The Best Roadside Oddities Near Nashville

Today on CityCast, Nashville, we are hitting the road in search of Middle Tennessee's weirdest and most wonderful attractions. Contributor Margaret Littman joins us to talk giant buckets, pink elephants, chicken wire celebrities, and other roadside oddities actually worth pulling off the road for. It's Tuesday, August 4th. I'm Maurice Cecil Anderson, and this is what Nashville's talking about. What's the weirdest thing you've ever pulled off the highway to investigate? I'm going to go first. Kentucky Stonehenge. This happened just very recently the summer, saw signs for it. I drove up to Louisville and on my way back to Nashville saw signs, followed them, discovered a charming little replica of Stonehenge in someone's backyard. So I did not know that Kentucky Stonehenge existed, which is extra weird because earlier this year, I went to Alabama Stonehenge. Or what they call Bama Henge, which... Bama! Which is at this place called Barber Marina. It's near the Gulf. And it's absolutely bonkers. They have all these replicas of Roman ruins and Stonehenge. And the one in Alabama is supposedly lined up like Stonehenge in England is. So you can like see the light go through it on Solstice. So who knew? Truly, who knew? I mean, the one in Kentucky, you can leave a little tip for the owners of this backyard Stonehenge type experience. There was no one else there. Honestly, we felt like we were trespassing a little bit, but we weren't because it turns out they have an incredible website at visit mumfordville.com slash Kentucky-stone. So check that out. They actually have a great video showing exactly the experience you can have if you go visit. But my next question, Margaret, is Bama Hinge actually worth the drive or is it better as a stop when you're already heading somewhere else? I mean, I'm not sure I would go from here to the Gulf of Mexico just for it. But if I were in southern Alabama... Florida Panhandle, 100%. It's worth going. They have this thing called Lady of the Lake, which is this giant sculpture of a woman in the water. So you just see her head and then her knees. It's spectacular. So 100% is worth going. I think it's a great thing to do when you're like beached out or it's not great beach weather, but you're still down there. But no, I probably would not.

drive eight hours from here just to go see it. But I do go out of my way to see. wacky things and oddities. This morning I was thinking about it in Kansas is the world's largest easel. It's like an easel with a replica of a Van Gogh sunflower just off of the interstate and there's a dog park underneath it. And I have probably stopped there. I don't know, six or seven times because when I'm driving to Idaho to see my family, that's sort of a good place for me to stop with a dog. I never have to see it again, but I have stopped a number of times. Well, do we have any of those large oddities here in Middle Tennessee? It was so fun to pull this list together and think about it because there are a lot of them. Some of them I have seen and some of them I had saved as a list of things I want to see someday, but then some I had not even heard of until I started researching for you, such as the world's largest cedar bucket, which is in Murphy'sboro and is from the 1800s. Whoa. It's in a place called Canonsburg Village. Who knew? In Lawrenceburg, which is about two hours from here, there's a giant 20 foot high bowling pin in front of a bowling alley. It also sort of depends on how we're going to define oddity or, you know, roadside attraction, whether you want things that are just world's largest or you. want things that are kind of quirky or only for Instagram. So it kind of depends on what you want. Well, let's define it for ourselves. Okay. What's a roadside oddity in the eyes of CityCast Nashville? I mean, I'm going to say anything that makes you say, wait, Marie, what was that? Anything that I'll pull off the road for and exactly have my jaw kind of just enamored with what's in front of me. And Nashville, I mean, I'm trying to think, is there anything right here in city proper that's like that? So there are a couple things I would put in that category. I think the Buffalo that are along Dickerson Pike, you know, in that median, I think that those count. And the reason they are there is that Dickerson Pike. you know, once upon a time before we built everything, that was sort of a way that Buffalo, or probably technically bison, but whatever, could get from.

