First off: This is a sponsored post and I’m telling you now because it seems shitty to read a whole post and then at the end get a “HEY, THIS IS AN AD” but you should read this one because at the end one of you will win a shitload of money because the sponsor is Blue Lizard Australian Sunscreen and they want you to get out and have a bad-ass road trip that doesn’t end in cancer. WHO CAN HATE ON THAT? No one. So let’s begin.
Blue Lizard (who I love and have used for years) asked if they could sponsor a post and my first response was the same one I always have for that question, which was, “I don’t really do that” but then they said “You can write whatever you want” and I was like “Can I write about ghost hunting?” and they were like, “Sure. But that seems like something you wouldn’t need sunscreen for since ghost come out at night” and I had to explain that ghosts don’t sleep in the day because they aren’t vampires and it got too complicated so instead I was like, “How about I go on a road trip to fucked up places I never knew existed?” and they were like, “That sounds weird. But good?” And then I was all, “AND THEN YOU CAN GIVE ONE OF MY READERS A CHANCE TO SEE FUCKED UP SHIT TOO?” and they were like, “Okay. But, um…define ‘fucked-up‘?” and I was like, “Don’t worry about it, Lizards. I GOT THIS.”
And I did. Because it gave me the perfect excuse to do a family road trip weirdo-style. So I set up a road trip agenda to take us to the world’s largest pistachio nut and then Victor was like, “Or we could actually take Hailey to see something worthwhile, like The Grand Canyon or a National Park” and I was like, “Well, I guess we can do both if big nuts aren’t good enough for you” so we did. You may have seen some of this on instagram but I saved the best stuff for this post. Let’s start:
First off we flew to El Paso, which slightly seems like breaking the rules of a “road trip”, but driving from the middle of Texas to the end of Texas takes 480 years.
Then we drove toward New Mexico.
Then we hit Arizona:
That’s when I took control of the agenda and gave Victor directions to see the gravestone of Rex Allen’s famous horse.
Then we saw a billion billboards for “THE THING”. What is “THE THING”? Excellent question. And one we asked ourselves for the next several hours as we saw a sign for it every mile. Victor attempted to not go see THE THING because he’s the kind of guy who never opened up his digital alarm to see if there were squirrels in it (there weren’t) so Hailey and I screamed in protest until he pulled in to the gas station where you buy tickets to see The Thing.
WHAT IS THE THING?! I’m not telling you. Because that ruins the mystery. But I will say we got to walk through two separate trailer parks to see it. It was very thingy.
My reaction: “Huh.”
Hailey’s reaction: “Whoa.”
Victor’s reaction: “JESUS CHRIST. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? I WANT MY DOLLAR BACK.”
On the way to see THE THING we walked by 100 gourds carved to look like monsters and also a shocking amount of home-made torture-related displays. I sort of thought we might get murdered (spoiler alert: we didn’t).
Next stop was Tombstone, Arizona, where we made a shitload of movie references that no one else seemed to get.
We did some ghost tours in Tombstone but the only thing that showed up on my camera was this weird orb that I kept getting at Boot Hill, which was either a ghost or a moth. Or a moth’s ghost. Can’t rule anything out when it comes to the supernatural.
The next day I took over the navigation.
Then we stopped at Rooster Coburn’s Ostrich Farm and they had a big wall with holes where goats stick their heads out so it looks like you have live, taxidermied goat heads. Or like giant glory holes but with goats instead of penises.
Then we saw the ostriches who were all surrounded by “WE’LL BITE YOU” signs and I was like, “Yo, I’ll be careful” but right then this asshole slams his head over the fence, slaps me with his own face, and grabs my whole bag of goat food and shatters my thumbnail. Like, literally he drew blood.
Then on the way to the next stop I saw that there was something pretty awesome a half hour away.
So we missed the stone schlong that so we could go to the haunted Grand Hotel in Jerome, Arizona.
It was a weird town. Half awesome and half threatening.
Next morning we took off on a train to see the Grand Canyon. It was one of those trains where old-west train robbers board the train and mug you and I thought that sounded like fun and also that if I stole all the hootch in the booze car I could blame it on bandits, but then it turned out there wasn’t even a booze car and I reminded myself why Victor shouldn’t be allowed to book trains and also I wondered why trains even existed. But it was surprisingly cool.
And it ended with a stop at the Grand Canyon, which is basically an enormous hole. But a pretty hole? Sorry. They should have sent a poet.
The most memorable part of the Grand Canyon though was the toilet.
I thought it was just a weird one-off thing, but then further up the canyon trail I saw this:
And it was nice to see something that everyone talks about, but honestly Antelope Canyon was so much cooler and I highly recommend. It started with an authentic Native American hoop dance in the eaves of a non-functional gas station in front of a Taco Bell. Then we loaded into the back of a truck like it was the 70’s and when we got there it was one of the most amazing things I’ve seen. Go there.
Then we sent to see a giant meteor crater in Arizona.
We saw the Petrified Forest, which is the least foresty forest ever:
And the Valley of Fire Lava Fields, which were not on fire and the Smokey the Bear museum where they buried Smokey, and the jail where Billy the Kid shot his way out, White Sands National Park in New Mexico, which is all beach and no giant octopuses. We stopped on the side of the road to see giant, 10-foot tall zombie hands outside of a cave that sold knick knacks.
And finally we were at the end, as we celebrated the biggest pistachio nut IN THE WORLD.
And it was magical. And ridiculous. And an excellent chance to see the world (or at least a small part of it) with my favorite people. And none of us got sunburned because we were covered in Blue Lizard. I highly recommend. The trip, that is. And the sunscreen. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
So here’s the fun part. Leave a comment about something awesome you’d like to go visit and the best comment will get a $500 VISA card from Blue Lizard to use on your next road trip. Also, you can use coupon code P20ROADTRIP for 20% OFF orders over $35 at www.bluelizard.net all through 2016.
Leave a comment y’all. (PS. Use a good email so I can contact you if you win. I won’t use your email or give it out for anything else so no worries about spam. Also, they can only ship the prize to the U.S. Just FYI.)
Updated: WE HAVE A WINNER!
I would love the $500 to contribute to my family’s awesome road trip scheduled this summer! (Also, I have had repeated occurrences of melanoma, so I am basically slathered in sunscreen 24/7 from April thru October.)
Here are the stops on our planned road trip: Orient Mine -to watch hundreds of thousands of bats fly out for dinner at dusk. Colorado Gator Reptile Park (because alligators in Colorado); Great Sand Dunes National Park (sand boarding and sledding, with fantastic views) ; Best Western Movie Manor (drive in movies you watch from your hotel room); River rafting in Durango; Choco Canyon in New Mexico; Roswell, New Mexico to hang out with aliens; Carlsbad, New Mexico (more bats, maybe some ghosts) and then back home (with an overnight stop along the way to visit a cemetery in Pueblo, where my great, great grandfather was buried in 1901). ~ Tracy
Check your email, Tracy.
That trip sounds awesome! I want to go to New Orleans and do some sweet ghost tours!
Hmm, good question! I’d like to go see the Grand Canyon some day. Also In-N-Out in CA, if that counts 😉 I’ve been but it’s delicious.
OK so it’s not really all that much of a trip since it’s in my state, and probably not even far from me, but there’s something called Foamhenge here which is like a foam version of Stonehenge. Who doesn’t want to see that?
(There’s a miniature version of Stonehenge in my state and I totally have it on my list. I imagine the set decoration from Spinal Tap. ~ Jenny)
I want to drive around Louisiana until I can find the best real life version of Lester’s Possum Park that I can. Extra bonus if we are accosted by a disco loving bigfoot in the process!
A kick-ass road trip like that is on my bucket list, for sure. I feel the need to see an enormous hole.
I knew this trip was happening, I just had no idea how totally and utterly awesome it was. I love everything about it. The pictures are phenomenal!
Hubs and I have been wanting to take a road trip through various parts of New England, where we live, to different parts of the US where we can mine our own gems. We want to end up in Crater of Diamonds State Park (http://www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com/) in Arkansas after hitting Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, and possibly a few other places as well. We’ll bring the dogs, dig in the dirt, and hopefully find some pretty, pretty rocks along the way.
We don’t know when this will happen, but someday. If we have time we might even tack on a leg to Utah for fossil hunting.
What a fabulous, weird, awesome trip! My fantasy family road trip is to take a whole summer and drive to all the national parks . . . or at least all the ones in the continental US. And take many detours along the way to follow weird billboards. $500 won’t cover it all . . . but it’s would be a start! (And I love Blue Lizard too! I’ve tested many mineral sunscreens for my son who is allergic to the regular stuff. It’s the best for going on easily, not leaving him looking like a ghost, and not rinsing off immediately in water.)
The Hockey Hall of Fame is on my list of places to go. I wonder though, if it smells as bad as i imagine. Hockey is stinky! Old hockey must be positively rank.
I’d drive through Iowa, and stop at the 2-Mit Wagon in Elkader, IA. They put drugs in the meat to make you crave them.
I’m not a good traveler myself, but like to live vicariously through other people’s vacation pics. Good to see a furiously happy raccoon at the Grand Canyon! I also would have gone to see the penis rock, just because.
One small town over from the small town I live in is a sign:
CHEESE
HIP HOP
SPIRITUAL ADVICE
Yes, all on one sign. How have I lived here and not stopped for this combo?
Your trip looks great! This post reminds me of Neil Gaiman’s American God’s where he claims that while in other countries they found holy places and built churches, in America we found holy places and built roadside attractions, like Things and giant Pistachios. I’ve only ever been to one – South of the Border, which was awesome. If I won I’d want to go on a grand tour of American Roadside Attractions!
Oooh. I would want to do an American Gods road trip and see all the weird places in that story. Like:
House on the Rock in Spring Green, WI
Rock City in Lookout Mountain, GA
search for the World Tree (one hour south of Blacksburg, VA)
Your trip sounds crazy and wonderful. I’ve been to most of those places since I lived in Arizona for 9 years but we are going back this summer to the Grand Canyon to show the kids who were too young to remember – so we will definitely need sunscreen and $500 would help pay for hotels for 10 people (two of which are too young to remember this trip in 20 years as well – so see it is perpetual like that!)
I really need to go to North Dakota. It is the only state I haven’t been to and I’m not sure how it got missed on cross-country trips growing up. Though I am also a little apprehensive about it….what if my sole purpose in living is to visit all 50 states and I drop dead when I get there? I am willing to take the risk.
I’m not sure if I’m eligible for the prize being South African but I’d like to go to Cape Town. My favourite holiday as a child was in Cape Town. And I’d like to return in my “adultier” form and truly enjoy it.
I’d like to take my son on an east coast road trip visiting the best comic shops.
this is awesome!
I want to go to Alaska when its light for 24 hours. Because that just sounds like something that would be neat to experience once!
I want to go to the Hallerbos Forest in Belgium. It’s carpeted with Bluebells. Sounds magical.
http://www.boredpanda.com/hallerbos-bluebell-forest-nature-photography/
I WOULD LOVE TO GO TO THE WORLD’S MOST SCENIC URINAL because that is ultimately the dream. I would rub the sunscreen on myself and the urinal so it would stop getting so pissed (yes, I had to) that no one thought to cover it with sunscreen. I think doing so would help more people than just me and Mr. Urinal so this is ultimately for the betterment of mankind.
I have so many places I want to visit. Domestic travel top two are the mountains of upstate NY and all the big old houses along the Hudson River and Northern California including San Fransisco and wine country. And sunscreen is a must. I burn super quickly, never tan, then go back to vampire worthy pale.
You guys make weird look fun and interesting and educational (in the life skills “don’t drink from the toilet” kind of way, not the useless algebra way). When I grow up, I want to take road trips like you. And I’m 48.
OMG My husband and I were JUST talking about taking a trip like this!!! Except I’m not sure what cool stuff there is between NJ and the Grand Canyon. I’ve never seen it and I really want to go. We kind of lamed out on vacations with my 9 year old cause we’re broke the past two years, and I thought an awesome road trip would be perfect!!! Except I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in Ohio, because Ohio.
Is that an app or a web site you used to find the penis rock? Does it find other cool stuff nearby, or just penis rocks? 😂 Either way, I feel like I need it in my life.
I want to go back to Kansas and see the world’s deepest well. It when I was eleven, but I don’t think I truly appreciated the experience.
I want to take my family to DC this year. We have already seen Tiny Town in Hot Springs Arkansas one too many times. 🙂
I want to fly to CA, then rent a JUCY rv (check them out, so cool) and drive up to northern California to Redwood National Forest. What’s cooler than enormous trees? And, of course, hit up some wineries along the way. And hey, since you can just pull over and sleep in the car/rv when you’ve had too much, it’s a win-win!
