Trick or Treat Time

Which form of torture is more frightening: The kind exhibited at a museum of historic torture devices...or the excruciatingly slow drip of a Presidential campaign? If you're irreparably bloated with candidate rhetoric, then please allow us to attach a sack of hungry rats to your belly.

The Historic Museum of Torture Devices
and
The Hall of Presidents and First Ladies

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Garden of Eden

Who knew that the biblical Paradise was actually in a little town in Kansas? This bizarre art environment includes an evil cement octopus and the tomb of the Garden's creator (Sam Dinsmoor, not God, displayed in a glass-topped coffin). He's been dead for over 80 years, but he still participates in the tour. Story

Bubble Top Cars of the Future

Long ago, visions of the future did not include a zombie apocalypse and Darryl Starbird was building cars that looked like rocket ships. The "King of the Bubble Tops" has his own museum with his most outlandish creations, including the 1960 Predicta that started it all. Story

Gettysburg Dime Museum

The most controversial artifact in history-obsessed Gettysburg is perhaps Abraham Lincoln's Last Bowel Movement, one of many surprising items in this P.T. Barnum-esque throwback attraction. Babies in jars, serial killer memorabilia, a human head in a box, and Eustace "Buck" Shepherd, the Sheep Man. Story

Miss America University

We like these odds — three Miss Americas attended this college. Life-size bronze statues of the winners greet visitors to the campus, and the "Hall of Queens" is a shrine to the many who came respectably close but failed to win the coveted tiny crown. Story

The Pig Museum

30,000+ pigs and counting in this unexpected Porkopolis on a Missouri farm. Curator Cindy Brenneke does her best to manage the collection of hammy banks, lamps, aprons, snow globes, clocks, bedspreads, hats, pillows, spoon rests, and salt & pepper shakers while feeding the real pigs in the barn. Story

Giant Buffalo Skull

This is the kind of thing we expect to see in Wyoming: a laundromat where people enter and exit through the nose of a 15-foot-high buffalo skull. It was built out of fiberglass in the early 1980s by visionary Vic Lemon. You can wash your car here, too. Story

Retro Roadside:
Mahalchik's Fabulous Fifty Acres

If you think your Facebook friends’ political posts are annoying, imagine having this guy living next door. John "Mister Freedom" Mahalchik plastered his army surplus junkyard with tons of cranky and sometimes visionary political signs. He portrayed Richard Nixon as a rat and floated the theory that Presidents with big noses were warmongers. Story

Yesteryear Travel: Freedom Highway

Musical clip from a 1956 film funded by Greyhound. A busload of B-list movie stars -- Tommy Kirk, Marshall Thompson, Angie Dickinson -- travels cross-country and learns about the USA's wonderful history and road system. Tex Ritter sings about the Alamo! Video

*****

It takes a little torture to truly cherish our freedom!
The RoadsideAmerica.com Team