Years ago, on a road trip through southern Idaho, I stopped in the tiny town of Blackfoot. As a lifelong fan of weird roadside attractions, I couldn’t resist visiting the Idaho Potato Museum. Right outside the entrance is a giant baked potato sculpture the size of a small car—complete with a pat of butter. Inside, […]
If you’vr a cleanliness freak (I am not) you need to visit Pocatello, Idaho, home of the one, the only, Museum of Clean. This 75,000-square-foot shrine to cleanliness celebrates everything from vintage dustpans to early vacuum cleaners the size of a Smart Car. There’s even a horse-drawn vacuum named Puffing Billy, which sounds like a […]
More quirky American towns – Hell, Michigan Just 15 miles northwest of Ann Arbor lies a little slice of the underworld on Earth—Hell, Michigan. It’s a town prone to puns, where the devil is always in the details and residents take pride in saying, “Welcome to Hell—and thanks for dropping in.” The origin of “Hell” […]
While on a car trip through the US, I drove to Deadwood, SD. Originally a lawless gold rush settlement, Deadwood now leans into that history in a big way. Wandering its streets is like stepping onto the set of a Western—except it’s real. Boardwalks line the main drag, saloon doors swing, and every other building […]
I haven’t been to Marfa, but it is very high on the list of places I want to visit. For years, I’ve heard about this town filled with mysterious lights and minimalist art in the middle of nowhere. From all descriptions, Marfa feels like it shouldn’t exist. A high desert town with a population of […]
Years ago, a friend from Albuquerque drove me to Magdalena to see the Very Large Array (VLA). It’s located approximately 24 miles west of Magdalena. I’d seen the movie Contact starring Jodie Foster and wanted to see where it was filmed. The 1997 science fiction film was set at the VLA, a fitting backdrop for […]
Over the past year I’ve been giving talks about quirky American towns. For the next week or so, I’ll be sharing some of my favorites. I first learned about Lucas, Kansas when I attended the Kansas City Art Institute. Friends insisted we visit the “Garden of Eden” a large art installation in Lucas Kansas. It […]
By the time I was nearing age fifty I’d traveled extensively around the globe—visiting every continent except Antarctica and all fifty states. However, I’d mostly been to large U.S. cities and a few national parks. It was time to see more of my own country. So, in 2001, to celebrate my 50th birthday, I took […]
The abundance of off the beaten path but fascinating American towns is nearly endless. The more I explore, the greater my admiration for people who have transformed their hometowns into fun, beautiful places. What sets a town apart from the ordinary? Sometimes they have unique traditions, eccentric festivals, one-of-a-kind landmarks, or being home to museums […]
Columbus, Indiana is actually a city of 47,000. Not a town, but considering its small size, a mecca for world-renowned architecture. The American Institute of Architects ranked it sixth in the nation for architectural innovation and design – right behind Chicago, New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. There are more than ninety buildings […]
