diff --git "a/raw_rss_feeds/https___www_atlasobscura_com_feeds_latest.xml" "b/raw_rss_feeds/https___www_atlasobscura_com_feeds_latest.xml" --- "a/raw_rss_feeds/https___www_atlasobscura_com_feeds_latest.xml" +++ "b/raw_rss_feeds/https___www_atlasobscura_com_feeds_latest.xml" @@ -6,202 +6,272 @@ https://www.atlasobscura.com en-us - The Buckhorn Saloon and Opera House in Pinos Altos, New Mexico - Thu, 06 Nov 2025 13:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-buckhorn-saloon-and-opera-house - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-buckhorn-saloon-and-opera-house + Ocean View Pier in Norfolk, Virginia + Sat, 08 Nov 2025 17:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ocean-view-pier + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ocean-view-pier - The Buckhorn Saloon exterior

Nestled at 7,000 feet elevation in the remnants of the gold-rush mining town of Pinos Altos, New Mexico sits an old adobe building along the main drag called The Buckhorn Saloon.

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Driving by in the daytime, you might be forgiven in thinking the building is abandoned, with its faded wooden sign, weather beaten exterior, and conspicuous lack of an open sign or visible business hours, but come back at night and there will be cars parked everywhere and a warm glow coming through the barred windows. It's hard not to feel transported to the Wild West as you step up onto the wooden porch and make your way to the windowless wooden door.

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Upon entering the adobe walled saloon, you are greeted by a roaring fire, live music, and diners enjoying steaks and beers, just as they've been doing since The Buckhorn's founding in 1863. The walls are festooned with animal pelts from decades past and wanted posters and paintings depicting scenes from the days when Pinos Altos was a bustling mining town. Adjacent to the saloon is the Opera House, decorated in the style of a true Western theater and often host to period-appropriate live performances.

]]> + Ocean View Fishing Pier

The longest pier in North America overlooks the Chesapeake Bay, just off I-64 in Norfolk, Virginia. The pier replaced an older structure, Harrison’s Fishing Pier, which was badly damaged during Hurricane Isabel in September 2003. Although built recently (after 2003), it maintains the record as the longest free-standing fishing pier in North America at 1,690 feet.

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The pier features a restaurant and offers access to "some of the best" fishing on the East Coast. 

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]]> - wild west - restaurants - saloons + architecture + seafood + fishing - USS Cassin Young in Boston, Massachusetts - Thu, 06 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/uss-cassin-young - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/uss-cassin-young + The Oasis of Aboukir in Paris, France + Sat, 08 Nov 2025 16:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-oasis-of-aboukir + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-oasis-of-aboukir -

The USS Constitution is, without a doubt, the most famous ship in Boston. Launched in 1797, it’s the oldest vessel still in active service with the U.S. Navy. However, its next-door neighbor from the Second World War, though lesser known, has an equally fascinating history.

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The USS Cassin Young was built and launched in 1943. It’s named after Captain Cassin Young, who received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the attack on Pearl Harbor and was killed during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942.

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After completing its training, the ship was deployed to the Pacific, participating in several engagements during the Battle of the Leyte Gulf. In 1945, it played a supporting role at the Battle of Iwo Jima and was later readied for the Battle of Okinawa. On April 12, however, a massive kamikaze attack struck, damaging the USS Cassin Young when a plane exploded nearby. The vessel was sent back for repairs and returned to Okinawa three months later for radar duties. Following the battle, it served as a convoy escort, but on July 30 it was targeted by kamikazes again—this time taking direct hits. Despite the damage, it managed to return to safety on its own and was later brought back to the U.S. for repairs. Once completed in 1946, it was decommissioned and placed in reserve duty.

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The ship was recommissioned in 1951 during the Korean War and received numerous armament and equipment upgrades. It spent the remainder of its career partaking in various training and patrol missions across the world before being decommissioned again in 1960.

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The USS Cassin Young was struck from the naval register in 1974 and permanently loaned to the National Park Service, arriving in Boston four years later. It opened to the public as a museum ship in 1981 and was designated a National Historical Landmark in 1986.

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During World War II, the U.S. built 175 Fletcher-class destroyers, the most numerous class of its kind. Today, only four survive worldwide: three in the U.S. and one in Greece. Visitors can walk along the ship's deck, explore its various compartments, and see how sailors lived aboard. As veterans from the war become fewer each year, the USS Cassin Young ensures their challenges, contributions, and memories are taught to future generations. It’s well worth a visit for anyone interested in World War II history.

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In a chaotic and dynamic city like Paris, seeking nature in parks is not always enough. This urban gem makes one appreciate the serenity of nature, even though it's only a single mural on the façade of one of the thousands of buildings in Paris. 

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This 25-meter-high green mural features more than 7,000 plants from 237 species, arranged in diagonal waves that appear to climb the façade.

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The designer behind this art piece is Patrick Blanc, a botanist, researcher, and artist who has specialized in vertical gardens for more than 30 years. His 1986 installation at the Museum of Science and Industry in Paris is widely recognized as the first large-scale modern green wall, and he has been credited with popularizing the concept worldwide. He patented the technique he developed for growing these artificial biomes. His work caught the attention of contemporary art institutions, and shortly thereafter, he was commissioned to create several permanent installations throughout the city. This mural was established as part of the 2013 Paris Design Week. 

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Considering its small surface area, this green wall holds an incredible amount of biodiversity in the center of Paris, not just through its vegetation, but also through the birds and insects that thrive within it. The Oasis of Aboukir acts as a portal to a tropical biome, taking you away from the rush of the city.

]]> - museums - military history - ships - world war ii + nature + murals + architectural oddities - Stockdale Mill in Roann, Indiana - Thu, 06 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/stockdale-mill - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/stockdale-mill + Casita Ratón Pérez in Madrid, Spain + Sat, 08 Nov 2025 15:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/casita-raton-perez + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/casita-raton-perez -

The last remaining business from the near-ghost town of Stockdale, the Stockdale Mill stands as a testament to the region's rich farming and industrial heritage. Its intricate wood-and-stone mechanisms have assisted generations of farmers in turning crops into valuable products using the latent power of the winding Eel River. Relatively unchanged from its heyday, even the mill's original builders and first customers would recognize it today.

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Though pieces have been replaced when they rot or degrade, the majority of components in the mill are still original, either from its years of operation or its first construction in 1857. Ropes and pulleys well over a century old hang from the same beams that comprised the original skeleton of the facility, and gears animated by the 200-foot dam still turn on creaking axles just as old. 

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Visitors who throw themselves back in time inside the mill can tour all three floors and see firsthand how it works—works, not worked, as the mill still functions. Those same visitors can even purchase whole-wheat flour or corn meal produced at the dam after they've wandered its halls. 

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The only truly new element of the entire facility is the fish ladder added to the dam in 2017 through a collaboration with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Department and Manchester University Environmental Sciences Program. The first of its kind installed in the U.S., this fish ladder can be navigated by fish as small as a couple of inches, helping to offset the impediment the dam puts on Eel River ecology.

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El Ratoncito Pérez, or "Pérez the Little Mouse," is a familiar figure to children all over the Spanish-speaking world. Like the Tooth Fairy, when a child loses a baby tooth, they can place it under their pillow, and El Ratoncito Pérez sneaks into their room to exchange it for a small gift. Little did all those children know that you can find the mouse's house hidden inside an old gas company register in central Madrid. 

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The creation of Pablo Herrera Valencia, the doorman of the building in which the installation is found, this tiny house for El Ratoncito Pérez is equipped with miniature furnishings for the mouse to enjoy his time off between nocturnal trips, some typically Spanish foods, and even tiny slippers and hooks to hang up his work clothes when he gets home. It also includes a thread and a sewing machine in reference to the traditional concentration of sewing, fabric, and haberdashery businesses on this street. But the furnishings aren't static—Herrera Valencia intends to update them seasonally, adding or subtracting things over the course of the year.

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The house was created in November 2024 and became a sensation in Madrid after spreading on social media, with TV and print news stories following soon after. 

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To find the house, look for a rusty metal door in the building wall, about 1.5 meters off the ground, which says "Compañía Madrileña del Gas." You'll know you've found it by the mouse tracks leading up the wall and the small gold medallion of El Ratoncito in the middle of the door.

]]> - historic homes - mills + miniature towns + architectural oddities + fairytales - Monozuki Cafe in Tokyo, Japan - Thu, 06 Nov 2025 10:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/monozuki-cafe - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/monozuki-cafe + Kungsgrottan (King's Cave) in Trollhättan, Sweden + Sat, 08 Nov 2025 14:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kungsgrottan + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kungsgrottan - The cozy interiors of Monozuki Cafe

There are many kissatens in Tokyo, but Monozuki Cafe is a hidden gem that truly captures the look and feel of these retro-style coffeeshops from the Showa era (1926-1989). Popularized in the early 20th century as a quieter alternative to cafes that would also serve alcohol, kissatens provide a welcoming, ambient shelter from the noisy crowds and neon lights of Tokyo.

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Walk into Monozuki to be greeted by an abundance of beautiful, handcrafted clocks taking up whole walls, along with stained glass windows, a traditional Japanese hearth, and the hush of people curled away reading books or making soft conversation. Many of the clocks are still functioning, so on the hour, you can expect to hear an amusing diversity of chimes.