I’ve lived in Georgia for 7 years and still haven’t made it to the Okefenokee Swamp. Can you imagine how much fun it would be to have to say Okefenokee all the time? And not have a sunburn? Pure bliss.
Several friends and I have talked about a road trip featuring this place, which honestly seems right up your alley, too:
http://www.isladelasmunecas.com/
It apparently started out as some sort of memorial for a child who had drowned, then people started adding more dolls, then eventually it spiraled completely out of control and now it’s the Island of the Creepy-Ass Misfit Toys.
(I saw it on Destination Truth and I totally want to go. I think it’s private property though. ~ Jenny)
Id love to see zion national park. What is it about giant rocks that screams ”majesty”?
Your road trip sounds like it was a very fun adventure. I want to take a trip to DC and see the smaller museums… I’ve already been to all of the monuments and stuff, but I hear that there is a bunch of odd museums… so I want to do that. 🙂
My husband and I starting to plan a long camping/road trip to New England at the end of August, and we are realky hoping to take a side trip to see the Interrnational Cryptozoology Museum in Portland!!
I’ve seen three Fiji Mermaids, but I won’t be happy until I’ve seen at least a dozen, not to mention all the other cryptids that probably don’t exist but ABSOLUTELY are real when I’m camping and hear any noise whatsoever outside my tent. They may not be real when I go out to check, so it’s kind of like Schroedinger’s Cat, but I’m the one in the box. And alive. I hope. (Or is the box the rest of the universe and the inside of my tent is everything outside of the box? My brain hurts. I think hugging Bigfoot might help. Also learning how to self-censor.)
Alaska during them summer would definitely require the Lizard. Hopefully is will also scare off any Palins, I mean varmits…
ZOMBIE HANDS!!!! My kiddo and I have been talking a lot about road trips we’d love to take — mainly they involve animals, and playing with animals, and loving animals, and how we can hang out with animals, basically. So our dream road trip would be to hang out at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah, where the national org is based and where they have ALL THE ANIMALS and do lots of great rehabilitation and loving of animals! (P.S. I’m buying some Blue Lizard as soon as I get off work, and hoping that it’ll bring some sunny-day mojo into my life here in the gloomy Northeast.)
I’ve really wanted to see the Grand Canyon and Mt. Rushmore. My husband grew up in Arizona, and his reaction was less than enthusiastic. When I bring it up, he begins saying
“Look kids: Grand Canyon. Mt. Rushmore” in the same voice as Chevy Chase used in Vacation ( Look kids: Big Ben. Parliment ). He contends: It’s a hole. I’m like : So are you, but now we’re just arguing semantics.
What is the road trip app that was used to find the Phallic Rock? My husband and I are going on a road trip from VA to Montreal, and I want to find as many crazy “let’s-stop-there” places as possible!
(It’s from RoadsideAmerica.com. It’s a bit hit-or-miss but when it’s successful it’s awesome. ~ Jenny)
I want to see the Amber Room in St. Petersburg, Russia, but I guess that isn’t a road trip unless the Bering Sea freezes over again, and since Global Warming may or may not exist, that’s kind of an iffy proposition.
We’re moving to Japan on Saturday. I want to travel around and see all shrines and places Wolverine visits in the comic books. Yes, seriously. Love Wolverine and how cool would that be! I could even dress up in cosplay (although, I would have to be X-23), and pose.
My dream road trip would be to Astoria, OR to see locations where The Goonies was filmed. Truffle Shuffle anyone?!?
It’s really not that far away, but we have this horrible habit of not doing the things we say we are going to do….Anywho. I want a road trip to go to the Desert of Maine. Yep…Maine has a desert.
Love your posts Jenny! I stumbled across the Furiously Happy audiobook and was very glad that I did. For my own struggles with ADHD and anxiety, your book has become the book I go back to over and over again. If I’m in need of a pick me up after a bad day, I listen to the selfish cats chapter. There are so many chapters that resonate with me, and whatever the situation I find myself in, there’s something I can listen to and re-“read” that makes me feel a little less alone. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. (Where does that expression even come from? Is the bottom of the heart more meaningful than saying from the top? I mean, I guess the bottom of the heart would anatomically be the ventricles and they’re much stronger than the atria at the top. But is it from the bottom of the right or left ventricle? Because the right has deoxygenated blood so that seems in poor taste, so maybe I’m grateful from my left ventricle of oxygenated blood? I don’t know. But thank you for sharing your voice, and for providing endless addendums to sentences that resonate with my own inner thoughts!)
I would love to take a road trip to Nova Scotia. I live in Massachusetts and I think it would be great to stop at a bunch of interesting places in Canada, but to arrive at the coast and see all those gorgeous green landscapes and to experience the Victoria-era parks seems like ot would be an awesome trip. I imagine that it may not be as popular a road trip destination as others, but I’ve always wanted to go, and maybe I’d be able to get more use out of my French than currently using it to ask the few French co-workers if I can borrow their lab supplies for my experiments.
While this wouldn’t be a roadtrip destination, unless there’s also a ferry involved (and let’s face it, it would take 173738 years to drive/ferry there) I would love to to South Korea to visit my family. I haven’t been since I was three, and don’t remember or haven’t met the majority of the large gaggle of aunts/uncles/cousins/family from my mother’s side.
Is there a Dusek Taxidermy Museum in Wall, TX?
(Yes. It’s my dad’s taxidermy shop. A bit too bloody to be a museum though. ~ Jenny)
I’ve always wanted to visit Bat Cave, NC, because any time you have a chance to visit the Bat Cave, you should take it.
The giant pistachio looks like a giant va-jayjay.
When I was a kid, our family would load up our giant Buick Park Avenue and take a 2 week driving trip to various locations. One year we went to the Grand Canyon. It was amazing. We took an airplane flight through the canyon. Just after breakfast but before leaving for our flight through the canyon (which I’ve heard isn’t done anymore) we saw park maintenance driving through the park with a dead squirrel at the end of the hook. Apparently, the maintenance truck took the corner too fast because when they turned, right in front of where we were standing, the squirrel’s guts flew out of the squirrel and landed on the street at our feet. It was hilarious and disgusting. This was probably the HIGHLIGHT of that trip. Ahh the memories.
I’d like to take my husband and son on a trip to the Grand Canyon too, but without the squirrel guts.
Plus, I’ll be checking out the Blue Lizard products because my husband is a ginger and gets sunburned just thinking about going outside in the sunlight. Thanks!!
steffanotta@yahoo.com
I would take my kids to Vancouver BC, Canada. We moved when my first was 1.5 and I miss it so much sometimes I dream about driving down the streets in North Vancouver.
House on the Rock! Again! And I think you would love it if you haven’t been. http://www.travelwisconsin.com/entertainment-and-attractions/house-on-the-rock-attraction-203820
I was scheduled to take a road trip in June – before you announced yours – then your trip made me really jealous. Leaving from Denver – to Jackson Hole, WY then over to Yellowstone. To Sun Valley, Idaho to Salt Lake City and back to Denver. Driving a convertible – would love to promote Blue Lizard Sunscreen.
I want to go to Savanah and see all the cemeteries and architecture and places where revolutionary war and civil war stuff happened and eat all the food. But, mostly the cemeteries because I love wandering around really old ones. There is just so much history down there I feel like I could stay a month and not see it all!
(That is totally on my bucket list. ~ Jenny)
The Canadian prairies are peppered with various “worlds biggest________” or random weirdness. Just to name a few: worlds biggest pierogi (on a giant fork), worlds biggest Easter egg, worlds first UFO landing pad, worlds largest beaver, and worlds largest dinosaur (you an actually climb up into the head and stand in the mouth, 25 m tall.
It would make an awesome weird road trip.
A complete list is found here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giants_of_the_Prairies
This was fab. I too saw THE THING on a road trip but thought it was profoundly sad and wanted my dollar back, but just because I didn’t want to have given a dollar to exploit said THING.
I’m torn on my road trip idea – there’s a place in North Georgia I’d like to hit up, Talllulah Gorge (MORE GIANT HOLES?!), mostly because I hear there’s a general store nearby that has goats that live on the roof, and I like goats and seeing things in unexpected places; but also there’s a hotel in Americus GA that’s supposed to be SUPER haunted but it’s also SUPER pricey, and it’s within driving distance of the world’s largest peanut (MORE BIG NUTS?!), so I’d just have to flip a coin. But I’d be happy to have the option to do so!
I want to go to Hawaii and make a blood sacrifice to the volcano god and pray for fertility. Unless those are two different gods.., ya’know I think a volcano god would appreciate a sacrifice, he probably doesn’t get many these days, and a volcano erupting is one of those euphemistic images, like rockets taking off, that mean ejaculation, so I think it would cover all the bases.
Glad you hd such a good time! I would use the money to further explore my adopted state of California and see weird shit like the Winchester Mystery House, the secret sidewalk, the Court of Mysteries (a creepy house built only at night), the Mystery Spot (bonus points for pretending like I’m in a Supernatural episode while there), the school where Buffy was filmed, the World’s Largest Lemon, this cool beach where the ruins of this old town are all spread out and apocalypsey, and basically any other oddities I can fit into a road trip.
(I saw the Winchester Mystery House last year when I was on tour and it was awesome. ~ Jenny)
Well, I’ve seen the big hole, but I would love to just take a road trip thru the Carolinas and stop at little interesting places along the way. No plans, just drive and stop when we want!
We’re headed on an 18 day road trip from California to Duluth in July! After Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore, I am hoping to persuade the hubs to pull off the highway so we can see The Corn Palace (in Mitchell, SD) in all it’s glory.
The Museum of Linoleum in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. I hear they have a bit of original lino from Paul McCartney’s old council house in Liverpool — if ever there was a need for a selfie, it’s with THAT in the background.
I want to go to Niagra Falls, but I refuse to get married (again) to see it.
My mom and I did a cross-country road trip after I finished college many, many years ago, and we drove through Kansas. The long way across. We saw signs every quarter mile for about 800 miles advertising the world’s largest groundhog. We were understandably pretty excited by the time we got there. But we drove up to the building, and it had closed literally 5 minutes before we got there. We thought about stopping overnight, but there were no hotels around (or anything else really), and we are not camping women, so we had to let go of that dream. It has haunted me ever since. I need to go back to Kansas to find out what that damn groundhog looks like.
I’d love to go to Banff National Park in Canada. Quiet, mountains and turquoise lakes. Plus, I need to check out the digs in Canada in case the Trump…..(I just can’t say it)… Anyway, Banff sounds lovely…..
I’d like to take my Dad, who just recovered from his second stroke, to see the Very Large Array.
Who knows, maybe we’ll see Jodie Foster out there looking for ET.
http://www.vla.nrao.edu/
-Duke
Loved your travel stories and pictures!! I am dying to go to Portland Oregon and visit VooDoo Donuts. Not scenic, not nature-ish…. but DONUTS.
Nighttime Bigfoot Search in Tennessee, it’s a thing – http://www.appalachianghostwalks.com
Stop at every bourbon distillery on the way and out of the way
And since I’d start from Texas, I definitely need to see the one-way glass walled public bathroom in Sulphur Springs
How did you not get a picture of the signs in the Grand Canyon that say, “Don’t feed the squirrels because they carry the plague”?
I want to see the Northern Lights in AK more than anything.
I’d like to visit Sydney, Australia since I named my daughter Sydney (and it seems like a beautiful and entertaining city).
My husband and I have been fascinated with ‘Door to Hell’ in Turkmenistan since we found out about it. I mean, a door to hell on Earth. What’s next, a stairway to heaven in Ulaanbaatar?
We’re a motorcycle family and would love to make the trip to North Carolina to the Wheels Thru Time museum and see all the awesome old motorcycles.
Oh, the signs and the evil ostrich were awesome. I want to visit the Big Potato. I think it would be less colourful than the big pistachio … But just as big. Craters would be impressive. But we don’t have any here in Australia… But I’d wear Blue Lizard Sunscreen while searching for them. I promise.
We’ve always wanted to visit our friend who lives in Truth or Consequence, New Mexico. Yes, it’s a real town. They sold their name to a game show in the 60’s or something. Also there’s a place near there called Elephant Butte. Which I know it’s not pronounced butt but I still pronounce it butt. Apparently it’s a giant rock /small mountain in a lake that looks like an elephants ass. That’s something everyone should see at least once in their life.
