Welcome to the BangShift Stop and See It Challenge! This is the first of what we hope are many stories of people getting out there and hitting the road in whatever car or vehicle you have functional at the moment. It is about seeing stuff that everyone else drives by, having some fun, and exploring your local area. It is about getting some fresh air, taking your kids for a ride, and having fun. Most of all it is about seeing the roadside stuff that makes America or wherever you may live cool!

Here’s how this came about. Between Christmas and New Year my kids were off of school. The days are short and cold here in New England and not exactly action packed. Rather than just do the same old stuff I decided to find some good roads we could hit and perhaps explore an area we had never visited in the state. In that process I somehow landed on a website called RoadsideAmerica.com which documents and locates fun and weird roadside attractions all across America, state by state. Literally every state has a directory. (Roadside America has nothing to do with this directly, I just used their site and it is awesome. Atlas Obscura is another you can use.)

From that website I made a list of about 20 things I thought we could see over the course of the day. A loop of about 250 miles was established and a plan was hatched to hit the road early and see this “stuff”. None of it is fancy, none of it cost a dime, and all of it either made us smile, made us laugh, taught us something, or made us appreciate where we live a little more. We had conversations about history, politics, geography, and all kinds of stuff. We ate some good food and had a blast. The BangShift Stop and See it Challenge is cheap, easy, and we want you to share you adventure with us! If you want help planning email me – [email protected] and let’s figure it out!

So…without further adieu…here’s the Lohnes family Stop and See it Challenge Day!

So here’s the tribe as we pulled out of the driveway on a very cold early January morning. The goal was to visit a variety of stops and have some fun along the way. Our kids are pretty good road warriors and we don’t let them do electronic stuff in the car. Brutal, but you have to look out the windows. They’ll thank us later!

Stop 1 – Former home of John L. Sullivan – Abington, Massachusetts 

John L Sullivan was the last heavyweight bare knuckle boxing world champion and the first heavyweight gloved boxing champion. He was one of the most famous guys in the world around the turn of the 20th century and this house in Abington, Massachusetts was his personal pad. He built this house during the  height of his fame and it was part of a large farm he owned on the western end of town. He died in this house in 1918 at the age of 59. This stop is literally right around the corner from the Lohnes Manse so we were off to a flying start.

Stop 2 – Massive Rocky Marciano statue – Brockton, Massachusetts 

Keeping with the boxing theme, the next stop was this monster of a statue located by Memorial Stadium in Brockton, Massachusetts. Rocky Marciano is the only heavyweight champion to ever retired undefeated and he was a Brockton native. He was not a technically great fighter but he had a jaw that could break cinder blocks and he threw every punch like it was the last one he’d ever throw. Marciano died in a plane crash after visiting with Andy Granatelli in 1969. Sadly he was flying to a surprise 46th birthday when an inexperienced pilot did a poor job in bad conditions. This 22′ tall image of Marciano captures the moment when he knocked out Jersey Joe Walcott in 1952 to gain the title.

Stop 3 – 24ft tall baseball bat carved from a tree – Plainville, Massachusetts

Statues and houses aside, this is the stuff we were looking for. The real interesting roadside finds. This 24 foot tall baseball bat was chainsaw carved at the Plainville town baseball fields after a parking lot project had effectively killed the tree it was carved from. Pretty neat how the stump is still rooted. Cool!

Stop 4 – Chopping Paul Bunyan – Bellingham, Massachusetts 

So we did not really intend to do things in these groups but here’s the next stop, another tree carved into something and this time it is a really cool Paul Bunyan splitting a log with a giant ax. Reportedly the arm and ax position can be changed on this guy and a few times a year he is in mid swing rather than splitting action mode. The detail on this guy is pretty impressive.

Stop 5 – The John Brown Bell – Marlborough, Massachusetts 

The first interesting historical spot we stopped at was at Union Common in Marlborough, Massachusetts. The bell you see atop this small tower was taken from the Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia armory that was famous for being a central spot in the insurrection lead by John Brown. That failed effort got him and 10 other people hanged. Two years after Brown, the Civil War was about ready to bust open and the Union soldiers at Harper’s Ferry were told to remove anything they could that might aid the enemy before they left. This bell was taken by the Marlborough unit for the town’s fire house which needed one. It has been in town ever since. Had they not taken it, the bell would have likely been melted down as part of the Confederate war effort as so many others were. Harper’s Ferry wants it back but Marlborough isn’t interested.

