Don’t ever miss another oddball, offbeat roadside attraction

I thought when the time was expired, you had to move?

Just surfing around, working on a column about parking meters, when I happened across the picture above (it’s in Oklahoma). What a weird tombstone — but I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s unusual, but it’s probably also very personal, and it’s touching, I find.

Of course, It’ll likely attract vandals like there’s no tomorrow. They’ll really have to watch out for Luke:

(RIP, Mr. Newman — I really have to watch that film again.)

However, back on track, the website where I found that parking meter tombstone is just the sort of ecclectica that I love to happen across on the Internet. It’s a compendium of weird and unusual off-the-beaten-path roadside attractions.

Although the era of the Route 66 roadtrip seems long past (Roadtrips now seem more about highways and Interstates — you stop at a gas station, not a tourist trap) they’re still ingrained in the culture. And some of those roadside attractions struggle on.

They’ve got a few of the Westman basics covered — Happy Rock, Sara the Camel, Tommy the Turtle — but when Amy and I head off on our bi-annual trip to Minneapolis in May, I think I’m going to spend some time checking out the stuff we might otherwise have just driven right by: Road Cheese Graveyard, here we come!