TRAVEL AWAITS: 11 Unique Roadside Attractions Along American Highways

This article was originally published in Travel Awaits on March 12, 2023

Roadside America calls them “attractions and oddities.” To me, they are welcome distractions from the humdrum of the roads we travel. I am not talking about those that we include in our bucket lists; I mean those that we don’t seek. They just pop up unannounced. Sometimes we enjoy them from the comfort of our vehicle. Other times, we just need to get out and walk a bit. For a few others, we see a sign and follow for a short distance.  

Every summer when we visit family and friends in their homes (and to escape the Phoenix heat), they have made our trips much richer. Here are the 11 we remember best. I have written about seven others elsewhere in Travel Awaits.

1.    1. Lucy the Elephant.

The first one we came across is dubbed the oldest roadside attraction in America; we saw her early in our RVing days. Built in 1881, Lucy the Elephant stands six stories high on the road alongside the beach in Josephine Harron Park in Margate, New Jersey near Atlantic City. Originally called the Elephant Bazaar, she later became a tavern. Now she’s a National Historical Landmark.She inspired us to watch out for more.

Pro-Tip:  Be sure to take the guided tour to explore her interior.

2.   2.    World's Largest Praying Hands

We also took day trips from Pittsburg to Branson, Missouri, passing through Joplin. Just outside of the town, we came across the Praying Hands Memorial. It’s 32 ft tall and built on top of a 40 ft man-made hill. Created by a local artist in 1972, the words “Hands in prayer. World in peace.” are written on a concrete slab base.

Pro-Tip: On a previous trip, we also saw the 60-ft. world’s largest praying hands at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

3. The Ampersand Sculpture

Stopping at a convenience store, part of the chain called Kum & Go, on Joplin’s Rangeline Road, we found the Ampersand Sculpture, not that big (8x7 ft), but quite colorful. The company’s core values are on one side; the other side contains things about Joplin’s history: mining, Route 66, Bonnie and Clyde, and the many symbols of Joplin’s “strength and hope.”

Pro-Tip: Joplin is known for its citizen-led rebuilding after the devastation from the  May 2011 tornado.

5.  4. Cadillac Ranch (see headline photo)

After Oklahoma, we passed through Amarillo, Texas where we discovered what road travelers have been raving about since 1974: a Cadillac Ranch with ten Cadillacs buried nose-down in a field at the same angle as the Pyramids of Giza. It’s free and you can find it on the south access road of I-40 east of the Arnot Road exit and is open 24/7. 

Pro-Tip: Bring a small canister of paint so you can follow the custom and leave your own mark.

7.    5. The Arco Number Hill

Along US 20, on our way out of Boise, Idaho where my husband’s son lives on the way to Calgary, Alberta where my daughter lives, you will be surprised to find a hill dotted with white numbers. Since 1920, the town’s high school graduating class paints its year of graduation on Number Hill, We should have also explored Arco, Idaho, dubbed the Atomic City!

Pro-Tip: Start looking as soon as you leave the Craters of the Moon National Monument.

8.    6. The Charcoal Ovens in Nevada

Once we took an alternate route going home to Arizona from Boise through Las Vegas. On US 93, at the small mining town of Ward in Ely, Nevada (population, 4,202), a sign pointed to “Charcoal Ovens.” We followed the signs on a six-mile, well-maintained dirt road to six beehive-shaped, large ovens (30 ft high, 27 ft in diameter with walls 2 ft thick at the base). Built in 1876, each one held about 35 cords of wood, each 4 ft high, 4 ft wide, and 8 ft long, producing 1,750 bushels of charcoal for two silver smelters in town. It is now the Ward Chocolate Ovens State Historic Park.

Pro-Tip. From the dirt road, it is just 100 yards to walk to the ovens.

