Ride.
Washington is packed with strange, awesome and totally random roadside attractions that make driving way more fun than just staring at trees and highway signs.
- Miles: 841
- Start: La Merced breakwater, Anacortes
- End: Big Red Wagon, Spokane
- Time: two to four days
- Suitability: A2 or above
- La Merced breakwater, Anacortes
- Fremont Troll, Seattle
- Hat & Boots Park (Oxbow Park), Seattle
- The Vashon doors, Vashon
- Worlds Largest Frying Pan, Long Beach
- World’s Largest Egg, Winlock
- Stonehenge Memorial, Goldendale
- Teapot Dome Historical Site, Zillah
- The Codger Pole, Colfax
- Big Red Wagon, Spokane
La Merced Breakwater in Anacortes looks like just a regular rock wall from afar, but when you get close to it, you’ll be surprised.
It’s actually the skeleton of a 1917 ship called La Merced, a 232-foot wooden-hulled schooner that was turned into part of the harbor’s breakwater.
You’ll find it in Fidalgo Bay, along the Guemes Channel at Lovric’s Sea-Craft boat yard, where its sits filled with trees and greenery.
It’s one of the last remaining wooden-hulled vessels from its time, and it’s literally a shipwreck you can spot while eating a sandwich in the parking lot.
Just an hour and a half south in Seattle, there’s a giant cement troll hanging out under a bridge and no, you’re not dreaming.
The Fremont Troll is 18 feet tall, weighs over 13,000 pounds, and is clutching a real Volkswagen Beetle like it just swiped it off the highway.
You’ll find this creepy-cool creature under the Aurora Bridge on N 36th Street, where it’s been lurking since 1990 as one of the city’s quirkiest photo ops.
Just a few neighborhoods away in Seattle’s Georgetown area, you’ll spot a giant cowboy hat and two massive boots standing in a park like they belong to a 50-foot-tall rancher.
The hat is 44 feet wide and used to be a gas station canopy, while the 22-foot-tall boots were once bathrooms—yep, you read that right.
Now they live in Oxbow Park on Corson Avenue, where they’ve been fully restored and serve as a super fun roadside attraction.
Hop on a ferry to Vashon Island and you’ll find a long wooden fence made entirely out of old doors with some painted, some peeling, and all totally random.
Known as The Vashon Doors or the Fence of Doors and found just off Vashon Highway SW, they look like a DIY art project that got wildly out of hand.
No one knows exactly why it exists, but it’s been puzzling and delighting passers by for decades, with everything including the door from Friends and even a Tardis door.
Down in Long Beach, a short walk from the Pacific Ocean, sits the World’s Largest Frying Pan and no, it’s not for cooking giant pancakes, but it could be.
This giant fiberglass pan measures 14 feet tall and 9.6 feet wide, modeled after the original steel pan that once actually cooked food during town festivals in the 1940s.
You can find it hanging out on Pacific Avenue, proudly repping the town’s love of seafood and very large cookware.
Head inland to the tiny town of Winlock, where a 12-foot-long fiberglass egg sits on a giant pedestal like it’s ready to hatch into a dinosaur.
This oddball monument celebrates Winlock’s past as one of the top egg-producing towns in the U.S. during the 1920s, when chickens were basically running the place.
You’ll spot the World’s Largest Egg right on Kerron Street in the middle of town, once painted with an American flag but now back to its classic white.
Keep cruising southeast and you’ll find a huge Stonehenge replica sitting on a cliff above the Columbia River, and nope, you’re not in England.
The Stonehenge Memorial in Maryhill was built in 1918 and completed in 1929 as a tribute to local soldiers who died in World War I.
It’s made entirely of concrete, with every massive column in place.
You’ll find it off Highway 14, and the best part is the views—360 degrees of rolling hills, and river cliffs.
Swing through Zillah and you’ll come face-to-face with a gas station shaped like a giant teapot—spout, handle, and all.
The Teapot Dome Service Station was built in 1922 as a cheeky nod to the Teapot Dome Scandal, and yep, it actually pumped gas for decades.
These days, it’s been fully restored and moved to 117 First Avenue, where it stands as both a history lesson and a perfectly weird roadside selfie stop.
Next up in Colfax, there’s a giant wooden totem pole that tells the story of an old guys’ football rematch.
The Codger Pole stands 65 feet tall and honors a group of former high school football players who replayed their 1938 game fifty years later in 1988, all well into their sixties.
You’ll find it downtown near Main Street and Highway 195, carved with the faces of all the players and standing proud as one of the weirdest sports monuments ever.
Finally, roll into Spokane’s Riverfront Park and there it is—a giant red Radio Flyer wagon that’s also a playground slide.
This 12-foot-tall, 27-foot-long steel wagon was built in 1990 as a tribute to childhood and can actually hold up to 300 people (yes, it’s that big).
You can climb a ladder at the back, slide down the handle, and live out your best oversized toy dreams right in the heart of the city.