Category: Roadside Attractions

Expedition Team:  Dave Miller, Jacque Kelly, Rosie Miller, Debbie Miller
Expedition Date:    February 7, 2020

Here is an entertaining Roadside Attraction in Cincinnati if you love cats. The owner has over 3,000 cats displayed. Some are ceramic, some antiques, some interactive. Many feature Japan’s lucky cat, Maneki Neko. Going back to the late 1600’s, the different color of cat or which paw was raised have different Japanese meanings. The owner paid $1,300 for a Catzilla, a large cat that looks like Godzilla. One cat in real life saved a train station from closing due to few riders. The cat was placed on the train and ridership grew. Cats were painted on the outside of the cars and more cats were placed inside the train cars. Attendance skyrocked (see photo below). At any rate it was a fun stop, guaranteed to keep you laughing if you like feline friends.

 

Expedition Team:  Rosie Miller, Jacque Kelly, Dave Miller
Expedition Date:  February 1, 2020
Maid-Rite is famous for the entire exterior of their building which is filled with wads of gum. For decades people have been chewing and sticking colorful gum to every wall. Rosie, Jacque and I followed tradition and added our hubba-bubba strawberry watermelon bubble gum to tens of thousands of other pieces on the north and west walls. Since 1934, Maid-Rite Drive-In has been making delicious sandwiches. Cars are often lined up down the street. After sticking our gum to the wall, we went inside to enjoy the self-proclaimed “Best Burger in Ohio” and delicious milk shakes. The hamburgers were different, browned beef with no grease. Pickle, onion & cheese livens up the taste.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller
Expedition Date: November 17, 2017

Considered one of the top ten mysteries in America, these giant stones were installed on a rural hillside in 1980. The man who built them is anonymous as is the real purpose of the monument.

HISTORY:  In 1979, A man using the alias name “Mr. Christian” showed up to a Elberton granite company with detailed plans and $500,000 dollars. He ordered the rectangular stones, weighing 119 tons of solid granite, to be engraved in coded messages carved in the world’s eight most commonly spoken languages. The message was the same on each stone apparently intended for all of mankind.

Investigation:  On a sunny day Rosie & I drove through the northeast corner of Georgia to the site. Elberton is the “Granite Capital of the World”. We could see the guidestones from the road set back on a grassy hill. Up close the pillars are huge and each contains the same carved, cryptic message in these languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic. On the top slab is Classical Greek and Egyptian Hieroglyphs. A female professor from Saudi Arabia (bottom photo) came by to help me interpret the Arabic slab. On close inspection we noticed the following. 

The east and west corners of the monument track the sunrise and sunset. A slot cut in one of the slabs marks the winter & summer solstices. A shaft drilled through the center marks Polaris, the North star.

There are ten lines on each slab. Some lines talk about a moralistic call to higher thinking (such as seek harmony; protect people with fair laws; don’t be a cancer on the earth). One line seems to be a sign of the end days.

The precisely aligned stones are built to withstand an apocalypse.

In summary, no one knows who is behind this mysterious, sinister message bearing this persons philosophy for the world.

Expedition Team: Jacque Kelly, Rosie Miller, Dave Miller
Expedition Date: June 2017

This is a unique, free place everyone should visit. After running the 5K Run at the Neil Armstrong Museum, Rosie, Jacque and I ate and enjoyed music at the Moon Festival before visiting this incredible attraction. Jim Bowsher, artist, writer, corrections counselor, visionary, began creating in the late 1990’s in his suburban backyard (consisting of many large lots) using hundreds of tons of rock, an incredible rock temple, rock statues, sculptures, megaliths and hundreds of stone structures.

We spent 30 minutes wondering through the rock and tree complex and did not see everything that Jim created. The temple itself is twenty feet high accessed by rock stairs with an alter on top for quiet meditation. The Temple complex consists of the main temple and many smaller temples, a Vietnam War Memorial, gardens and archaeology items. A barrel shaped house (the only one in the USA) sits amid trees and rocks where Babe Ruth once stopped by to play poker. “The peace temple helps to cure peoples dysfunctions,” Bowsher told us. His home is an unbelievable museum of artifacts and memorabilia.

Expedition Team: Holly Miller, Justin Eller, Dave Miller
Expedition Team: August 2017

This Roadside Attraction was built in 1860 to bring clean drinking water to the city but was ravaged by a tornado in 1890.  Repaired, it looks like an ancient temple with columns, statues of Roman and Greek Gods and an Indian hunter with a dog.   It still provides clean water and part of it is a museum.

Expedition Team: Holly Miller, Justin Eller, Dave Miller
Expedition Team:  August 2017

We felt rather small at this Roadside Attraction.  Several incredible large wooden chairs adorned the greenspace at this Louisville Park.  It took a little effort to climb into them but they were comfortable.  Large but not as large as the giant adirondack chair in Wilmington, Ohio.

Expedition Team: Holly Miller, Justin Eller, Dave Miller
Expedition Team:   August 2017

This unique Roadside Attraction is a touching sculpture at a young girls gravesite located at Cave Hill Cemetery, a 300 acre Victorian era cemetery (on the National Registry of Historic Places).  Three year old Samantha McDonald accidentally rode her tricycle into the family pool.  The elaborate tombstone has Jesus reaching out and holding the ropes for a swing that Samantha sits on. Her favorite song, “Jesus Loves Me”, along with her handprint and signature adorn the stone.

Expedition Team:   Dave Miller, Holly Miller, Justin Eller
Expedition Date:     August  2017

Col. Harland Sanders, founder and TV commercial spokesperson for Kentucky Fried Chicken is buried in Cave Hill Cemetery, a 300 acre Victorian era cemetery (on the National Registry of Historic Places).   The man who brought “11 famous herbs and spices” to his delicious chicken has a modest gravestone and, with the flowers blooming, a beautiful gravesite.  The gravesite is a popular Roadside Attraction.

Expedition Team:   Holly Miller, Justin Eller, Dave Miller
Expedition Team:    August 2017

Harry Leon Collins, this famous beloved “corporate” magician of Frito Lay is buried in Cave Hill Cemetery, a 300 acre Victorian era cemetery (on the National Registry of Historic Places).  A life size statue of the magician stands over his grave.  Collins was a 20 year employee of Frito Lay during the day. At night he was Louisville’s most popular magician, “Mr. Magic“.  In 1970 Frito Lay named him their official corporate magician as he toured the country and world performing magic tricks and paying homage to corn chips.  He appeared on hundreds of television commercials and magazine ads.  I remember him on TV.

Expedition Team: Holly Miller, Justin Eller, Dave Miller
Expedition Date:    August 2018                                                                                                                

A one wall Roadside Attraction.  This 19th century mansion named the Heigold House was built in 1853.  Christian Heigold was a successful stonecutter and a handful of his carvings adorn the building…from patriotic scenes to busts of President Buchanan and George Washington.  Over the years flooding and development destroyed all of the house except the front façade which sits in the middle of the road.  The road parts and goes around the façade.  Yes, all that is left is one complete wall.