My 12-year-old just took a career aptitude test, and it came back that loving animals and art, and not wanting to work with people, adds up to being a taxidermist. And since receiving that career advice, she’s become mildly obsessed with taxidermied (is that a word? spell check says no) animals. So here’s our ultimate road trip: Taxidermy Hall of Fame of North Carolina Creation Museum.
I want to do a road trip to West Virginia to see the trans-allegheny lunatic asylum to go ghost hunting, see the mothman statue and museum, and then see the unbelievable “mystery hole”.
I’d like to visit Sydney, Australia since I named my daughter Sydney (and it seems like a beautiful city to visit).
God, there are so many places I want to visit.
I’d like to rent a red, 1968 convertible Beetle and do a Route 66 road trip and see all the weird things you can see along the way. I’d like to stay in cheesy theme motels along the way.
I’d like to go to PEI because of my Anne of Green Gables obsession, and then visit Nova Scotia. I’ve never been to that part of Canada and it looks beautiful.
I’d like to go to San Jose and see the Winchester Mystery House with my friend Kim, who is into everything spooky. In fact, doing a spooky road trip with her would be a blast.
There is a circus museum in southern Wisconsin that I’ve never been to. I don’t particularly like clowns, but we could consider a visit there to be immersion therapy and I’ll be a better person in the end. There is also something called The House on the Rock. I hate heights, but as this is shaping up to be the Immersion Therapy Road Trip, I’ll head there, too. Afterwards, some rest and relaxation will have been earned, and a stop at the Sundara Spa in the Dells will be a nice wrap up. 🙂
I would love to go on some ghost tours just about anywhere in the US – I love the idea of going anywhere – I’ll never be able to cross all the places on my list off. In fact, I hope you write another book and do signings just so I have reason to meet you – I would seriously drive 4 or more hours if I had to. But, at the moment I most want to go to Antietam and/or Gettysburg.
I’d like to see Wall Drug…I mean I’ve seen the signs for it near Kansas City, MO, but it’s all the way in South Dakota…dude – THAT’S commitment on the quality of the Drugs you have in your wall!!! Plus the Badlands…how bad are they really???
I’ve always wanted to visit Niagara Falls. It’s lots of really fast water. How could that not be cool?
already beat you guys to the giant pistachio and the octopus-free beaches in new mexico. i think my next trip is hiking in south dakota’s president-laden black hills.
Life goals involve making a stop in every country and state, but I really, really want to visit the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic. And you may think you don’t need sunscreen to hang out and look at bones but I’m highly combustible and part vampire so slapping on the sunscreen is an important part of my life.
This is a no brainer…. Deep Fried Cheese Curds Road Trip. My daughter and I recently stumbled across one of those “Best Places For (fill in the blank)” lists for Wisconsin Cheese Curds (Deep fried, of course.). Having been long time cheese curd connoisseurs you can imagine our delight upon moving to Wisconsin to discover that Wisconsin deep fries everything (No, seriously… EVERYTHING) and Cheese Curds top the list of things they love to fry.
Anyway, $500 should cover the expenses for gas, Deep Fried Cheese Curds, Sunblock (we’ll eat outside to enjoy the four days of Summer allotted to Wisconsin) and whatever digestive correction products we’ll require.
Cheese Curds…. yummy.
I would love to go to Avery Island, Louisiana and tour the McIlhenny Company Tabasco Farm. Wouldn’t that be great and Hot! Plus is it family owned and operated.
I want to cross from from Nepal into Tibet—-maybe someday!
I am a native Californian who is mock-mocked by my friends for never having been to Yosemite, but I’ve always wanted to go!
I’d like to see the vampire bar Dusk to Dawn. one of my favorite Quentin Tarrantino movies!
I would like to take my Mother in Law to visit Lambeau Field and Door County this summer. My husband died a few weeks ago, and she is afraid she will go too without seeing the places she hasn’t gone. I am afraid I will go mad, I miss him like I miss oxygen underwater, so instead – driving Mom around Green Bay and the lighthouses of Door County seems a viable alternative. I don’t know if it will help, but I figured I would give it a shot.
I want to take my kids to see the Grand Tetons. Rocks named after boobs! What could be better?
You’re the BEST storyteller EVER. And vacation planner (suck it, Victor)!
I’d love to go to Savannah and do the ghost tours there, especially now that I know there are no vampire ghosts.
I would love to go to The Space Needle. I would like to spend some time in the Pacific Northwest and see the ocean. I miss the ocean so very much!
Hobbit Holes in New Zealand!!! And all of Hobbiton!! Although that involves me saving up a lot of money so that will have to wait. 🙂
More realistically’ish … Vancouver, B.C. to stalk “Sam” and “Dean” … Portland, OR to see the weirdness and visit an old friend … anywhere with beautiful mountains or forests or wildlife or awesomeness!
xo
My family did awesome three day road trips every summer to visit family. We drove from Tucson, AZ to Kalispell, MT. Now that I’m getting married and will have a new three year old stepson, I really want to do that trip again and start a new/old tradition with my new family,
My husband and I have always wanted to take a long road trip to The Coral Castle. It is located in League City, Florida, which a drive from Gulf Coast of Texas to the tip of Florida is an adventure in itself. It is an awesome castle made from coral by one man, he built it only at night. Here is the link, http://www.coralcastle.com
I want to see sequoias! I have yet to experience the west coast and what better way than with some big ass trees?
We’re a military family so we’ve done the cross country trek several times already. But we’re always rushing to beat the moving truck so we don’t stop to see anything cool. Unless you count the ER in Nashville, TN for stitches in the middle of the night when one of the kids fell out of bed and banged his head on a table. Or spending hours looking for your escaped cat in the woods of WV. And the 480 years it really does take to drive through TX. (Holy Hell, Texans, no wonder you never want to leave and think it the bestest place on Earth… it’s too damn difficult to get out!) We know approximately 3,745 families through the Marine Corps who live all over the country so I’d love to finally take our time, visit all our friends and have them take us to the best local attraction. Ending up in sunny San Diego for some fish tacos and retirement is the end goal. So yeah, I’m really gonna need some serious SPF there.
I want to take my daughter to Chicago to celebrate her high school graduation this month. Does the sunscreen work even if your face is constantly covered in tears?
I want a road trip to visit some Renaissance Faires. I would include Ringing Rocks Park in Upper Black Eddy PA. You bring a hammer and beat on rocks, one of the only places in world where something like 80 percent of the rocks ring like bells. And then find some caverns too. I would definitely wear sunscreen.
Hooray for road trips! I wanna take my great-niece up to Mt Rushmore & the Crazy Horse memorial, because we did the Grand Canyon last year & only a bunch of heads on mountains can top that;) Plus, my Irish skin will look good covered in Blue Lizard:)
Antelope Canyon! Had never heard of it, it looks awesome
I’d love to go to Oaxaca Mexico during day of the dead and sketch all the things.
I want to go to Poland and Amsterdam and Germany and all of the places that once were horrible to remind me and show my kids that evil cannot win. Plus, how will they know not to repeat it if they haven’t seen the horror with their own eyes? I also want to go over there to show them that people shouldn’t be treated less than because they aren’t the same as “us” – exactly what is going on in this great state of North Carolina. I have never been ashamed to say where I am from until recently. I want to show them what can happen and did happen. It is possible to happen again…and it seems it is already.
We are planning a Grand Canyon trip 2017…now must include a visit to the pistachio nut. but not the zombie hands. I can’t with zombies
A trip to Giethoorn, a village called the Venice of the Netherlands. About 7.5 km of canals run through the little village, no vehicles allowed. I would love to spend some time there, it is quiet and picturesque!
So cool! I’ve always wanted to road trip up the California coast and stop at all the missions. Yes, all of them.
I’d like to go to Maine, explore the coastal towns and have excellent seafood, then go inland and try some grizzly. Plus, the Maine trip would be a bonus because i’ve never seen an ocean, so i could see that too.
I’ve lived near most of the places you went on your trip, and it’s always fun to see it from an outsider’s perspective.
What an awesome trip! I want to go to Austin to see the largest bat colony, because I have an intense far off bats and birds and all thing swoop-y,and I think it will be good therapy!
A road trip up the east coast would be wondrous!
I want to go to Iran and see Persepolis. Definitely have pistachios there!
When I was a kid we went to this place called The House on the Rock somewhere in Wisconsin. I remember rooms and rooms of weird collections and oddities. I would love to drive back up there some day and see if it really is as crazy as I remember, or if it was just my childish view!
There is a statue of John Coltrane in…wait for it…High Point, NC. I’ve driven past it twice when I visited that city but I’ve never been able to stop there. I’d like to stop there and maybe shake the statue’s hand and thank the statue, on John’s behalf, for the song “Impressions”, which is the coolest jazz song I’ve ever played.
And there’s an international jazz and blues festival there in September. International, people!
The Bruce Peninsula in Ontario. There’s a groundhog day groundhog (Wiarton Willie) with a giant statue in his honour and then loads of shipwrecks off the coast. And rattlesnakes (which are exotic to us).
I want to road trip to South Dakota to see the Corn Palace. (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2215) My parents went to Sturgis and stopped there and the pictures were too cool. A huge building made of corn, with all these colorful designs. I heard there are also some random and wonderfully weird places to check out along the route there, so it’s be like the northern version of your road trip. (I stopped at a lot of the same places you did when I moved to LA from Ohio- I remember seeing all the Thing billboards and thinking we really should stop to check it out, but we just kept driving. I do want to know what the Thing is…)
I want to go to Alaska in the winter so I can go dog sledding, see the Aurora Borealis, and reenact scenes from the Golden Compass. (I’m pretty sure Hunter S. Tomcat is my dæmon.) Oh, and test my theory that I am pale enough to get magnetosphere burn. (Does Blue Lizard make anything for that?)
I tried this in Iceland 2 years ago, but utterly blew it. For starters, it was July…oops. So no Golden Compass opportunities, and no dogs, but we did get to ride the world’s tiniest horses. (Don’t call them Icelandic “ponies.” Those people will cut you.) I know I would have gotten a Midnight Sunburn when I went snorkeling in the 34 F water in the continental divide between North America and Eurasia, if I hadn’t been wearing a dry suit.
If the Northern Lights are “lit” but no one can see them because everything else is also light, do I still look disproportionately smug for someone wearing a human-shaped sleeping bag?
http://tinyurl.com/smug-lady
On a more sober note, we just lost our 18 y.o. orange tabby, Rufus, Monday. (Or, to be more precise, Rufus Fire, middle name, On. He had his own theme song.) Grieving is the freakin’ worst. That’s what led me here. I always see comments from people who just lost their cats. So, when I lost my cat, I knew I was supposed to come here. Thanks for giving me something sweet and silly to think about. Always. But especially today.
I grew up in Arizona and never made it to the Grand Canyon. It is bad form to just copy your trip?? (My husband has been begging to go to Antelope Canyon too, he’ll be so jealous!)
I’d love to go anywhere that has puffins! they are so darned cute!!! We visited Smokey the Bear park/museum 2 years ago, on the way to Roswell, NM. Sorry we missed the NM town w/ the tortilla w/ the image of the virgin Mary on it (if it hasn’t been eaten/destroyed).
OMG those pictures are glorious!!!
I can’t wait for my husband to read this article. This is the trip he’s been wanting to take
My coworker here says I should mention that I am allergic to the sun – I have PLE (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/polymorphous-light-eruption/basics/definition/con-20030452) so essentially the Sun acts like poison ivy unless I wear awesome sun block. I bet Blue Lizard would do the trick.
I’d like to take the train again from Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park to Melbourne in Australia. The tracks got kind of wonky in the heat so the trip took a long time or stopped altogether occasionally.
The weird and not-in-a-good-way part was the bathroom: I distinctly remember that the toilet and sink were all one large pedestal contraption. Depending on the lever you pushed, you were either standing at a sink to wash/brush or sitting/standing at a toilet. I was pretty horrified every time I had to go in there, which was often on what felt like a two-week long trip, but was only three days or so. They didn’t post signs about not drinking the water because what were you supposed to brush your teeth with anyway? My husband doesn’t remember this, but he’s a guy, right, and can not pee or wash/brush for years.
No goats, ostriches or penis rocks, but definitely kangaroos in the morning mist.
So I’d like to revisit that waking nightmare and the Blue Lizard sunscreen would be really handy because Australia. And in case I need to hop off the train when it stops, again, to find a bush under that impossibly strong sun.
Your trip looked like fun. I’m fairly sure you’d have enjoyed this one, too. Thanks for sponsoring the giveaway.
My friends and I want to take a road trip to go to the Whoopie Pie Festival because who doesn’t love whoopie……..and pie!