9.    7. The Wild Horses Monument

From Boise to Seattle, Washington (where my daughter used to live), as you go north on I-90, you will be able to spot the Wild Horses Monument. It’s a spectacular sculpture of 15 life-size galloping wild horses on a cliff overlooking the Columbia Gorge, just after Highway 243 becomes I-90.  As you pass the sign to the town of Vantage on the left, keep looking up to see the Dave Govedare masterpiece.

Pro-Tip: You can view it up close by taking a 0.2-mile hike up the hill.

8,  Forever Marilyn

On the road to my sister’s former in Lancaster, California, we were surprised to find that the famous Marilyn Monroe statue had been transferred to Palm Springs from Chicago, Illinois where we had first seen her. We found out then that the 26-foot statue was moved to a new location every year (from Palm Springs it went to New Jersey, Australia, and Connecticut).

Pro-Tip: In 2021, Forever Marilyn returned to Palm Springs as a permanent fixture on Museum Way, just east of the Palm Springs Art Museum.

1 9. Painted Pipes

When my sister moved to Alaska, we took a road trip north to Fairbanks and came across a colorful building air vent on a downtown street corner. A store owner we asked told us there were 13 of them (out of 23 in the city). Our afternoon turned into a treasure hunt. They were part of the Fairbanks’ “Paint the Pipes” project and serve as fresh air intakes for a utilidor (utility corridor) that runs under the streets.

Pro-Tip: Now there are only 12 because the one called “Marilyn in Bunny Boots” has become just a pink pipe.

1 10.  World’s Largest Tire

One of my daughters lives in Canada. Once on a drive back down, we found the World’s Largest Tire, a Uniroyal weighing 12 tons and standing 80 feet tall on I-94 between Highways 39 and 2 in Detroit, Michigan. It first served as a Ferris wheel in the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, then transferred to its current location at Allen Park in 1966. 

Pro-Tip. It is on I-94 near the Metro Detroit Airport.

1 11.  Tovrea Castle 

I have to tell you about Phoenix’s best roadside attraction. No one who drives on Arizona State Route 202 will miss it. Tovrea Castle is a four-story, 5,000 sq. ft. architectural masterpiece that looks like a wedding cake. It holds 100+ years of Arizona history and is Arizona’s only castle.

Pro-Tip: There is a long wait to explore this gem. I have joined ticket lotteries but have not managed to win one yet.   

There you have it! To all the roadside attractions we have loved before and to all the ones we will someday have the pleasure of seeing: Thank you for enhancing the roads we travel.

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the Viking ship at Kalmar Nyckel in Wilmington, Delaware

The Hagley Museum, the original site of the DuPont gunpowder factory, the bedrock of the family wealth built in 1802, is now a non-profit research center on the American enterprise. But we didn’t have the time for the 2-hour tour. We were more intrigued by the traces of the first Swedish settlement in North America in 1638. There is an Old Swedes Church with cobblestones, burial grounds, and a labyrinth. Another is Kalmar Nyckel, an old Swedish shipyard where, docked along the Delaware River, an old Viking ship is being restored. But the biggest gem we found is the over 32-ft Shrine of Our Lady of Peace created by a Wilmington sculptor in 1982. Made of stainless steel, she seems to glow against the blue sky.

Our Lady, Queen of Peace in Wilmington, Delaware

Ning, Ging, Jimmy, Ann, and me and Bill
at Chestnut Lake Campground, Port Republic, New Jersey

Then we continued our trek to the shores of New Jersey where my friend Ann had already arrived at her sister’s house in Somers’ Point.  The Chestnut Lake campground at Port Republic, 30 minutes away from her, had just opened on the day we arrived so there were few RVs and no activities but we had a stunning new picture window of the lake. Ann, her sisters Ning and Ging, and brother-in-law Jimmy came to join us for Bill’s special grilled New York steaks, Ann’s tomato salad, my boiled sweet corn, and Ning’s no-egg yolk leche flan. Good eats and good company!