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Monozuki Cafe was established in 1975 in Nishi-Ogikubo, an area of Tokyo known for its art district and antiques shops. This kissaten serves coffee in a variety of styles from its simple house blend to the Vienna style coffee that has become popular in Japan. The coffee is never overly bitter of acidic, so it makes for the perfect comforting drink to enjoy in the cozy atmosphere. 

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This is a special place not only for some of the best coffee in the city, but because customers have the rare opportunity to experience a true kissaten, a historical and cultural concept unique to Japan.

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Kungsgrottan is a small grotto formed by a huge Ice Age rock in the Swedish town of Trollhättan, which is famous for its waterfalls. The Trollhättan waterfalls have been used for hydropower and boat travel since the 19th century and the town is well known for its King Oscar's Bridge which overlooks the powerful Trollhättan Falls.

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Somewhere along the way, Swedish royalty began to memorialize their visits to the town by putting their signature on this large rock which sits just below the bridge. Many visiting monarchs and personages have carved their name into the rock, with the oldest entry dating back to 1754, when King Adolf Fredrik and Queen Louisa Ulrika first started the tradition.

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The exact reason why this particular rock was used is unknown, but it became known as the Kungsgrottan soon after, even though it is not even a proper cave or grotto. Today there are over a dozen royal signatures, including that of the current heir to the Swedish throne, Crown Princess Victoria, who left her mark on the Kungsgrottan in 2001. Perhaps the royals chose to carve their names there simply because the spot offers a beautiful view over the waterfalls.

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You can find the King's Cave right before Oscar Bridge, down a small flight of stairs.

]]> - antiques - teahouse - coffee - cafe + rocks + royalty + caves - La Cueva Del Diablo (The Devil's Cave) in Mazatlán, Mexico - Thu, 06 Nov 2025 09:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/la-cueva-del-diablo - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/la-cueva-del-diablo + Pacific Bus Museum in Fremont, California + Sat, 08 Nov 2025 13:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pacific-bus-museum + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pacific-bus-museum - The gates of hell in Mazatlán

Tourists out for a leisurely stroll along Mazatlán’s famous malecón (the city’s 13-mile boardwalk) are treated to beautiful beaches, magnificent sunsets, lively mariachi bands, and a terrifying cave inhabited by the devil.

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Bored into the foot of the craggy cliffs on Passeo Claussen street, the Devil’s Cave, or La Cueva del Diablo, is one of Mazatlán’s oldest attractions. While most visitors amble along the shoreline scouting for the perfect spot to take an ocean panorama, those with a taste for the macabre might cross the road to pose in front of this looming, ominous gate adorned with the face of the devil. Although the gate is usually locked, curious travelers can peer into the depths of the tunnel through the bars, and on special occasions, a man dressed in horns and hooves appears out front, beckoning visitors to draw near (if they dare) while posing for unusual vacation selfies.

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While locals scoff at the blatant kitschiness of the cave, the legends surrounding its origins are numerous, some even hearkening back to Mazatlán’s sordid pirate past.

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In the early 1600’s, Spanish explorers discovered vast deposits of gold and silver in the nearby Sierra Madre Mountains. As the mines continued to reap huge quantities of precious metals, hauling the treasure overland through the mountains proved inefficient, so the Spaniards looked to the sea. Because of its deep waters and placement on the Sea of Cortez, Mazatlán is the perfect natural harbor. However, for years, English, French, and Spanish pirates utilized the remote cove as a hideout between attacks on Spanish galleons. As Mazatlán developed into an important outpost for sea trade, the exploding population of traders and immigrants drove the pirates out of the Sea of Cortez. Rumor has it these pirates hid their stolen treasure on shore – in the Devil’s Cave.

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Another popular tale from history says that Sinaloa’s first hit man, the infamous El Gitano, was briefly imprisoned inside the cave in the 1940s.

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While legends like these are based in reality, other stories have murkier origins and oftentimes the odd supernatural twist. A thrilling – but almost certainly spurious – tale tells of a group of explorers who went in the cave but were never seen again. When a team of rescuers decided to search for the first group’s remains, half were sent in with ropes tied around their waists, so if something were to happen, those waiting outside could pull them out. After many hours passed, the outsiders pulled on the ropes – only to reel in bodies so badly burned, they were almost cremated.

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The idea that the devil himself inhabits the cave and that those who are foolish enough to enter never return could have been inspired by the sulfurous smell that is said to permeate the inside. Residents of Mazatlán, known as Mazatlecos, insist that the workers who first dynamited the hillside to build the malecón were plagued by both the terrible odor and a deep voice coming from within, leading them to believe the devil himself had been imprisoned inside the hill.

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Despite these fantastic tales, the original purpose of the cave likely has more to do with ice than hellfire. La Cueva del Diablo and the surrounding limestone tunnels are a natural part of the Cerro de Neveria (Icebox Hill). When ice was imported to Mazatlán from San Francisco in the mid-1800s, Mazatlecos used the cave to keep ice and other perishable goods out of the stifling tropical heat. During the Mexican Revolution from 1910 to 1920, federalist soldiers decided the caves were more suited to stockpiling ammunition than ice.

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These more mundane facets of the cave’s history have not stopped legends from forming even today. Because Mazatlán hosts the third largest carnival celebration in the world, it is unsurprising that most modern tales about the cave involve this extravagant six-day festival. An oft-repeated urban legend claims that a beautiful Mazatleca was out dancing with her friends when she was approached by a dapper catrín (gentleman) dressed in black. The man convinced the young woman to leave the others and go with him to an expensive taqueria. At the end of the night, she was seen entering the cave alone with the shadowy figure. The woman was never seen or heard from again, and the only clue as to her fate lies in a dark red blood stain at the bottom of the cave.

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A more humorous carnival myth states that two drunken revelers went inside the cave to relieve themselves, but failed to find their way out again – either too drunk to navigate the maze of tunnels, or else taken captive by the devil for their sins. Both of these fictional stories reflect true cultural sentiments: the first likely circulated as a cautionary tale warning young women not to leave the party with a strange man, no matter how handsome, while the second is perhaps a warning against the dangers of being too intoxicated – even during Carnival.

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No matter its true origins, the cave remains a fixture of the malecón -- an unexpected break from the endless rows of palm trees and beach side bars, and one that will undoubtedly continue to inspire legends, stories, and the occasional lesson in morality.

]]> + Pacific Bus Museum in April 2018. At right is Peerless Stages #246, the pride of the collection.

What do Forrest Gump and Oppenheimer have in common? Both movies had buses in main scenes provided by the Pacific Bus Museum. 

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The museum is an active organization of “bus enthusiasts” based in Northern California that started in the 1980s, dedicated to showcasing the history of this mode of transportation. 

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It has over 20 coaches ranging from the 1920s to the modern era, mostly from California and the western United States. Visitors can explore the collection, along with bus artifacts and memorabilia, on guided one-hour tours.

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The museum regularly rents out its buses to production companies. You can recreate the Forrest Gump scene in which Jenny looks out to Forrest out the back window of a 1959 GM TDM 4515 bus and flashes a peace sign, or hop aboard the loaned 1929 Yellow Coach that served as transportation for John Walton Sr.’s trip home for Christmas in The Waltons: Homecoming. 

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The museum also sponsors historic bus excursions where the routes of a particular bus system are retraced, usually aboard a vintage bus.

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Volunteer bus mechanics, archivists and bus fans will all like this family-friendly museum.

]]> - folktales - legends - caves + movies + museums and collections + transportation - Pinball Station in Warsaw, Poland - Thu, 06 Nov 2025 08:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pinball-station - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pinball-station + Pallis Building in Athens, Greece + Sat, 08 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pallis-building + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pallis-building - Pinballs galore

In an old railway building down a quiet street in Warsaw, behind a nondescript orange door, awaits a world of wonder. Open the door and enter a different dimension - a place full of warm, colorful lights, with a thousand overlapping sounds: it's the land of pinballs!

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Pinball Station is a museum dedicated entirely to the iconic arcade machines. With over 80 different machines, there is a pinball game here for everyone. From the oldest machine, the 1932 Bord-Golf, through the 1960s to the themed games of the 1990s, with editions from Star Trek, Lethal Weapon, The Twilight Zone, The Addams Family, The Flintstones, Flash Gordon, Mata Hari, Revenge from Mars, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and many, many more. The best part is that most of the machines have been restored and are completely playable, along with a selection of other classic arcade games like Mortal Kombat, Dragon's Lair, PacMan, Street Fighter, Sega Rally, and Capt. Fantastic.

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Pinball Station is a 250 square meter arcade haven where you can step back in time and experience the magic of vintage games. Enjoy a drink and snack at the onsite bar and play the day away like it's 1985.

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The Pallis Building, also known as Pallis Manor and Pallis Mansion, is an ornate early 20th century building in the heart of Athens whose development mirrors important events in the Greek capital's history. The building is located in Syntagma Square (Constitution Square), an important center of political and cultural life in the city that is home to the Hellenic Parliament. 

