Places Monster Creek Wants to Go

The highest point in North Carolina and the United States east of the Mississippi River, Mount Mitchell is named after argumentative explorer Elisha Mitchell.

Gnarled canopies of pink and purple wildflowers arch over the trail to the summit.

An idyllic mineral hot springs facility with a more-than checkered past.

North Carolina's finest examples of Native American pictographs have survived for 5,000 years.

Over 200 people were buried here with only a small stone to mark their final resting place.

All that's left of the quintessential "cabin in the woods."

A free park where visitors can learn about and collect 440 million-year-old fossils.

A 25,000-square-foot display with dozens of model trains in intricate miniature worlds.

A castle built by an eccentric medieval enthusiast in suburban Ohio.

A local cafe and concert venue occupy a 1913 school house.

How did a massive marine arthropod find its way to landlocked Ohio?

The largest earthwork effigy in the world.

Admire impressively detailed models of everything from a Pennsylvania Dutch kitchen to the world's smallest Swiss Army Knife.

At the turn of the century, a chair like rock sat at the top of the falls and hosted the winner of a local beauty contest.

This former mill tunnel was blasted under the ridge to divert a portion of the Muscatatuck River.

Ruined pieces of stone and a swimming pool are all that remain of an amusement park swept away by a flood.

This former tuberculosis research hospital endeavored to cure the dreaded disease with fresh air and positive attitudes.

This calm grassy field was once a Superfund site full of thousands of nasty chemicals.

This railroad overpass is said to be home to a murderous goat-man whose very legend has led to very real deaths.

This park contains one of the largest concentrations of cedar glades, a unique and rare ecosystem.

This abandoned nuclear cooling tower casts a shadow over a bucolic town.

This tiny 19th-century tunnel was built so a man could move his cows from one field to another.

Eight rare Corvettes are swallowed up by a sinkhole in Kentucky's National Corvette Museum.

Once one of the most polluted caves in America, now an environmental success story and a museum dedicated to caves.