American Road Kitsch
American Road Kitsch. Taking stock of what's weird and wacky just off the shoulders of the national highway.
Traditional vacation hot spots are …
A little hot during the summer months: Florida and Hawaii swelter; New York and California bustle with clammy crowds. Instead, roll down the windows and get in the driver’s seat for a quintessentially American experience of what this country is really all about: inexplicably bizarre roadside attractions.
Although some kitschy landmarks are way off the beaten path, they can be found near major metropolitan areas, too. Here are some absurdly fun stops worth the trip, if just for the photo op.
Present at the Creation Museum
After the absolutely essential pilgrimage to Dollywood, in Gatlinburg, Tenn., pay homage to our 6,000-year old planet—before the next rapture.
The Creation Museum near Petersburg, Ky. (only 30 miles from Cincinnati) has the highest kitsch quotient of any hall of science, pseudo- or otherwise. Marvel at the T-Rexes that wreaked havoc in the woolly mammoths’ stateroom on Noah’s Ark, and learn how the Flood made the Grand Canyon.
Who says you have to schlep a million cubits to France for high culture? It takes as long to wander the Louvre as it took God to make everything, so let the Creation Museum’s docents give you the gist.
Birthplace of James T. Kirk
Sure, the altered timeline of the 2009 film complicated matters, but a true Trekkie can mount a rousing defense for why that’s not the canon "Star Trek." Come to Riverside, Iowa, population 928, and future birthplace of Captain James Tiberius Kirk (b. March 22, 2228).Roughly equidistant between Des Moines and the Quad Cities, it makes a refreshing detour from the cornfields lining I-80.
You’ll have to really live long and prosper to witness the actual event, of course, so TrekFest is the better bet. (Go next June.)
This really is a brilliant gimmick. Unfortunately, San Francisco has yet to cash in on the untapped potential of being Mr. Sulu’s birthplace—in 2237.
In the Middle of Everything. Really.
In remote North Dakota, some of the hardscrabble prairie towns cling to survival by erecting genuine oddities. West of Bismarck, in New Salem, N.D., is Salem Sue, hailed as the World’s Largest Holstein Cow, flashing her fiberglass udders over I-94.Then outside Blanchard, not far from Fargo, N.D., stands a TV tower that was the world’s tallest man-made object until the Burj Khalifa surpassed it in 2008.
But Rugby, N.D. has them beat. About 100 miles from both Bismarck and Grand Forks, and not too far from Canada, you can burnish your nerd credentials at the Geographical Center of North America, a crossroads cairn with the flags of the United States, Canada and Mexico. It’s a monument to middlingness, and very much worth the stop.
Great World of Wall's Streets
If you’ve ever driven within 200 miles of it, you know it’s coming. Like the bygone Burma-Shave ads, Wall Drug proclaims its existence up and down the interstate with rhyming, staggered highway signs—like easy clues in a shopping scavenger hunt.
From its humble beginnings as a drugstore offering free ice water to Depression-era drivers, it grew to engulf the entire town of Wall, S.D., and corner the knickknack market with seemingly endless interconnected storefronts selling every imaginable inventory. Plus the pie is stellar and the water’s still free.
Sedans, Submerged
Not far from the famous Chimney Rock, near Alliance, Neb., stands the truly epic Carhenge, which is exactly what it sounds like: a replica of Stonehenge built out of 1980s-and-older sedans, spray-painted gray.
Jim Reinders’ 1987 artwork can be read as an elegy for American industrial might, a neo-Druidic place of sacrifice hiding in plain sight, or as a simple memorial for his dad. Whatever your interpretation, it’s striking to meander through the 96-foot circle of partially buried vehicles, and the other car sculptures that have been added over time.
It’s a unique, fitting analogy to America’s relationship to Britain, a monument to a once-thriving industry, and it’s free.
Temple of the Tuber
From its origins in Andean valleys, the potato has nearly conquered the earth. Indeed, the tuber has 48 chromosomes—two more than humans—so maybe we’re actually doing their nefarious bidding by propagating them worldwide.
You’ll likely not hear such heresy at the Idaho Potato Museum in Blackfoot, Idaho, where for only $3 you can see the world’s largest potato chip and take a picture outside in front of one big honking spud. It’s only natural that there'd be a hall of fame, considering Idaho’s license plate reads “Famous Potatoes.”
Art of the Great Salt Lake
A few miles down from the Golden Spike National Historic Site (where the transcontinental railroads joined in 1869) lies Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson’s 1970 earthwork sculpture on the Great Salt Lake.
Essentially a quarter-mile-sized pile of rocks in one of the most isolated spots in the country, some 100 miles from Salt Lake City, it was submerged for decades before re-emerging a few years ago, coated in crystallized salts. Not exactly kitsch per se, Spiral Jetty defies interpretation, but Smithson chose the spot for its resemblance to the primordial sea.
After wading hundreds of yards into the lake, you contemplate the solitude--your reward for making the trek to this paragon of American abstract art.
Check Out the Theater Scene Near Death Valley
When Marta Becket’s car broke down in Death Valley Junction on the way to Los Angeles, the classically trained dancer decided to stay in town, refurbishing the theater (built by the Pacific Coast Borax Company to keep the miners entertained) into the Amargosa Opera House, where she wrote and performed in her own shows in a climate that fluctuates seasonally between hellish and infernal.
The 86-year-old Becket is mostly retired now and although the hotel still operates, Death Valley Junction hovers at the knife’s edge of ghost town status mere miles from Badwater Basin. At 282 feet below sea level, it’s the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere; finding it is another feather in the cap of the kitsch-obsessed traveler.
A Bridge from London to Arizona
As Robert McCulloch laid out Lake Havasu City in the '60s, he heard that the city of London was scrapping London Bridge, so he paid for it to be flown over and reassembled on the Colorado River, stone by stone.
Apparently, McCulloch thought he was purchasing the iconic Tower Bridge, not the decidedly understated one that Havasu got. Either way, a faux-English “village” sprouted up on the riverside, marring the desert serenity of this retirement community a bit. Then again, a centuries-old relic from that gloomy isle, plunked down into the driest spot in America, makes for a nice visual pun.
Least Populated, and Loving It
Texas grows by 1,000 people a day, it’s been said, but there are still vast tracts of nothingness. Should you travel the 5,000 miles of this route, it’s only fitting that it should end in the absolute middle of nowhere: Loving County, Texas, population 82.
Down from a 1930s high of 600 souls, Mentone is now a county seat with little to govern. It’s mostly one big ranch dotted with derricks, but Loving County can lay claim to the first female sheriff in Texas, Edna Dewees, who made two arrests during her tenure.
Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe National Parks are nearby, and the New Mexico border is marked with a buckin’ bronco, which you’ll definitely want a picture of yourself riding.
Loving County is the very heart of isolation, yes, but Carlsbad is a beautiful area an hour away. After completing this trek, treat yourself to a few final hours of silence without getting out of the car, as Carlsbad has one of the few remaining drive-ins left in the United States.
Source: msn