Cape May Lighthouse at Cape May Point State Park

downtown Cape May

We then executed our plan of covering the Jersey shores. First we went to the southernmost point at Cape May. It turned out that the very day we went was also the birthday of my dear friend May, VP of the Philippines SSS. So we thought of her frequently while we were touring the Cape May Lighthouse and State Park, the neat little Cape May downtown with quaint touristy stores, and the Cape May winery and vineyard. That was the start, Mile 0 of the Garden State (New Jersey) Parkway.

Barnegat Lighthouse, Barnegat, New Jersey

Moffa's Farms' Christmas trees, ready for the bale!

Next we tackled the northern shores with the stunning Barnegat Lighthouse. We also found many Christmas tree farms near the Pinelands National Reserve. The Christmas tree industry is a significant part of the state agriculture, ranked seventh in the nation in the number of Christmas tree growers. There are 1,167 Christmas tree farms, covering 7,628 acres and providing more than 132,000 families with Christmas trees annually!  The first Christmas tree farm was begun in 1908 with the planting of 25,000 Norway spruce near Trenton.  But the the use of artificial trees has been gaining more ground. And a sizable % of homes are not able to put up any Christmas tree at all (that’s a payback project idea!).

Absecon Lighthouse in Atlantic City, New Jersey

Ballys rising out of the haze
at the colorful Atlantic City boardwalk, New Jersey

Finally, we went to the Vegas rival, Atlantic City, the playground of the East. The tallest NJ lighthouse, the Absecon Lighthouse, at 172 ft. and 228 steps, stands right at the north side of the city center. It has already been decommissioned as the bright city lights dimmed its effectiveness. On the south side of downtown stands Lucy the Elephant, a six-story elephant-shaped example of novelty architecture, constructed of wood and tin sheeting in 1882. She stands 65 feet high, 60 feet long, and 18 feet wide, weighs about 90 tons, and is made of nearly one million pieces of wood.  It is the only surviving example of the architecture of animal-shaped buildings.

Caesar inviting one and all to his palace in Atlantic City, New Jersey

the Tropicana lobby full of slot machines
in Atlantic City, New Jersey

Finally, we reached the main reason we stopped for 2 weeks in Jersey. The Atlantic City Boardwalk is all the write-ups said it would be…wide and spacious with glitzy buildings on one side and the charming shore on the other, with happy people walking to and fro in the middle! The grouping of Caesar’s, Bally’s, and the Trump Plaza at the center may have been less glittery than their Vegas counterparts but the big fun nevertheless continues unabated. And, of course, we had to go to an Atlantic City show! 

the Miss America Celebrity Walk in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Heather Whitestone's at the foreground

Lucy the Elephant, 6 stories high...south of Atlantic City!

We chose the Kozak the Magician Act (on his 3^rd year there after 5 years in Vegas) and had an hour and a half of jaw-dropping tricks and rib-tickling monologue. This was at the Tropicana Hotel whose casino lobbies were humongous! Outside, the Outlet Mall was squeezed into the city’s center streets, quite unlike any other Outlet Mall. And the sidewalks had another kind of celebrity walk, the Walk of Miss America winners through the years. I was delighted to see one for Heather Whitestone, the deaf Miss America of 1985, who graciously did a benefit show for our Philippine Institute for the Deaf.

Historic Smithville shoppes and ducks in New Jersey

the Village Greene at Historic Smithville, New Jersey

Such are the gems we find in our travels, the treasures we gather, photograph, and write about so that later we can have the second journey. Before leaving we even found another gem of a different shopping mecca, Historic Smithville and Village Green. Back to back around a lake, the shops offered a lot of unusual items, including fancy cinnamon raisin bread that we decided to buy as pasalubong for our friends in New York, our next stop.  So now I understand why the shores of New Jersey are a great place to be. But I still don’t understand why Jersey Shore is the success it is.

our picture window at the Chestnut Lake Campground, Port Republic, New Jersey