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Roadside Attractions


geodarts

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I often use RoadSide America to find quirky places along the way. Muffler Men! UniRoyal Girls! Giant Gnomes! Stonehenge Replicas! Oddities! But caching has also brought me to many such locations. Some listed on the roadside site, some not. Hub Cap Ranch. Cinderella. Sebastapol Sculptures. Boot Hill at Pioche. The list could go on. And hopefully it will continue to do so. Please post pictures of roadside attractions that you have found while caching. It might help us find new caches and attractions the next time we travel.

 

These were from a trip to Utah last week:

 

UFO Landing Site: This is (at the moment) not on the Roadside America list. so I never would have discovered it except that a log in another cache included a photo of this place, and I discovered that since that time it had been made into a listing here. A collection of Folk Art from a landing site to a rest stop for coyotes. On Highway 10 in Clawson.

 

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Western Mining and Railroad Museum: Helper is definitely worth visiting if you find yourself in this part of Utah. An old mining and railroad town filled with history; a good place to eat, and a fun artist's studio. While the museum is worth looking at, the building next door caught my attention. A chapter house for E. Clampus Vitus. Not being a clamper, or seeing any clampers around, I could not get in. But even from the outside I thought it was worth a stop. And just a couple of blocks away is a Muffler Man type of guy.

 

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Leaning Water Towers and Toilet Lid Art. I have been trying to get my wife to tour Texas with me for just these reasons. Unfortunately there are a lot of personal issues involved. Maybe I will have to work on Nebraska instead - any photos of Car Henge would be appreciated.

I haven't been to Car Henge, but about 50 miles (or "round the block" as they call it in Texas :)) from the water tower in Groom, you can find Cadillac Ranch. I need to find my photos from there. Didn't take too many photos as it was windy and I didn't want spray paint on my lens.

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Leaning Water Towers and Toilet Lid Art. I have been trying to get my wife to tour Texas with me for just these reasons. Unfortunately there are a lot of personal issues involved. Maybe I will have to work on Nebraska instead - any photos of Car Henge would be appreciated.

I haven't been to Car Henge, but about 50 miles (or "round the block" as they call it in Texas :)) from the water tower in Groom, you can find Cadillac Ranch. I need to find my photos from there. Didn't take too many photos as it was windy and I didn't want spray paint on my lens.

 

Here's some. The ones that looks like B&W were done with my infrared camera. Got these whilst caching in the area, of course: Cadillac Ranch.

 

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Here's another roadside attraction that's lesser known in the Great Plains area, the Bowling Ball Art farm.

 

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From another Oklahoma road trip, the windmill museum:

 

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edited to add links!

Edited by hzoi
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Thanks, hzoi. Great photos!

 

Driving west to Oklahoma City, I stopped at Okemah for gas (and a cache). At the entrance of Highland Cemetery is this very interesting memorial.

 

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The parking meter says "Time Expired". It was put up according to the deceased's wishes.

 

The cache is a short distance away, at a corner of the cemetery, a short distance away from the burial plots. http://coord.info/GC1GQD4

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Paul Bunyan and Babe, in California. Babe

 

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I was born in a town about 200 miles south of there that has an annual Paul Bunyan days festival with "lumberjack" events all weekend. It's kicked off with a parade that has similar looking statues. My grandfather, who was also born there, worked for many years as a lumberjack.

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I was born in a town about 200 miles south of there that has an annual Paul Bunyan days festival with "lumberjack" events all weekend. It's kicked off with a parade that has similar looking statues. My grandfather, who was also born there, worked for many years as a lumberjack.

That's interesting! B)

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Having been to the inner circle of the original Stonehenge on a couple of occasions, visited Stonefridge before Santa Fe removed it, and stopped at a Stonehenge replica in Utah, I have a soft spot for such things. So when we saw that Stonehenge was close to where we were visiting on the Columbia Gorge, it was worth a stop:

 

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Hmmm? I wonder if this would count? GC1N0B9 - ALIENS AMONG US, West Side of Spokane.

I've seen that, but had no idea that it was open to the public, or that there was a cache there. Just drove by there a couple of days ago. I'll have to see if it's open next time I'm there, next weekend.

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Sometimes the line between "public art" and "roadside attraction" gets a bit blurry, and I've got a lot of photos of public art in my geocaching.com gallery, but here's one I think is solidly in the "roadside attraction" camp:

 

The virtual cache The World's Largest Artichoke is located at the Giant Artichoke restaurant, which features (surprise) a giant artichoke as part of the building:

 

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Cool thread! I love roadside attractions like this!

I have a lot of pictures to post here, I just have to remember which caches to get them from :P

 

If you go to your "Public Profile" (from your profile, there is a link on the right), you can open the tab "Gallery" to all of your posted photos. The photos can lead you to the cache listing.

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I read about Wild Bills and the Yugos on Roadside America but signed the log for Nostalgia as long as I was there. A hippie junk collector and purveyor of more things than you can imagine.

 

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And if you are in the area, then another Roadside America attraction is Holy Land, which had a Cache outside its gates. The no trespassing signs at the gate made my wife nervous, so I stayed close to the edges. A decision that I somewhat regret.

 

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Edited by geodarts
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When geocaching in In Elberta, Alabama there's no telling what you might find in the woods. Full scale replica of Stonehenge ("Bamahenge"), Roman columns, Knights, dinosaurs.....all sorts of fun stuff! You can read about Bamahenge HERE on Roadside America and find links to the other close by attractions.

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On 7/29/2015 at 7:41 AM, MtnMutt-ProDuckShins said:

Hmmm? I wonder if this would count? GC1N0B9 - ALIENS AMONG US, West Side of Spokane.

Ever since reading about it here (and then on Roadside America) I knew I would have to visit.   We finally found ourselves in Spokane and made this our first stop.  We talked with the owner, saw a second Alien craft, and enjoyed meeting Betty.  

 

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I see Ambrosia posted a photo of Paul and Babe from California earlier in the thread, and I know there's another similar attraction in Maine. This is in my home state of Minnesota, Bemidji to be exact. It's old, 1937 according to the sign. A tornado blew it apart once IIRC, it was rebuilt with much stronger anchoring. Babes eyes are taillights from some old car and they could light up, not sure if they do anymore.

There aren't any caches right by it, we did a Wherigo that was close by. I thought it might make a decent Virtual Reward cache.

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Edited by threenow24
add cache/lack of cache info
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As I wrote on my log, I am not sure what to make of Thunder Mountain I discovered it through Roadside America.  Frank van Zant stayed where his car broke down and became Chief Rolling Thunder Mountain, creating a monument that encompassed a crazy white guy, genius, art, appropriation, obsession, creation, apocalyptic visions, hippie acolytes, transformation, history, cement shamanism, discordian sculptures, indigenous people.  

 

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A trip that included the old Route 66 through Arizona had many attractions, both current and the ruins and remains   We stayed at the Wigwam in Holbrook and stopped for dinosaurs, the ruins at Two Guns, Meteor City and the corner at Winslow where caching combined with roadsides.

 

I decided to revive this topic because of how familiar this phrase is to this game   Jackrabbit

Edited by geodarts
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19 hours ago, geodarts said:

I decided to revive this topic

 

No objections here. It's a good thread. Maybe I'll add to it after my big road trip next summer - we'll be moving from northern Virginia to Texas, and my rute will be, shall we say, less than direct so I can cross some caches like Mingo and Arikaree off my wish list.

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