wherever they were in the fields to a water source of the Cumberland. So like that was a trail for bison. So that's why those sculptures are there. I think it's better to kind of look at them from the sidewalk than try to cross Dickerson Pike to go hang out in the median. But I 100% have done that. They're the polar bears. There's one or two in Edgill Village and it looks like they're polar bears. having a snowball fight. But there were a handful of those all over town. And I think there is one in somebody's yard in German town. I'm not sure exactly where. But I think that those are kind of signature Nashville. And then I would say Pinky, the giant pink elephants. So there's one on the west side on Charlotte at a car wash and it's been restored. lovingly restored. You know, it's a big pink elephant wearing Rayban sunglasses. And the owners of the car wash, they don't want you to climb on top of Pinky, but they want you to go, like, take your photo there. They love that Pinky shows up in people's Christmas cards. And Pinky's been around for a very long time. Yes. And that's why Paul, the carwash owner... He grew up here and loved Pinky and specifically bought it to have it restored and make sure that it continued its life. I keep saying her, but I think Pinky is actually, I think they say he, whatever. I didn't know that. Pinky was gendered, but he wanted Pinky to live a long life in West Nashville. I love Pinky. You know what I hate and I grew up with seeing all the time was the Nathan Bedford Forest statue off of 65. And growing up, it had all the Confederate flags and a face from hell. Really? It was a poorly made statue, if I don't say so myself. I mean, it was a statue that was frightening on multiple levels. It was frightening that somebody, some individual felt so strongly about Nathan Bedford Forrest that they had a statue built. It was frightening because it did have sort of a... I don't know what word to use other than frightening face, right? It had a frightening expression. And then it was frightening because it caused all these backups on the interstate because people would drive by and say, what was that? And then remember before it was removed in that period where there was a lot of backlash about it, then it was covered in pink paint. Was that pinky? Maybe we finally figured out who did it. Oh, I think we're on to something. But yes, I am happy to say that that is an oddity that's no longer there. Although if someone doesn't remember it, I'm sure a Google search would make it easy to go find a photo of it and be reminded.

Concerts, bowling, and a full-service restaurant all under one roof. Brooklyn Bowl, Nashville is always a great night out, and its upcoming calendar is absolutely stacked. Pond kicks things off on August 6th with high-energy psychedelic rock. Then on August 10th, Catch Walk Off the Earth, the wildly talented pop group known for turning practically anything into an instrument. Seriously, y'all, you will never know what might make it out on stage. If dancing is more your speed, like myself, St. Lucia brings a full-on neon dance party August 12th, and Bluegrass fans won't want to miss Mountain Grass Unit celebrating the release of their new album Appalachian Smoke on August 27th. September gets even louder with Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats on September 10th. Then make a weekend of it with Rising Texas country star Braxton Keith on Friday, September 11th. Followed by Nashville favorites The Weeks on Saturday, September 12th. Grab your friends, make a night of it, and get tickets now at Brooklyn Bowl.com slash Nashville. Well, do murals count as oddities? I think they can. Sure. I absolutely think they can. One of my favorite places to go is Waverly, which again is probably about an hour and a half, two hours west of here. There's something called Walls Art Park, and it is just a park with a bunch of cinder block walls. There may be six or eight feet tall. maybe 15 or 20 feet wide. And they are cinder block walls for people to paint murals on and for community members to paint murals on. And the idea, I guess, was that Waverly was having a lot of graffiti. particularly along the rail line. So they built this park as a outlet. And so there are basically very few rules. Anyone can go paint there. You can't paint something with profanity and you have to date your painting and you can't paint over somebody's previous painting. I think it's 30 days or 60 days so that people's art has some time to go out there. And then there are picnic tables and a pathway. And I, whenever I'm driving west, I love to stop there because I think it's so cool to see what people are moved to paint. I think it's so cool to see like the different styles of murals that people do. And also I just love. this urban planning solution to a problem, right? Instead of whatever, arresting people who are doing graffiti or complaining about it or I don't know, what would we do in Nashville, put a chain link fence around it. They made it this attraction. I wouldn't have gotten to hang out in Waverly. It's just, it's this super joyful place. And it's kind of cool all year, but I particularly like it in winter because it's pretty gray.

