion of our Federal Interstate Highway System, eclectic attractions dotted the nation's local thoroughfares. Come on, you've all seen them, and if you are honest you'll admit to occasionally stopping and gawking at some of the more bizarre creations, just like any of the other child-fatigued, station wagon-driving morons who stop and gawk.
Who wouldn't want to inspect Lenny the Chocolate Moose, an imposing statue comprised of 1,700 pounds of milk chocolate and standing eight feet tall and nine feet long? Drive to Freeport, Maine, and you can. Motor westward to Winlock, Washington, and you can gaze in unmitigated awe at what is reputedly the world's largest (fake) egg, sitting on its pedestal and painted in the colors of the American Flag. Or visit Amado, Arizona, to dine on steaks in the Longhorn Grill, a restaurant built to look like a giant sand dune and whose entrance is through a giant fabricated Longhorn steer skull.
It's out there
There are thousands more, thousands I tell you, sprinkled across America. What can you see? How about a Paul Bunyan made of car parts, an upside-down stove restaurant, a circus train wreck memorial, a pet casket company that offers public tours, a Stonehenge replica made from junked autos named Carhenge, a house made from glass bottles, the worlds largest hairball, a town that is known as the lawn ornament capital of the world, a restaurant made out of corn husks, and the world's largest ball of twine.
This brings me to the point that for any roadside attraction to be truly spectacular, it must be advertised as being one-of-a-kind. You'll notice a lot of "the world's [insert adjective here]," and based upon some of the subjects I have seen being described in this manner, I have no doubt that they are indeed world record-setting.
So get off your duffs, check the oil and tire pressure, cash a Roth IRA for gas money, and hit the road. You know life would not be worth living unless you got to see the world's biggest hairball.