Places SamWPiano Wants to Go

A private collection of massive steel monsters guarding a Texas pipe works.

The world's largest squirrel statue clutches a pecan bigger than your head.

A serene temple with stunning stained glass hides in downtown Dallas.

These boots are made for selfies.

This downtown Dallas art installation is always on the lookout.

This eclectic Austin curiosity shop is home to all things strange and unusual.

A Prada store in the West Texas desert that is never open for business.

This crumbling UFO is one of only a few remaining "moveable ski chalets" of its kind.

Free public park and gardens filled with peacocks and peahens.

A Victorian mansion, painstakingly reproduced to appear just as the the Munster's family home did on TV.

DIY collection of eclectic holdings.

A 24-hour vending machine restocked daily with homemade full-sized pecan pies.

A 90-year-old underground water reservoir offers a more industrial kind of tranquility.

One part antique store, one part curiosities hodge-podge.

This unique structure in suburban Austin is made up entirely of other people's castaways, and constantly changing.

Continuing the tradition of the dime museum in style.

A life-size bronze statue of Ettore Boiardi, the man behind the can.

Much of the spectacular canyon followed over a century ago by the Los Angeles & Salt Lake railroad is now accessible to cars.

The sump of the landlocked Carson River is a haven for wildlife.

A cosmic pit stop just beyond the notorious Area 51.

Clark County Museum has created an entire street of historically important buildings relocated from various other locations within the county.

This enormous fiberglass cow near Death Valley National Park once graced a casino roof in Las Vegas.

The rocks exposed at Valley of Fire State Park also occur in a much less known but equally spectacular area a few miles to the southwest.

Welcome to a feel-good American drugstore, in the classic sense of the term.