Orange World

We just got back from a quick trip to Florida, and the number one thing on my must-see list was Orange World. We were staying with my dude's parents in Bradenton (thank you Jo Ann and Ken!) which isn't exactly close to Orange World, but as I've said before, my love of novelty architecture knows no bounds.

Orange World, or "The Big Orange" as I've taken to calling it, is a gift shop and roadside citrus stand, and it's shaped like a huge orange. It's so big, in fact, that they say it's the World's Largest Orange—although technically it's only half of an orange. The man at the counter explained that the building was originally just circular with a flat top. Allegedly the owner was eating at the Waffle House next door and looking at the building when he had the idea to build the orange on top—after the addition was completed, business tripled overnight.

The area used to be surrounded by orange groves, but is now full of hotels and gift shops catering to the Disney overflow. Orange World is just one of several huge gift shops on Route 192 in Kissimmee, but it's definitely the most memorable.

Update: Look how cute it looks from Google Earth (who knew it had leaves and a stem!):

The Big Duck

This past Sunday one of my dreams came true—we finally made it out to Flanders, Long Island to see The Big Duck. The Big Duck may not seem like an attraction worthy of being a road trip destination, but I planned an entire road trip last summer just to stay overnight in a concrete Wigwam—as my dude says, my love of novelty architecture knows no bounds.

The Big Duck was completed in 1931 and is, by many accounts, the holy grail of novelty architecture. While not as large as the Longaberger Basket or as interactive as a drive-through Donut, The Big Duck inspired two architects to coin the term "duck" in 1968. "Ducks" are sculptural buildings representing the products or services they provide—they are structure and signage combined. 

The Big Duck was built by a Riverhead duck farming couple to sell their Peking ducks back when 60% of the nation's ducks were raised on Long Island. They reportedly had the idea while visiting a coffee pot-shaped coffee shop in California (land of the novelty building), and hired a carpenter and two stage set designers to help execute their vision. The Big Duck has a wood and wire mesh frame which is covered in painted concrete. Its eyes are two Model-T taillights and they glow red at night (if my Instagram research is to be believed). 

The Big Duck did seem a bit smaller than I expected—it's 30 feet from beak to tail, 15 feet from wing to wing and 20 feet from the top of its head to its base—but it's large enough to contain a gift shop with a counter and shelves of duck-themed souvenirs. 

The number of duck farms on Long Island has dropped through the years due to escalating land values (i.e. The Hamptons) and environmental factors. The Big Duck has been relocated a few times and its fate hasn't always been secure. When the land that it occupied was threatened with development, it was donated to Suffolk County in 1987 and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Aside from being historically significant to a novelty architecture enthusiast like myself, The Big Duck is just ridiculous and fun—it was impossible not to smile as we were driving and I saw its bright orange beak peeking out over the horizon.

Lucy The Elephant

Built in 1881, Lucy the Elephant is the oldest surviving roadside attraction in the US. She was built by James Lafferty, in Margate City two miles south of Atlantic City, to help sell real estate and boost tourism. Two other elephant structures were built by Lafferty—in Coney Island and Cape May—but Lucy is the last (wo)man standing.

I'm very into novelty architecture, and along with The Big Duck (which I still need to get out to) Lucy might be the best example that exists. She is six-stories tall and covered in wood and tin sheeting. She fell badly into disrepair by the late 60s and was almost demolished. Thankfully, the Save Lucy Committee, founded in 1969, was able to raise the necessary funds to save her from the wrecking ball—in 1970 she was moved 100 yards inland and completely restored. When we visited, she looked as if she had just received a fresh coat of paint, and it's hard to imagine that she was ever in such dire straits.

Lucy is billed as the only elephant "you can walk through and come out alive!" Visiting the grounds and gift shop is free, but to go inside you need to pay for a tour ($8 for adults). Even though I'd been virtually traveling to Lucy for months before actually planning a trip, I was surprised at how large she is (65 feet high and 60 feet long). I still have the same experience whenever I see the Unisphere in person—just totally in awe of how small I feel.

