Roadside Oddities

Roadside Oddities

What Is The Thing? Driving between Texas and Arizona, you can't miss the signs for The Thing. Giant billboards at the side of the road ask, “ The Thing? What is it?" They call it the “ Mystery of the Desert. " Whatever else it is, The Thing is one of thousands of roadside attractions around the world. Roadside attractions are weird and wonderful. They invite people to stop and check them out.

World's Largest Baseball Bat The world's largest baseball bat towers over a five-story building in Louisville, Kentucky. You couldn't use this bat in a baseball game--it's 120 feet (37 m) tall and weighs more than 68, 000 pounds (30, 844 kg). It's a huge replica of the bat used by the famous baseball player Babe Ruth. After you see the largest baseball bat, you can go on a tour of the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory. The tour shows how the regular-sized bats are made.

The Corn Palace At the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, they create art out of corn. Every year, the outside of the building is decorated with art made out of local grains and grasses. The Corn Palace is also the world's largest bird feeder. When winter begins, the birds and squirrels eat the murals!

Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum Do you have a spare toilet seat lying around the house? If so, you can bring it to Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum, open since 1992 in San Antonio, Texas. Barney Smith turns toilet seats into something wonderful. Born in 1921, he has made more than one thousand toilet seat works of art. They tell stories about his life.

Lucy the Elephant In 1881, James V. Lafferty built the world's largest elephant to attract people to the land he was selling. The six-story building in Margate City, New Jersey, is covered with 12, 000 square feet (3, 658 sq m) of metal. Today, Lucy the Elephant is one of America's oldest roadside attractions. You can still climb inside her.