Places RStephens Wants to Go

A colossal concrete penguin announces this Montana town as the coldest spot in America. But is it really?

The oldest continuously-operating Chinese restaurant in the United States has been in business since 1911.

The oldest operational cathedral in the U.S. has one shell of a way of projecting speakers' voices.

Once the primary source of ice in this region during the mid-20th century.

An Aztec snake god has taken the material form of an apartment complex.

A vineyard devoted entirely to an unexplored flavor frontier.

A remarkably opulent mansion with a tragic history.

The oldest bar in Missouri is hidden within a limestone brewery cellar more than 50 feet underground.

People of the Plum Bayou culture built these enormous mounds over 1,000 years ago.

The Old Mill shown in the opening credits of “Gone With the Wind” is actually fairly new, and was never a mill at all.

A Route 66 filling station that was designed to resemble the Hagia Sophia, and is now the symbol of an arts district.

The only remaining sod house Oklahoma built by a homesteader in 1894.

This giant mimetic milk bottle has encouraged Route 66 travelers to choose dairy since 1948.

This historic folk art garden contains a nightmare tower that claims to be the world's largest concrete totem pole.

This Nevada lake holds its titular natural pyramid and, if the legends are true, a number of dangerous spirits.

A modernist landscape of water and sci-fi concrete.

This strategically-placed fountain creates the magnificent illusion of mustangs galloping across a river.

A registered historic landmark shrouded in unsettling local legends.

Hidden within a spa in a Texas strip mall is a restaurant specializing in Eastern European foods.

A former chicken restaurant that doubled as a speakeasy is now a quirky home full of wonderfully strange traditions.

In 1952, this restaurant began selling the Colonel's “secret” recipe.

A museum has some wedding cake dating to the Teddy Roosevelt administration, and some bacon from FDR's.

Sandstone rock formations that look like they belong on the cover of a progressive rock album.

One of the world's oldest and most massive living organisms is a grove of quaking aspens.