Stop 6 – Giant waving ant – Marlborough, Massachusetts 

The next stop was literally just around the corner from the last and  we were definitely on a bit of a carving kick on this trip. We did not plan it this way but it was just the nature of the route we stuck together through what we found at RoadsideAmerica.com. This is out in front of a pest control business and it is a pretty impressive piece of work. Standing a couple of stories tall, we’re pretty sure that there are not that many other trees carved into ants across the country .

Stop 7 – A muffler man formerly known as Yvonne – Groveland, Massachusetts 

There are “Muffler Men” all around America. Few of them still clutch the mufflers that they were created with and many of them have been repurposed into stuff like you see in the photo here. This guy is interesting because for many years he was standing in this position with a shirt on that said “Yvone”. After suffering this indignity, he’s been properly rehabbed and now sports a full Paul Bunyan look. The kids dug this guy who is tucked in the woods next to the road.

Stop 8 – The oldest cultivated tree in America – Danvers, Massachusetts 

By any measure this is kind of amazing. Located about a quarter mile off of a very busy road and behind an Osram-Sylvania building is this, the oldest cultivated tree in America. No, not the oldest tree in America, there would be some sequoias an redwoods that want to argue that point but the oldest cultivated tree. This tree was planted by the John Endecott in 1632! Endecott was the governor of Massachusetts at the time. This tree is 385 years old which is awesome. In 1964 kids attacked the tree, chopping off many limbs but it was saved and lives happily in its little fenced in area today. We bet less an 100 people a year stop to see it in the back corner of this parking lot. Maybe that’s a good thing for the tree.

LUNCH – Kelly’s Roast Beef – Danvers, Massachusetts 

For whatever reason, the North Shore of Massachusetts is renowned for its roast beef sandwiches. There are loads of roast beef joints to eat at but the king of them all is Kelly’s. Their original location is on Revere Beach in Revere but they have branched out with more locations in this part of the state. The sandwiches and onion rings never disappoint. If you are ever coming to Massachusetts, you have to have Kelly’s at least once.

Stop 9 – The Salem Witchcraft Hysteria Memorial – Danvers, Massachusetts

The Salem Witch Trials were an amazing and horrifying situation in colonial Massachusetts during 1692 and 1963. Starting with the behavior of a girl and her cousin which could not be explained by medical means at the time, the situation in the Salem colony quickly devolved into madness with people being accused of witchcraft and afflicting the girls with these issues. Soon more and more people were accused, sent to court, and found guilty. The major problem was that being found guilty was a death sentence. 20 people were executed, 14 of them women. 19 of them were hung but one of them, famously, was not. Giles Corey was crushed to death by rocks. As was the custom, heavy stones were placed on the chest of the accused until they admitted what they did. Every time he was instructed to confess, Corey simply said, “More weight.” For something that happened so long ago, this is a powerful memorial. The ominous image of the colonial judge struck a chord with us.

Stop 10 – Norumbega Tower – Weston, Massachusetts 

Built in 1889 and paid for by Eben Horsford, the tower stands about 40 feet tall and is supposedly located in the area of where Norse settlers lived centuries before the Pilgrims showed up and long before Chris Columbus “found” America. There’s a stone plaque that talks about the Vikings and other Norse settlers. There’s not a lot of evidence to support Horsford’s beliefs but this thing is pretty cool.

Stop 11 – The graves of Igloo and the dog and Lizzy Borden’s dogs – Dedham, Mass.

Hey, I didn’t say that the stops had to be normal, right? Again, we found this one on RoadsideAmerica.com and it was a very old pet cemetery in Dedham, Massachusetts that had a couple of interesting graves. First there was Igloo the dog of Admiral Richard Byrd, one of the most famous American explorers ever. Igloo explored both the North and South poles with Byrd and his headstone looks like an iceberg.

Then there was the second grave. This one contained the three dogs of Lizzy Borden who was the woman accused of killing her parents with a hatchet. She was never convicted of the crime and it was a national sensation when it happened. “Sleeping awhile” is pretty creepy. Just saying.

