Top 10 U.S. Roadside Attractions
- Cabazon Dinosaurs, Cabazon, California
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Carhenge, Alliance, Nebraska
Circling a patch of lonesome prairie, 38 old cars painted gray form a replica of England’s Stonehenge. Additional sculptures made from Detroit iron include “Ford Seasons,” representing seasonal changes to the landscape.
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Enchanted Highway, Regent, North Dakota
Seven sensational scrap metal sculptures line this 32-mile stretch of highway in southwest North Dakota, including artist Gary Greff’s massive “Geese in Flight,” listed in the Guinness World Records as the world’s largest scrap metal sculpture.
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Hole n’ the Rock, Moab, Utah
Walk through a modern cave home with 14 furnished rooms carved out of Utah sandstone. If the excavation, which removed 50,000 cubic feet of stone, doesn’t move you, take in the petting zoo.
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Lucy the Elephant, Margate, New Jersey
America’s oldest example of zoomorphic architecture, this 130-year-old, 65-foot pachyderm is actually a building that once served as a summer cottage. Lumber up the spiral stairs to Lucy’s towering howdah for elephantine views of the Atlantic Ocean.
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Randy’s Donuts, Inglewood, California
This towering donut, built in 1952, has earned celeb status by appearing in films (Mars Attacks!), videos (Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.”), and Hollywood dreams of sweet treats.
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Paul Bunyan, Minnesota and More
America’s most famous mythical lumberjack, capable of felling entire forests with his powerful ax, has a long reach. There are monumental statues of Bunyan in Akeley, Minnesota; Bangor, Maine; and Portland, Oregon. His trusty sidekick, Babe the Blue Ox, gets in on the action with colossal statues in Klamath, California, and Bemidji, Minnesota (pictured above).
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Foamhenge, Natural Bridge, Virginia
Even a Druid would feel at home at this stoic Stonehenge replica, set on a tufted hillside in the Shenandoah Valley. Baffling perhaps, but the towering industrial foam blocks make for a mystical roadside diversion.
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Hood Milk Bottle, Boston, Massachusetts
Banish all thoughts of baked beans. If you want some ice cream that’ll make you scream, head to this 40-foot-tall snack stand at the Boston Children’s Museum. While not exactly a roadside attraction—it’s more a waterfront sight—the nearly 80-year-old icon has delighted lactose-loving families for ages. If it was real it could hold 58,620 gallons of milk.
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Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo, Texas
Created in 1974 by a group of artists, this graffiti-spattered homage to American road travel breaks the dusty Texas horizon with the force of an 18-wheeler. The ten half-buried roadsters, slanted in a perfect row into an Amarillo cow pasture, have been featured in movies and referenced in songs.