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