Rita the Rock Planter is a giant troll sculpture built entirely from recycled wood by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, kneeling on a hillside between the old mining towns of Victor and Cripple Creek, Colorado. She’s on her knees, patching holes left behind by 19th-century gold miners, and you have to hike a short, rocky trail…
The World’s Largest Pipe Organ Is Hiding Inside an Atlantic City Arena
The world’s largest pipe organ isn’t tucked inside some grand European cathedral. It’s built into the walls of a sports and concert arena on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, hidden behind the same scoreboard that hangs over hockey games and Miss America. It’s called the Midmer-Losh, and with an official count of 33,112 pipes, it’s officially…
The Troll Family of Bernheim Forest: Mama Loumari, Little Nis & Little Elina
Deep in a Kentucky forest about half an hour south of Louisville, a pregnant giant leans against a tree while her two kids wander the woods nearby, one staring at his own reflection in a pond, the other arranging sticks into a giant feather. They’re not real, obviously — they’re wooden trolls named Mama Loumari,…
The Colgate Clock: Jersey City’s Giant Timepiece With a Secret Twin
The Colgate Clock is a 50-foot-wide octagonal timepiece sitting at ground level on the Jersey City waterfront, staring straight across the Hudson River at Manhattan. It’s been glowing red at night since 1924, it was once billed as the largest clock on Earth, and — here’s the part most visitors never learn — it isn’t…
Ole Bolle Hides Behind Portland’s Nordia House — Oregon’s Own Forest Troll
Ole Bolle is a 19-foot-tall troll made of reclaimed wood, hiding in the woods behind Nordia House at Nordic Northwest in Southwest Portland. Built in 2023 by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, he’s crouched over a little red cottage, lifting its roof like a car hood as he peers inside for a snack. Seeing him is…
Luna Parc: The Wildly Colorful Art House Hiding in the New Jersey Woods
Luna Parc is the mosaic-covered, sculpture-packed home and studio of artist Ricky Boscarino, tucked into eight and a half acres of woods in Sandyston Township, Sussex County. It’s been called the quirkiest house in New Jersey, it opens to the public only a handful of days each year, and no photo really prepares you for…
Finding Bruun Idun, the Flute-Playing Troll of West Seattle’s Lincoln Park
Bruun Idun is a giant wooden troll sculpture, built entirely from recycled materials by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, tucked into the forest above the beach at Lincoln Park in West Seattle. She’s shown mid-song, playing an enormous flute out toward the water, and finding her requires a short hike through the park’s trails down to…
The Doo Wop Motel District: Wildwood’s Retro Time Capsule
The Doo Wop Motel District is a two-mile stretch of Wildwood, New Jersey, where dozens of space-age motels from the 1950s and ’60s still stand, plastic palm trees, neon signs, kidney-shaped pools and all. Officially known as the Wildwoods Shore Resort Historic District, it’s the largest surviving collection of mid-century commercial resort architecture in the…
Frankie Feetsplinter’s Post at Seattle’s National Nordic Museum in Ballard
Frankie Feetsplinter is a two-story-tall wooden troll sculpture standing on the sidewalk outside the National Nordic Museum in Ballard, Seattle. Built in September 2023 by Danish artist Thomas Dambo out of recycled pallets and scrap lumber, he’s the sixth and final sculpture in the “Northwest Trolls: Way of the Bird King” series, and the only…
High Point Monument: Standing on Top of New Jersey (Literally)
The highest spot in New Jersey isn’t a mountain peak with a dramatic summit scramble. It’s a 220-foot granite obelisk sticking straight up out of the woods in the state’s far northwest corner, and you can drive right up to its parking lot. High Point Monument sits at 1,803 feet above sea level in Sussex…