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Text Version
Story and photography
by CHRISTOPHER GRONLUND / Special Contributor
There's nothing that says summer more than a roadside, fiberglass dinosaur.
Texas has that – and much more.
So forget the in-car DVD theater system. Here are a few roadside attractions
that will make any Lone Star road trip a classic.
There isn't a lot to see in West
Texas, unless you're a fan of wide-open land and oil pumps. The region
needed something to break up the long drive toward Big Bend, and the town
of Fort Stockton had the solution: a really big roadrunner named Paisano
Pete.
How big is Paisano Pete? He's so
big that Wile E. Coyote would take one look and hang up his rocket-powered
roller skates. At 11 feet tall and 22 feet long, Pete was the largest
roadrunner in the world until New Mexico one-upped Texas by constructing
a larger bird made out of garbage. Seriously.
Location: Dickinson Boulevard
and Main Street, in Fort Stockton. Hours: 24 hours, seven days a week
(Pete lives at a busy intersection in town). Admission: free. Contact:
1-800-336-2166.
When Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the
poem "Ozymandias," he probably never thought those words would
be immortalized on a marker near a giant pair of legs in Amarillo.
A piece of classic pop art commissioned
by Amarillo helium tycoon Stanley Marsh 3, the legs are one of the strangest
attractions anywhere. A plaque provides a false, but funny history of
Shelley's traveling across the Panhandle on horseback and how he came
upon the ruins and penned his immortal sonnet on the spot.
Visitors are told that there was
once a giant face near the legs, but students from Lubbock damaged it
after losing a sporting event to Amarillo.
Location: corner of Interstate
27 and Sundown Lane. Hours: 24 hours, seven days a week. Admission: free.
The Sam Houston Statue on Interstate
45 in Huntsville is so big that you can see it for miles. The giant white
head and torso poke above the tree line like some B-movie science experiment
gone awry. At 67 feet, Sam looks three times that height.
Construction on "Big Sam"
began in 1992 when David Adickes, a Houston painter, was commissioned
to create the Giant of I-45. Using his background in math and physics,
Mr. Adickes spent two years converting a 6-feet-6 life-size Sam Houston
statue into the towering sculpture along the highway. If you can't stop
for photos, Sam is also one of the best attractions in the state that
can be appreciated as you zip by at 65 mph. But alas, it isn't Texas'
tallest statue. The Dallas Zoo's giraffe gets that honor, thanks to its
outstretched tongue.
Location: I-45 in Huntsville (exit
112 from the north and 109 from the south). Hours: 24 hours, seven days
a week. Admission: free. Contact: Huntsville Chamber of Commerce, 1-800-289-0389.
Come on, admit it – you always
thought the Eiffel Tower looked like a fancy oil derrick, right? What
better tribute to that Paris landmark than making one of our own ... with
a giant red cowboy hat on top. Give it boots and arms, and it could tag-team
with Sam Houston, in Huntsville, taking down giant statues from coast
to coast.
Constructed in the mid '90s by the
local ironworkers' union, the replica in Paris, Texas, was the second-largest
Eiffel Tower in the world until an even-larger replica went up in Las
Vegas.
Location: corner of Jefferson
Road and Collegiate Drive (beside Love Civic Center). Hours: 24 hours,
seven days a week. Admission: free. Contact: 903-784-2501; www.paristexas.com.
On a flat plot of land in the Panhandle
sits what some say is not just the best roadside attraction in the state
or country, but on the entire planet: Cadillac Ranch. Ten classic Cadillacs
are half-buried nose first alongside Interstate 40 west of Amarillo.
In 1974, after scouring the Panhandle
and buying unwanted Cadillacs, a San Francisco art collective called the
Ant Farm sank the 10 classic cars into a dusty wheat field on the outskirts
of town. They were funded by Stanley Marsh 3 (the magnate believes "Stanley
Marsh III" sounds too fancy), who commissioned the work and provided
the space for this defining piece of Americana.
This year Cadillac Ranch turns 30.
