Places Edited by Ian Hall

The only Civil War battle in Washington D.C. took place near this highest natural point in the city.

The highest point in Maryland is only accessible by hiking through another state.

Heron, whitewater rapids, and urban industrialism all add to the beauty of this concrete nature walk.

The highest point in Delaware is located under a trailer so this marker across the street will have to do.

This 29-ton granite ball spins around at the slightest touch thanks to a scientific phenomenon.

This titanic java kettle is one of the many kitschy landmarks located along America's OTHER famous highway.

The former home of Samuel Clemens and family remembers the happiest period of the author's life.

Stripes of flowers bloom each spring in a 50 acre rainbow of color.

An Irish Memorial commemorating those who perished due to potato blight.

I-95's Tijuana-style celebration of kitsch at the Carolina border.

Outsider art meets paleontology at this roadside reptile repository.

Behind this beachfront shop lies a spectacular, colorful sea cave with an equally colorful past.

Edgar Allan Poe's old dorm is now a shrine to the author's legacy.

A girls' boarding school inspired by the Chicago World's Fair, once abandoned, now restored to strange and scenic glory.

An abandoned stretch of highway, deteriorating next to the operational one.

Memorial to the 137 lives lost on a ship fire, the whole hulk of which washed up on the Asbury Park shore.

A bunker "with enough U.S. currency to replenish the cash supply east of the Mississippi" in the event of nuclear war now protects nitrate film.

"X" marks the spot of an echo chamber in the middle of a plaza.

A couple turned their front yard into an artistic masterpiece.

An abandoned cemetery lies in ruins as the surrounding forest swallows it whole.

A band of aerialists and circus performers putting on incredible shows in East Williamsburg.

The land is home to swimming ponies and a legendary 18th-century treasure.

North America’s largest collection of horological devices and home to a colossal clock with a dizzying array of features.

The largest university building in the West is a gothic masterpiece containing dozens of theme rooms based on different countries.