I want to see the Northern Lights, but I think they only come out at night so sun screen might be pointless but i also think that it’s ALWAYS night where they come out so maybe if BluLizzard had some kind of nighttime sunscreen or moonscreen it could work but then I’d have to find a cat-sitter which is turning out to be a drag and is why we never go anywhere but i LIKE being at my home better than anywhere else anyway so maybe all I need is an Airstream motor home so we could take the cats with us like in the book “Mickey Sees the U.S.A” but Mickey didn’t have any cats with him and I don’t think mice, dogs or ducks used sunscreen in 1944.
This summer I’m taking my kids to House on the Rock after they finish reading American Gods. But I want to go to the Florida Keys, because I want to see teeny tiny Key Deer, drive over that hugely long bridge that will probably make me pee my pants because bridges freak me out, and see Hemmingway’s 6-toed cats. I hear you can really use sunscreen in Florida.
I want to drive along the west coast, see the giant redwoods, Yosemite national park, Napa valley and continue into Oregon and Washington and any other national parks out that way.
For international travel I would live to get to Scotland, nothing like a man in a kilt…in my opinion.
I want to go to Alabama. Because it is the only state in the lower 48 that I’ve never been to. And I feel like that’s an oversight that I should correct.
I want to take my kids on a road trip to see their grandparents in the Idaho panhandle. Beautiful scenery!
Thanks for sharing your awesome trip! I want to go to Mt. Rainier or Mauna Loa to see volcanoes and the “Liquid hot magma. (Dr. Evil)
I want to drive along the west coast, see the giant redwoods, Yosemite national park, Napa valley and continue into Oregon and Washington and any other national parks out that way.
For international travel I would live to get to Scotland, nothing like a man in a kilt…in my opinion.
I really really want to visit pictured rocks in Michigan.
I want to go to Foster Falls in TN . . it’s a gorgeous waterfall with a lagoon. But I’m super, super white so I’d need sunscreen for the hike!
I agree that the Grand Canyon is a big hole in the ground. I also agree that’s it’s pretty, but yeah. 🙂
I’ve driven from the East Coast to the middle (Philadelphia to Minneapolis) and a big loop through eight states in the Southwest, and I’ve taken the train across the country and back, but someday I’d really like to drive across the country.
I would love to take a road trip like in The Great Typo Hunt, where I could combine my two favorite things: seeing new places and correcting people’s poor grammar and spelling.
Crater Lake in southern Oregon. Just because.
I have a young son and I feel that an all-American road trip to find ridiculous and interesting things would be a vital to his development as a human being.
Mars. I hear Olympus Mons is beautiful this time of year. BUT, since I guess you can’t drive to Mars, (thanks Reaganomics) I guess I’d do a Roller Derby US tour and see as many bouts as I could in as many states as I could. (It’s kind of my thing, ergo the blog: https://skatesandscars.com/)
I would like to take a road trip on Route 66 which sounds like a lot more fun than the usual road trip where we visit my in-laws.
In a perfect world, I would road trip to the Area 51 Alien Travel Center and Brothel in Nevada. So much mystery, so many questions…
Obviously to play to your sponsor AND be awesomely interesting at the same time, I would organize a road trip all around seeing different kinds of Lizards / reptiles! It would bring you to interesting places, AND be educational, AND require sunscreen AND perhaps my two year old would finally let me shampoo his hair without a fight. I’m not sure how the road trip would help with shampooing, but I’ll try anything at this point, including allowing a large reptile to apply shampoo to his head.
AND apparently reptiles are declining worldwide at an alarming rate: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3800809/ so this could help bring visibility to that awful situation. #winning
Must get out to Roswell, N.M. to see the UFO museum, and maybe get me some real alien DNA. Then mosey on over to Ruidoso, just because I like to say Ruidoso, and I understand that there is a collection of life-sized statues of wild horses running through the town. Extra special if I could climb up on one of the stallions and pretend I’m Shotgun Sally taking over the town. That would be my Christmas card pic for the next 50 years. Yup, that’s my fantasy trip, for sure.
This sounds like such a fun trip! My two kiddos are little right now, so I think a beach trip or a trip to Chattanooga (to ride the choo-choo and see the aquarium) would be more our speed, but I’m putting the Grand Canyon on the radar for a few years down the road.
JENNY!!!! I have it. I would love to visit Olney, Illinois. You know why? Because of Albino Squirrels. This city has an abnormal amount of albino squirrels. They even have the right of way. And if I go see the squirrels I can slather them in blue lizard sunscreen because I hear that albinos burn easily. Or if you go send a bunch of pictures so that I can live vicariously through you!
Three of the Top Ten Elevators in the World are in the USA, and they are perfectly situated for a cross-country road trip. Starting in the borough of Queens, NYC, there’s the famous Dragon Elevator in the Long Island City Business Center (head to the back of the lobby, follow signs to the freight elevator); 955 miles to the west/two-day drive is the Gateway Arch in St. Louis (MO), whose elevator is both esthetically and kinetically peculiar: it lurches (due to its being inside an arch) and is an artifact of what the space age used to look like c. 1951 — all white and modular. From St. Louis, take Route 66 for 1,350 miles to Flagstaff (AZ) — this being “The Mother Road”, you’ll probably want to make a few stops along the way, take in historic sights such as the world’s largest concrete totem pole in Foyil, Oklahoma. From Flagstaff, take a three-hour drive to Las Vegas and check in at the Luxor, a 30-story pyramid at the south end of the Strip whose “inclinators” travel diagonally, meaning that the ride consists of alternating sensations of upward and sideway movements. Fun!
Y’all, I want to go on a west coast cat cafe tour (see http://www.eater.com/maps/cat-cafes-from-coast-to-coast). One, I’d get to see a bunch of stuff in states I’ve only passed through (CA) or not visited, and two, CAT CAFES! If that’s not a reason to road trip, I don’t know what is. 🙂
Looks like you guys had a lot of…fun? Sunscreen is SO important and I wear it everyday – cancer is bad. I would love to go visit that city built entirely out of legos; Madurodam in Holland…..so weird and awesome.
My friend and I are currently planning a road trip from Nashville, TN to the Florida keys. We’ve been googling our little hearts our trying to find the weirdest things along the route that we can stop and visit. Including the UFO house in Pensacola. It’s a bit of a reroute but only tacked on an hour to our to the drive time. I’m definitely going to check out roadsideamerica.com. The ultimate goal of our trip is Hemingway’s Home so we can visit the 6 toed cats.
That trip looks amaze balls! Very educational about “things”, my 8 year old daughter would love to see all that strange stuff, we are an odd bunch ourselves!
My autistic daughter is fascinated by mummies. She also thinks going for long rides in the car is awesome (and it’s calming for her). So, I would like to take her on a long road trip to wherever the mummies are.
I want to see the Bay of Fundy. Walk on the ocean floor at low tide and see the giant ocean come crashing in at high tide. Magnificent.
I want to go to Roswell NM and see all the amazingly tacky alien shit!
I have a friend who lives in (comparatively) nearby Truth or Consequences (which was actually named after the TV show) whom I haven’t seen in years, and this would be a great excuse to visit as we are both Science Fiction fans. I would promise to wear light-up deely-bopper-antennae the entire trip (except for in the car, as they would mess up the rental car ceiling. And they would probably chafe while sleeping, so maybe I haven’t thought this through sufficiently, but I would make a valiant effort to do so wherever people could see us.)
There is also a really sad 60s vintage Spaceport America near TorC that would make for a good visit. And a dam named after an elephant butt! (OK, they spell it “Butte” but I suspect that’s just fancy talk to impress the tourists). And hot springs that are supposed to have “ancient healing properties” but I think they are probably radioactive or something. (then maybe we wouldn’t need the deely-boppers)
back in summer of 1995 I was getting over a breakup and just got on the road and started driving. I lived in Lakeland, Florida at the time and just started driving. I was on I-75 but then decided to go up I-95, still I didn’t have a destination in mind but thought the further I got away from the woman I was trying to forget the better off I’d be. It started to get dark and I needed to find a hotel (long before cell phones and hotel apps on phones and google maps) so I stopped at an exit. They said they had no vacancies and there was a horse show and I’d probably need to go a few more miles down the interstate to find a hotel. I ended up finding one further down and just wanted to sleep. The next morning I started to look at the brochures in the hotel room and one of the area’s biggest attractions was the Biltmore Estate. I kept looking and said hmmm, I need to check this out. For those of you that don’t know the Biltmore estate is the largest privately owned house in the United States, it was constructed between 1889-1895 and is amazing. The grounds are amazing. Originally it had 125,000 acres around the house back when it was constructed, today it still has 8,000 acres. It has a wonderful winery, two Inns and many outdoor activities. I ended up going there many, many times after I stumbled upon it in 1995. In 2009 I saw Rick Springfield in concert there on the back lawn and was in the front row. In 2013 my wife and I got married there in the champagne cellar and have beautiful wedding pictures (I’d attach some if I could) and this year I’m going back in August for another Rick Springfield concert with Night Ranger and the Romantics. My road trip in 1995 has led me to a life long enjoyment of the Biltmore estate. In August is my next road trip up there.
I want to take my daughter to see water shoot into the air like it just don’t care (aka Yellowstone Park). She’s almost 16 and will be going to college soon. I am hoping to show her how fun seeing our country is by driving through it, all the while protected by awesome Lizard sunscreen because we are very, very fair skinned people.
I have always wanted to take my kids to a dude ranch… mostly so I can call them dude and flash a peace sign and they will be legally required (I think) to not roll their eyes or call me lame
I have always wanted to go see/experience the Narcisse Snake Pits, North of the town Narcisse, Manitoba, CANADA. I love snakes and there in spring the Garter Snakes, very gentle snakes, come out of their den in droves!! I would love to be able to sit on a rock near by and have hundreds of snakes slither all over me and see them up close. They do this really cool thing of rolling into balls of snakes for mating. I think Father’s day is a bit confusing at their house, LMAO! I also lust over your taxidermic Raccoon, he is so awesome!
Ostriches are the assholes of the bird world, which says something, because geese are part of that same bird world. Glad you had a good time! I’d go see the Northern LIghts.
I’d love to go to Ireland! Sorry, Blue Lizard, that destination doesn’t provide a need for sunscreen very often. That’s exactly the reason why I want to go there, because I have a mid-life onset of Vampirism. I am not yet at the drinking blood for sustenance stage, but I do break out in hives when I’m out in the sun for 30+ minutes. So, yay, Blue Lizard Sunscreen! Choose me, and I’ll be your extreme-cases test subject! Screw Ireland! Slather me up and send to me Acapulco!
There is a defunct Wizard of Oz theme park in North Carolina that I want to see. Clearly this calls for a road trip!
I would love to take my boys on a road trip! I have often thought about taking my boys to the cities that I grew up in (Raleigh and Cincinnati) to give them a frame of reference for why Mom acts weird sometimes.
Wow, I would love to load up the family and take everyone to Gettysburg. I was able to take a guided tour there forever ago and everyone was fascinated by the knowledge I brought back.
I have wanted to go to New Zealand for the last three decades, but I hate flying. Maybe I can get to NZ by boat?
Oh oh oh! That statue of a torture victim, from 18th century Italy? Was it made of wax? It might have actually been an anatomical wax figure made for medical students to learn from!!! I am studying these right now and writing a conference paper on them! They made FULL ON NUDE LADIES called “anatomical venuses” that are all pretty and they used real human hair but then you can OPEN UP THE TORSO and take out all the organs! And they also made diseased and deformed and injured body parts, faces with all sorts of deformities, and even models of genitalia showing the effects of various sexually transmitted diseases!!! So I don’t know for certain, but that guy you saw might actually have been an educational tool!
This is a vague travel request, because I’m already getting to go to the MORBID ANATOMY MUSEUM in New York City this weekend, but I would love to go to London, because my main area of study is Victorian literature, and I could do SOOOOO MUCH there!
Oh, and if any of you haven’t been to the Abita Mystery House in Abita Springs, LA outside of New Orleans, do yourself a favor. Seriously, it’s like it was designed specifically with this tribe in mind.
Our next door neighbors are related to the owner and they are always offering us a “VIP tour.” (Super intrigued by what that must entail, but my social anxiety keeps stopping me from accepting.)
Jenny, let me know if you want in on this next time you’re in the area. (The VIP tour, not the social anxiety. As I understand it, you’re full up.) It’s the least I can do. A little gesture for all the times you read your books to me over my headphones when I needed help falling asleep.
This summer I’m pregnant which makes road trips slightly more difficult but I would love to take a trip to someplace with a beach. California maybe!