You enter Lucy through a door in her back leg, and climb a narrow spiral staircase to get into the main room. Upstairs is a tiny museum containing photos and artifacts, and you can look out both of her eyes at the Atlantic Ocean. The tour continues all the way to the top, which opens up into the howdah carriage, offering 360 degree views (the Lucy water tower kills me).

The gift shop has floaty pens, a squished penny machine and every other piece of Lucy memorabilia you could want—t-shirts, lucky Lucy trinkets, postcards, erasers, stuffed Lucys, pins, patches and even "shell"ephant figurines. We stayed long enough for the weather to change from perfect blue skies to rain shower, but it was worth it when we realized we had Lucy to ourselves for a while. Like I'm prone to do, I researched this Atlantic City trip for months, looking at Lucy on Google and devouring any information I could about her, and yet there's still nothing quite as wonderful as seeing these things in person.

Roswell: UFO McDonald's

My sister, brother-in-law and niece recently hit the road from Dallas, with our destination set at Roswell, New Mexico. We all knew that there wasn't that much to see in Roswell, but we had our hearts set on a kitschy, old fashioned, family vacation and Roswell turned out to be the perfect destination. Sure, downtown Roswell is basically one step up from a one-stoplight town, but there were plenty of alien-themed things to satisfy our need for kitsch.

One of our first stops was the UFO-themed McDonald's in the center of town. Along Roswell's main street (appropriately called Main Street) I counted no fewer than three McDonald's within a very short distance (in addition to three Subways and three Sonics), but only one is shaped like a UFO. Actually only a portion of the restaurant is UFO-shaped, but in a town that is begging for novelty, alien-themed architecture, we were grateful that someone had stepped up to the plate.

The inside is shiny and industrial, like any good UFO should be, but it's the space-themed McDonald's characters that really turn it up a notch. Maybe it was the formative years I spent working at a McDonald's as a teen, but I've always liked the strange cast, from Grimace (what is he!) to Birdie, to the Hamburglar, the Fry Kids and even Ronald. I don't recall the chicken nugget character, but I defy you to find anything cuter than an anthropomorphic nugget floating in a space bubble.

There's a great mural next to the drive-thru that we almost missed, featuring even more cute space nuggets, and a ufo painted in the parking lot in case you needed a spot to land yours. As great as it shines in the daylight, it's even better at night when it lights up, looking as if it's ready to take-off at any moment.

Barrel of Fun

We had already planned to eat ice cream from an ice cream cone-shaped ice cream stand, but when I came across the Barrel of Fun in my roadtrip research, I couldn't resist adding it to our itinerary. We did visit them on separate days, but even if we hadn't, you can never have too much novelty architecture (or ice cream) in your life, in my opinion.

The Barrel of Fun is located in Okolona, a suburb of Louisville, Kentucky, in a residential neighborhood, next to a tiny strip of shops. The 12-foot-tall red, and white-striped barrel opened in 1994 by former plant worker Mark Beam and originally only sold ice cream. They've since expanded to included other standard roadside fare such as burgers and hot dogs.

By the time we arrived at the Barrel, we were ready for dinner, so I got a chili cheese dog (my first!) and a large dill pickle (my mouth waters at the memory). New York maybe clouding my judgement, but everything on the menu was insanely cheap (I can't remember exactly, but the chili dog was under $2). Is the Barrel of Fun something everyone should drive miles out of their way to see? Probably not. But it was a delightful, somewhat hidden, local gem, with average food that tasted slightly above average only because it was served to us from the inside of a 12-foot barrel.

Longaberger Basket

The last stop on our recent #ALLCAPSEPICROADTRIPOFDELIGHTS was the (now former) Longaberger Basket headquarters in Newark, Ohio. I have always appreciated novelty architecture, but I've become more and more obsessed with seeking out examples of it. The Longaberger Basket is just about perfect in the "buildlings shaped like what they contain" department, right up there with Twistee Treats, donut shops like Randy's Donuts and the Big Duck (the latter two are top of my wish list).