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Originally built as the personal residence of the Pallis family, the site of the Pallis Building has seen many different uses throughout the years. After the family patriarch's death in 1885, his son Filippos hired Architect Anastasios Metaxas to design a new mansion on the family property. Metaxas designed a neoclassical style mansion to be built with reinforced concrete, one of the first buildings in Athens to make use of the material which would later become instrumental in building the apartment buildings that give Athens its distinct look today.

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Filippos approved the design, and the old family home was demolished, leaving room for a much larger and more luxurious mansion to be built between 1910 and 1911. The new mansion was 62 feet in height, with 5 different stories and 2 elevators. The mansion was considered one of the finest in the city at the time and hosted many high-profile events with important dignitaries in attendance.

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The area slowly became a hub of commercial activity and the Pallis family relocated to a quieter area.  The Greek government took over use of the mansion and it became the headquarters of the Ministry of Transportation. The Greek government used the building until April 1941, when the German Army invaded Athens. On October 12, 1944, the German army withdrew out of central Athens and six days later Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou famously addressed the citizens of Athens from the balcony of the building.

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Numerous schools and banks occupied the building for the next twenty years until the 1960s when the building was renovated as a cafe popular with the capital's artist crowd. In the 1990s, the building was listed as protected by the city to prevent its demolition. Approved renovations occurred in 2006 and it now houses a large department store.

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After the post-war reconstruction boom altered Athens's architectural fabric, with the construction of the polykatoikia-style apartment buildings that dominate the city today, the Pallis Building stands as one of the few remnants of the capital's neoclassical past.

]]> - museums - games - arcades + architecture + history + buildings - Sainte Baume Grotto in Plan-d'Aups-Sainte-Baume, France - Wed, 05 Nov 2025 17:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sainte-baume-grotto - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sainte-baume-grotto + Rocks of Marche-les-Dames in Namur, Belgium + Sat, 08 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/rocks-of-marche-les-dames + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/rocks-of-marche-les-dames -

Reaching the grotto of St. Mary Magdalene requires an hour-long, stair-intensive hike up the mountain. According to tradition, she spent the last 30 years of her life here in contemplation. The church at the site houses some of her relics, reports vary, mentioning either an arm or a leg bone, and Dominican priests living at the site hold a daily mass at 11:00 a.m.

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Visitors should note that there are no bathrooms at the grotto itself. The parking area below does have flush toilets (bring your own tissue) and a small café, making it the perfect spot to prepare for or recover from the climb.

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Marche-les-Dames is a village located 7 km east of Namur, along the Meuse River. Despite its small size, the village evokes several notable associations for Belgians: the 12th-century Abbaye Notre-Dame-du-Viviers, the Paracommando military camp, and the limestone rocks lining the river. These cliffs are forever linked to the tragedy of February 17, 1934: the death of King Albert I.

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Despite his busy schedule, the king allowed himself a day of mountaineering, a sport he loved. He asked his valet to stay near the car and set off alone. An hour later, he returned and said he planned to climb again, but he never returned. His body was discovered the next day around 1:30 a.m. Discrepancies in eyewitness accounts cast doubt on the circumstances of his death, and rumors of murder persisted for years. In hindsight, however, no evidence or motive for foul play was ever found; it was simply an accident.

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A stone cross now marks the spot where his body was found. The area is surrounded by a wall to prevent access. Nearby, a chapel once leaned against the rock, with a crucifix at the time of the tragedy. A second chapel, more like a covered altar, was later added further away, surrounded by a fence, as a tribute to the king.

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The Marche-les-Dames rocks remain the largest and most famous climbing spot in Belgium, with limestone massifs stretching along the Meuse for almost 1.5 km. The memorial site and cliffs are located on the left bank of the Meuse, though the best vantage point is from the towpath on the right bank.

]]> - catholic - hiking - relics - saints - pilgrimages - religion - grottoes + cliffs + rocks + royalty + memorials + history - Cape St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve in Cape Saint Mary's, Newfoundland and Labrador - Wed, 05 Nov 2025 16:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cape-st-marys-ecological-reserve - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cape-st-marys-ecological-reserve + Santa Ponsa Quarry in Alaior, Spain + Sat, 08 Nov 2025 10:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/santa-ponsa-quarry + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/santa-ponsa-quarry - Northern Gannets on Bird Rock

Cape St. Mary’s is home to one of North America’s most accessible seabird rookeries. Bird Rock, in particular, hosts the continent’s third-largest nesting site and southernmost colony of northern gannets. Visitors can also spot a wide variety of other seabirds throughout the reserve.

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The visitor center offers information and, during open hours, provides access to their fast satellite Wi-Fi. Free scopes on the observation deck allow visitors to watch the birds from a distance, or you can take a short hiking trail to get a closer view. Nearby, a lighthouse adds to the scenic coastal experience.

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This quarry was actively used from the 19th century until 1970, supplying limestone for the rest of the island. For the most part, workers completed the job without the aid of electricity. Now abandoned, the quarry has been preserved for its cultural significance. Today, it stands like a man-made canyon, where rugged rock faces coexist with the encroaching natural landscape.

]]> - nature preserves - birds - sea - wildlife - ecology + geology + industrial + canyons + stone + quarries - Mullet Brook Miniature Village in Saint Marys, Newfoundland and Labrador - Wed, 05 Nov 2025 15:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mullet-brook-miniature-village - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mullet-brook-miniature-village + Haunted Museum of Borås in Trandared, Sweden + Sat, 08 Nov 2025 09:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/haunted-museum-of-boras + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/haunted-museum-of-boras -

This roadside miniature village began as a labor of love by a man who built and maintained a town of tiny model houses and buildings. After his passing, his son, who works as a scaffolder, took on the task of restoring and rebuilding the village piece by piece.

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Some of the original models have been removed due to wear and weather damage, but many are being replaced and reimagined. The display sits just off the road, and visitors are welcome to stop, take a look, and appreciate the handmade craftsmanship that keeps the family tradition alive.

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Hidden in the industrial city of Borås stands the Hemsökt Museum: Sweden’s first and only museum devoted entirely to haunted and cursed objects and paranormal history.

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Founded by the ghost-hunting brothers Tony Martinsson and Niclas Laaksonen of LaxTon Ghost Sweden, the museum houses hundreds of artifacts collected from haunted locations around the world.

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Visitors walk through dimly lit rooms filled with mirrors that refuse to stay silent, dolls that seem to watch, and personal belongings said to carry the residual energy of their former owners. Each item is accompanied by a story: sometimes tragic, sometimes inexplicable.

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The museum hosts both daytime tours and nocturnal events, where guests can experience the unsettling stillness of its halls after dark. Whether you believe in the paranormal or not, the Hemsökt Museum offers a chilling look into Sweden’s growing fascination with what lingers beyond the veil.

]]> - family - roadside attractions - miniatures - miniature towns + dolls + cursed objects + ghosts + paranormal + museums and collections + haunted - ‘Good Will Hunting’ Bench in Boston, Massachusetts - Wed, 05 Nov 2025 14:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/good-will-hunting-bench - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/good-will-hunting-bench + Mevagissey Aquarium in Mevagissey, England + Sat, 08 Nov 2025 08:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mevagissey-aquarium + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mevagissey-aquarium -

At first glance, this bench looks identical to the many others scattered throughout Boston Public Garden. Made of wood and set on tiles, it bears a small plaque reading, “A place for Barbara and her pups to pause.” From appearances alone, nothing sets it apart, but sharp-eyed movie buffs may recognize it as the setting of one of the most memorable scenes from Good Will Hunting.

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Released in 1997 and starring Robin Williams and Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting was filmed largely around the Boston area. Its most iconic moment, Robin Williams’ heartfelt monologue delivered beside the Charles River, was shot right here in the Public Garden. Since then, the bench has become a quiet pilgrimage spot for film fans, many of whom stop to recreate the famous scene.

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After Williams’ passing in 2014, the bench turned into an impromptu memorial, covered in flowers, notes, and tributes from admirers. In 2016, Jimmy Kimmel even visited the spot, humorously reviving his long-running mock feud with Damon.

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For fans of the film, it’s a small but touching place to sit, reflect, and remember one of cinema’s most beloved performances.

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For over 50 years, this charming aquarium has been celebrating Cornish wildlife and showcasing the amazing aquatic world just beyond the building's walls.

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A volunteer-run operation, the aquarium's fish were caught and donated by Cornish fishing boats. It is free to enter and explore, and any money or credit card donations go towards keeping the lovely Mevagissey Harbour maintained.

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The aquarium is housed in an old lifeboat house built in 1897. Up until 1930, three distinct lifeboats were kept there. Since then, the building has had many uses, ranging from a gun storage during the Second World War to a café.

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Today, the attraction is a charity project aimed at raising awareness on local sea life and bridging the gap between the fishing industry and the general public. 

]]> - memorials - pop culture - movies - film locations + aquariums - Colonel Boles Formation in Carlsbad, New Mexico - Wed, 05 Nov 2025 13:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/colonel-boles-formation - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/colonel-boles-formation + William Sealy Gosset Plaque in Ireland + Fri, 07 Nov 2025 17:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/william-sealy-gosset-plaque + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/william-sealy-gosset-plaque - The Colonel Boles Formation in the Lower Cave

Deep below the New Mexico desert, Carlsbad Caverns hosts some of the most pristine and otherworldly limestone formations in the world. Deeper still lies the Lower Cave, inaccessible to visitors who have not booked a guided tour. The Lower Cave is well regarded for its natural beauty and, due to its lack of development, appears much the same as it did when it was discovered. However, it was not always treated with the respect it is given today.