Is like to see some of the rocks and whatnot that my friend keeps teasing us with pics of from Colorado. Which is BIGTIME because I kinda hate the outdoors. According to Hubs, my favorite thing to do outside is go inside.
I want to take our boys camping and hiking all through Yellowstone or Glacier National Park. We live fairly close and have never gone. Hopefully we’ll make it this Summer!
Hmm interesting trips….. if had time or $$$$ I would like to take a train trip across the country. Just too what you can see.
Colleen Lucas
We are totes going to Kentucky Stonehenge in a few weeks. Actually, we’re going to Mammoth Cave to wander around in the dark with lanterns but when I found out that Kentucky Stonehenge was a thing I very nearly cancelled the whole cave schmave nonsense thing and started planning the massive side trip(s.) Plus we’re going to a place called Kentucky Down Under where I guess we get to feed kangaroos with our mouths?! I don’t need no stinking cave, y’all! I do, however, need some crazy KY side trips. My husband swears the cave is haunted so I guess I’m in..
I would go to San Francisco and visit both the zoo and the Steinhart Aquarium. While there, I would try to convince the animals that freedom isn’t everything and that they should be happy in prison, while secretly plotting with the bears on hiw to get the penguins past security. Those darn penguins can really turn a smooth operation into a total cluster.
I’d have to agree that driving from the middle of TX through to the “west” is at LEAST 480 days. Excellent idea flying to El Paso first. Anyway, I too am looking at going to the Grand Canyon again and that Antelope Canyon looked mighty cool too. Thanks for sharing!
The Gilroy (CA) Garlic Festival. Yes, that’s a real thing (http://gilroygarlicfestival.com/).
I want to go to this museum in Florida dedicated to the man who invented air conditioning. Because thank you, dude. You shoudl truly have your own holiday. http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/237
I want an ultimate Rock and Roll road trip!!! I need to see Graceland before I die! I love Elvis so much but have yet to get there, and then I would go to New Orleans because BEIGNETS.
Ooooooh this is perfect!! I’ve always wanted to go to the New England Carousel Museum in CT. It may seem silly but seriously go have a look at all those insane horse faces and tell me it doesn’t seem like some kind of crazy PETA ‘don’t be cruel to animals’ campaign. The horses with the crazy eyes and the lolling tongues. That is the stuff that childhood memories are made of people, at least if you’re parenting right I think, or something like that!
I love road trips but I want to take a long train trip where I can get off the train and visit interesting town and then get back on the train to head to another town. I’d do a road trip but you can’t see much when you are driving. I don’t have a Victor and my cat refuses to drive.
I want to go to Prince Edward Island for the seafood, red sand beaches, lighthouses and of course Anne of Green Gables.
I use an online free app called RoadTrippers. You can plan a road trip and search for things along the way with categories like: Offbeat Attractions, Abandoned, Spooky Places, as well as more normal categories. My family thinks I’m nuts but I LOVE the offbeat attractions! Ohio is on my road trip list and a few of the offbeat attractions I’d like to see are the Hardman Rock Gardens (self-taught artists construct fascinating worlds out of concrete, metal, stone, and whatever else they can find.) “Cornhenge (consists of 109 concrete ears of corn positioned in rows and standing upright in a grassy field.),and Frankenstein’s Castle (haunted).
Well shit. Now I just have to go see the big veiny hands, not to mention find out what THE THING is. Now you’ve COMPLETELY ruined my life. Thanks a TON Blue Lizard. Thanks a ton.
I’d love to go to NoLa and see the cemeteries and then drive up to Georgia and nose around. A lot of books I’ve loved over the years take place in those two areas and it would be fascinating to see them in person.
Washington DC is over run with black squirrels, so you should totally do both places in one trip because symbolism or something.
I’d like to go to Colonial Williamsburg…for the wigs. The sweet, sweet wiggage.
I would go on a road trip with my kids through New England in fall. I have always wanted to see this part of the US.
Kind of boring, but I would just go to Brown County, Indiana and stay in one of the awesome log cabins that are available to rent. I used to do that with family members when I was younger.
Definitely Meteor Crater. It’s a huge f-you to the cosmos that whatever they throw at Earth, the cockroaches, scorpions and rattlesnakes will still be here.
We’re on a pretty awesome road trip right now, but we haven’t gotten sunscreen yet, so the discount will come in handy. So would a gift card, because we’re only a third of the way through our year-long attempt to visit a church and a bar (and, if possible, a movie theater) in all 50 states. We’re driving a 2006 minivan, so anything could happen.
I want to see Carhenge in Nebraska. Like Stonehenge but with cars. Really.
Trippin thru the Grand Tetons because, duh, how fun is that to say?!?!?
Teton, Teee-tons, Te-tonnnnns…teton, teton, teton
Try it. Say it to someone. First they look at you like you said something a little naughty. Then you tell them it’s a national park in Wyoming and impress the hell out of them and get to feel all superior for the rest of the day.
I want to go see the Largest Ball of Twine!
I like the kind of road trip where someone else drives and I play on my phone and DJ the radio the whole time. And at the end we get out and there’s a beach to lay on a lot. I’m thinking that’s not so much a “road trip”. But we would definitely need lots of sunscreen! Does that count?
You took a trip through my home state and where I am currently calling home and saw all the cool things! Except I didn’t see Carlsbad Caverns or aliens on your agenda. Slacker.
Personally I want to do a road trip to the Clown Motel in Tonopah, NV. It’s creepy as shit AND has a view of a graveyard. What could possibly go wrong?! My daughter absolutely refuses to go with me, and it’s totally a place that you have to have someone with you to truly experience and share all the wonder that awaits. Plus someone to scare the shit out of by popping out of the bathroom first thing in the morning dressed as Pennywise. https://roadtrippers.com/stories/americas-scariest-motel-haunted-by-hundreds-of-clowns?lat=40.80972&lng=-96.67528&z=5
I want to take a trip to Louisiana and tour plantations.
I’ve lived in Arizona 21 years & still haven’t gotten to see the Grand Canyon. LOL, you go Girl! 🙂
one of my dream trips, would be to see Yosemite national park & the giant redwoods & giant sequoias, then traveling up into Banff national park. if I could, I would time it to see the aurora borealis. I have no qualms about seeing every quirky thing in between. in fact, quirly would make a great name for a rock band. hey look! a squirrel!
I’d love to see Stonehenge, but that probably isn’t in the cards at the minute. Probably something more attainable at the minute would be Key West. Thanks for the opportunity!
I kinda want to go to the seedy underbelly and weird sites in Los Angeles… Because hey, Mammoth Chunks. http://www.welikela.com/off-beat-weird-attractions-los-angeles/
I would love to go see my sister in Salt Lake City! I may scare the Mormons, but it would be worth it.
I want to go and give birth in the world’s largest hand dug well in Greensburg Kansas. Then, emerge, victorious, babe in arms, from” the world’s largest hand dug womb” as my family and I will forever think of it. Thanks for the freak show road trip post!
cihloff@yahoo.com
I want to go someplace majestic! I don’t even know where! Indiana is so FLAT. Some place with waterfalls. A majestic, waterfall-y type place.
I really really want to go see that hotel that inspired Stephen King’s The Shining…even if there are no ghostly sightings imagine the fun you could have doing Jack Nicholson impressions! REDRUM…
I personally don’t care where I go, as long as it involves a trip to THE THING. I must admit, I am extremely jealous that you got to go. I grew up in AZ and we would pass signs for THE THING on the road, and all four of us kids would beg to stop and see THE THING. We tried to use well-modulated, non-whiny tones and would carefully formulate an argument as to why we should stop and see THE THING. Because I was the oldest, wisest (and least whiny child), I naturally was the spokesman for the four of us. We finally caught on that when a parent responds with “we’ll see” to one of our requests (fireworks displays, county fairs, state fairs, THE THING, etc) it usually means “no fucking way will we be going, but if I say no outright the (non-whiny) begging and pleading will continue and I am pretty sure that a ‘we’ll see’ will make you shut your pie holes for at least another 400 miles”. (Thank you for listening to what has turned out to be a therapy session.) P.S. The fact that you took your daughter to see THE THING means that you are doing parenting right. And also taking her to RenFest and letting her do all that cool shit with unicorns and dueling. I’m sure YOU won’t ever say “we’ll see”. xo
That sounds like a great trip! I would love to visit Kansas City to continue my tour of every Major League Baseball park in America.
I have always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. Your trip looks amazing!
would love to go see Glacier National park in Montana. and Washington has a full size replica of Stonehenge that is totally cool:)
I guess it’s silly, but I’d love to go stand with my feet in two different time zones. Or go to Senoia, GA and stalk, I mean “maybe see” the cast of The Walking Dead. But I’d have more luck trying to stand in 2 different time zones, I think.
I always wanted to visit the South Pole, the exact South Pole and that way I could stand in all the time zones at the same time. I’d Be A TIME LORD! Tokyo? Yeah, I’m in your time. New York? Yeah, I’m in your time too! Honolulu? You bet, I’m in your time, at the exact same time! All 24 hours at once. It would be so cool, freezing your ass off and “isn’t this the greatest thing in the world” cool at the same time.
I’ve always wanted to go to Vienna. No particular reason.
Howdy, also from Texas here. Hmmm, a road trip. My fiancé and I were initially going to get married at Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs Arkansas but had to bring the wedding back to Huntsville (the Texas one, not the cool, mountainous, lots of engineers and math nerds Alabama one) because of family who couldn’t travel due to changing jobs and not being able to access vacay time for 6 months. So I’d kind of like to take him to the chapel anyway at some point in the future because it looks truly beautiful from the pics and why wouldn’t it? Would a tourist attraction ever put up ugly pics of itself? Doubtful.
Also, I’d like to take my 4-year-old son to ride the train that runs between Rusk and Palestine, TX, the Texas State Railroad. A bonus for this trip is that I think they do have bandits who board the train at some point to rob everyone AND there are wine and dine trips available too so there’s booze somewhere on the train to be found.
Lastly (maybe), I drove through Roundtop, Texas recently and it was a cute, funky collection of antique stores and buildings. After getting home, I looked it up and they hold big antique festivals. Plus, I saw an old Chief Big Mac Climber from a McDonalds play place sitting in a field, faded and sacreligiously rusting. For all of us early millenials and older, this was the hamburger on top of a column with bars. You would enter the column through a hole, climb steel rungs up to another hole and then climb around or sit around inside the bars of the hamburger. It was my favorite of the play place equipment. Not gonna lie, if they don’t want too much money for it, I’d totally buy it, try to restore it, and put it in the back yard. Plus, it’ll be good motivation to try to lose weight so that I can once again squeeze myself into the structure just like old times (I would absolutely try and would probably have to be cut from the structure when I inevitably became stuck).
I want to see the potato museum in Idaho. Because random museums are my spirit animal. Potatoes are my spirit vegetable (is that a thing? I’m making it a thing.)
I really want to take a trip through the New England states in the fall. The only downfall is that people rave about the seafood, and I do not eat seafood….of any kind. (I will eat fish). I just kinda feel like I wouldn’t be getting the full experience, you know?
I want to go to Cat Island in Japan! 100 humans live there and are vastly outnumbered by cats. There is a cat shrine, and cat shaped cabins for tourists to stay in!
My husband really wants to drive and camp along the whole coast of California. I agreed because there is wine there. Plus, ocean which we don’t have in Minnesota.
Text exchange with my kid who is on a road trip across the country. (from last year)
Me: Let us know where you’re at when you get stopped for the night.
Jake: I’m driving in a barren landscape of grass and the occasional grove of trees. There is no indication of any civilization here. Coming to Nebraska was a very boring decision.
Me: Nebraska has the Kool-Aid museum. Lucky you.
Jake: That’s so stupid I might actually go to that.
Me: Same city. Hastings. You can go see the grave of Andy the Footless Goose. He used to wear shoes.
Jake: Is Nebraska even real?
Me: If you go through Omaha, there are several Diner’s Drive Ins and Dives restaurants you can try. You can also visit the 15 foot tall fork with pasta and a bronze statue of Chef Boyardee.
Jake: Please stop. I can’t handle this.
Me: So much awesomeness. I’ll leave you alone with it all. Love you.
P.S. He went to the Kool-Aid museum. We have pictures. He pushed a button on the wall next to the Kool-Aid man display and almost had to change his shorts after the speakers screamed out, “Oh YEAH!” Totally worth the price of admission.
P.P.S. I want a picture of Andy, The Footless Goose.
P.P.P.S. I found out Andy was ultimately murdered by a deranged fan/stalker/serial goose killer. I’ll bet his ghost haunts his memorial. We should go check.