I've said it before, but the whimsy of novelty architecture is something that is sorely missing in most people's every day lives. Unless of course, you drive down Ohio's Route 16 frequently, which has a near-perfect view of the big basket. If you never find yourself in rural Ohio, know that you can creep on the basket from Google Earth, where—just like Willy the Whale—the basket and its adorable shadow can be viewed at any time.

The basket was completed in 1997 at the insistence of founder Dave Longaberger, and at what would turn out to be the peak of the company's success. Two years after the building's completion, Longaberger died. Due in part to changing decor tastes, sales of the expensive baskets began to decline, and the company stopped paying taxes on the basket in 2014. Longaberger currently owes $577,660 in property taxes, and in mid-July they relocated their remaining employees to a space at their nearby manufacturing plant. 

We arrived at the basket late in the day, and there were two cars in the parking lot but by all accounts the building already looked abandoned. The large side parking lots are overgrown, the flags out front are in shreds and from up close you can see that the exterior paint has begun to peel. Because the company is so behind on the taxes, the possibility exists that the basket will be seized and put up for auction, with the minimum bid set at around $570k. This might be a steal if the basket wasn't located in Newark, Ohio, or if it wasn't so costly to maintain—I read somewhere that the handles need to be heated in the winter to prevent ice from forming and crashing through the massive skylight. 

I knew the basket was big—seven stories with handles and brass tags 160 times the size of a standard Longaberger basket —but it's definitely something that needs to be seen and experienced in person. 

Although it was a bit out of our way, finally making it to the big basket was a total dream-come-true for me and the perfect way to end our already-perfect roadtrip. I'm interested to see how this next phase of the basket's life turns out, and I do hope that it lives on in some way. However, if it does happen to stay abandoned and fall further into disrepair, a return trip to Newark is a must—the only thing better than a seven-story, basket-shaped office building is an abandoned, seven-story, basket-shaped office building.

Bonus Basket! I couldn't resist making one last, last stop at the nearby Longaberger Homestead, home of the "World's Largest Apple Basket," which was hand-woven out of hardwood maple and stands more than 29 feet tall.

Wigwam Village No. 2

I can't remember when I first became aware of the Wigwam Villages, but ever since I did, I've been obsessed with staying in one (and then, of course, the other two). It seemed sensible to begin with the one "closest" to me—Wigwam Village No. 2, in Cave City, Kentucky. In fact, our entire recent ALL CAPS EPIC ROAD TRIP OF DELIGHTS was planned around an overnight stay at the Wigwam Village. Everything else we did along the way there and back was really just a bonus as long as we got to SLEEP IN A WIGWAM, I was happy.

The first Wigwam Village was built in 1933 by Frank A. Redford, in Horse Cave, KY. When No. 2 opened a few miles away in 1937, No. 1 closed and was demolished in 1982. No. 2 has 15 wigwams arranged in a semi-circle (technically tipis, but I don't think Frank was too concerned about cultural sensitivity at the time). Subsequent villages were built in Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Arizona and California, and only the last two still remain.

Each wigwam has one or two beds, a bathroom (small, but normal by New York standards), a TV, window AC, vanity and chair. Outside there is space to park one car and a bench for each Wigwam. The hickory furniture is original to the rooms, and I immediately fell in love with the zigzag detail repeated throughout the bathroom. Each concrete and steel Wigwam is 14 ft in diameter, so it's not a luxury suite, but it was clean, the shower pressure was great, and it was everything I had expected from an 80-year-old roadside novelty motel (and only $84 for a double room on the weekend).

The village also includes a large central wigwam, which originally housed a restaurant, but now serves as a gift shop and office. We were lucky to chat with the lovely owner while we browsed the gift shop, but he had some disheartening things to say about bad reviews that have hurt his (already precarious) business. He explained that the wigwams are basically one step up from camping, and that it was impossible to combat the unrealistic expectations people have for the 80-year-old motel.

It was sad to hear that some guests aren't as thrilled as we were to stay in what I consider to be a true American treasure—one that's been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1988. I can only hope that there are enough novelty architecture-, roadside attraction- loving people left in the world for the three remaining Wigwam Villages to survive.