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From 1927 to 1936, the park’s superintendent was Thomas S. Boles, who gave himself the title “Colonel” Boles, despite never having achieved that rank. Boles had a knack for showmanship and charisma, bringing both publicity and much-needed funding to the young park. On the other hand, Colonel Boles, along with many in the National Park Service at the time, had a fairly cavalier attitude toward conservation. Rangers were known to allow, and even encourage, the collection of “cave pearls,” calcite formations that covered the cave floor, an act that is now strictly illegal.

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One of Boles’ favorite ways to court attention was by giving private tours to visiting celebrities, taking them into the restricted Lower Cave to showcase its hidden wonders. His preferred stop was a column containing the fossilized skeleton of a bat encased in calcite over hundreds of years. Some guests were even invited to autograph the formation, an act of vandalism that would be unthinkable today.

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Part of the column eventually broke off, though it’s unclear whether this occurred naturally or by human interference. Boles famously used the broken piece for a practical joke, claiming it was vital to the cave’s structural stability. He would theatrically remove it during tours, causing panicked guests to rush for safety while he laughed behind them.

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One of the celebrity guests on these private tours was the pioneering aviatrix Amelia Earhart. According to one account of her tour, she was not fazed by the Colonel’s favorite prank. In fact, she apparently went off exploring the cave on her own. When she reunited with the group, she declared her intention to become a tour guide for Carlsbad Caverns herself once her flying career was over. Unfortunately, possibly due to her tendency to wander off established routes, that dream never came to fruition.

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Today, the Colonel Boles column has been repaired and preserved, and the Lower Cave is carefully protected. Access is granted only through guided tours, available by reservation when staffing permits. Visitors are prohibited from touching or disturbing any formations, ensuring the cave remains as untouched as possible for future generations.

]]> + William Sealy Gosset Plaque at Guinness Storehouse

When William Sealy Gosset joined the Guinness brewery in Dublin in 1899 as a chemist, he faced a practical problem: how could he ensure consistent quality in beer production when testing every hop flower and barley sample was economically impossible? Working with small batches meant small sample sizes, and the statistical methods of his era simply didn't work well with limited data.

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Gosset's solution would transform not just brewing, but the entire scientific world. Through meticulous experimentation, including early Monte Carlo simulations using random numbers, he developed what became known as the t-test, a method for determining whether results from small samples represent genuine patterns or mere chance variation. The question "Is this batch of hops truly defective, or did we just get unlucky with our samples?" turned out to be fundamentally the same question researchers ask across medicine, psychology, agriculture, and countless other fields.

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Here's where the story gets delightfully peculiar: Guinness had prohibited employees from publishing research after a previous incident involving trade secrets. So Gosset published his groundbreaking 1908 paper under the pseudonym "Student" to avoid detection by his employer. This is why statistics textbooks still refer to "Student's t-test" rather than the Gosset t-test, a quirk of corporate secrecy that accidentally erased his name from his own achievement.

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The plaque, visible during Guinness Storehouse tours, recognizes this unlikely hero of modern science. Beneath his name and dates (1876–1937) appears his title "Chief Brewer" alongside "Student 't' test" a perfect encapsulation of how the pursuit of the perfect pint accidentally gave the world one of its most essential analytical tools. Brewers demand consistency while vintners celebrate variation, and in this case, that obsession with uniformity inspired genuine innovation.

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Gosset remained at Guinness throughout his career, eventually building a small statistics department and corresponding with luminaries like Ronald Fisher and Karl Pearson. He never sought fame for his discovery, content in the knowledge that he had solved real problems for his brewery while quietly revolutionizing how scientists everywhere interpret their data.

]]> - rock formations - conservation - national parks - amelia earhart - caves - geology + history + mathematics + statistics + science + beer + breweries - Priedegtstull in Berdorf, Luxembourg - Wed, 05 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/priedegtstull - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/priedegtstull + Local History Museum of Treuenbrietzen in Treuenbrietzen, Germany + Fri, 07 Nov 2025 16:00:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/local-history-museum-of-treuenbrietzen + https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/local-history-museum-of-treuenbrietzen - The incredible rock formations at Priedegtstull

The Priedegtstull rock is a little-known destination in the Berdorf region of northern Luxembourg. These remarkable rocks feature incredibly narrow walkways that offer an immersive experience for those who dare to traverse through them. At certain points, the passageways are so narrow that they barely accommodate a single person. As you navigate this natural stone labyrinth, you'll be surrounded by the stunning beauty of the Luxembourg landscape, making the Priedegtstull rocks a must-visit destination for any intrepid explorer.

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The Priedegtstull rock formation if park of the Mullerthal Trail which travels 112km through northern Luxembourg's most beautiful natural sights. In addition to the incredible narrow passages, it is also possible to climb a set of stairs to reach the peak of the Priedegtstull rock which hangs above the road below. 

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This site offers incredible views and thrilling adventure and is well-worth the stop on your journey through the region.

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Tucked into a former medieval chapel along the old city wall, the Treuenbrietzen Local History Museum offers visitors a fascinating journey through the region’s past. The building itself is a piece of history: first mentioned in 1352 as the Heilig-Geist-Kapelle, it once served as a place of worship for poor journeymen and travelers. After centuries of decay and transformation, the ruined chapel was finally restored in 1936 and turned into a museum, making it one of the most atmospheric spots in town.

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Inside, visitors can explore exhibits spanning thousands of years of local history. Displays include prehistoric and early historic artifacts, such as stone tools, pottery shards, and archaeological finds from the surrounding Fläming region. The museum also celebrates old crafts and trades, featuring tools and equipment once used by local blacksmiths, weavers, and carpenters.

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A section on folk life and local traditions introduces visitors to Treuenbrietzen’s historic clubs and customs, while another highlights notable residents who helped shape the town’s identity. Among the most eye-catching exhibits are a beautifully preserved antique fire engine, trophies from the town’s centuries-old shooting guild (founded in 1424), and the interior of an old pharmacy, complete with original jars and instruments.

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The museum’s foundation was laid by local collectors and teachers who, in the early 20th century, encouraged townspeople to donate historical items, a community effort that continues to define the museum’s character today. Though many artifacts were lost during and after World War II, the museum still preserves a remarkable sense of place and continuity.

]]> + + architecture + medieval + museums and collections + local history + + + Why Is TikTok Obsessed With a 50-Year-Old Shipwreck? + Allegra Rosenberg + Fri, 07 Nov 2025 08:15:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/edmund-fitzgerald-tiktok-trend + https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/edmund-fitzgerald-tiktok-trend + + Did you know that Lake Superior is also known as “Gitche-Gumee”? Or that she (yes, she!) never gives up her dead, when the gales of November turn gloomy? Then you’ve clearly listened to Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”—probably more than once.

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The huge iron tanker went down 50 years ago this week, on Nov. 10, 1975, and Canadian singer-songwriter Lightfoot’s tune was released less than a year later in August 1976, becoming an instant hit.

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Fifty years is certainly a long time, but even to many folks familiar with the ballad—which reached number two on the Billboard 100, it comes as a shock that the legendary disaster actually took place in the 1970s.

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Maybe that’s because familiar nautical ballads like Stan Rogers’ classics “Northwest Passage” and “Barrett’s Privateers” or folk tunes like “The Irish Rover” and “The Golden Vanity” do in fact deal with events (fictional or real) from centuries past. When we think shipwreck, we think Ye Olden Days; when we think shipwreck ballad sung by a deep voiced man strumming on a guitar it’s pretty hard not to conjure images of wooden ships and ragged sails.

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But the Edmund Fitzgerald is a 20th century story through and through. Iron-hulled tankers and freighters were rulers of the Great Lakes, six times as efficient as trucks for transporting valuable raw materials to power America’s still-thriving industrial heartlands. They regularly braved the massive and dangerous Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world by area, a watery beast with mountainous waves unconstrained by the salinity that keeps ocean rollers smooth.

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Today the lake still is as unpredictable as it was back in 1975, when a hurricane-strength November storm overcame the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, named after the president of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, the ship’s owner, and sunk her.

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When built, she was the biggest ship on the Great Lakes and had the nickname “Queen of the Lakes,” though the title didn’t last long. She was soon surpassed by bigger freighters as shipping companies competed to send larger loads of raw material from mines and mills in Minnesota and Wisconsin to processing facilities in the more industrial areas of Michigan, Illinois, and lakeside Canada. Most of her crew was from Toledo, Ohio, and she spent 17 years on a regular route between an iron mine in Superior, Wis. (near Duluth, Minn.) and iron works in Detroit, where her cargo was turned (after several intervening steps) into cars.

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The exact cause of the Fitzgerald’s sinking is still debated by historians and scholars of the Great Lakes. As Lightfoot sings: “They might have split up or they might have capsized / They may have broke deep and took water.”

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But regardless of the actual causes—perhaps rogue waves or ineffective cargo hatch covers—the ship became known as the “Titanic of the Great Lakes,” representing hubris, preventable tragedy, and the dangerous unpredictability of the sea.