THAT is my dream trip. Bucket list is small. Arizona, Utah, New Mexico trip in a really nice bus/ Winnebago thingy would be awesome!
Try the Tabasco Ice Cream while you’re there. It’s actually delicious. Plus, while you’re on the island, you can visit Jungle Gardens. One of the McIlhenny kids fancied himself a botanist and made this huge nature preserve. It’s got a snowy egret preserve that is amazing during mating season.
It also features an enormous 900 year old Buddha statue, which is enjoyable if you can get past the cringe-inducing explanations you’ll come up with to explain just what the hell a religious artifact from China, circa 1100 CE (or 887 Before Kirk Cameron Went Crazy), has been doing on Avery Island since the 1930s.
I’m planning on going to Rise in Nevada. It’s a lantern release where you can write your fears/anxieties/wishes on a lantern and send it away into the night. It’s beautiful! Like that scene in Tangled!
I have a lot of anxiety (I carry my Xanax with me just in case!) so this is perfect for me! But also terrifying. Out in the desert, in the middle of nowhere with thousands of strangers and the hospital is 20 minutes away. Lots of triggers for me. But I want to face my fears! I want to be strong! I can do this!
I want to see the world’s largest ball of string and judge myself, because being judgy is where its at. So far the world can’t decide and they have split this pie down to the last fiber – world’s largest ball of twine, world’s largest ball of sisal twine, world’s largest ball of string, world’s largest ball of nylon string and more, And Kansas, Mo, Minnesota, WI, all claim the title. And speaking of pies, I’ve already done this one – it’s fantastic. World’s largest cherry pie.
I saw this on Thrillist last year, and had it bookmarked ever since. When I retire, I’m getting an RV and making an epic road trip!!!
https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/weird-roadside-attractions-strangest-road-trip-sights
I’m yearning for a trip to Lily Dale in New York, a town packed with mediums and spiritualists who talk to folks on the other side. I miss my people from the other side, and I want to know what they’re up to. Plus, hanging with spiritualists is like a trip on a party bus, yo.
I want to see the Redwood Forest! Maybe we could start a story…Redwood Forest… Blue Lizard Sunscreen…seems there is a theme here…
I would like to visit the largest ball of twine in Kansas. Why? I have no idea.
I am so boring, but I want to see Niagara Falls!
This trip sounds amazing- I love finding odd things on trips. We haven’t taken one that was ‘let’s find something weird on the way’ since I was a teenager, which is how we discovered ‘Gator Land’ (it’s a giant Alligator head filled with alligators. It’s amazing.) , and now my little sister is graduating high school. Time flies. I know if we could take another trip we’d head for Florida Caverns State Park, where there are caves! And bats! And a cool Spring! and on the way hopefully we’d hit St. Augustine, since I have lived in florida my whole life and I still haven’t been there. I want ghost tours. And lots of weird animals. Another stop at Gatorland maybe?
My family and I are immigrants from Japan. (Which is amusing because I am actually American). Anyway, second year of living in America, my 10 year old son has fallen in love with American Civil War History. I find it funny because he lived in a country famous for history that is older than America’s history as a country. He doesn’t ‘t care about the Japanese feudal castles in his hometown or traveling to a ninja amusement park BUT take him to a Civil War battle site and he is furiously happy! We currently live near the Missouri and Arkansas border so he has gotten to see some amazing sites, like the Battle of Carthage, but he wants to travel and see some other sites further away like Gettysburg and such. I think it would be an amazing road trip to take him to other battle sites in the eastern states.
Outer Banks in North Carolina and Napa Valley are 2 places I’d love to visit. Oh, and New England in the fall. Hopefully at least one of those happens this year!
Last month we drove past Meteor Crater AZ on our way back to Chicago from Vegas. Long trip? Yes. Blew up car enroute? Yes. Met strange and particularly threatening folks enroute? DUH. Eventually got back home? YEP. Sunscreen? …NOPE. And now my doctor is mumbling something about skin cancer, not being a kid, giving up my Lucky Charms and cartoons habit… He’s an asshole. I need a new doctor.
I would love to go back to Mackinaw Island, Michigan because I’ve only been there once and it was ruined because a: I was with my mom who has ADD and she had already been there so she just dragged us around past all of the things she had already seen and b: I got my period and couldn’t go horseback riding because I had no tampons. (Truth.)
New Orleans or Savannah Georgia, so many ghost tours!
I want to visit Yellowstone before the supervolcano erupts and takes the world with it!
We’ve had to keep postponing thiis trip due to money and unexpected life events, but we plan to visit the redwoods and then travel upon the coast to see tide pools. We’d love it, and think our kids will, too!
Iceland! because knitting! and sheep! Northern Lights! Hot springs! cats! If I go in winter I might not even need sunscreen? Maybe a tinfoil hat for the northern lights though.
Would love for our family to drive out to House on the Rock. (We’ve been before, but that was long enough ago that our memories feel like they may actually be half-remembered fever dreams – or perhaps hallucinations).
For folks who haven’t visited House on the Rock, it is a testament to how spite, obsession, and possibly a hint of insanity, can combine to create something breathtaking and beautiful. The story is that Alex Jordan, Jr. was an aspiring architect in Wisconsin, and one day drove out to Taliesin to show one of his designs to Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright was dismissive, and Jordan immediately resolved to build his own house, close enough to Taliesin that Wright would see it and have to acknowledge Jordan’s genius.
The original house, on top of a nearby bluff, was distinctive enough that people kept showing up to look around. Eventually, the reclusive Jordan started to charge admission to keep people away.
But they kept coming.
Which gave Jordan the money to indulge his compulsion for collecting, and the original House grew to keep pace with the collections, eventually becoming a sprawling complex of loosely-connected buildings, throughout the property.
Mechanical orchestras feature prominently throughout the compound, but there are also collections of vintage Americana, model planes, and a multi-story diorama of two sea monsters locked in combat (no, really).
I think it’s been too long since our family was completely besieged by that kind of wonderful craziness.
I want to take my son on a roadtrip down Route 66. The original one. And end up in California to swim in the ocean..as long as it’s not too cold. I’m from Texas. Swimming water needs to be at least 80 degrees to swim in otherwise hypothermia sets in. Not good.
Sorry my state is so weird and holy. Wait… hole-y? Cuz it’s sure as hell not the other (pun totally intended).
I’ve always wanted to go to England and see Stonehenge or some crazy weird crop circles (created by aliens or farmers in overalls with big push rooms… I’m not picky) but I’ve also wanted to burrow cozily in Georgio Tsoukalos’ hair fort. I’d be happy with either! You think a bribe of $500 would get me the latter?! 😀
Iceland! because knitting! and sheep, lots of wool, strange food, cats, hot springs and the Northern Lights. If I go in January I probably wouldn’t even need sunscreen? Maybe a tinfoil hat though, for the Northern Lights
My husband I want to road trip down US Route 1 by motorcycle. From the top in Maine to the bottom in Florida. You know there is a TON of weird shit to see and do along that route!
I am likely driving across the country (or at least half of it) with my mother at some point this summer. My one goal is to make it to Wall Drug in South Dakota. But I am sure there are all kinds of interesting places to stop in the middle of nowhere while headed from New England to the Pacific Northwest.
I want to see where the Mississippi River originates, which shows I listen to the Indigo Girls too much. (“Now the Mississippi’s might, but it starts in Minnesota at a place that you could walk across with five steps down.”)
Looks like a supremely awesome trip. I want to see it all, except maybe the bullet hole-pocked road sign. That was frightening – you’re lucky to be alive. Blue Lizard – Take me to see the Corn Palace. Always a crowd pleaser and a must see on any trip out west.
I missed seeing the tenement museum in NYC in the eight (!) years my son lived there and I visited occasionally. Want to go see it.
My girlfriend and I are doing a THIRTY EIGHT HOUR road trip within a 9 day span this summer because obviously if you can survive 38 hours in a car together you can survive anything right? We are driving from DC to Toronto to Niagara Falls to ATLANTA (killer long part) and then back to DC to die in bed until I run out of sick days vacationing from our vacation. We have a few things planned but are mostly looking forward to the roadside THINGS that catch our attention and make us loose hours upon hours looking at things we never knew existed and will never see again and will make most people question what we are doing with our lives. Loosely planned road trips are the best!
Rabbit Island.
I probably don’t need to say more than that, but in Japan? The island of Ōkunoshima is bristling with “feral” rabbits that are so tame they will literally mob you with adorableness if they think you have food. There are numerous videos of this and I have a mighty need.
We would like to take a trip to Boca Raton, FL where my angel son Austin has a turtle adopted in his memory at Gumbo Limbo Rescue Center. Plus, his father, aunt and uncle live there and it would be wonderful to be able to visit. His 6 month passing is this Sunday 05/22..
I’ve seen The Thing!! I was on a road trip from AZ to KS with my mom and grandma. The Thing was only $.75 then, and they wouldn’t even cough up that much to see it. Philistines! Anyway, The Thing was okay, but the rest of the stuff was way weirder, and therefore cooler.
As far as places to visit, I’d like to take my mom to San Francisco. It’s on her bucket list, along with Japan, but neither of us can afford Japan.
I desperately want to go to Iceland. They have both glaciers and volcanos!
I get the chance to go see my son & family in Hawaii and we want to go to the World’s Largest Plant Maze in Wahiawa, then the Kaumana Lava Tubes in Hilo and the ultimate stairmaster, Koko Crater Trail – straight up old rail ties. We love the adventures! Since we are so fair complected, we would DEFINITELY use the Blue LIzard Australian Sunscreen!
I want to take my kids to Washington DC.
I’d love to road trip to Nova Scotia! So fun. Your post is hilarious!
My husband and I live in Utah and recently took a 24 hour trip to see a bunch of Utah ghost towns. It was incredible, and we’re dying to hit up the other end of Utah for all the ghost towns we missed! I’d also like to gift my husband with a trip to Vernal, as he’s a huge dinosaur buff and we still haven’t been somehow. Road Trip!
I want to go to Keeper Hill, the highest point in County Tipperary, Ireland and then to the Mull of Galloway, Scotland.
John Gorrie is my new personal hero. Thank you
One state away, there is an old abandoned Wizard of Oz theme park (creepy and weird, as abandoned theme parks have to be), and they’re opening it back up just to do tours and for people to take photos (the rides are not…operational, probably, or at least not safe, so they’re not going to let people on those. I don’t think.). It would be an excellent weekend roadtrip!
Obviously, I want to go to the town advertising cheese, hip hop and spiritual advice!
My current favorite thing to do when I go to a new city is find the weirdest possible museum to visit. In Reykjavik, Iceland, I went to the Iceland Phallological Museum. (Yes. Penises. Lots of penises.) In Zagreb, Croatia, I sought out the Museum of Broken Dreams, which features items (and their corresponding stories) that people have associated with breakups. Next month when I go to Florence, Italy, I’m deciding between La Specola, which has an impressive collection of anatomically correct wax figures with their guts spilling out and the like, or the Galileo Museum, in which there is a glass jar containing Galileo’s actual severed finger. Decisions, decisions.
I want to go to Dog Mountain. It’s a mountain in Vermont founded by the artist Stephen Huneck, where dogs can run around free and there’s art to see and there’s also a dog chapel especially for people to reflect on dogs who have passed on. It’s beautiful but I’ve never been there and I want to go and bring my dog Harpo and remember my dog Darwin. Here are some pictures http://www.dogmt.com/Dog-Mountain-Images.html.
I’m a humor writer. (Yes, I was at Erma this year with you!) My bucket list includes a cross-country train trip alone … for no other reason than to get on the train, sleep in one of those cool sleeper cars, and write about the experience all the way across the USA and back. I’ve been talking about this since before 2009. Amtrak recently came out with a program for writers to do just this, but I was NOT chosen for the program. I was crushed.
The book of humor essays will be called TRAIN OF THOUGHT, and I’ve already got the cover for the book. I just have to take the trip! SOMEDAY before I die…
Oh, I would definitely need the sunscreen for the observation car with all that sunshine. I burn like leftover pizza in a badly wired toaster oven.
For all you folks planning trips to New Orleans, I highly recommend the UCM Museum (“You see ’em”) in Abita Springs.
I would love to do a New Mexico road trip (pretty easy, since I live in Arizona – aka “home of the really big holes”). But unlike all the people I know who are like “ooh, New Mexico road trip! Let’s go to Santa Fe for art and culture and stuff,” mine would be less culture and more pop culture. I want to go to Albuquerque and drive around and look for all the places from Breaking Bad (I loved that show so very, very much).. I want to go to the Very Large Array, because I am a sci fi geek and it’s been in a bunch of my favorite movies (2010, anyone?). And I want to go to Truth or Consequences because (a) who doesn’t love a town that renamed itself after a quiz show; and (b) Doctor Who.
