"Everybody in the car. Boat leaves in two
minutes … or perhaps you don't want to see the second largest ball
of twine on the face of the earth."
Clark Griswold knew what a good
vacation is really all about: venturing beyond the beaten
path.
Admit it.
You've seen the billboards along the interstate
and the colorful brochures begging for attention in the stand at
the IHOP. And you've even thought it might be kind of fun to check
out the world's only beer-can house or the largest kaleidoscope.
But you've never made it down that road to sample some of America's
more unique tourist attractions. Here's your chance. (Crave even
more oddball tourist attractions? Visit www.roadsideamerica.com
.)
1. TOILET SEAT ART MUSEUM
Forget the throne room at the Palace of Versailles - this is a
throne room. This museum in
San Antonio is home to about 700 unique
toilet-seat wall hangings, each lovingly made by Barney Smith … a
retired plumber, naturally. 239 Abiso Avenue, San Antonio, Texas
2. WORLD'S LARGEST ROADRUNNERS
Wile E. Coyote's darkest nightmare struts his stuff in Fort
Stockton,
Texas - home to Paisano Pete. At 11 feet tall and 22 feet
long, Pete isn't as big as the roadrunner made out of trash in Las
Cruces,
New Mexico (20 feet tall and 50 feet long), but Pete
stubbornly refuses to change the plaque at his feet. Paisano Pete:
Intersection of Highway 290, Interstate 10, and
Main Street, Fort
Stockton, Texas. Recycled roadrunner: Rest area on south side of
Interstate 10, east of the Picacho Avenue exit, between mile
markers 134 and 135, Las Cruces, New Mexico. Accessible only to
eastbound traffic.
3. WORLD'S LARGEST CATSUP BOTTLE
Rising more than 170 feet above the plains of
Illinois is a
tribute to the french fry's best friend. Collinsville's answer to
the
Eiffel Tower was built by the W.E. Caldwell Company for the
G.S. Suppiger catsup bottling plant in 1949. 800 South Morrison
Avenue, Collinsville, Illinois;
www.catsupbottle.com
4. WORLD'S LARGEST BALL OF TWINE
There are 521 people in Cawker City,
Kansas, and even if you laid
them all out end to end, they'd still be more than seven million
feet shorter than the town's claim to fame. Frank Stoeber started
the ball of twine in 1953 and kept adding to it until his death in
1974. Since then, the residents of Cawker City have been extending
his legacy inch by inch; the ball now weighs more than 17,500
pounds and would unravel to more than 7,827,700 feet. Wisconsin
Street (Highway 24), half a block west of Lake Drive, Cawker City,
Kansas
5. STEVE CANYON STATUE
Back in the day (World War II, to be exact), Steve Canyon was what
Garfield is today: a must-read Sunday comic for the Wheaties set.
So when patriotic Americans in Idaho Springs,
Colorado, asked the
Feds to pay for a statue of Canyon, a $12,000 check was quickly
cut. In July 1950, the larger-than-life limestone likeness was
dedicated to, as its plaque reads, "all American cartoon characters
who serve the Nation." Intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Miner
Street, Idaho Springs, Colorado
6. WORLD'S LARGEST KALEIDOSCOPE
The 1960s are still groovy in
Mount Tremper,
New York. That's
where psychedelic artist Isaac Abrams and his son, Raphael, spent
$250,000 in 1996 to create a six-story working kaleidoscope inside
a converted silo. Like, far out, man. Emerson Resort & Spa,
5340 Route 28, Mount Tremper, New York
7. CAR SPIKE
Wayne's World made it famous, but the Spindle has been attracting
stares in
Berwyn, Illinois, since 1989. Dustin Shuler, a California
artist, decided the one thing that the city's Cermak Shopping
Center was missing was a 40-foot-tall sculpture of eight cars
impaled on a towering metal spike. He quickly remedied that. 7043
Cermak Road, Berwyn, Illinois
8. WORLD'S LARGEST LEMON
The urge to write a bad when-life gives- you-lemons pun is killing
us, but it'll pass. Instead, we'll indulge ourselves by imagining
that when
Ron Burgundy said, "You stay classy, San Diego," what he
had in mind was the 10-foot-wide concrete lemon that heralds the
splendor of nearby suburb Lemon Grove,
California. 3361 Main
Street, Lemon Grove, California
9. BEER CAN HOUSE
John Milkovisch, this Bud's for you. The late railroad worker got
bored in retirement and found the cure for what aled him:
transforming his suburban
Houston home into an homage to hops and
barley. Starting in 1968, Milkovisch spent the next 18 years
turning beer cans into siding, curtains, walls, and decorations.
