Roadside oddities29.9493° N, 98.6937° W
Boerne, TX
A decorated show cave whose unusual name came from a 1939 contest winner who said the cavern was too beautiful to have a name.
- Access
- Open to visitors
Roadside oddities
Everything OddWay knows about. Narrow it down by what you're after, or where you're going.
Roadside oddities2,517
Suggest a stopGiant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
- Roadside oddities30.5559° N, 100.8119° W
Sonora, TX
A highly decorated living cave known for dense calcite formations and delicate helictites, toured in small guided groups.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities37.7135° N, 122.4502° W
San Francisco, CA
A former park gardener transformed the grounds with hand-carved wooden figures, faces and totems tucked through an otherwise ordinary neighborhood park.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities37.6364° N, 112.8450° W
Brian Head, UT
A three-mile-wide amphitheater drops into a maze of fins, spires and hoodoos colored by iron and manganese. High elevation brings long winter closures, so access is seasonal.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities41.4073° N, 93.9847° W
Winterset, IA
A reconstructed covered bridge stands at the site of one of Madison County's historic spans. The bridge has been rebuilt after destructive fires, giving the location an unusual history of repeated loss and restoration.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities42.3968° N, 91.7698° W
Quasqueton, IA
Frank Lloyd Wright designed this Usonian house with custom furniture, river views and an unusually complete interior scheme. Visitors reach the house through scheduled tours at a state historic site.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities36.0737° N, 86.3115° W
Lebanon, TN
The park protects rare limestone cedar glades filled with sinkholes, thin soils and plants adapted to extreme conditions. The unusual barrens look deceptively empty but contain one of Middle Tennessee's most distinctive natural ecosystems.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities46.8490° N, 96.8597° W
Fargo, ND
Concrete handprints, footprints and signatures from visiting celebrities line this unusual Fargo attraction. The collection ranges across entertainers, athletes and public figures, creating a small-town answer to Hollywood's celebrity pavement.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities32.9184° N, 79.7068° W
Awendaw, SC
Dozens of eagles, owls, hawks, falcons, vultures, and other raptors are housed at this avian conservation center outside Charleston. Scheduled programs include live flight demonstrations that bring large birds of prey surprisingly close to visitors.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities44.6744° N, 103.8528° W
Belle Fourche, SD
A 21-foot granite compass rose celebrates Belle Fourche's claim as the geographic center of the 50 United States. It is a visitor-friendly monument to a point that is actually located miles away on private ranchland.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities47.4716° N, 115.9239° W
Wallace, ID
At the intersection of Bank and Sixth streets, Wallace marks itself as the Center of the Universe, a deliberately tongue-in-cheek civic landmark that fits OddWay almost perfectly. The marker is in the public street intersection; view it from the surrounding sidewalks and crosswalks.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities47.6504° N, 122.3502° W
Seattle, WA
A colorful signpost in Fremont points toward destinations real, fictional, nearby, and impossibly distant. It formalizes the neighborhood's tongue-in-cheek claim to be the Center of the Universe.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities44.0126° N, 69.1980° W
Saint George, ME
A roughly 16-foot granite monument topped by a monkey blowing a horn stands on private property and announces this patch of Maine as the “Center of the Universe.” It is an eccentric roadside-art stop; view it from the public road and do not enter the property.
- Access
- Private land, view only
- Roadside oddities38.7608° N, 90.1733° W
Madison, IL
This old Route 66 bridge crosses the Mississippi with an unusual 22-degree bend in the middle and is now open to pedestrians and cyclists.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities44.5223° N, 114.1742° W
Challis, ID
A historic developed hot-springs property now incorporated into Land of the Yankee Fork State Park. Bathing and facility access follow current park rules and operating schedules.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities39.5395° N, 87.0577° W
Brazil, IN
A towering fiberglass Great Dane named Champ has watched over this US 40 property for decades. The dog dates to the classic era of oversized roadside advertising and has been restored and repainted several times while remaining a recognizable Brazil-area landmark.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities39.8587° N, 123.7193° W
Leggett, CA
A living coast redwood has a vehicle-sized tunnel cut through its trunk, allowing ordinary cars to drive through one of California's surviving classic tree attractions.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities35.7096° N, 96.8770° W
Chandler, OK
Housed in a former National Guard armory, the center uses video installations, unusual seating and oral-history material to interpret Route 66. Its presentation is more experiential than a conventional display-case museum.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities44.0484° N, 103.2987° W
Rapid City, SD
A full-scale wooden stave church modeled after Norway's medieval Borgund church stands unexpectedly in the Black Hills. Its steep rooflines, carved details and Scandinavian setting make it look transported from another continent.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities37.8319° N, 122.2461° W
Oakland, CA
Julia Morgan's labyrinthine columbarium combines indoor gardens, stained glass, narrow corridors and thousands of cremation niches in a building that feels unlike a conventional cemetery.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities34.8321° N, 111.7669° W
Sedona, AZ
A modern chapel appears embedded directly into Sedona's red rock, with a huge cross dominating the glass front. The dramatic architecture is still an active religious site, so visitors should respect worship and posted access rules.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities32.6181° N, 80.1852° W
Wadmalaw Island, SC
Rows of tea plants spread across hundreds of acres at one of the few large-scale tea-growing operations in the continental United States. Visitors can see tea being processed and tour the fields, making an ordinarily imported drink into an unexpected Lowcountry agricultural attraction.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities39.3802° N, 80.3144° W
Shinnston, WV
Charlie is a 21-foot scrap-metal coal miner with a lunch pail and a working light in his helmet, unveiled in 1999 as a memorial to local miners. He stands outside the Repair King property at 253 Lincoln Drive and can be photographed from the parking-area approach without entering any restricted industrial space.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities42.1466° N, 71.9371° W
Charlton, MA
A narrow concrete tunnel built in 1926 allowed cattle to pass safely beneath busy Route 20 instead of crossing traffic. The unusual agricultural underpass was preserved during recent trail work and now sits along the Midstate Trail as a wonderfully specific piece of roadside infrastructure.
- Access
- Open to visitors