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For the Great Lakes are indeed seas, massive inland seas carved out by implacable glaciers, millennia ago. After the wreck, extensive new safety requirements for freighters were instituted by the NTSB. So, the Lakes aren’t as dangerous for commercial ships as they were back then. The Edmund Fitzgerald actually was the most recent freighter to sink in the Great Lakes at all.

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Would we remember the disaster as well today if it wasn’t for Lightfoot’s song? He wrote it after reading an article in Newsweek magazine shortly after it happened. The story was still fresh in people’s minds, helping the song resonate both with current events and with the long tradition of maritime ballads at the same time.

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That gave it staying power, but it also helps, of course, that the song is a masterpiece—stirring and catchy and goosebump-inducing. There isn’t really a chorus to speak of, only the melodic wailing of the electric guitar after every few poetic verses, the steady chug of the rhythm evoking the strain of the ship’s engine against the storm.

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The song does the hard work to keep the memory of the disaster present. Every year in November the search volume for “Edmund Fitzgerald” regularly rises as people seek out the song, but since 2021, those November searches for “Edmund Fitzgerald” have been steadily increasing in volume, showing an uptick in interest in both the song and the historical event. What’s to blame for this increase?

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“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” of all songs, has taken on a kind of meme-like quality: popular bumper stickers for sale on Etsy feature slogans like “Stop Honking! I'm crying to 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' by Gordon Lightfoot”, and TikToks of the tune have hundreds of thousands of views—including at least one fantastic Halloween costume. Various brands are getting in on the fun too.

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“After decades of corporations trying to push Christmas earlier each year, Gen Z stopped them with a collective obsession with this 1975 shipwreck,” posted one TikTok user, with others chiming in in agreement. Users are even comparing the famous wreck to their own highway mishaps—showing that the song has taken on a kind of universal relatability, despite its extremely specific subject matter.

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Shipwrecks and maritime disasters in general are catnip for online audiences—for proof, see the thriving /r/titanic subreddit. For Gen Z, finding out about the Edmund Fitzgerald through a TikTok meme might be a gateway into genuine interest and appreciation for the fascinating history of the Great Lakes.

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Maybe just in time to attend one of the various commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking, such as the Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo’s full Fitzgerald weekend, and the Gales of November program at the Lake Superior Marine Museum Association in Duluth, Minn.

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Many events are happening in Michigan and Detroit, where the Fitzgerald was built and where her destination was on the night of the disaster. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society is hosting planned commemorations at Whitefish Point in Paradise, Mich., closest point to where the ship went down. The Detroit Historical society is putting on a series of events, as is the renowned Maritime Sailor’s Cathedral, which features prominently in Lightfoot’s lyrics—first as a “musty old hall,” and then, after he’d visited, changed to a “rustic old hall” for live performances. It was the place where the bell rang 29 times to remember those lost on the Edmund Fitzgerald, the day after the wreck; and where the bell continued to ring every year in memoriam.

]]> + + + + Why Does the Salish Sea Glow in the Dark? + Atlas Obscura + Thu, 06 Nov 2025 16:29:00 -0500 + https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/untold-earth-105-salish-sea-bioluminescence + https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/untold-earth-105-salish-sea-bioluminescence + + This is a transcript of an episode of Untold Earth, a series from Atlas Obscura in partnership with Nature and PBS Digital Studios, which explores the seeming impossibilities behind our planet’s strangest, most unique natural wonders. From fragile, untouched ecosystems to familiar but unexplained occurrences in our own backyards, Untold Earth chases insight into natural phenomena through the voices of those who know them best.

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Lucy Greeley: The closest thing I can think to imagining bioluminescence without it being bioluminescence are the stars. It's magical that in the sky you can see all these stars and then in the water you can see all these stars. I think that's what makes it so captivating for a lot of people.

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Narrator: From Aristotle to Darwin, humankind's efforts to understand bioluminescence spans thousands of years. But even though it's one of the oldest fields of scientific study, the answers remain elusive. What is it about this inscrutable mystery that inspires such obsession?

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Rob Purser: Well, the history of Suquamish Tribe, we've been here for thousands of years. We had villages all through this immediate area over in the Hood Canal and on the Bremerton and all over Kitsap Peninsula.

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Lucy: There isn't really that much known about bioluminescence in the Salish Sea. I think that's what makes it really special is a lot of people think about bioluminescence in these tropical regions, but we have it right up here in this very diverse and rich environment.

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I grew up in Seattle, Washington. I didn't really know that much about it. I went to one sleepaway camp and I remember getting woken up in the middle of the night. The counselors all pulled us campers down to the shore and started swimming in it. And we were like, what? That's crazy. And then I learned about this internship and I was like, that is perfect.

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So bioluminescence is a chemical reaction that occurs in a living organism in an oxygenated environment. If we think about plankton in general as a lot of tiny, really tiny microscopic free-floating organisms, within that there are a group of plankton called algae.

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Microscopic algae are split up into two different sectors, one of which is diatoms and then the other are dinoflagellates. And what I'm interested are dinoflagellates because some of these dinoflagellates are bioluminescent.

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Carrley Smith: My name is Carrley. I've been guiding here. We're working here for about a month. And the cool thing about tonight and for the bioluminescence tours is we have Lucy here.

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I'm taking over her internship this summer with the hopes to keep doing it every summer so someone can come and keep following up on the research.

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We'll paddle out of the bay here. And then there's a cool little lagoon that we're going to go into. All right, Crystal, your rudder's coming down. You have steering. We'll see you out there.

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So they're not going to start bioluminescing until they know it's nighttime now. So the ones that we're seeing now are just the early risers. They just have their cup of coffee. They're just coming out. If we were out here at 2 a.m., more of them would be bioluminescing because they know it's nighttime because it's so energetically costly for them.

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They save it for when it's going to be good. Go paddle around. Some patches will be better than others. But play around, figure out a way that is really cool to see them and let us know. It's beautiful. Sparkle, sparkle.

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I don't think you can feel them, but it almost feels like you can. It makes it truly magic seeing it on your skin, on your fingers. It's so cool.

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Lucy: We take samples as we're doing those tours and guiding people, and then we get to go back and do some lab work on it. The fun part about this research is sometimes it means that Carrley and I become a little nocturnal because we are trying to process some of these samples right as we get back.

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I was trying to identify some dinoflagellates that were present during the bioluminescent events and who could maybe be participating in that... Seems like more diatoms. That could be some sort of algae.

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And I found four known bioluminescent species that were in all my samples. There's research done that in the deep sea ocean where light can't penetrate, 90% of organisms can emit bioluminescence.

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There's such a common form of communication among this species and on this earth and that it's just something that's so hard for humans to study that we haven't thought that much about. That is exciting and that's fun to see and I think that that might even be one right next to it right there.

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Either one of them could be emitting bioluminescence. It's so fascinating how all of them are single-celled organisms. They don't seem like they're multifaceted and they don't seem like they're complicated, but yet they create this thing that's so special to see.

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Dave Sigo: Fishing on the Salish Sea? Well, I love every part of it.

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It's our right. It's what we do. for our people. My grandfather, he traveled all over harvesting salmon, and my dad too. Trying to teach the youth how to carry on what we're doing here and preserve it. I know what's around here. You know, it's hard to catch salmon when that stuff lights up your neck because it's just like a big flashlight down there. I mean, a big wall of lights is what it looks like. And I always wondered what that stuff was about.

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Lucy: Bioluminescent algae that we're concerned with, we're still kind of figuring out why they might be using it. The first of which is maybe that it's scaring or stunning a predator, the second that maybe it's attracting a secondary predator, and so then something eats the predator going after those bioluminescent algae.

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There's definitely an evolutionary advantage to it because so many different things have evolved the ability. These bioluminescent algae are very much at the bottom of the food chain and then that in turn can serve to produce a lot of oxygen in our environments. Little small fish will eat plankton and then bigger fish like salmon can eat those smaller fish and all the way up into marine mammals such as seals and our orcas.

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It's all interconnected and it's a really special environment. In the Salish Sea region, we don't actually know a lot about how these bioluminescent algae could be affecting the health of this ecosystem. And so I think that that's really important about what Carrley and I's research is tackling in that we are trying to answer these more basic questions that can hopefully provide an answer about whether more abundant bioluminescent algae is good or bad for this ecosystem, or whether or not it doesn't have an influence, or maybe it's just about having the right balance of these species.

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I think what drives me is the mystery of a lot of it. You can put on your goggles and your snorkel and swim in it and it's right in front of your eyes and it's so special to have something magical like that that you can really interact with. I think it plays into that same kind of childlike, explorative behavior in me.

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It's lovely.

]]> - hiking - adventure - rock formations Capturing Toronto’s Vibrant Rhythms in Sculpture @@ -304,20 +374,20 @@ Aida Lugo McAllister still remembers the first time she tried Puerto Rico’s unofficial national dish.

“When I went to Puerto Rico, 1970, at age 17, that’s when I had my first mofongo. And it was heaven,” she remembers. “A mountain of this mashed plantain with pieces of pork in a sauce. Delicious.”

