Your attention, please!

I’ve always had a fascination with roadside attractions. I think it stems from my childhood, when many a summer was spent driving west on Interstate 90. My family has always been National Park junkies, and I have the souvenir pins and Junior Ranger badges to prove it. Anyway, we were headed to the Badlands this time, stopping at KOAs along the way. Somewhere around Sioux Falls, we started to see signs for possibly the most famous roadside attraction of them all: Wall Drug.

From its origin as a humble drugstore in Wall, South Dakota, Wall Drug became one of the state’s biggest tourist attractions. How’d it happen? The answer is clear if you’ve ever driven through South Dakota. The hand-painted billboards advertising everything from Western wear and homemade donuts to “free ice water” are hugely effective. They’re colorful, directional and fun. Their saloon-style typeface adds to the appeal. As a kid stuck in a car driving across the Great Plains into the Black Hills in the days before cell phones, the Internet and handheld gaming systems (at least that we could afford), my attention was glued to any stimulus. Spotting the next Wall Drug sign became a fun game.

So once we arrived, did the place live up to expectations heightened by hundreds of miles of anticipation? Pretty much. The drugstore has grown into a block-wide souvenir shop with plenty of photo ops with the 80-foot-tall dinosaur or the giant jackalope.

South Dakota must be pretty high on the list when it comes to roadside attractions. Besides the venerable drugstore, it has Reptile Gardens in Rapid City and the Corn Palace in Mitchell. Those are both on the way to more famous attractions like Mount Rushmore and Wind Cave National Park.

I think my attraction to attractions is why when I heard about Crablandia, I simply had to visit it. This month’s cover story is about the creatively-named segment of Secrest Arboretum that houses America’s largest crabapple collection. It may not be America’s largest ball of twine but still – when I heard the name, my interest was piqued.

Now, I didn’t get to visit during peak bloom time, but Jim Chatfield and Jason Veil, my hosts, were kind enough to send some photos of the trial plot in bloom. You can see them yourself in the article. I enjoyed walking the rows of trees with them and hearing stories of cultivars and diseases gone by.

Send me your favorite oddball roadside attraction. I’d love to visit it. Especially if it offers free ice water.