Pay homage to the auto at this cheeky Stonehenge replica assembled from 39 discarded cars. The faithful reproduction, along with other car-part art, rises out of a field 3 miles north of Alliance and the junction with US 385, the road to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Housing a jaw-dropping collection of self-taught (or "outsider" art), Maryland's AVAM is a celebration of unbridled creativity utterly free of arts-scene pretension. Across two buildings and two sculpture parks, you'll find broken-mirror collages, homemade robots and flying apparatuses, elaborate sculptural works made of needlepoint, and gigantic model ships painstakingly created from matchsticks. The whimsical automatons in the Cabaret Mechanical Theater are worth a closer look.

Nevada's Highway 50 is known as the "Loneliest Road in America," and intrepid drivers that navigate the vast, empty, isolated landscape will be rewarded with a series of quirky landmarks. One storied site is the Shoe Tree, where you can leave your sneakers as an offering to offbeat America. Why drive the Loneliest Road in America? As mountaineer George Mallory said about Everest: "Because it's there." (And yes, Mallory disappeared while attempting the feat, but the lesson still applies.)

Ghost lights, mystery lights…call them what you want, but the Marfa Lights, flickering beneath the Chinati Mountains in Texas, have been capturing travelers’ imaginations for over a century. On many nights, the mystery seems to be whether you're merely seeing car headlights in the distance, though convincing-enough descriptions of mysterious lights on the horizon date back long before there were cars. Try your luck at this viewing area, equipped with benches, binoculars and restrooms.

Possibly the wildest highlight of any visit to St. Louis is this frivolous fun house in a vast old shoe factory. The Museum of Mirth, Mystery & Mayhem sets the tone. Run, jump, and explore all manner of exhibits, including a seven-story slide. The summer-only rooftop offers all manner of weird and wonderful fun, including a flamboyant Ferris wheel and a wild slide.

Insert tongue firmly in cheek and step right up for an acrid cup of eternal youth at this kitschy "archaeological park" in Florida. As the story goes, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León came ashore here in 1513, considered this freshwater stream the possible legendary Fountain of Youth, and promptly charged folks 15 bucks to take a gander. We may be kidding about that last part. At the least, there is some kid-friendly living history reenactment going on at this spot.