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Mofongo is the first food people bring up when they talk about the island, says Lugo McAllister, a Puerto Rican home cook who has published recipes on her website Aida’s Kitchen and in her bilingual cookbook, Aida’s Kitchen a lo Boricua. A rich, starchy mash of fried green plantains, garlic, butter, and chicharrón (pork cracklings), it’s the perfect accompaniment to broths and stewed meats. Growing up in Gary, Indiana, Lugo McAllister and her family didn’t have ready access to green plantains, so she didn’t try mofongo until she moved to the island as a teen. But the dish’s impression on her was immediate.

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Mofongo is the first food people bring up when they talk about the island, says Lugo McAllister, a Puerto Rican home cook who has published recipes on her website Aida’s Kitchen and in her bilingual cookbook, Aida’s Kitchen a lo Boricua. A rich, starchy mash of fried green plantains, garlic, olive oil, and chicharrón (pork cracklings), it’s the perfect accompaniment to broths and stewed meats. Growing up in Gary, Indiana, Lugo McAllister and her family didn’t have ready access to green plantains, so she didn’t try mofongo until she moved to the island as a teen. But the dish’s impression on her was immediate.

“So delicious, so moist, and it came in a mortar,” she recalls. She has since published recipes for a “healthier” mofongo (sans pork cracklings) on her website and YouTube. Lugo McAllister is joined by influencers all over the internet who fry and mash plantains in wooden mortars. “When you think of Puerto Rican gastronomy, I’m sure that the first thing you think of is mofongo,” says the content creator Natalia Bercero on TikTok, before whipping up the dish for her fans.

Though it has contemporary appeal, mofongo’s roots are deep. The dish reflects the intertwined histories of African, European, and Indigenous people in Puerto Rico. Taíno people, native to the Caribbean islands, used a pilón, a wooden mortar and pestle, to grind ingredients together. Their civilization was flourishing before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean in 1492. Soon after, Spanish colonists attacked and enslaved the Taíno, putting them to work in gold mines and plantations. So many Taíno died under colonial rule that the Spanish brought enslaved West Africans to the island to replace their dwindling workforce.

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In West Africa, cooks have long prepared fufu, a dish of plantains, yams, or cassava that is boiled, then mashed. Enslaved Africans brought that same technique to Puerto Rico. They also introduced plantains, which grew easily on the island and became “the main source of food for the slaves and the poor people,” said Lugo McAllister, who moved back from Puerto Rico to Indiana in her mid-20s.

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Plantains are closely related to the banana, but in their green, unripe form, they’re not sweet, and can be used as a neutral starch similar to a potato. Over time, African cooks combined plantain-based fufu with European ingredients like garlic, butter, and chicharrón for flavor and moisture. The late food historian Cruz Miguel Ortíz Cuadra wrote in Eating Puerto Rico: A History of Food, Culture, and Identity, that the word “mofongo” comes from an Angolan Kikongo term, “mfwenge-mfwenge,” which means “a great amount of anything at all.

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But that doesn’t mean mofongo is a breeze to make. “It’s a food that’s preferred eaten at a restaurant,” said Lugo McAllister. “Because of the many steps involved.” Even some Puerto Rican restaurants avoid making the dish because of the amount of elbow grease involved in smashing plantains. Still, mofongo is a cornerstone of Puerto Rican gastronomy, and each restaurant prepares it in its own way. Some serve it in a pilón for extra flare. A soupy main course is typically served on the side or in a well in the middle of the mound.

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Plantains are closely related to the banana, but in their green, unripe form, they’re not sweet, and can be used as a neutral starch similar to a potato. Over time, African cooks combined plantain-based fufu with European ingredients like garlic, oil, and chicharrón for flavor and moisture. The late food historian Cruz Miguel Ortíz Cuadra wrote in Eating Puerto Rico: A History of Food, Culture, and Identity, that the word “mofongo” comes from an Angolan Kikongo term, “mfwenge-mfwenge,” which means “a great amount of anything at all.”

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But that doesn’t mean mofongo is a breeze to make. “It’s a food that’s preferred eaten at a restaurant,” said Lugo McAllister. “Because of the many steps involved.” Even some restaurants avoid making the dish because of the amount of elbow grease involved in smashing plantains. Still, mofongo is a cornerstone of Puerto Rican gastronomy, and each restaurant prepares it in its own way. Some serve it in a pilón for extra flare. A main course is typically served on the side or in a well in the middle of the mound.

In Kissimmee, Florida, where more than half of the city’s 85,000 residents are of Puerto Rican descent, there’s no shortage of good mofongo. The chefs at El Cilantrillo, a Kissimmee restaurant known for delicious cooking, huge portions, and live music, prepare a particularly good one. “I will say that I'm a mofongos tester,” said Yannick Jordan, a Puerto Rican-raised project manager for the company of restaurants that includes El Cilantrillo. “El Cilantrillo’s is still my favorite mofongo that I have ever tried.” On the softer side, with a strong garlic flavor, their mofongo comes in a pilón bearing the restaurant’s name, and can be ordered stuffed with everything from octopus to Impossible Meat. It’s their best seller.

As with any great dish, mofongo has seen its fair share of spinoffs in recent years. Creative cooks in Puerto Rico and the mainland are trying their own takes on garlicky mashed plantains. There’s Lugo McAllister’s vegetarian mofongo, for example. For a festive appetizer, cooks shape smaller amounts of smashed plantains into little cups and fry them to make “mofonguitos” that they fill with meat.

El Cilantrillo is a purveyor of another mofongo innovation: trifongo, a mofongo made with a trifecta of green plantains, yuca (cassava), and maduros (ripe, sweet plantains). Lugo McAllister said that when she first experienced mofongo in the 1970s, trifongo was uncommon.

The yuca in trifongo is a mildly sweet, starchy tuber cultivated by the Taínos that is now a staple throughout Latin America, Asia, and Africa. El Cilantrillo’s trifongo contains no chicharrón, and gets some extra moisture and umami flavor from chicken broth and seasoning.

Lugo McAllister says that when it comes to making mofongo, the challenge is in getting the texture right. “It needs to be moist but not greasy,” she says.

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Yuca and plantain are all somewhat dry once they’re mashed, so it’s the job of the cook to add fat and liquid to moisten them. “If you don't put fat or some type of liquid, oh my god, you won't be able to even swallow it,” Lugo McAllister warns. Traditionally, cooks would derive moisture from butter and chicharrón, but many modern mofongos, like El Cilantrillo’s trifongo, are moistened with broth and olive oil. To prevent yourself from overdoing the fat, Lugo McAllister says to add it little by little, tasting to see when the texture is to your liking.

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Yuca and plantain are all somewhat dry once they’re mashed, so it’s the job of the cook to add fat and liquid to moisten them. “If you don't put fat or some type of liquid, oh my god, you won't be able to even swallow it,” Lugo McAllister warns. Traditionally, cooks would derive moisture from chicharrón, but many modern mofongos, like El Cilantrillo’s trifongo, are moistened with broth and olive oil. To prevent yourself from overdoing the fat, Lugo McAllister says to add it little by little, tasting to see when the texture is to your liking.

Ultimately, the goal isn’t a puree, but rather a mash with plenty of crispy chunks. Lugo McAllister recommends smashing the starches while they’re still hot from cooking, because they become much harder to manipulate once they cool down. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, you can put the starches in a stainless steel bowl, cover them with a kitchen towel, and pound them with a mallet. Placing them in a plastic bag and smashing them with the flat bottom of a cup or a pan can work, too.

Lastly, there’s the flavor. Yuca and green plantain are pretty bland, so salt, garlic, and other seasonings are crucial. “It’s supposed to have a lot of garlic flavor,” Lugo McAllister said. Her healthy take on mofongo includes cilantro, and El Cilantrillo’s gets a flavor boost from adobo, a blend of salt and spices like garlic, pepper, oregano, and turmeric that many Puerto Rican cooks keep on hand. Some cooks make it at home, but it’s also available ready-made in supermarkets.

The adobo, plus the dance between green plantain, sweet plantain, and cassava makes El Cilantrillo’s trifongo anything but bland. The yuca and maduros add a dimension to mofongo that isn’t ordinarily there, Jordan said. “The cassava is more salty. Sweet plantain, of course, is sweeter. So it's like an explosion in your mouth of these two different flavors.”

]]> @@ -331,9 +401,9 @@ https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/reina-pepiada-recipe If you’re looking for a handheld meal in Venezuela, one dish reigns supreme: la Reina Pepiada, or “the curvy queen.” It’s the country’s signature take on its staple food, the arepa. A creamy chicken salad in a crispy cornmeal pancake, it’s undeniably delicious. And it tells a distinctly Venezuelan story: one of indigenous peoples, migration, and a beauty; of rising up, falling down, and finding new homes all across the globe.

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“Every arepera has Reina Pepiada,” says Irena Stein, a Venezuelan-American chef and author of the cookbook Arepa: Classic & Contemporary Recipes for Venezuela’s Daily Bread. When Stein lived in Caracas, the nation’s capital, from 1974 to 1980, people would dress up to go to areperas, or arepa bars. And families would also whip up Reina Pepiadas for casual meals at home.

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“Every arepera has Reina Pepiada,” says Irena Stein, a Venezuelan-American chef and author of the cookbook Arepa: Classic & Contemporary Recipes for Venezuela’s Daily Bread. When Stein lived in Caracas, the nation’s capital, from 1974 to 1980, people would fill the areperas, or arepa bars, at all hours. Some people would end up there at the end of the night, dressed to the nines. And families would also whip up Reina Pepiadas for casual meals at home.

