The Range Rider Museum in Miles City, Montana, turned out to be a highlight of my trip to TR National Park a few years ago.
Even though it’s right on I80, I would consider North Platt, NE a worthwhile stop–just to see the miniature, animated version of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show at the Fort Cody Trading Post.
North Platte was also home of the North Platte Canteen, one of the great stories of homefront support in WWII.
Down the road aways is the The Great Platte River Road Archway Monumnet in Kearney, NE. Perhaps too mainstream for this thread, but if it’s good enough for Jack, it’s good enough for me.
Badlands National Park is the coolest national park I’ve ever been to, and I’ve seen a lot of them! It’s in Middle of Nowhere, South Dakota, and we were only there because I got dragged along on this mission trip, of all things. We Dug Wall Drug and we saw Mount Rushmore and such, but wow! when we got to the Badlands. It’s like going to the moon, only it’s the kind of moon they let you climb on! (At least they did ten years ago.) You just can’t take any fossils you might find. The weird thing is that those spires mostly go up from where you are on the road - in other words, it’s not like a canyon always, sometimes it’s like mountains.
And you could spend days without noticing all of the statues and portraits. It’s so pagan too- they personify everything from American History to Erotica in their artwork.
House on the Rock is a place I was totally unfamiliar with until reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. I’ve wanted to see it ever since. (Midwestern readers may have been familiar with HotR but unfamiliar with Rock City which is prominently featured in the second half of the book.)
An odd and amazingly popular for such a small and out of the way attraction in Alabama is Ave Maria Grotto. (Official site and Roadside America write-up.) It’s miniatures of Rome, Jerusalem, and other places of interest in Catholic history built on the grounds of a monastery in north Alabama by a hunchbacked German-born Benedictine monk, Brother Joseph. It began as a simple gardening decoration and became huge (but miniature). Some think it’s inspiring, others that it’s one of the tackiest things they’ve ever seen (especially the decorations with marbles), and most are probably like me- it’s cool and neat and worth a side trip if you’re in that area of the world anyway. (Odd thing about that area of Alabama: it has a huge German population, much of it from the past century- when my parents lived there in the 1950s there were still people who spoke German as a first language even though they were born in Alabama, and until we went to war with Hitler the Nazi flag was flown by several homeowners during the 1930s as a solidarity with relatives back home.)
Before I leave this area I want to take my camera and make as many photos as possible of The Cross Garden. The linked site (roadside america.com) is the best on the web but you really need video for full effect. This is one that I’ve argued with friends over- all agree it’s ugly but some find it incredibly (if psychotically) moving while others (me) just find it psychotic. It was the labor of love of a weird but harmless old man who covered acres of his property in crosses- very crude ones that were just boards nailed together and ranging from smaller than popsicle sticks to larger than life-sized. He lived out in the middle of nowhere about 20 miles north of Montgomery when he started, but as Montgomery grew and Prattville (a cotton gin river-town north of Montgomery) became a suburb (especially for Montgomery’s substantial military population) the area where he lived was developed, so today you must pass this bizarre folk-art-fanaticism to get to an upscale development of 6-figure houses and McMansions and those people are decidedly unappreciative of Mr. Rice’s work, but have lost every motion to have it razed as it predates their subdivision and is still outside of city limits.
In addition to the crosses he wrote random Bible verses on junk cars, old refrigerators and appliances, and has dioramas featuring electric logs (the type that were used in those cheesy 1970s indoor non-fireplaces- a light bulb and revolving piece of cellophane look like fire if you squint) and plastic cowboys and Indians as people in Hell. Urban (if you can say that for such a rural area) legends abounded: each cross was a person he had killed as a WW2 bomber pilot, he had dug up his parents and put them there, it began when his kids were murdered, etc etc, but the truth is far less exotic: Mr. Rice (now dead) was a nutty but harmless and sweet (met him many times and each time was memorable) old man who loved crosses and random scripture painted with spray paint. He drove an old pick-up with a lifesized cross mounted on the back (true story: he had to call friends for rides if his journey involved going under a low underpass because of the 8 foot cross on back), he wore a foot-long+ several pound crucifix designed for hanging on a wall as a necklace, and blasted gospel music from his front porch where he always received visitors kindly and with postcards of himself that he signed his name (in childlike scrawl) and drew crosses on before giving you. His wife was a first-cousin of my mother (so is every other old man’s wife in Autauga County- my mother had 70 first cousins on her father’s side alone) and he always remembered that when he saw me even if it had been years since he’d seen me and he didn’t remember my name.
He has lots of reminders that we’re all going to die and burn in hell if we don’t accept Jesus. He also derived most of his income from a trailer park and rental property behind his house. He was indiscriminate in what he’d paint Bible verses or warnings on, so that there are two signs nailed on a post that direct you to his trailer park, painted ala Jethro Bodine, that while technically not related one to the other work together ominously well:
Flannery, Faulkner, et friends, didn’t make these people up, and even though I’m a thousand miles away from him in my world view and religious beliefs and would rather live in a McMansion than a rural trailer park where I will die die die die die (another sign), I’d far rather see the McMansions razed than that cross garden (which is family has cleaned up a bit since his death but is still standing).
If you’re going there, you should seek out the Bennington Battlefiel – which is not in Bennington. The battle was actually fought in Hoosic Falls, NY and is one of the more impressive battlefields simply because it’s incredible that the colonials managed to win: the British chose what should have been a perfect defensive location. (The monument marks the objective of the British troops, not where the battle was fought.)
I also liked the Kreeger Museum in Washington DC. It’s a former house of art collector David Lloyd Kreeger (head of GEICO Insurance before the Gekko). A fine collection of modern and primitive art.
There’s also the Hyde Museum in Glens Falls, NY. It’s like the Kreeger, but with more old masters. It’s quite an experience – you keep running into paintings, saying, “that’s wonderful,” and then noticing it’s a Rembrandt or Picasso.
Last summer I spent 24 days hiking through the National Parks of the southwest. My favorite (and most difficult) all-day hike was to Horseshoe Canyon in southern Utah. It’s part of Canyonlands National Park, but totally separate from the rest of the park. To get there, you have to navigate what must be the World’s Worst Dirt Road. Then you have a 750-ft. descent to the canyon floor, followed by a long hike to the Great Gallery. There’s a huge rock wall containing amazing life-size painted figures that are thousands of years old, and have to be seen to be believed. The figures span an 80-foot area of the wall, and most contain beautiful geometric patterns. There are also some dinosaur tracks along the way. Then of course you have to hike all the way back and up the 750 feet. The total distance for the hike is 6.5 miles. Most people can do it in about 7-7.5 hours. I’m not in great shape and had to rest a lot, so it took me 9.5 very difficult hours, but it was well worth it.
This is the same area where Aron Ralston had to amputate his own arm a few years ago. (I, however, returned with all my body parts.)
This is neat, but I was sad to see that the Garber Facility is now no longer open for tours. We saw the Enola Gay being restored there. It was very interesting - more interesting, I think, than just seeing the planes once all the work has been done.