Everything OddWay knows about. Narrow it down by what you're after, or where you're going.
Giant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
Milwaukee, WI
A life-size bronze Arthur 'Fonzie' Fonzarelli stands beside the Milwaukee River, commemorating the fictional Happy Days character whose show was set in Milwaukee. Visitors can pose beside the permanently frozen thumbs-up.
Coffeyville, KS
Oil businessman W.P. Brown built this elaborate early-1900s mansion with ornate interiors and unusually advanced systems for its era. Local ghost stories have accumulated around the property, but its documented architecture and history are the primary reasons to visit.
Middletown, RI
A roughly 25-foot shark hangs above Flo's Clam Shack, looking like a creature that landed on the building rather than a restaurant decoration. The fiberglass-and-foam shark previously belonged to a Cranston nightclub before being rescued and relocated to Aquidneck Island. It is visible from the restaurant exterior.
Cedar Rapids, IA
A 26-acre estate surrounds a grand Queen Anne mansion with layered stories of industrial wealth, servants, animals and Cedar Rapids social history. Scheduled tours reveal unusual rooms and family collections.
Bruneau, ID
Public observatory inside Bruneau Dunes State Park offering scheduled telescope programs under dark skies. Programs are seasonal and weather dependent.
Bruneau, ID
Home to North America's tallest single-structured sand dune, rising above a pair of small lakes. The stark dune field is a major natural oddity and also a well-known dark-sky destination.
Seattle, WA
Thomas Dambo's flute-playing troll hides among the trees near the shoreline in Lincoln Park. Finding the sculpture is intentionally part of the experience, and the park is open during posted hours.
Bryce Canyon, UT
Despite its name, this large red-rock opening is technically an arch rather than a bridge because it was carved mainly by weathering instead of a stream. A roadside overlook makes it easy to see.
Mount Desert, ME
A giant glacial boulder appears to balance precariously near the edge of South Bubble Mountain in Acadia National Park. The rock was carried and deposited by ancient ice, leaving it looking as though a small push could send it over the cliff.
San Luis Obispo, CA
Layers of chewed gum cover both walls of a narrow downtown alley, creating an intentionally gross collaborative landmark that has persisted for decades.
Tulsa, OK
A 21-foot Muffler Man transformed into a space cowboy stands outside this Route 66 shop, mixing Tulsa's western imagery with atomic-age kitsch. Buck Atom has become a modern Mother Road landmark rather than a surviving vintage advertisement.
Medora, ND
A short climb reaches one of the highest and most exposed viewpoints in Theodore Roosevelt National Park's South Unit. The hill gives a close view of the caprock, clay and deeply eroded forms that make the badlands appear almost extraterrestrial.
Bellingham, WA
A retro-futurist rocket assembled from salvaged stop signs, oxygen tanks, lights, and aircraft parts still stands outside the former Rocket Donuts location. The business changed, but the rocket remains the draw.
Mooresville, NC
A roughly 15-foot fiberglass moose known as Bucko stands beside East Plaza Drive. The oversized animal is a surviving example of the kind of attention-grabbing commercial sculpture that once appeared far more frequently along American highways.
Clear Lake, IA
A giant pair of black-framed glasses beside the road marks the walking route toward the Buddy Holly crash memorial. The oversized sculpture is a quick photo stop and a practical landmark for locating the field path.
Oakley, KS
A twice-life-size bronze depicts Buffalo Bill Cody on horseback pursuing a buffalo near the place where local tradition says he earned his famous nickname in an 1868 hunting contest. The outdoor sculpture is accessible even when the visitor center is closed.
Bull Shoals, AR
Bull Shoals Caverns is a living limestone cave with underground streams, mineral formations and a small waterfall. Guided tours turn the cave into one of northern Arkansas’s classic subterranean stops.
Stillwater, OK
A large yellow metal Bumblebee figure gives Stillwater a second oversized Transformers landmark. Its scrap-metal appearance makes the fictional robot read like industrial folk art from the road.
Mineral, CA
A boardwalk enters Lassen's largest hydrothermal basin, where boiling pools, steam vents and acidic ground create an unusually hostile-looking landscape.
Claremont, NC
Built in the 1890s, this pedestrian-only covered bridge is one of only two surviving covered bridges in North Carolina and is recognized as a National Civil Engineering Landmark. Its lattice-truss structure survives in a wooded setting over Lyle Creek.
Burlington, VT
A ring of large stones at Oakledge Park forms a modern megalithic calendar designed to mark solar and seasonal events. Visitors can stand among the stones and use their alignments to observe the sun in a setting that resembles a miniature Vermont Stonehenge.
Worcester, MA
A nude boy rides an enormous sea turtle at the center of this eccentric downtown fountain. Officially named the Burnside Fountain, the sculpture is universally known as Turtle Boy and has become one of Worcester's most recognizable unofficial mascots.
Bamberg, SC
A Volkswagen Beetle covered in artificial greenery has been transformed into a rolling-looking topiary known as the Bush Bug. The plant-covered car is one of those simple roadside objects that becomes considerably stranger the longer you look at it.
Chestnut Hill, TN
The Bush's visitor center turns baked-bean history into a museum experience with company artifacts, interactive displays and unapologetically bean-themed photo opportunities. It is an unusually elaborate monument to a grocery-shelf product born in East Tennessee.