In Kissimmee, Florida, the arepa has become a versatile staple. It’s served alongside espresso and Cuban sandwiches at pan-Latin Express Cafe; stuffed with bacon, eggs, and sausage at Susana’s Cafe; and at Venezuelan–Puerto Rican Pa’ Pikar Latin Grill, filled with chicken salad and avocado in the famous Reina Pepiada. About half of the Venezuelan-American population lives in the state.

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What exactly is in this dish that has conquered palates all over the world? At its base is a cornmeal patty cooked on a griddle, and sometimes finished in an oven, until crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

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What exactly is in this dish that has conquered palates all over the world? At its base is a cornmeal patty cooked on a griddle, and ideally finished in an oven, until crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Anthropologists estimate that people in Venezuela and Colombia have been eating arepas for thousands of years, since long before Europeans arrived. The Cumanagato people, indigenous to the Caribbean coast of what is now Venezuela, used the word “erepa” to refer to corn. Early conquistadors witnessed Indigenous people in South America eating flat corn cakes that they would toast on a hot clay surface called a budare. This staple survived to become the basis of both the Colombian and Venezuelan diets.

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Venezuelan arepas are thick and stuffed with fillings, so they constitute meals in and of themselves. The Venezuelan writer Alejandro Puyana reported that before the 2014 crisis that crippled Venezuela’s economy, the average Venezuelan ate 66 pounds of cornmeal flour per year, amounting to about two arepas every day of the year.

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A couple of days later, Abraham Duijm returned with Susana, and the restaurant prepared a special dish just for the beauty queen: a toasted arepa stuffed with shredded chicken, mayonnaise, avocado, and peas. The Álvarez family named it Reina Pepiada, and the rest is history.

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In that same decade, one more change occurred that cemented Reina Pepiada in Venezuelan cuisine. When the Álvarez brothers opened up shop, the only way to prepare the dough for making arepas was from scratch. That meant removing the corn kernels from a cob, soaking them, then mashing them in a pilón, a wooden mortar and pestle, to remove their skins and grind them down, before adding water and salt to make dough. It was hard work that was usually performed by the women of a household.

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In 1954, Venezuelan engineer Luis Caballero Mejias came up with a way to de-skin, grind, and dehydrate corn into a flour that could be quickly made into arepa dough with a little salt and water. The now-ubiquitous corn flour brand Harina P.A.N. launched in 1960. Like dishwashers or washing machines, processed corn flour greatly reduced the burden of labor in Venezuelan households, and it made arepas far more accessible for restaurants and home cooks. Now, the vast majority of Venezuelan cooks use Harina P.A.N., although some people still make traditional arepas with freshly ground corn, or maiz pilado.

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In 1954, Venezuelan engineer Luis Caballero Mejías came up with a way to de-skin, grind, and dehydrate corn into a flour that could be quickly made into arepa dough with a little salt and water. The now-ubiquitous corn flour brand Harina P.A.N. launched in 1960. Like dishwashers or washing machines, processed corn flour greatly reduced the burden of labor in Venezuelan households, and it made arepas far more accessible for restaurants and home cooks. Now, the vast majority of Venezuelan cooks use Harina P.A.N., although some people still make traditional arepas with freshly ground corn, or maiz pilado.

José Alicandu, a psychology student and trained chef who lives in Barquisimeto, recalls that he learned to make Reina Pepiada “through my culture, and, I’d say, with my family.” His family members would regularly buy avocados at the market, wait for them to ripen, cook a chicken for one meal, and use the leftover meat for Reina Pepiada.

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“I think it’s a meal that’s easy to make and that leaves you feeling satisfied,” Alicandu says. “It’s nutritious; it has protein, and healthy fats. If you want, you can take out the mayonnaise and put in yogurt.”

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Our podcast is a co-production of Atlas Obscura and Stitcher Studios. The people who make this show include Dylan Thuras, Doug Baldinger, Chris Naka, Kameel Stanley, Johanna Mayer, Manolo Morales, Baudelaire, Gabby Gladney, Alexa Lim, Casey Holford, and Luz Fleming. Our theme music is by Sam Tyndall.

]]> - - How Zozobra Set Alight the Hearts of Santa Fe Residents - The Podcast Team - Fri, 17 Oct 2025 20:27:00 -0400 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/podcast-zozobra - https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/podcast-zozobra - - -

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.

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Dylan Thuras: In the months leading up to Labor Day, people are hard at work at the Santa Fe Plaza Mall. Inside of this strip mall, the people of Santa Fe, New Mexico, are building a gigantic 50-foot-tall marionette out of wood and chicken wire. And now, it’s stuffing time. Hundreds of people show up ready to stuff a gigantic puppet full of shredded paper.

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Ray Sandoval: We invite the community to have a pizza party to come and stuff him. And I will tell you, it was kind of funny this year because we were going to open the doors at 9 a.m, and when we did, there was a line, you know, all the way—you couldn’t even imagine it. And his 50-foot body was stuffed—every chicken wire hole—was stuffed by 1 p.m.

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Dylan: This is not your standard puppet. This puppet’s name is Zozobra. Technically, Zozobra is a ghost. This tall, thin ghost wearing a robe, which makes it look like he is floating just above the ground. He has big green eyes, big flappy ears, and long, dangling limbs.

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Ray: So his arms move, his mouth moves, his head goes back side to side, his eyes move. And so it’s really a lot of specialty work shaping the face, shaping a nose or eyebrows or, you know, the ears or making the monster as beautiful as we possibly can.

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Dylan: So what are the people of Santa Fe, New Mexico planning on doing, exactly, with this giant, horrifying, beautiful monster? Well, they’re going to light him on fire.

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Ray: We’ll have people come up to us and say, “You can’t burn that one. It’s too beautiful. That one’s too nice.” You have to create yourself some emotional distance because Zozobra can be viewed as a big stuffed animal, right, that you just kind of get a little too attached to. And so I’ve got to keep my distance since I’m the guy that gets to light him on fire. You know, I have to remind myself often that that’s his purpose. His purpose is to be destroyed.

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I’m Dylan Thuras, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous places. This episode was produced in partnership with Visit Santa Fe. Do you have anything in your life that is kind of bumming you out? Once a year, the city of Santa Fe, they’ve got an answer for you. We are going to head to the burning of Zozobra, where a crowd of 50,000 people gets together to release their gloom and light a gigantic puppet on fire.

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This is an edited transcript of the Atlas Obscura Podcast: a celebration of the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous places. Find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.

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Ray: The city of Santa Fe has a love affair with a 50-foot monster. You know, restaurants have Zozobra painted in their windows. You see Zozobra on fire trucks. You see Zozobra on murals. You see him, you know, on kids’ menus.

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Dylan: This is Ray Sandoval. He runs the Burning of Zozobra Festival for the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe. In other words, Ray is really the person responsible for lighting Zozobra on fire. Ray’s own love affair with Zozobra goes a ways back. He first visited the festival when he was just around five years old.

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Ray: I remember staring up at this, you know, this huge effigy and then all of a sudden the lights go off and it starts to come alive. It starts moving and it’s doing these, you know, growls. And I remember looking down at my cousins and they were grabbing my parents’ legs and they were crying and they were putting their face into my parents’ legs. And I just thought, “God, they’re so stupid. They’re missing this.”

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Dylan: Today in Santa Fe, the Burning of Zozobra is a huge festival attracting crowds of over 50,000 people. There are fireworks, there is performance art, there is dancing, lots of serious pyrotechnics. But the roots of this festival go way back, over a hundred years back. And back then, it started out on a much, much smaller scale with a little act of arson. Maybe you could call it a cathartic burning. It begins in the 1920s when a painter named Will Shuster blew into Santa Fe.

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Ray: He was gassed in the trenches of World War I and he developed a lung ailment. And so he was told that he needed to come out west because he couldn’t live in Philadelphia anymore. The humidity was going to kill him. And so he gets here and meets up with four other painters and they become the Cinco Pintores.

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Dylan: The Cinco Pintores lived in a kind of ramshackle house in the center of town. They didn’t have much money, they were just scraping by at the time. But then one Christmas, Shuster caught a big break: He sold one of his paintings. And with this cash in hand, he thought, “All right, guys, let’s go out on the town. We’ll have a nice dinner. We will celebrate.” So, they went down to this fancy new hotel to have their Christmas dinner. But everybody was in a terrible mood.

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Ray: And so he carried a sketchbook with him and he took out pieces of paper and put them on the table and he demanded that they write down what was bothering them. And then after they did that, he put them all together on the table, grabbed the candle and lit them on fire and said that their sadness was gone.

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And of course, the bartender comes out and sees this fire on top of the table and he kicks them all out. And so they’re now in the Santa Fe Plaza, it’s starting to snow and they just all start laughing. And so Shuster comes up with this idea that you could symbolically burn away those things that are bothering you if you could write them down and then light them on fire.

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Dylan: The following spring, Shuster went down to Mexico for Easter and he witnessed something that kind of rewired his brain. There was this parade where people would carry an effigy of Judas through the streets and you’d spit at the effigy, you’d throw shoes at him. And then you would get burnt at the end of the parade.