There's not that much scenery in winter in that area. And then you just drive down the street and you have all these bright pops of color. It's super cool. Well, an oddity worth driving to, and I don't know if actually this classifies it because I would make a full trip around this. And I have to the Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky. My mom and I went a couple years ago, and it is odd. It's worth pulling off the street for, and it is quite an experience. And we actually made a whole weekend. We stayed one night in Paducah, but started our trip at the Quilt Museum. It was outstanding. So I'm curious if you have anything else in mind that's kind of similar like that, you can build a day trip or a two-night trip out of from Nashville. I don't really know that this is a roadside oddity, but I do think you have to go to Chattanooga and go to Rock City and Ruby Falls. And, you know, if people haven't gone to see Rock City, it's sort of, it's an oddity that's hard to explain, but it's a... rock park on top of the mountain and from there you can see seven states and in i guess the what 20s and 30s a lot of people on the roadside people who owned barns were paid to paint a sign that said see rock city on the side of their barns or on the roof of their barns to to get travelers to go there. And actually I painted, I have a C-Ruck City sign on my own house in the backyard because I think it's just such like an iconic part of southern roadside oddities. We have a birdhouse, very prominent in my mom's yard. So it's, it is a natural sort of rock garden with these beautiful views, but it is also sort of odd. And then they have this storybook garden, this fairy tale. Indoor almost feels like it's underground because it has a black light and it's a garden where they tell the tales of all these different classic fairy tales. in little sort of diorama format. And I think it's an essential part of the Tennessee Audity experience. And then you absolutely could make a whole weekend of it and go to Chattanooga, go see Ruby Falls, which is part of that whole attraction. That's an underground waterfall that was named after the person who, air quotes, discovered it. And his wife's name was Ruby. So they named it Ruby Falls after her. But now there are a bunch of red light. So it is. also kind of Ruby. What I love about that trip is it's perfect for a family and then it's also perfect for adults. Yes. So you could go either way. Absolutely. Which attraction sounds silly, but is genuinely impressive once you arrive. I mean, I do think that's sort of true of Rock City and Ruby Falls that it sounds kind of hokey. And then when you're there, you're definitely, you know, glad you saw it. The salt.

and pepper shaker museum in gatlenburg that is a thing that sounds pretty goofy and then i just took some friends there last month and it definitely seems hokey i think it's three or four dollars to get in and it's it's worth it it's the best three or four dollars you've spent because it's got more i don't remember i should have looked up the number but it's thousands and thousands and thousands of salt and pepper shakers organized by category really specific, like penguins and pelicans and whatever. But it is also sort of a history of a culinary history and also a history of what people collected and a history of the way people used to decorate their homes and history of travel souvenirs. It's super fascinating. So I think that's worth the detour in Gatlinburg. I have not yet been to... The chicken wire mini pearl sculpture in Centerville. I understand it's been moved to a couple different intersections in Centerville, but it is there now. I believe it's the same artist who did the Dolly Parton chicken wire sculpture that's on top of the graduate hotel at White Limousine. Oh, yes. I believe Centerville is where Minnie Pearl had a connection there. or Sierra Cannon, the real name of Minnie Burl, that looks fantastic in photos. And it's definitely on my list of places to visit. Another place that I think is absolutely worth the detour. Have you ever been to Billy Tripp's minefield in Brownsville? No. So Brownsville is maybe an hour east of Memphis, in between here and Memphis. That's where the... Tina Turner Birthplace Museum and her schoolhouse. And that is a really great museum and stop. But Billy Tripp's minefield is sort of an outsider art sculptural installation from found objects, a lot of metal works. And it takes up probably the equivalent of... a couple of city blocks. And it is, I mean, it is a mind trip. It is so fascinating. I have never been there when anybody's been working on it, but I understand that that does sometimes happen. And it is just a fascinating look at how somebody's creative mind works and how you can make art out of things that don't seem like art.

