Home Strange Home
We've entered the season where road trips start turning toward family and home -- but what if your family lived in a house from the Bizarro World? We'd all be stopping by for leftovers! Think of the fun you'd have getting lost in the labyrinthian dead-ends of the Winchester Mystery House, or climbing to the rickety summit of the Smith Mansion, or playing with the beyond-science devices scattered around the Orgonon?
It isn't surprising that normal people were disinvited to these houses while their owners were alive -- but now that they're gone, the public is welcome. Why not share them with your family? They might realize that, by comparison, you're not really that peculiar after all.
Winchester Mystery House
Smith Mansion
Orgonon
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Goldfield Ghost Town
A kid-friendly brothel, a mystery spot, and gunfights? Goldfield Ghost Town may not be totally historically accurate, but it's a sparkly nugget of Wild West fun in the Arizona desert. Story
Cocaine Bear
This wrong-place-wrong-time bear succumbed while eating $15 million worth of sugary stimulants dropped from a plane by a drug smuggler, who also died. Rescued from obscurity, the bear returned to its native habitat: Kentucky. Story
Stax Museum of American Soul Music
Suddenly it's 1971! See flamboyant stage costumes, a hallway-o'-hits, and Isaac Hayes' custom gold Cadillac. Dance on an "Express Yourself" disco floor to videos from Soul Train. Story
Pocahontas, the Princess Giant
She's greeted visitors to her namesake Iowa town since 1954. Designed by a taxidermist whose only previous work was a giant fish. Fans of the 1990s Disney film may be confused.
Story
Teapot Dome Gas Station
Why build a gas station shaped like a teapot? If you'd been alive in 1922, you'd get the joke -- bribery, petroleum, and politics -- maybe. Most folks nowadays just like the way it looks.
Story
Abe Lincoln and Perry Como
Perry holds a copy of the Gettysburg Address; Abe gestures toward the house where he wrote it. Unfortunately the Perry Como connection is lost to anyone younger than retirement age.
Story
Sonic Center of the Universe
Is it a simple acoustic anomaly or mysterious cosmic vortex? Stand on a well-worn concrete disc and hear a distorted, time-delayed voice -- your own -- echoing into infinity.
Story
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Sports Stars Made of Junk
If you want to know what our future world of robot athletes will look like, check out the scrap metal sculptures around the parking lot of the United States Sports Academy.
Story
Trunkations: Ax Marks the Spot
It's America's hottest attraction trend -- because there's virtue as well as entertainment in mastering the hatchet hurl. Zombies, and henchmen of the Chinese mob, watch out. Story
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Instagram: @Roadside_America
Instagrammers might enjoy our procession of quirky photos from current research trips, and rare glimpses of Roadside America from our archives.
@roadside_america
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Thanks for dropping in!
The RoadsideAmerica.com Team
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