*as published in North Canton Living Magazine August 2022
I like quirky, weird, and kitsch. I am often asked what you do between national parks or do you go from park to park? Well, when I have the time, I seek out the strange, wild and wonderful.
Those days in-between are travel days. You set a time for how long you want to drive – aim for where you need to go – and plot your GPS. Yes, I do that but I also opt for that windy road next to the highway where I can stop at the roadside stand selling boiled peanuts or funky-looking rocks. These are the stops that add color, humor, and weirdness to the trip.
So how do I do this? How do you find funky and strange?
I like to use a website and app called Roadside America. Roadside lists attractions and users can leave comments. Roadside allows you to plot a trip and then list the user-generated attractions along the way. You can preplan and save the attractions you want to see. On a recent trip, I generated a list that included the largest granite tombstone for the heaviest twins; painted bears, and a massive AT-AT from Star Wars. Impressions – the AT-AT was cool, the bears incredible and the tombstone strange.
While passing through Kansas, I used the app and found the world’s largest painting of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. In Goodland, Kansas this giant painting stands in a field of sunflowers and is visible from the highway.
The app HearHere is an interesting choice for road trips. Based on your geographical location, you could hear a story about local history or attractions. This app is perfect for that long stretch of road where there is really nothing to see and you don’t have the time to stop. Kevin Costner is a partner in this venture and voices several of the stories. They are intriguing and often give a perspective of the area from a historical view. The app has more than 10,000 stories and covers the entire United States.
Both the Roadside and HearHere cost money. There is a one-time payment for each region of RoadsideAmerica and an annual subscription for HearHere. So what do you do if you don’t want to pay? Ask for directions.
Take the time to stop at the welcome centers. This is where it gets old school. Ask for a paper map and then take the time to talk to the knowledgeable attendant. Ask for the weird and strange and use a pen to mark the places on the map. These individuals are schooled in tourist attractions so local knowledge is priceless. Especially if you ask to take backroads, they will usually whip out their highlighter and mark the way for you. But be careful, if you are like me, you don’t want the tourist trap but the tourist strange like the field of concrete corn in Dublin Ohio, not the wax museum. Yup, it’s true about the corn and you should check it out next time you pass through.
So you have a car full of kids; a long drive and a tight budget? Geocache. These are hidden treasures all over the world! There are apps and websites designed to use the GPS on your phone to find these hidden treasures. There are over 3 million geocaches worldwide. I used these hidden treasures when the kids need to get out and run yet I wanted them to have an experience. Using the app, they became focused and worked together to solve the clues. We found caches under fake bolts, under stadium signs, and camo boxes under logs. My most memorable cache was behind a fake magnetic panel on the side of a light pole in a gas station parking lot. The kids and I stood around that light pole for twenty minutes trying to find the cache. I use the geocache app and carefully filter out the geocaches to find them. There are experience levels and geographical markers. Me, I can’t hike into dark wood but I could stand in a well-lit parking lot. Use common sense and seek wisely.
Do you use the rest areas? Of course, you do. But take a moment next time and look at the signage. You may find some weird and wild there. On that same trip through Kansas, I stopped at the rest area along I-70 that lies between the lanes. This marks the highest natural point in Kansas. On a marker up the little hill, it tells the story of two distant manned grain silos dating back to the 20s. At night the watchman would signal to each other with their lights using Morse code. The silos were more than 100 miles apart!
There is also the old standby – TripAdvisor. Search on a location and see what local sites users have posted. You never know what weird and wild you will find.
What I Learned
People hide geocaches in the strangest places.
There is a museum dedicated solely to flags – over 300 on display.
Flags, while cool, can become boring after 100.
I am sorry I missed the UFO Welcome Center – saving it for next time!
Before You Go
The best tip I can give for having fun in between is to be flexible. This is truly about the journey, not the destination.
Use multiple sources, ask for help and take an atlas. GPS can be questionable so the paper is a great backup. Also, download the map but take a rechargeable battery.
Keep the gas tank full in case you get lost. And don’t fret if you do, sometimes it’s the best part of the trip.