Greetings, from Home Sweet Hole N’ the Rock

We interrupt your life above ground for some unsolicited subterranean splendour. It’s just a quick pit stop off the humble Highway 191 in eastern Utah. But poke your head inside, and you’ll discover a 5,000 square foot home fully equipped for life beyond the Stone Age. It goes to show that just when you think…

The Lost Art of the Miniature Golf Course

They go large in the States – even when it comes to the small stuff. And perhaps nowhere is that more true than with a particularly kitsch specimen of American vernacular architecture, the miniature golf course. A period of history defined by the automobile and the ease of travel it allowed, post-WW2 prosperity led to…

Here’s the American Dream looking pretty Hungover by the 1970s

I would have liked to see America during its in-between period– somewhere in the seventies when the whole “Stepford Wives” thing and censorship and social compliance was over with (more or less), but they hadn’t yet starting tearing down all those wonderful and whimsical buildings. Sure, they might have been looking a little sorry for…

Forget Roadside America, Let’s Location Scout in “Weird France”

I’ve been yearning to get back across the pond for a good ol’ dose of “weird America”, but I tend to forget that my own country has some pretty odd, quirky and wonderfully nostalgic sights to see when you venture off the main road. Wes Anderson would have a field day with Atlas des Régions…

A Brief Compendium of the Iconic American Motel

Among my favourite things are mid-century kitsch and tiny houses. Put the two together and you basically send me into overload. I’m aware that the faded glamour of American motels is much more appealing to a European road-tripper like me who hasn’t stayed in enough of them yet to have encountered bed bugs. But what I wouldn’t give to go back…

The Amazing, the Inexplicable, Orange Show in Texas

Roadside America is filled with unique oddities from giant balls of twine to extravagant kitschy Mexican rest-stops. Each of these unique places were a labor of love, making something impossible somehow possible. One of the most eccentric of these Americana road-stops is simply a living shrine to the orange. The Orange Show in Houston, Texas, is a fantastical collection of…

Cobra Cocktails, a Mad Scientist and his Roadside Serpentarium

Nothing says American kitsch like a 35-foot giant pink cobra. I stumbled upon this old postcard in my morning rounds of obscure internetting and knew there had to be a story worth telling behind it. That’s how I met Bill Haast, the man who charmed both snakes and visitors at his Miami Serpentarium and lived to the…

Stop Everything, Check out these Miniature Mediocre Motels

Among my favourite things are mid-century American kitsch and teeny tiny stuff. Put the two together and you basically send me into overload. I’m not exactly sure why run-down vintage motels fascinate me so; perhaps that seedy glamour of America is much more appealing to a European road-tripper like me who hasn’t stayed in enough of them yet to have encountered bed bugs. But those pastel…

The American Theme Park Town that started as a Beer Stand in the Prohibition Aftermath

It’s highway Americana at its best and it all started in 1949 with a shocking-pink beer stand just south of the state border for the thirsty patrons of North Carolina where it was illegal to sell alcohol in its counties. Over the years, its grown from a lone beer stand into a fabulously kitsch 300…

No Fun Intended: The Space Age Playground Motel that Time Forgot

Earlier today on MessyNessyChic, we pulled over on the internet highway at one of the kitschiest roadside attractions on America’s East Coast, “South of the Border“. But just a little further down, on the other side of the interstate, there’s something equally surreal to make a stop for. While scouting for roadside oddities, I also stumbled across…