Getting the 39,000 cans required drinking a six-pack a day, but
Milkovisch never wavered in his magnificent obsession. 222 Malone
Street, Houston, Texas
G O T O E X T R E M E
S
UDDERLY FASCINATING
Go to
Harvard and what do you get? A close-up view of a fiberglass
cow, of course. If you want an
Ivy League education, you'll have to
hoof it to
Massachusetts. But in Harvard, Illinois, you'll find
Harmilda the cow, four-legged icon of the town's annual Harvard
Milk Days. Born in 1970, Harmilda proudly stands over a plaque that
proclaims Harvard as "the Milk Center of the World." If you've
figured out that Harmilda's name is a shortened version of Harvard
Milk Days, you may have a good shot at getting into that other
Harvard. Intersection of Highway 14 and Highway 173, Harvard,
Illinois
WORLD'S LARGEST PRAIRIE CHICKEN
Before mild-mannered and super-polite Nordic types took over
Minnesota, the state was populated by a lot of prairie chickens. As
the Prairie Chicken Capital of
Minnesota, the city of Rothsay knew
the only decent thing to do was to erect a 9,000-pound statue of
the diminutive bird, which it did in 1976. Intersection of
Interstate 94 and Center Street, Rothsay, Minnesota
WORLD'S LARGEST FLAG
You have to love a guy who had a tattoo of the U.S. flag imprinted
on his chest, a scar serving as the flagpole. The late Thomas
Demski owned Superflag, a behemoth star-spangled banner that
measures 505 feet by 225 feet and weighs 3,000 pounds. Even if you
never get to the Superflag Company in
Long Beach, California, you
still might have a chance to see Superflag, which has been
displayed at
Super Bowls, national monuments, and the Hoover Dam.
402 Lime Avenue, Long Beach, California;
www.superflag.com
WORLD'S LARGEST STOVE
We're not sure where the world's largest microwave is, but its
old-school predecessor resides in
Detroit. The
Michigan Stove
Company wanted to make a big splash at the Chicago World's Fair of
1893, so it whipped up this monster (25 feet tall, 30 feet long,
and 20 feet wide) in a jiffy. Michigan State Fairgrounds, 1120 West
State Fair Avenue, Detroit, Michigan
OREGON VORTEX
Don't go to this Gold Hill, Oregon, attraction unless you're
prepared to be stupefied. True believers claim the structure is
swimming in paranormal properties and that it sets the law of
gravity on its head. Killjoys will point out the clever optical
illusions that make this sight a weird, wild experience. 4303 Left
Fork Sardine Creek Road, Gold Hill, Oregon;
www.oregonvortex.com
WORLD'S LARGEST BALL OF STAMPS
In the early 1950s, some enterprising lads at the famed Boys Town orphanage near
Omaha,
Nebraska, had some extra time on their hands. The PlayStation was still 40 years in the future, so they started licking stamps. How many? Nobody knows for sure. But the insanity ended only after a 600-pound sphere was created. Frankly, that’s the best story we’ve heard philately. Leon Myers Stamp Center, 13628 Flanagan Boulevard, Boys Town, Nebraska
WORLD’S LARGEST FRYING PAN In 1950, the Mumford Sheet Metal Works in Selbyville,
Delaware, designed and built Colonel Sanders’s greatest fantasy — a 10-foot-diameter frying pan — for the Delmarva Chicken Festival. Delaware History Museum, 504 Market Street,
Wilmington, Delaware
WORLD’S OLDEST WORKING LIGHTBULB Depending on whose story you believe, the world’s oldest working lightbulb first started shining in 1901, 1902, or 1905. But, you know, after a century, does it really matter? Of course not. What matters is that
Livermore (California) Fire Department Station No. 6 can brag about being in Guinness World Records and you probably can’t. 4550 East Avenue, Livermore, California;
www.centennialbulb.org