I would like to move to Vancouver from Ottawa because I have a degenerative nerve condition from dialysis (peripheral neuropathy) so I can’t walk very well. Walking on snow and ice is out of the question as I lose balance and fall before I realize it is happening. Vancouver is mostly snow/ice free so i can get out and exercise the little bit that is possible. Also my Mum lives in Vancouver and I haven’t seen her for years. The prepaid card would be of great help in getting across the continent.
My email is paulccurran@hotmail.com
Thank you so very much for your consideration.
IKEA. I want to go to IKEA. There isn’t one for over 300 miles where I live, and it’s unfair, and I want to go visit IKEA. For like, days on end. I’d bring a small U-Haul with me (obvs), and spend time in the cafe eating famous IKEA meatballs & other cheap yet delicious goodies that I’m always reading about on Pinterest and every web post about IKEA hacks. Then I would spend days in various areas of the store. Starting with the bedroom section. I’ll try out every room, bring some reading material, maybe my tablet so I can watch a few movies once I move to the living room area & start sampling couches. When I get to the kitchen area, obviously I would bring a friend or two to sit down over a cuppa with me so that I could properly figure out which tables/chairs/placemats/silverware that I most prefer.
Basically, I want to take a vacation TO and INSIDE an IKEA. Because I’m a cool DIY’er, and I also love the challenge of putting together cheap furniture with unintelligible directions. Really and truly, it sounds like a dream. Please, Blue Lizard, send me to the make-it-yourself funland that is IKEA!
(Also…since you may be thinking, “but wait, this girl could never use our sunscreen in the great land that is IKEA, bc it is an indoors facility…let me assure you: my medical condition requires me to stay out of the sun, lest I burn (which I do, easily), so I would HAVE to use your sunscreen just to get from the door or my car to the door of the IKEA building. Unless parking is underground. In which case, you should send me to an IKEA where parking is out in the elements…or give your fantastic prize money to someone else altogether.)
Jenny, great post; great vacation. I hope to one day (mostly) follow in your steps & visit a place or two on your list!
My partner-in-crime and I were just talking about how long it’s been since we’ve taken a vacation that did not involved going back home to visit family (6 years, btw). Family is awesome, but not as awesome as occasionally going somewhere that is not your childhood bedroom. So this summer we’re going to go down to the Florida Keys. It will be nice to see Hemingway’s cats and the street performers, but the highlight is going to be the Dry Tortugas. It’s a giant 19th-century fort that was obsolete before they even finished it, so it became a prison and is now a national park. You have to take a ferry or a sea plane to get there, but you can camp and snorkel, AND Dr. Samuel Mudd–the most controversial Lincoln conspirator–was imprisoned there. It is really the whole package.
I want to go to Alaska and go king salmon fishing and halibut fishing. Because I think it’d be awesome to catch a fish that weighs more than me. Also, I want to stay at Sarah Palin’s house. But only by invitation because I think that anything other than that would be considered rude, or stalking? Maybe both of those are true? Anyway, that’s mine.
P.S. How do I give you my email without it being made public on the post? Well, I am a subscriber to your blog so maybe you already have that information? Who knows? $500 won’t pay for my trip anyhow and there are better comments than this, so… What-the-fuck-ever, no biggie, unless your talking about the big dick rock? And now, that’s a biggie.
More than anything my little Whovian and I want to visit Cardiff and London to visit sites from the show! And listen to dreamy British accents. And possibly stalk Matt (she loves 11) and David (but of course 10 is much better…) but in a subtle way so we don’t get deported. But if we did we would tell you all about it!!
That’s totally an AWESOME idea. I might have to taxidermy them into Ying and Yang.
I love road trips with a combo of mainstream attractions and weirdo attractions! I’d like to do a trip through New England before we move away from the east coast this winter. Although I suspect that New England will not have nearly as many weirdo attractions as the southwest. The east coast is so deprived…
P.S. I would be driving across the continent through the US so I can see some bloggers on the way. paulccurran@hotmail.com
I have been jonesing to go see the oldest living things in our country, so I think I’d like to start with a trip to Northern California to see some old-ass trees! 🙂
I want to road trip to visit my parents and use the money to stay at a hotel so we can actually enjoy the visit and not have to lose one of my children in a pile of random crap my parents have picked up at garage sales. I like to live dangerously and all, just not risk tetanus.
The giant mosquito in Komarno, Manitoba, obviously. “The mosquito capital of Manitoba!” Added benefit of West Nile risk factor (and frost bite, depending on the month).
What a crazy adventure. So happy you finally got to see a giant nut. We would
like to go check out the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. We’ve been reading Little House on the Prairie and my kids are fascinated with all things pioneer. .
I have always wanted to take a road trip to visit all of America’s famous ghost towns and foot-long corndog vendors. How those two things relate, I have no idea. But the ambition hasn’t changed since I was little, so it must be a good one.
If you ever want to road trip in Canada, you should come to Sudbury, Ontario. We have The Big Nickel – a giant nickel you can visit. And lots of lakes which are octopus-free.
For me, I want to take a trip to the Mystery Spot I’ve seen signs for in Michigan. My friends and I have passed it several times on our way to & from Gen Con but it’s right in the middle of our 14 hour drive so we’ve never gotten to stop.
I’ve never heard of Blue Lizard sunscreen before and apparently it’s because they don’t sell or ship it outside the US. Kind of a bummer – I’m always on the lookout for good sunscreen.
I think you just sold me on visiting that rock…but if I were to take a road trip, I would love to take my boys to Northern California to visit the redwood forests.
We were just at the Grand Canyon last summer! And the Petrified Forest! But we didn’t get to the Antelope Caverns. I would love to go back and see those.
I want to to go to Mt. Saint Helens! I love volcanos!
I want to go to Death Vallley! I imagine I would need LOTS of sunscreen there! Middleearthfan@yahoo.com
I’d like to visit Powell’s Books in Portland. I live in Oregon, have been in Portland many times yet I’ve never visited Powell’s Books. Silly, huh? But with the $500 I could really get a lot of books. That would be awesome.
I want to take my daughter on an epic roadtrip across America and visit as many of the restaurants as we can that we’ve seen on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. They have shown some AMAZING out-of-the-way little holes in the wall places!
jfevansville@gmail.com
I would like to go to Vivian, Louisiana, which is where my mother was from. Vivian is near Minden, and Shreveport has probably swallowed both of them up by now, so there might not be much to see. Northern Louisiana is definitely a place I would need Blue Lizard sunscreen, and possibly also some Xanax, depending on whether or not the lady who kept my aunt actually sent her ashes down there to be buried after she (the keeper) got all my aunt’s money out of probate. I don’t care about the money. I just care about the ashes. And a trip to Vivian. Thank you!
I’ve lived in Colorado for (these go to) eleven years and haven’t yet made it to Durango, Telluride, or the Great Sand Dunes (mostly because of potential sandworms). Also, apparently, Colorado touches Utah (Utah: “Quit it, Colorado!”) where they have Arches, Bryce Canyon, Zion, and Capitol Reef National Parks. I want to go to there (with my awesome husband and fabulous almost 4-year old daughter).
I’d like to take a Wisconsin road trip. Stay at Camp Wandawega, find some awesomely old fashioned supper clubs, visit some lovely cheesemakers, and tour the ultra weird House on the Rock near Spring Green.
I want to go explore all the state parks Illinois has to offer, Starved Rock is AMAZING. I want to hike more and see more!
I live in the town where the giant pistachio is! I want to see the Northern Lights before I die. Not that I’m planning on THAT happening anytime soon!
I love everything about this post. Weird shit road trips are the spice of life. AtlasObscura.com is my favorite website for planning all my road trips.
I am very excited to check out Polly at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese when I visit London for the first time next month: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/polly-at-ye-olde-cheshire-cheese Not only did he love to insult patrons he disliked, he died of exhaustion, imitating the sound of popping champagne corks over 400 times. I feel certain I was Polly in a previous life.
I’d really like to see the world’s largest wooden prairie dog, please make my dreams come true.
Our next trip is a bit of island hopping in Hawaii for our 10th anniversary. Lots of need for sunscreen! We’ll be going to the Big Island to see the volcano for a couple of days, to Oahu to see Pearl Harbor for a day, then we’ll finish off at just over a week in Kauai for the quiet natural beauty of the Garden Island. Lots of snorkeling too!
I would love to tour Antelope Canyon. Do they have Water Toilets there too? I promise not to drink out of it. This summer we are taking our daughter to Universal Orlando for her 12th birthday because Harry Potter and Hogwarts! So excited!!
I SERIOUSLY NEED TO TAKE THIS ROAD TRIP! It would be like stalking except not really
i live in a town where a famous horse is buried under a chapel and another famous horse is stuffed and in a museum. you should come here. also, we have confederate re-enactors who ride down the streets. so, maybe not.
I would love to go to Panama City Beach and eat at Dirty Dick’S Crab Shack. Great food. Too much information? Of course shelling on the beach is required which would make sunscreen mandatory
This post has reminded me that I need to stock up on sunscreen because my mom and I are going on a road trip to visit Upper Canada Village at the end of June. It’s a 1860s historical village. There will be petticoats and bonnets and adventures! We won’t be wearing the petticoats and bonnets because, let’s face it, it’s a little crazy to dress like that and then walk around in the heat, but we will most definitely be having the adventures. I send you the highest of fives!
California. I have a close friend and we’ve known each other for nearing 15 years now yet never met up in person due to finances. Also, all of my immediate family has been to California at some point except for me. This is totally unfair and should to be fixed ASAP.
Short of that, it would be fun to visit some of the places highlighted on the PBS series Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations. http://kcpt.org/programs/local-programs/rare-visions-and-roadside-revelations/
I have always wanted to take Amtrack from California to Maine. Ride the rails and see the country. Or, map out the most awesome road trip ever, making sure to make stops at all the kitchiest spots along the way, of course! I’ve already seen the largest thermometer and it was AWESOME!
Oh man, there are so many things I want to road trip to! Probably top of my list right now is the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller, Alberta and the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum further north in Wembley. Who wouldn’t want to road trip to see Baby Dinosaur Fossils!
I have always wanted to charter a deep sea sub, and keep thinking about doing it for my 50th birthday:: http://www.stanleysubmarines.com/expeditions/2000ft-expedition/ You go from the land of constantly burning South American sun in Honduras, down 2000ft into the dark, frigid depths of an alien world. In that perpetual inkiness, you see some of the eeriest creatures sharing the planet with us. Maybe it’s where Father Dagon and Mother Hydra vacation for the winter, and I can catch a glimpse of them there. :}
Thanks for going to the one part of the US I’ve never been to and clued me in to the freaky roadside stuff I love (and seems to be disappearing every day). And I use sunscreen.
I want to go to Geode Fest in Hamilton, Illonois this year! Three days of hiking, wading rivers, and digging in the dirt to find shiny rocks sounds amazing to me.
awww.. i miss road trips. Did them all the time in my younger years. I’d like to finally stop at the bridge over the interstate in Nebraska because it’s apparently the coolest thing in the state. Maybe find something actually cool in that state. Finding something to not make me hate Nebraska has been a goal of mine for years now. I just have a hard time going back to that state.
I’d also like to get back to Salem to check out less disappointing museums than the Official Salem Witch Trial Museum.
And maybe finally see national landmarks, like the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, Mt Rushmore, largest ball of twine, whatever.
Seeing the Grand Canyon is on my bucket list. My husband & I have tried 3 times to book a rafting trip to Grand Canyon. For his 30th birthday, I surprised him with a booking paid for by squirreling away money for a year (which he never noticed). But we decided to use that money to buy a house instead.
The next time we tried to see the Grand Canyon, after rebooking our trip, we decided to move to a different house closer to work.
The next year we rebooked and had to cancel because I got pregnant.
He’s been to Vegas a couple times, and each time promised not to take one of those helicoptor tours to the Grand Canyon so that we could see it together for the first time.
Damn it – I want to see big holes in the ground too!
Darwin, Minnesota is home to the world’s largest ball of twine. I’d post a picture of it but I don’t want to spoil the magic of seeing it in person for the first time. Also, the internet might break from the majesty of such an image. Maybe Instagram should create a filter that attempts to capture the fuzziness of twine. Such an endeavor would surely lead to everyone getting all strung out and the eventual unraveling of polite society but I digress. Anyway, your next road trip should be to Darwin so you can see this tightly wound spectacle and acres upon acres of corn.