Stop 12 – Skyhawk on a stick – Weymouth, Massachusetts 

The site of the former Weymouth Naval Air Station is home to this Skyhawk on a pole. The airplane is about the last vestige of the huge complex that was decommissioned during the Bill Clinton presidency at the cost of thousands of local jobs. I grew up in the flight path of this place and it was nothing to see giant cargo jets coming in and out. During the first Gulf War, fighter planes were practicing carrier touch and go landings about 24 hours a day. It was wild. The whole base is now being redeveloped into what amounts to its own town now. Some of the old buildings remain but are slated for demolition.

INTERLUDE – HERE’S WHAT WE WERE DRIVING! – STORY CONTINUES BELOW 

Our road trip weapon of choice on this mission was a 2017 Audi A4. This one had the 2.0L turbocharged engine and Quattro all wheel drive. The dual clutch transmission performed well and was instantaneously responsive with the paddle shifters on the wheel. Handling is superb and comfort was great as well. We saw nearly 30mpg on our day of adventure with mixed driving ranging from cities to winding backroads and lots of highway driving.

The S-Line equipment on the car gave it a purposeful appearance and the styling refresh that Audi did on these cars really did a fine job to keep the looks modern. We thought this car was definitely comparable to a BMW or Mercedes in its size class and we never got bored with it. Highway on ramps and winding back roads were great fun. The chassis and brakes are stout, the interior amenities are perfectly suited to the driver and passengers and we’d take this one for a commuter or road tripper any day.

Very solid car that handled our family needs perfectly with room to spare.

Stop 13 – Patriot’s Day Movie Set – Former Weymouth Naval Air Station 

The movie Patriots Day is now in theaters and it is the story of the Boston Marathon bombing and the aftermath of finding the scurrilous dogs that performed the act. Several of the scenes were filmed on sets at the same base where the Skyawk on a stick was found.

The first street scene is supposed to look like Boyleston St in Boston and the “neighborhood” is supposed to resemble Watertown, Massachusetts where the jerk was caught by police after a massive man hunt.

Stop 14 – The National Monument to the Forefathers – Plymouth, Massachusetts 

This is one of the most amazing monuments and it is located on a little side street in Plymouth. Standing 150ft tall it was built over the span of 38 years starting in 1850 and ending in 1888. It is massive and very intricate with different panels depicting scenes from the earliest days of the Pilgrims. It is basically five statues in one with the huge 36ft tall “Faith” standing on top with her finger pointed toward the heavens. It is nothing to spend an hour walking around the monument and reading all of the things engraved into it. The work is stunning and you can see where the 30 years went. All the names of the people who traveled on the Mayflower are on the statue.

Stop 15 –  Plymouth Rock – Plymouth, Massachusetts 

As the shadows were starting to grow long, we were nervous that we were not going to get to all the stops before dark. Only a handful remained. Plymouth Rock was one of them. The most famous boulder in America, it is located under a granite column structure on Plymouth Harbor. No one knows if this was the rock the colonists stepped on but it has the date engraved into it so it must be, right? One of the most popular tourist attractions in Plymouth, we’d all seen it a million times and now you have to.

Stop 16 – 42nd Parallel Marker – Kingston, Massachusetts 

Sitting in the weeds on the side of a lightly traveled road in Kingston, Massachusetts is this, the marker for where the 42nd parallel enters the United States. Making up parts of the state boundaries of New York, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, and California it is interesting that someone, somewhere thought that this imaginary line needed a marker in Kingston. This was a quick stop.

Stop 17 – Miles Standish’s Legs – Halifax, Massachusetts 

Miles Standish was the military leader for the Pilgrims and a very important figure in colonial life here in what would become America. There’s a massive statue of him in Plymouth where his figure looks out over the ocean from atop a huge granite column. Back in the late 1800s the statue got hit by lightning and Miles was blown in half. The statue was repaired in 1922 and somehow the bottom portion of the original statue ended up in this random location in Hanson. It was on a concrete post but has been relocated to this spot next to the road. Weird.

Stop 18 – THE END – Two huge cow heads 

Peaceful Meadows is one of the best ice cream stands in the known universe and while the keep a barn full of cows they also have these tw0 giant fiberglass cow heads to serve as an attention getter for passing traffic. After a long day in the car we took care of business with some frozen snacks and reveled in our accomplishment of the day. This was really fun and the ending was perfect.

So there you have it! The first installment of the BangShift Stop and See It Challenge! This is not a race, or some sort of contest about who can stop at the most places. We want you to get in the car and go see the weird, cool, macabre, funny, and interesting roadside stuff in your area. Share your story with us and the world!