Roadside America

I'm planning a road trip to Kansas next week which entails driving all the way across the state of Iowa with two kids. Naturally, we will need to make a few stops so I went to my favorite road-trip website, Roadside America, to find a few quirky pit stops.

On Roadside America people post information about odd tourist attractions such as giant statues of wildlife/farm animals/mascots/etc, atypical museums, and interesting decorations such as a house covered in beer cans. It's great fun, and we spent an entire week driving around Wisconsin to look at these things a few years ago, my favorite of which was the Cress Funeral Home in Madison, with a basement display known as "White Squirrel Heaven" featuring hundreds of taxidermied animals (mostly squirrels and chipmunks) in creative poses, like playing poker at a bar. I'm also a big fan of Prairie Moon which is only about an hour and a half from my house, and Jurustic Park.

My trip through Iowa is a pretty straight shot so I won't be making a whole lot of deviations from I-35 which means I'll miss the American Gothic house, the Grotto of the Redemption, or the Field of Dreams. I think I'll still find enough to keep us entertained though and maybe on the way home we'll make a few extra detours. There are crazy things to see everywhere, and that fact just delights me to no end.