I want to go somewhere with a beach. It doesn’t even have to be a warm beach. The Oregon coast is beautiful! And cold. But somewhere I can see ocean. Bandon maybe. They have ocean AND a cheese factory.
Your road trip looks like it was epic! I would love to visit the Grand Canyon someday, but for now I’d settle for taking my kids to Acadia National Park. My husband and I went for our anniversary a few years ago and loved it!
Some day I’d love to do a road trip to Montreal in search of the best poutine. Mmmm, fries, gravy and cheese curds! The sunscreen would keep me from getting skin cancer while I happily clogged my arteries. 😉
My husband is in the military, and currently stationed several states away – being able to road trip somewhere midway between us to have adventures and see each other would be breathtakingly lovely.
There’s this jerky stand I’ve driven by on the (long) road to him that is a giant alien space ship (I believe it’s just outside of Las Vegas?) that I want to visit, and there are so many awesome places we could go!
I think one of the coolest things we could do, though, is get me out to San Diego where he is, and explore it together. There are so many beautiful historic buildings – and they have DUCK BOATS in San Diego!
Hubby and I went to New Mexico once, but we weren’t able to really go sight seeing and there was a dinosaur place that we had to skip that I would love to go back and see.
(email since WP is being funny about letting me comment: patricialynne07@gmail.com)
I want to go on a petting zoo trip. Your America and hit up all the janky petting zoos we can find. My girls are obsessed with them and I’d like to just knock them all out so I can say “nope, we’ve already met that goat!” The amount of tshirts eaten and hand sanitizer used is a bit out of control. We could even sunscreen their little wet animal noses
I want to go to New Orleans to buy a genuine voodoo doll and take genuine voodoo lessons on how to use it genuinely and then return home where I’ll genuinely use it.
I should first ask who is judging the contest because if it is you, I need to say something weird and wonderful and maybe slightly horrifying? So how about Tennessee’s “Backyard Terrors and Dinosaur Park”, because why not? But what I would actually want to do is see the tropics, which is a lifelong dream. I haven’t been because I had skin cancer when I was 30 (35, now!), and I tend to stay out of the sun. But with Blue Lizard I would brave the sun to live my tropical dream! <3
Oooohhhh road trips!!! We love them. Oregon/Seattle/Montana on my short list. But, we’re from AZ so … Short list of Long Drives?!? Whatever. We are road warriors. Let’s do this!!!
I would love to take a cross country train. Or drive up the pacific coast highway. Or drive through a red wood tree. I would love to see the Bad Lands. Or Idaho. I love me some potatoes. I would love to go to Kentucky and bourbon taste my way through it. Alaska!! I love blueberries AND salmon! How cool would it be to do all that in one trip!!
I’m already going to Grand Canyon and Antelope this summer (and Zion). Would love our next road trip to be through some mountains somewhere. I’d even take a Blue Lizard cutout and send pictures of it on the journey (a la garden gnome). If I’m lucky I’ll even FIND a lizard to take a picture with, or put sunscreen on.
Since I am Canadian I have to represent (and also because our dollar sucks so staying in our country is just cheaper) – Narcisse Manitoba – what’s there you ask? Well the Narcisse snake dens of course – picture it (or just google it) – thousands of garter snakes mating (spring) or returning for hibernation (fall) – with the added bonus of a giant garter snake statue for further photo ops.
Can I win if I live in Canada? I want to go interior canoeing in the wilds of Algonquin park again… on last year’s trip we saw a wolf chasing a deer. Which was awesome. But then the wolf turned and looked at us across the lake and all I could think of was if we looked tasty… I’m thinking sunscreen would make us taste bad, and would help us not get eaten. Unless it’s a tasty sunscreen? What flavour is it, do you know?
Devil’s Tower. I’ve wanted to see that ever since Richard Dreyfus sculpted it out of mashed potatoes. But I really think you should give the $500 to that poor girl that’s never been to IKEA because it’s so far away. Horrors . . . .
I’d like to take a trip with my favorite people – my sissy & her family + my family to the beach & let the kids draw weird things in the sand, pick through garbage, gather too many sea shells, run from waves and we all don’t get sunburned because of the sun lotion that’s supposed to not let us get burned.
At this point it feels like it will be the trip of a lifetime for me and it I’m not sure if it’ll happen. The plan is for my mother, my sister, and myself to go visit the theme parks in Florida (Disney & Universal). My mom and I will fly to Georgia and, from there, we’ll all drive to Florida.
The hurtles are:
-My sister, a widow, works two jobs and might not be able to get the time off. (She tentatively has been scheduled to be off, but there’s a chance someone with seniority will bump her request.)
-My mother, in her seventies and also a widow, is becoming a bit more frail than she realizes/admits.
-I’m having my own expensive, time-consuming, and exhausting health issues. Also I’ve never tried doing a road trip with food allergies before. Should be fun.
We had actually planned to do this trip last year, but my sister couldn’t get the time off. My mom really wants to make the trip before she’s too frail. Of the three of us, I think my mom is the most excited about going on all the rides. I just want to see Hogwarts. I’ve even knitted a carrying case for a magic wand. I’m ready. 🙂
Honest to god I just want to see the giant hands after seeing this post. Otherwise, I’d settle for getting to Australia. But tough call.
The Badlands! It’s gotta happen this summer or the next!
redwood national forest! with a pitstop in yellowstone! i’v ebeen kicking around some vacation ideas with friends, and a lot of the stuff we want to do–nature-y, adventure-y, take-your-breath-away-y–are in far-off places like iceland and new zealand (definitely still on the to-go-to list) but they’re ALSO right here in the country where we live. (in places we haven’t been yet. but it’s here!) and that’s pretty awesome in and of itself.
p.s. when i saw the grand canyon a couple years ago, i cried. multiple times. it was one of those ‘i am just a speck in this wide universe’ moments. definitely my favorite hole-spectacle thus far.
We are headed in 70 days to Iceland for a road trip to see geysers and waterfalls, but also turf houses and a rock museum. And we may venture out to see a plane wreck on a black sand beach.
I want to take my kids to see the ocean! Living in Chicago is way too cold sometimes. Its May. and its freezing here! 🙂
I just moved from Michigan to Arizona. Thank you for beating my homesickness by letting me know I can go see a rock that looks like a penis. No joke. I literally just texted all my friends! You have lifted my spirits!!!!! Also, agreed, New Mexico is all Mad Max Thunderdome in terms of scenery :/
The number one item on my bucket list (maybe more than one….) is to go to every Disney related theme park on the planet. North American ones would be a more realistic goal but a girl’s gotta dream big.
I’ve always wanted to go to the unclaimed baggage store in Scottsdale Arizona. I don’t even know if i’d buy anything. Although with $500, I’d certainly would. I just want to see what stuff gets lost and forgotten and never seen again. It’s like an accidental Goodwill store!
crap I meant Scottsdale Alabama. That’s different. I’ll never win now.
In 1984 my family road tripped from California to New Orleans. My step sister and I fought so much all the way through Texas that we were banned from going to the World’s Fair. That must have been one epic battle in the back of the Ford Econoline Van. I’m turning 45 next month and would love to take my own family on an amazing road trip…minus the epic battles.
and it’s Scottsboro Alabama. Hell I’m pretty sure I’ve been disqualified.
It WAS my dream to go snorkelling in Turks and Caicos, but I’m actually going there in December (cheap cruise with parents, lol). My other dream is to go to New Zealand and see the sets for Lord of the Rings, the hobbit village in particular, which apparently is still set up for visitors. My fantasy trip would to be to go out West and see the Giant Hoe in Saskatchewan, but it only exists on TV. I’ve already seen the Giant Goose in Wawa. It’s pretty impressive, let me tell you.
Although I need to expand my horizons and get out of California more, I have always wanted to do the entire Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1). The trip would go north, because although I LOVE Southern California sunshine and beaches, the wild coast of Northern California and the majestic redwoods have my heart. Of course, we would need a convertible (and accompanying sunscreen). My kids would be required to listen to ALL the folk music!
I have been trying to get my family to go on a road trip since we moved to California. My husband is getting a Ph.D while we are here, but once that is done, I have no idea where we will be. So I want to make sure we see all the sights that we can before we move. But, for the Love of PETE, have you seen this State? It’s GINORMOUS. $500 would help us see such wonders as Yosemite, Joshua Tree, the Redwoods, and even some weirder places like Skeletons in the Closet: The LA Coroner Gift Shop or the Museum of Death in Hollywood.
I want to attend the Testicle Festival, in Clinton, Montana. Just for bragging rights. http://therockcreeklodge.com/testy-fest/
I would love to go to Philly and see the Mutter Museum. It’s collections of anatomical specimens, models, and medical equipment that I should have seen when I lived in Philly but never went.
Oh wow. The places people in the comments want to go sound so awesome I feel a little silly saying I just want to visit the lighthouses in my state in the fall. And I would need the sunscreen because who doesn’t want to wear something called Blue Lizard and I’m seriously pale. I realllly follow the doctor’s advice after a precancerous removal.
Oh wow. The places people in the comments want to go sound so awesome I feel a little silly saying I just want to visit the lighthouses in my state in the fall. And I would need the sunscreen because who doesn’t want to wear something called Blue Lizard and I’m seriously pale. I realllly follow the doctor’s advice after a precancerous removal.
I have always wanted to see The Thing, but could never convince my husband to stop! If I win – we are going there!!!
I want to drive over the “Going to the Sun” road in Glacier National Park! Perfect place to use my Blue Lizard! says the redheaded freckled girl. I love stopping at those odd little roadside places. Puts the character in the road trips. My dream is to visit all the National Parks before I die, although if I don’t make it I might have my kids take my ashes for me.
I’ve been pining over an England/Ireland/Scotland trip for a while, and the one thing I’d absolutely have to see there are the Cliffs of Insanity (aka the Cliffs of Moher). “Inconceivable,” you say? I think not. =]
My dream road trip would be to take my husband to Colorado so he can ski. He was born a paraplegic and learned to mono-ski as a child. He still donates his time to Stride Adaptive Sports, the program for disabled children, that helped him as a child. He has been a ski instructor for them; a coach and player on their sled hockey team; and recently raised over $500 in pledges for them, when he participated in a 100K ski relay; as well as being a counselor on their camping trips; etc. There is NOTHING he loves more in this world than skiing (except hopefully me lol), and it makes me happy that he gets so much joy from it. I would do anything in the world for this wonderful man, and hope someday I can give him his dream vacation (and finally let him try and teach me, as he has always wanted).
I am sorry this is very long, I know most people wrote only a sentence but I couldn’t help myself. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share Sean’s story, and the possibility of making this dream come true. <3
Here is a link of my wonderful hubby and his mono-ski:
https://www.facebook.com/strideadaptivesports/videos/10156679817650599/
PS
I am very stereotypically Irish (pale, red hair, freckles, green eyes etc.) so sunscreen is my best friend lol.
Thank you Jenny and thank you Blue Lizard for this opportunity.
I totally want to go whale watching on one of those tour boats out of Seattle. Need lots of sunscreen on a boat. 😉
i want to go see the wild ponies in Chincoteague! i’ve been dying to go there since i read the Misty books in the early 80s.
When I was a kid, every night I went to an imaginary place called Little Town. It was rather idyllic, as I recall. I want to go there.
That sounds amazing! My fiancé and I want to go to Thailand to visit the Elephant Conservation Center, try through the jungle, see the tiger monastery (it’s a real place! You can get a picture taken of a tiger resting his head in your lap), and lounge on the beaches 🙂
Wow – everyone has posted such great trips! I want to go to Ireland, which I probably wouldn’t need sunscreen for, since they seem kind of pasty there, but I would still use it anyway, because you can never be too careful. That should be the name of my book – when I write it . . . if I ever do, that is.
One place I have always wanted to visit and explore is New Orleans.
Huh. I’ve actually been looking for some good sunscreen for our trips to Disney. I’ll check them out for sure.
I would LOVE to take a road trip up to South Dakota to see where my grandmother and grandfather are buried. My grandmother died here in Florida but was buried next to my grandfather in SD. I realize that sounds a little morbid but I’m sure there are a ton of fun things to do on the way (Graceland? Dollywood?). My husband will probably nix this idea and make us take a road trip to TX to see his family instead. Such is life.
I’ve driven from New Mexico to California several times but never stopped at the Meteor Crater. i must do this soon.
Someday I will visit the Corn Palace, but I have yet to find a need to be in South Dakota. But someday…
My sister and I really want to take that train ride to the Grand Canyon. I’ve flown over it but never seen it up close. And we both really like trains.