The Cone

When we were planning our recent road trip, my friend JMP casually mentioned that we should try to hunt down an ice-cream-shaped ice cream stand to add to our itinerary. I replied "oh, I already did," and sent her information for The Cone, located in Tylersville, Ohio (a suburb northeast of Cincinnati).

The Cone is a Twistee-Treat-style ice cream stand, like the Twist o' the Mist in Niagara Falls or the two I visited back in October in Massillon, Ohio. The Cone is the first orange-and-white color scheme I've seen on these buildings, and I love how infinitely customizable they are. We saw a lot of people ordering the orange and white twist cone, which must be their specialty. I definitely would have ordered it just for the novelty factor, but orange ice cream sounds horrible to me, so I had a root beer float which was excellent.

They had garbage cans shaped like ice cream cones, a water fountain shaped like a lion AND a pressed penny machine, which is the holy grail of any roadside stop, in my opinion. As if the main building wasn't charming enough, they also had a few "Mobile Cones," topped with sprinkles and I can't think of anything cuter to catch cruising around town.

Twist o' the Mist

As part of our recent Buffalo trip, we decided to spend a day exploring Niagara Falls. Niagara, NY is very close to Buffalo—I'd been to the Canadian side many times as a kid, but never saw much of the American side. There were a few kitschy things on the American side that I wanted to check out so I was content to not cross the border this time (we'll be back!). 

Top of my list was the Twist o' the Mist, an ice-cream-shaped ice cream stand. I've been obsessed with novelty architecture as long as I can remember. Buildings that are shaped like what they contain/sell make me so very happy. I used to live within a few minutes of three of these ice cream-shaped buildings, officially called Twistee Treats. I visited two of them on a return trip to Ohio last year, and I've been eager to find more since.

I love puns and clever names almost as much as novelty architecture, so of course I love the Twist o' the Mist play on the "Maid of the Mist." We weren't quite at the dessert portion of our day yet, so we sadly didn't patronize the Twist, but the proclamation that they have 56 Flavors really intrigues me. It seems excessive, but so does an entire building shaped like an ice cream cone, so I guess it's just perfect.

Twistee Treat

When my friend Katie told me that she would be getting married about five minutes from where I used to live in Massillon, Ohio, Jim and I started planning a roadtrip. He'd never really been to Ohio before, and I was eager to revisit a few spots that I took for granted when they were part of my every day commute. I was particularly excited to see the two Twistee Treats that are a few minutes apart and just down the road from the last place I lived in Ohio.

According to Roadside Architecture, Twistee Treats are "28 feet tall and 20 feet wide fiberglass ice cream cones topped with cherries. The design was created by Robert G. "Skip" Skinner who built the first location in North Fort Myers in 1982. The buildings were produced in Cape Coral, FL. They were made from 19 pieces of fiberglass and assembled on-site. By 1986, there were 30 locations, all of them in Florida. It is believed that about 90 of these buildings were produced over the years. About half of them have been demolished."

Chubby's is definitely my favorite, and as far as I can tell one of the nicest ones that still exist. The cherry, fudge, raised lettering and hand-painted signage really bring it to the next level. While we were creeping on it, the owner actually pulled up to collect her planters. We thought she was going to question why we were creeping on her obviously closed business, but instead she apologized that they had just recently closed for the season. She also remarked "there's no doubt what we sell," which is what I love about novelty architecture. Is there anything more charming than getting ice cream from a building shaped like an ice cream cone? Nope.

The other location is more sparse than Chubby's, but any building shaped like what it sells is perfect in my book. I do love the matching umbrellas, and this Twistee Treat gets the distinction of being the only one that I've actually patronized. We went through the drive-thru once and I got a chocolate-dipped cone that was a very delicious but hazardous choice.

There is another Twistee Treat quite close to these two, but it's nearly identical to the pink one and was slightly out of our way so we didn't get to it. After browsing the #twisteetreat hashtag on Instagram and seeing one for sale, Jim and I promptly developed a fantasy of buying one, plopping it in a New York park à la Shake Shake and retiring as millionaires—with a lifetime supply of ice cream that looks exactly like the building in which it was made.