Roadside oddities36.5724° N, 117.1434° W
Death Valley, CA
Flash floods polished multicolored marble into smooth narrows and exposed a natural mosaic of cemented rock fragments.
- Access
- Open to visitors
Roadside oddities
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Roadside oddities2,517
Suggest a stopGiant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
- Roadside oddities33.9977° N, 118.4622° W
Venice, CA
Artists Cheri Pann and Gonzalo Duran covered their home and garden in an overwhelming skin of handmade tile, mirrors, ceramics and sculpture.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities37.2728° N, 83.1930° W
Hazard, KY
George Stacy built this circular stone home beneath the enormous body of a goose beginning in the 1930s. The bird's eyes were made from automobile headlights and still illuminate, but the structure remains a private residence and should only be admired from the public roadside.
- Access
- Private land, view only
- Roadside oddities43.7447° N, 103.4814° W
Custer State Park, SD
A stone fire tower built by the Civilian Conservation Corps sits atop one of Custer State Park's highest accessible summits. A narrow seasonal road reaches the tower, where the Black Hills spread out in nearly every direction.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities31.7942° N, 106.5891° W
Sunland Park, TX
A monumental limestone statue of Christ stands atop the mountain overlooking Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Access is generally safest during organized pilgrimages and events.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities44.2887° N, 68.3305° W
Southwest Harbor, ME
Life-size figures of Jake and Elwood Blues stand unexpectedly outside a water-bottling facility on Mount Desert Island. The sunglasses, suits, and deadpan poses make the pair an easy-to-spot piece of roadside pop-culture weirdness.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities42.6376° N, 73.1662° W
Adams, MA
Massachusetts' highest summit is crowned by a 93-foot granite war memorial tower shaped like an austere lighthouse. The beacon and mountaintop setting make it look almost otherworldly above the Berkshires. Summit-road access is seasonal, while hiking access depends on current trail and weather conditions.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities35.1679° N, 93.6445° W
Paris, AR
Signal Hill marks Arkansas’s highest natural point, but the summit is surprisingly subtle rather than dramatic. A stone map-shaped marker identifies the high point in the forest.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities39.0219° N, 102.0372° W
Weskan, KS
Kansas's highest natural point is not a mountain but a subtle rise on private ranchland beside the Colorado line. The owners traditionally welcome respectful visitors, who find a sign, register, and whimsical summit markers rather than an alpine peak.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities45.5115° N, 122.5940° W
Portland, OR
One of Portland's signature city parks occupies an extinct volcanic cinder cone, making it an unusual urban place to walk across visible volcanic terrain.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities36.8310° N, 76.1243° W
Virginia Beach, VA
Virginia Beach converted an abandoned landfill into this 165-acre public park beginning in the 1970s, covering compacted layers of trash with soil to form its signature artificial hills. What was once a dump is now a landscaped recreation area with trails, playgrounds, lakes and one of the most literal odd-place names in the state.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities40.0804° N, 80.7223° W
Wheeling, WV
This unfinished stone mansion above Wheeling was begun in the 1920s by a physician whose grand plans collapsed after legal trouble, leaving a castle-like shell overlooking the Ohio Valley. The city-owned Mount Wood Cemetery and overlook can be visited, but the deteriorating ruins and steep overgrown areas should be treated as look-don't-climb features.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities43.2341° N, 86.2522° W
Muskegon, MI
A life-size bronze mastodon with bright blue tusks appears to climb out of an enormous manhole outside the Muskegon Museum of History and Science. Unveiled in 2019, the sculpture gives Michigan's official state fossil a deliberately impossible return to the streets of downtown Muskegon.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities44.2143° N, 69.2845° W
Union, ME
A roughly 32-foot-tall wooden bottle shaped like Maine’s famously divisive Moxie soda stands at the Union Fairgrounds. The structure was originally created as a promotional building for the 1906 New England Food Fair before eventually being preserved in Maine.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities39.7889° N, 86.1840° W
Indianapolis, IN
Mr. Bendo is a towering fiberglass Muffler Man that has served as an Indianapolis auto-shop landmark for decades. The giant figure has survived moves, repairs and changing businesses and remains a recognizable piece of classic American roadside advertising on West 16th Street.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities35.3528° N, 94.3941° W
Fort Smith, AR
A giant Mr. Peanut figure stands outside the local Planters facility, accompanied by smaller versions of the famous mascot. The oversized industrial-brand icon is a classic Arkansas photo stop.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities36.7375° N, 76.5823° W
Suffolk, VA
Mr. Peanut's familiar character traces back to a 1916 Planters logo contest won by a young Suffolk-area boy, linking the advertising icon directly to the city's peanut history. A Mr. Peanut statue at the Suffolk Visitor Center gives travelers an easy public photo stop while the center interprets Suffolk's broader agricultural story.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities41.7959° N, 71.3800° W
East Providence, RI
Mrs. Skipper is the easternmost member of Rhode Island's five-troll Thomas Dambo trail and sits near Kettle Point in East Providence. The oversized figure was completed in 2025 from reclaimed materials and expanded the project beyond South County. It is free to visit and intended as an interactive outdoor artwork rather than a climbing structure.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities33.6934° N, 78.8836° W
Myrtle Beach, SC
A giant minotaur-like figure named Goff presides over the wildly themed Mt. Atlanticus miniature golf complex. Its mythological creatures, faux ruins, towers, and rooftop course turn a beach-town mini-golf stop into a deliberately surreal environment.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities35.1529° N, 90.0575° W
Memphis, TN
The park contains a long-scale model of the lower Mississippi River that visitors can physically walk alongside. The concrete Riverwalk turns hundreds of miles of geography into an oversized outdoor map and is most practical during normal park operating periods.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities44.6243° N, 110.4345° W
Yellowstone National Park, WY
A violently bubbling acidic mud feature in one of Yellowstone's most sulfurous-smelling thermal areas.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities37.7555° N, 100.0155° W
Dodge City, KS
Built from native limestone in the 1880s, the Mueller-Schmidt House survives as one of Dodge City's most substantial early residences. Its preserved rooms offer a quieter, more authentic counterpoint to the town's saloon-and-gunfighter mythology.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities31.4443° N, 109.9177° W
Bisbee, AZ
This hillside home preserves early Bisbee domestic life and a panoramic view across the old mining town. Its steep setting and period rooms make it a compact companion to the city's more industrial attractions.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities32.3760° N, 96.8414° W
Waxahachie, TX
A full-scale fan-built recreation of the house from The Munsters, complete with elaborately replicated rooms and props. Tours are by appointment.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed