10 wacky roadside attractions for kids
Forget for a minute about inspiring national parks and relaxing beaches, summer vacation is also about huge dinosaurs lining a highway and tacky galleries filled with creepy artifacts. A new children’s book, 125 Wacky Roadside Attractions (National Geographic, $12.99), celebrates the weirdness found along the highway. “When you’re on a long road trip, there’s nothing better than to pull over and walk through butterflies and look at roach exhibits,” says Erica Green, editorial director National Geographic Kids books. “It’s a boredom buster.” She shares some favorites with Larry Bleiberg for Paste BN.
Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard
Waterbury, Vt.
Sure, everyone loves Chunky Monkey and Jerry Garcia, but what about Sugar Plum and Sweet Potato Pie? The flavors that never caught on (the so-called dearly de-pinted) fill a graveyard next to the factory, each honored with a tombstone and rhyming epitaph. “We were there and the kids were just howling. We tried to figure out why each didn’t work,” Green says. benjerry.com
Enchanted Highway
Regent, N.D.
Don’t be alarmed if you’re driving along a farm road in western North Dakota and see a scrap-metal fish seeming to leap 70 feet off the ground. And yes, that is a giant grasshopper, the world’s largest actually, sitting a few miles away. The fantastical sculptures are meant to lure travelers off Interstate 94 to the tiny town of Regent. “It’s created by a local artist, and a great stop along the highway,” Green says. ndtourism.com
Vent Haven Museum
Fort Mitchell, Ky.
It won’t insult anyone to say this Cincinnati-area home is full of dummies. The house holds what the owners call the world’s only museum devoted to ventriloquism, which is sometimes called vent. Its collection includes hundreds of the puppets. “Those dummies can look so lifelike, and to walk into a room with over 800 pairs of eyes, you could imagine they would all come to life,” Green says. Tours by appointment only. venthavenmuseum.com
Abita Mystery House
Abita Springs, La.
Eclectic doesn’t even begin to describe this gallery, filled with thousands of found objects and homemade inventions. “There’s a shrine dedicated to Elvis Presley, a UFO crash landing site and a huge collection of paint-by-numbers art works,” Green says. Plus guests enter through a former gas station. abitamysteryhouse.com
Carhenge
Alliance, Neb.
Who needs England, when you can head to Nebraska and find a monument inspired by — and nearly intriguing as — Stonehenge. The Great Plains version has the same dimensions as its ancient inspiration, but it’s constructed from 39 vintage cars, all painted gray to mimic stone. “It took 30 people several weeks to build it by hand. What a fantastic, crazy-looking place,” Green says. carhenge.com
Insectropolis
Toms River, N.J.
Green, who admits to being simultaneously grossed out and fascinated by bugs, loves this Garden State gallery with hissing cockroaches, scorpions and oodles of other multi-legged creepy crawlers. “A lot of it is hands-on, but you can observe without touching anything,” she says. If you find a particularly intriguing insect on your trip there, bring it along. The museum takes donations. insectropolis.com
Gum Wall
Seattle
Watch out! Your family could get stuck on this site: an alley coated with thousands of pieces of chewed gum. “The whole wall is just covered and oozing and dripping with people’s old pieces of gum,” Green says. “It’s so layered and textured it looks like art work, until you get up close.” The wall was recently cleaned for the first time in 20 years, but has been steadily accumulating new contributions. visitseattle.org
House on the Rock
Spring Green, Wis.
It’s part museum, part amusement park and part architectural wonder, but at its core this southern Wisconsin attraction defies categorization. The sprawling property includes a haunted carousel with zombies, medieval armor, music machines, chandeliers and cannons. And that’s just the start. thehouseontherock.com
Cabazon Dinosaurs
Cabazon, Calif.
Green, who grew up in California, has fond memories of this roadside herd of concrete dinosaurs, famous from movies like Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Inside Out. “As a little kid, I would mush my face against the glass and stare as the dinosaurs approached,” she says. The property now also includes a creationist museum. cabazondinosaurs.com
Dinosaur track site
Tuba City, Ariz.
After seeing replica dinos, show your kids the real things, or at least their footprints, at this geologic site near the Grand Canyon off U.S. Highway 160. The site, located on the Navajo Reservation, preserves markings made 200 million years ago. “You can walk in the footsteps of dinosaurs,” Green says. discovernavajo.com/parks.aspx