Exit 44, Reality: A Field Guide to Roadside Attractions That Don't Exist (Yet)

I have a theory that the true national treasure of the United States isn't the Grand Canyon or the Smithsonian. It's the giant fiberglass cow. It's Wall Drug's free water. It's the Cadillac Ranch, where you're actively encouraged to spray paint a 1950s luxury vehicle half-buried in Texas dirt. No other country has committed this hard to the proposition that a road trip is incomplete without pulling over for something deeply, gloriously unnecessary.

So as someone who spends an unhealthy amount of time inventing fictional worlds, I've been asking myself a serious question: if my made-up places existed, what would their roadside attractions look like? Because every real place worth visiting has one. The worlds in my sketchbooks deserve no less.

Here are five proposals. Investors, I'm available.

1. The World's Largest Undone Knot (The Fumbledlands)

The Fumbledlands is a fictional territory where everything arrives slightly broken — packages, promises, pencil tips. Naturally, its premier attraction would be a 60-foot tangle of rope suspended between two water towers, visible for miles, famously almost tied.

The gift shop: Everything is sold in pairs because one always goes missing. Keychains, matching socks, and a bestselling bumper sticker reading 'I GOT ALMOST ALL THE WAY THERE.'

The postcard: Aerial shot of the knot at sunset, captioned 'Greetings from the Fumbledlands — We Meant To Write Sooner.'

2. Dinosaur Caverns & Sentimental Rock Recycling Center (The Long Ago Highway)

Think of this as Wall Drug meets a very emotionally available quarry. In this world, old memories physically harden into stones, and the Long Ago Highway is lined with facilities that process them. The roadside version offers free tours of the Caverns, where particularly heavy memories are stored on industrial shelving.

The gift shop: 'Pre-loved rocks,' each with a handwritten tag explaining what memory it used to be. (Sample tag: 'Was somebody's first slow dance. Polishes up nice.')

The postcard: A smiling cartoon trilobite giving a thumbs up above the slogan 'YOU ROCK. LITERALLY, THAT'S THE BUSINESS MODEL.'

3. The Cadillac Ranch of Capsized Boats (The Drowned Orchard)

The Drowned Orchard is a valley where, per my lore, an entire fleet of fishing boats sank in an orchard — the trees grew up through the decks. In tribute to Amarillo's finest painted-car tradition, the attraction here is ten half-sunken rowboats that visitors are handed a paintbrush upon arrival. There is no rule about what you may paint. There has never been a rule. The boats have been entirely covered in seventeen layers of murals, some of which are genuinely good.

The gift shop: Small cans of 'authentic boat paint' (regular paint), apple cider donuts, and a scale model rowboat you can paint at home, which is not the same and everyone knows it.

The postcard: Four words, all caps: 'BOATS. TREES. PAINT. YOU.'

4. The World's Only Museum of Almost (Exit 44, The Maybe Plains)

The Maybe Plains is a region in my stories where every possible version of an event exists simultaneously until you look directly at it. The Museum of Almost is a low-slung building shaped like a shrug, housing exhibits of things that nearly happened: a half-finished letter, a wedding cake with the top tier missing, a rocket that made it to the edge of the atmosphere and decided to get lunch instead.

The gift shop: Greeting cards for occasions that didn't occur ('Sorry Your Trip Fell Through'), and a gift certificate redeemable for nothing, lovingly printed on cardstock.

The postcard: Blank. On the back, printed in small type: 'Imagine something good here.'

5. The Giant Singing Rocking Chair (Grandmamah's Bluff)

Every great roadside empire needs a 'World's Largest' something, and Grandmamah's Bluff — a fictional town founded, per legend, by a grandmother with strong opinions and a bass voice — has the flagship. The chair is 45 feet tall, rocks gently in the wind, and hums a lullaby in a key that has made several truckers weep at a rest stop. Climbing it is free. Getting down is a story you'll tell for the rest of your life.

The gift shop: Fudge (non-negotiable for any legitimate roadside attraction), butterscotch candies in a dish that is somehow always slightly sticky, and vinyl recordings of the lullaby, pressed locally.

The postcard: The chair silhouetted against a prairie sunset, captioned 'SLEEP TIGHT, TRAVELER.'

Why We Build Giant Things By the Highway

Here's the thing I keep coming back to. Roadside attractions are folk art at infrastructure scale. Nobody built the Cadillac Ranch for a reason. Wall Drug's free water is a joke that became a landmark that became a legend. These places exist because someone, somewhere, had more imagination than sense, and a highway's worth of strangers decided to play along.

That's the same energy I try to pour into every fictional world I draw. The gift shops, the postcards, the questionable lullabies — they're how a place proves it's real. A world isn't finished until somebody wants a fridge magnet from it.

So the next time you're on a long drive and see a hand-painted sign for something absurd eight miles ahead, take the exit. Buy the fudge. Paint the boat. You're not wasting time — you're participating in the great American tradition of pulling over for wonder.

And if you happen to pass a water tower with a 60-foot knot hanging between it and its twin, tell them Linc sent you. The Fumbledlands is still working out the zoning.