The Road Unraveled

Roadside America helps you discover the interesting things between the places you’re going.

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_{Illustration by Ed Fotheringham}

Foamhenge. Mighty Midget Kitchen. Patrick Swayze Dirty Dancing Memorial Rock. Homer the Muffler Man. Trojan Dog. Enema Collection. Witch of Pungo Statue. Love Butt. I’m a huge fan of funny words merged to make nonsense names for places or things of limited or no significance. Concrete Convoy of Kiptopeke. Hugh Mongous, The Giant Beach Dude Gorilla. 

So I’m on the phone with Roadside America’s founder and publisher, Doug Kirby, just reading back to him his publication’s online list of “Virginia Attractions and Oddities.” He’s not learning anything—Kirby or his fellow R.A. founders have been to all 300 or so of these places over the last 30 years—but I just want to hear the names out loud. Head of Ol’ Red the Mule. HVAC School Bus and Big Bugs. I pull the phone away from my face each time I snort so I don’t burst his eardrums. I have manners, just not much journalistic decorum.

Kirby is kind of a hero of mine, so please excuse my fanboy enthusiasm. He’s a communication major who, while succeeding in his day job (ultimately he managed AT&T’s website), also followed and then monetized his passion—a sort of free-form road-tripping Corps of Discovery hopscotch with his two best buddies through America’s most- and least-known points of potential interest. In time, he merged his passion and his technical skills to build RoadsideAmerica.com, and then the Roadside America app, into the go-to source for a master list of things to do in every state in the country (and, increasingly, Canada).

If you’re wondering, there’s plenty to do in Virginia. Kirby combed through his data and analytics to tell me that Virginia currently ranks 10th in the number of what you might call the “hardcore attractions of historical significance.” Mount Vernon. Luray Caverns. The National Air and Space Museum out by Dulles International Airport. JFK’s Eternal Flame and Grave. It’s the serious stuff that Mom and Dad took you to as a kid—the big-time stuff you probably know about already. Virginia did particularly well in Roadside America’s separate Roadside Presidents mobile app; we ranked in the top five out of the 50 states and D.C. 

However, the state was 17th overall in “total of number of all roadside attractions we track,” Kirby says. Top third—barely—in the peculiar stuff that makes Roadside America a must-read. (Three outrageously unscientific theories, not from Kirby: Virginians are a little too serious, we’re not hungry or desperate enough for attention or tourism dollars, or we’re not feeding the R.A. team as many tips as we could be.)

Our average score is not for lack of research by Kirby and his two co-founders, Ken Smith and Mike Wilkins. Kirby, although a New Jersey native, traveled through Virginia often as a kid, sometimes on family road trips, which helped spark his love for oddities of the open road, and a few times on Boy Scout expeditions. “Virginia was a day’s drive, so we’d do all the battlefields and all the trails,” he says. “We slept one night at VMI, we slept another night deep in a cave after spelunking.And, of course, we did the traditional stuff. You have to. We’ve been to Mt. Vernon several times. It’s just that now, we’re more interested in talking about Washington’s teeth.”

Or, Dinosaur Kingdom II in Natural Bridge, which, along with its creator, Mark Cline (also the father of Foamhenge and Enchanted Castle Studios), is right in Kirby’s wheelhouse. At Dinosaur Kingdom II, Cline, as much artist as entertainer, has created a wooded walking tour in which giant lifelike dinosaurs are fighting with giant lifelike Civil War soldiers. “Mark is the P.T. Barnum of roadside attractions,” Kirby says. “It’s just brilliant stuff.”

He reels off several other attractions: Mini Graceland, the Mill Mountain Star, Optimus Prime built out of scrap cars, Phonehenge. Between Kirby, Wilkins, and Smith, they have actually been to all of them. And the same way you can tell some online writers haven’t been to the places they write about (I’ve twice gone to places I read about online only to find they had closed), you can tell Kirby, Wilkins, and Smith have been there. Their copy is informed and in on the joke—and they update the page when places close.

I’m a fan and a fellow traveler in this love for the offbeat, and I have a hard time being objective—maybe a house made of old tombstones isn’t worth a drive?—but I think anyone can benefit from getting out on the road and looking around. There’s this whole other joyful Virginia out there if you loosen your collar and roam. 

Kirby has one bit of advice before you head out in the station wagon. Sure, do a little planning. Map out a route, take proper provisions, that sort of thing. But, he says, the key is, “Plan your trip so there’s plenty of room for errors and for wandering. You want space for serendipity—time to follow some unexpected path that presents itself along the way. You discover some of the most interesting things between the places you’re planning to go.” 

This article originally appeared in our June 2019 issue.