The Cadillacs (models from 1949 to 1963) and the site have seen some changes.
In 1997, the site was moved a few miles west of its original location
to escape Amarillo development.
No matter what other changes Cadillac
Ranch faces in upcoming decades, one thing's for sure: It will always
stand as a testament to humanity's love of the odd and will remain one
of the coolest (and strangest), things you'll ever see out on the open
road.
Location: south side of I-40,
near the Arnot Road exit in Amarillo. Hours: 24 hours, seven days a week.
Admission: free. Details: www.libertysoftware .be/cml/cadillacranch/crmain.htm.
Nothing says "Stop here!"
quite like a fiberglass dinosaur. In the '50s and '60s, dinosaur sculptures
went up like strip malls did during the '70s and '80s. From gas stations
to hotels, restaurants to national parks, giant lizards were a surefire
way to get the kids to pester mom and dad enough to pull over.
Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen
Rose gives visitors two reasons to pull over: a 45-foot-tall Tyrannosaurus
rex and a 70-foot-long Apatosaurus.
The sculptures, made for Sinclair
Oil by sculptor Luis Paul Jonas for the 1964 World's Fair in New York
City, were donated to the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife in the
early '70s. Since then, there's no telling how many kids have posed before
the two beasts or been told to stop climbing on the T. rex's tail (despite
the fence and the "Keep Out" sign). And, oh yeah, you can see
some real dinosaur footprints in the park.
Location: From U.S. Highway 67
in Glen Rose, take FM 205 to Park Road 59 until it ends at the park. Hours:
8 a.m. to 10 p.m. year round. Admission: $5 for adults. Contact: 254-897-4588;
www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/dinosaur.
Christopher Gronlund is a freelance
writer in Grapevine.
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You don't need to hit
the road to find great roadside attractions. Here are favorites near home.
Standing in the parking lot of a Dallas burger joint is a reminder of
the good ol' days of proletarian revolutions: a life-size statue of Vladimir
Lenin, forged in Odessa, Russia. While Vlad looks ready and raring to
bring communism to the Metroplex, a plaque says it all: "America
Won." 5702 Lovers Lane, in front of Goff's Charcoal Hamburgers.
What better way to pay tribute to chrome car bumpers than welding them
together and creating giant dinosaurs? The grounds of the Dallas Museum
of Natural History are home to a 20-foot-tall T. rex, plus a triceratops
and stegosaurus. Fair Park. Contact: 214-421-3466; www.dallas dino.org/exhibits/chromo
saurs.asp
The rooftop of Strokers Icehouse sports almost a dozen sculptures, including
a 6-foot-tall anthropomorphic hotdog, dinosaurs, a likeness of the Blues
Brothers, and owner Rick Fairless' favorite piece, a deranged clown driving
a tiny pedal car. 9304 Harry Hines. Contact: 214-357-0707; www.strokersdallas.com
/Strokers/strokers.html.
There's a lizard in Grauwyler Park, covered in colorful tiles, no less.
"Iggy," the 9-foot-long iguana, was constructed from foam, wire
and concrete by Dallas artist Carolann Haggard. It's a photo op just begging
to happen. Harry Hines Boulevard at Hines Place, across from the Grauwyler
Recreation Center.
He looks like a countrified version of Mad M agazine icon Alfred E. Newman.
He's really tall and holding a giant muffler. And for over 30 years, he's
stood outside Ken's Mufflers. 3537 W. Northwest Highway, across from
Bachman Lake.
The giraffe at the entrance to the Dallas Zoo is a tongue taller than
the Sam Houston statue in Huntsville. Over 3 feet long, the tongue makes
the 67.5-foot-tall giraffe the tallest statue in the state. 650 South
R.L. Thornton Freeway. Contact: 214-670-5656; www.dal laszoo.org.
Fort Worth
wouldn't be Fort Worth without its jackalope. See a gigantic version of
nature's strangest creation since the platypus. On top of R.L.B. Sales
and Leasing, corner of Camp Bowie and Bryant Irvin Road.
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