Summer is the time for road trips and family vacations. And I believe it is the law in most states that families must make a pilgrimage at least once across a large expanse of this wonderful country we call America. And during these travels you will see many roadside attractions and like some siren's song they invite us to pull out the highway and take a look, sit a spell and remember when driving was part of the fun of traveling.
World's Largest Ball of Twine
Cawker City, Kansas
Made from over 7 million feet of sisal twine, the World's Largest Ball of Twine measures 40 feet in circumference and weighs nearly nine tons. The ball "started rolling" in 1953 when Frank Stoeber started saving bits of sisal twine and adding them to a small ball in his barn. Four years later his twine ball weighed over 2 t tons and standing 8-feet tall. Housed under a canopy in Cawker City on Highway 24, the ball is a work in progress, so bring some twine, wrap it around, and consider yourself part of the record books.
The town of Cawker began an annual Twine-A-Thon, where anyone can add twine, and in 2003 the total length was recorded at over 7-million feet!
Carhenge
Alliance, NE
Constructed of 38 cars from the '50s- and' 60s and mimicking both the number of rocks and the diameter of the circle at the original Stonehenge in England, this Carhenge was dedicated on the summer solstice in 1987. Just north of Alliance, the structure was conceived by Jim Reinders as a memorial to his father, who once lived on the field where Carhenge now stands.
The heelstone is a 1962 Cadillac. Three cars were buried at Carhenge after domestic cars replaced the original three foreign automobiles. Their "gravestone" is a car that reads: "Here lie three bones of foreign cars.
London Bridge
Lake Havasu City, AZ
The London Bridge, currently located in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, USA, was originally constructed in London in 1831. By 1962, the bridge was not structurally sound enough to support the increased load created by the level traffic crossing it, and it was sold by the City of London for $ 2.5 million dollars.
The purchaser, Robert McCulloch, was the founder of Lake Havasu and the chairman of McCulloch Oil Corporation. The bridge was carefully disassembled and each piece was numbered. These were shipped to the bridges present location and re-assembly began in 1968, and was completed in late 1971. The bridge is 950 feet long and weighs 33,000 tons and it serves as a popular tourist attraction for the city
Dinosaur Park
Rapid City, SD
Your own personal Jurassic Park can be found just outside of Rapid City, South Dakota. On a hill overlooking the city, dinosaurs made out of brightly painted green concrete stand ready to spring to life. The dinosaur park was built as a work project to be a tourist attraction in 1936, during the Depression. The five dinosaurs, which include a Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus Rex, are life size and can be seen from miles away. While they will not eat any on-lookers they are sure to entertain.
Paper House
Rockport – Pigeon Cove, MA
Ellis Stenman, a Swedish immigrant, started to build a two-room cottage almost entirely out of newspaper in 1922. The house is framed with wood, the walls consisting of 215 layers of newspaper. Stenman made his own glue, out of flour, water and apple peels. If you visit, take a close look at the furniture and curtains you'll see they are also made from newspaper. Stenman wrapped paper around wire to build chairs, desks and lamps. In all, he used about 100,000 newspapers. Visitor can take time to read the walls and find newspaper headlines from years bygone. This house of paper certainly gives new meaning to the term "wallpaper".
Lucy the Elephant
Margate City, New Jersey
She was constructed in 1881 by James Lafferty. The idea of an animal-shaped building was innovative, and in 1882 the US Patent Office granted Lafferty a patent giving it the exclusive right to make, use or sell animal-shaped buildings for seventeen years. Lucy is the oldest example of zoomorphic architecture, and the largest elephant in the world and has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Standing six stories tall, 60-feet long, and 18-feet wide, she weighs about 90 tons, and is made of nearly one million pieces of wood. Lucy was more than a roadside attraction and was a functioning building, serving first as a real estate office and briefly as a tavern, until drunks nearly burned her down. Jim Laffertywent on to build other elephants in Cape May and Coney Island, but only Lucy has survived.