Concerts, bowling, and a full-service restaurant all under one roof. Brooklyn Bowl, Nashville is always a great night out, and its upcoming calendar is absolutely stacked. Pond kicks things off on August 6th with high-energy psychedelic rock. Then on August 10th, Catch Walk Off the Earth, the wildly talented pop group known for turning practically anything into an instrument. Seriously, y'all, you will never know what might make it out on stage. If dancing is more your speed, like myself, St. Lucia brings a full-on neon dance party August 12th, and Bluegrass fans won't want to miss Mountain Grass Unit celebrating the release of their new album Appalachian Smoke on August 27th. September gets even louder with Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats on September 10th. Then make a weekend of it with Rising Texas country star Braxton Keith on Friday, September 11th. followed by Nashville favorites The Weeks on Saturday, September 12th. Grab your friends, make a night of it, and get tickets now at Brooklyn Bowl.com slash Nashville. All right, humor me. We're going to play a quick lightning round to end today's episode. Okay. Best for kids. The Lost Sea, which is an underground kind of tour, you know, river sea near Bowling Green, so like an hour from here that's underground and you can get in a boat. And I think that's sort of fun for kids. Also, this is a weird pick for kids because it's kind of sad. It is sad, but it's also kind of meaningful in design for kids in Whitwell, which is near Chattanooga. There's a Children's Holocaust Memorial Railway car, and I know that sounds like a real bummer, and obviously it is. But it's a super meaningful Holocaust memorial. It's connected to a school, and it was specifically designed to help kids understand the Holocaust. And so I think, like, it's not fun, like, you know, a 20-foot bowling pin, but I do think it's kind of worth going to. Best for a romantic silly getaway. A couple of things. So there's a couple of cool bicycle arches. There's one in Cookville that is across the street from the railroad station. It kind of sets off one of the big biking trails, and it's a giant arch made of bikes. There's a similar one in Knoxville, but obviously that's farther. So I think that could be a super fun, romantic getaway to go there, start there, take your photo under the arch, and then go off on a cool scenic bike ride. Well, my next question was Best Photo, but you might have just answered it with that bike. I mean, that could be a good photo, but it's not really goofy. You know, it's more like pretty. There's a giant ape at the Firework Store in Cross Plains, which is on 65. I think that could be a pretty fun photo. What about the Renaissance Lovers Castle? That castle in Arrington is called Castle Gwyn. And it is a replica of a Renaissance castle. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That is the same castle.

That's the castle that Taylor Swift filmed Love Story, her music video in. Oh, yes. And people come from all over the world to visit. I only thought of it as the place where they have the Tennessee Renaissance Festival and that people show up in costume and take photos. But I'm not as up to date on my Taylor Swift trivia as you are. So thank you very much for that. All right. What about the most overrated roadside oddity? So there's an obelisk in Murphy'sboro pretty close to MTSU. It's like a stone structure that is supposed to mark the geographic center of Tennessee. So I already think that's a little bit, I mean, okay. That's the kind of thing I would take a photo of if I was there, but I would not go out of my way. But then I was reading something that it's actually 30 yards off. It's not even actually in the absolute correct spot. So I got to think that that's pretty overrated. But I have not been. So I hope that listeners who have been can tell me otherwise. All right. Final question. What roadside oddity are you most looking forward to visiting next? In air in Tennessee, there is apparently a meteor crater impact marker. So again, probably looks pretty small, but somewhere where a meteor hit in the past. And I am kind of jazzed up to see that. Wow. Okay. And then would you make a full afternoon? Around that? I would probably, that's probably something I would do when I was en route to something else. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. Well, folks, we're going to post some of these pictures on our Instagram today. So check those out. So you can also see that big old bucket right here in Tennessee. Margaret, this is so fun. Thank you so much for joining us. Oh, my gosh. This is so fun. Thank you. Maybe I'll see you in that crater. Okay. I'll meet you there. Thank you.

That's all for today here on CityCast Nashville. And do not forget this Thursday, August 6th, is our state and federal primary election and municipal general. So go vote. And don't forget, you can support this show and get great perks by becoming a CityCast Nashville neighbor at membership.citycast.fm. If you enjoyed the show, why not tell your friends. Rate the show. Leave us a review and subscribe to our CityCast Nashville newsletter. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more news from around the city. Toodles.