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Ray: So this sparks a little bit of an idea inside his head. So, Shuster decides this is the perfect way to do this. If we can create a monster that everybody decides is bad and we can stuff our glooms in them, then we could burn them away and we can kind of have this ritual to cleanse our community.

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Dylan: Shuster came up with his own Judas to burn, his own character that represented everything he wanted to get rid of. This gloomy old ghost named Zozobra. It’s the Spanish word for “anxiety” or “worry.” He built a little five-foot marionette and he held the first burning in his backyard in 1924. The next year, Zozobra got bigger, and so did the event. It became public, attracted more people. And then the next year, Zozobra got bigger and then bigger and bigger.

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Ray: Zozobra caught fire and he’s still burning.

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Dylan: Will Shuster kept the burning of Zozobra going until the 1960s when he turned the event over to the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe, which still runs it to this day. Of course, a big part of what they do is getting this figure of Zozobra just right. He’s huge, kind of scary, but also kind of cute.

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They’ve also doubled his original size, taking him from the max that Shuster brought him up to, which was about 20 feet, and growing him all the way to 50 feet high. But what is equally important is what is inside Zozobra.

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So earlier, we were talking about how all the volunteers get together before the festival to stuff this giant puppet with shredded paper. In the world of Zozobra, these little papers are more than just kindling. The papers are called glooms. And in the weeks leading up to the event, you write your own glooms down, whatever is bothering you, whatever you want to let go of, and then you can drop them off in gloom boxes throughout the city of Santa Fe.

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Then volunteers will take these glooms and stuff them inside of Zozobra. So all of the whole city of Santa Fe’s glooms can go up in flames together. But say you have something that’s really bothering you, and writing it down just won’t cut it. In that case, you can drop off other things that you’d like to see burn, too.

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Ray: We had a wedding dress that just went up, and then we’ve had really personal items. I know that I had a woman who had survived breast cancer, and so she wanted to burn her bra in Zozobra. And we’ve had, you know, old love letters. We’ve had wedding albums. We’ve had, you know, wedding invitations. We’ve had just, you know, citations, old mortgages, really bad diagnosis, somebody’s death certificate, somebody’s ashes, who put in their will that they wanted to be, that they wanted a portion of their ashes to go up with Zozobra.

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Dylan: So picture this: You have a massive crowd of 50,000 people. The giant ghost puppet of Zozobra looms ahead of you, waving its arms, moving its eyes. There is music, there is dancing, and all of your glooms and your dooms from the year have been stuffed inside of this figure.

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Ray: You’re having this deeply personal experience, which is you are reflecting on what you yourself want to let go of. What is it that’s holding you down in your life? What is it, what gloom is holding you there? There we start chanting, “Burn him! Burn him!”

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And so basically what happens is that there’s a firework inside Zozobra’s mouth. So when you light the fuse, the fire goes into the mouth. And if you get it just right, these flames start going up across his cheek. And so it looks like he’s breathing fire.

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When people see that, that firework go off in the mouth, you have this collective gasp by 50,000 people all at once. And then all of a sudden you hear this pause and then this roar comes over the crowd. And it’s just, it’s amazing because the amount of energy that you can feel from that crowd. And it’s something that just needs to be experienced.

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Dylan: The festival has been going on for over 100 years now. To shake things up a bit from year to year, Ray and the Kiwanis Club have been experimenting with dressing Zozobra up in slightly different costumes. This year, Zozobra was wearing kind of steampunk getup, big goggles, an old-fashioned coat. If you want a little preview of next year, 2026 is the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So they’re giving Zozobra a little bit of an American Revolution theme.

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Ray: Zozobra has stolen King George, his powdered wig, his scepter, his royal robes, and a crown.

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Dylan: No matter how Zozobra looks on the outside, Ray says at the core, the festival has really stayed the same. It’s part public celebration, part private reflection, and everything in between. It is a chance to let go.

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Ray: Zozobra is really the story between the duality within ourselves as human beings, that good or bad. And really that battle is, who are you going to be like? Are you going to be more like Zozobra and spread gloom into the world, or are you going to be more like the fire spirit and spread light? So this, you know, this dichotomy of being with 50,000 people and having this very communal experience and at the same time having a very personal experience, I think is just really, truly the magic of the event.

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Dylan: The burning of Zozobra takes place every year in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Friday before Labor Day. Start planning your trip now.

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Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.

]]> - - - - The Explorer’s Guide to Nevada’s Night Skies - Holyn Thigpen - Wed, 15 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0400 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/nevada-night-skies - https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/nevada-night-skies - - Nevada’s big night sky nearly bursts with twinkling stars, and you don’t have to travel far to trade the urban lights for celestial spectacle. In Valley of Fire, just an hour outside Las Vegas, inky black skies are interrupted only by awe-inspiring rock formations. And Great Basin National Park, located near the Utah border, is internationally renowned for its designation as a dark sky park.

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Whether you’re an astronomy enthusiast or just a night owl who doesn’t know your Merak from your Mizar (those are stars in the Big Dipper, FYI), settle into one of these spots to open your mind to the vast expanse of the universe. Head to these parks for their unmatched stars, and stay for the surrounding adventures—from hiking to camping to wildlife viewing.

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Valley of Fire State Park

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Nevada’s oldest state park is a sprawling nature preservation area known for its dramatic, red sandstone formations, which look as though they’re on fire when reflecting the sun’s rays. Valley of Fire is 40 miles (about an hour’s drive) outside of Las Vegas, meaning it is unaffected by the city’s neon lights.

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The park is open from sunrise to sunset unless you’re camping in the designated campgrounds at Atlatl Rock or Arch Rock. It isn’t unusual to spot the Milky Way with the naked eye on clear nights (especially on or around the New Moon). The park often hosts professional astronomers, allowing visitors to view constellations and planets through telescopes and hear the stories associated with different celestial bodies. Guests can also embark on self-guided moonlit hikes from September to May when the weather is mild and the stars are at their brightest. But no matter what time of year you explore the valley, sitting among ancient rock formations in total darkness is a truly magical experience.

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Once home to the Ancestral Pueblo farmers, the valley is now a hot spot for camping and hiking, with popular trails including the Fire Wave and the Rainbow Vista. The petroglyphs of the park’s ancient inhabitants can be discovered amongst petrified trees and eroded rocks with unique shapes and textures (one even looks like a giant elephant!). After dark, the valley inspires wonder in a completely different way. A number of nocturnal animals—from lizards to bobcats to ground squirrels—come out to play, and the sky lights up with thousands of stars.

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Great Basin National Park

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Recognized as an “International Dark Sky Park” by Dark Sky International, Great Basin is one of the world’s best spots to stargaze. Due to its high desert setting, the air in the park contains little view-blocking moisture, making it easier to view constellations with the naked eye. During the summer (peak stargazing season) the skies above Great Basin reveal over 6,000 stars and glimpses into the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies.

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This sprawling, 77-thousand-acre park contains wonder at every turn, from groves of ancient bristlecone pines—among the oldest living trees on Earth—to ethereal stalactites and stalagmites inside the Lehman Caves. The difference between the park’s highest and lowest trails is over 6,000 feet, from the top of Wheeler Peak to the bottom of Mountain View Trail. But no matter where you are in Great Basin, you’re in for some amazing nighttime views.

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The park notes that it is committed to reducing its light pollution footprint, employing red exterior lights instead of white and even measuring the brightness of the night sky every month. This careful monitoring ensures that no outside light encroaches on the park’s pristine darkness. Also, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Great Basin Astronomy rangers lead programs at the Astronomy Amphitheater every Thursday through Sunday.

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Black Rock Desert

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This rugged landscape in northwest Nevada is the largest collection of publicly managed land in the continental U.S. Once home to Lake Lahontan, a massive inland sea from the last ice age, the area is now known for its Black Rock Playa—a flat, dry expanse that stretches over 200 square miles (and is famous for being the annual site of Burning Man).

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Most Black Rock campers stay in the center of the playa, where miles lie between your vantage point and the nearest mountain ranges. Black Rock Desert is known for its meteor showers—most notably the Perseid Meteor Shower, which bursts through the serene night skies each August. During Perseid, Friends of Black Rock-High Rock hosts a meteor shower campout, where amateur astronomers can view the phenomenon through telescopes (and drink some complementary hot chocolate!). Rocket enthusiasts, too, make regular trips to the playa to conduct breathtaking night launches that shine against the desert’s wide, flat terrain.

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Driving through Black Rock, adventurers can also spot volcanic rock formations, fossilized, prehistoric remains, and native wildlife like mule deer and horned lizards. If you choose to stay the night and pitch your tent in the desert, you’re in for a whole other set of natural wonders.

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Walker River State Recreation Area

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In 2017, the Walker Basin Conservancy donated over 12,000 acres of land to the State of Nevada, including several large ranches that had been closed to the public for over a hundred years. Today, the ranches and surrounding land compose the five distinct park units of Walker River State Recreation Area.

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Nine Mile Ranch, also known as the “Elbow,” is the least developed of Walker River’s five parks and still looks just like the large ranch area that it was a century ago. Visitors can camp out in the Elbow’s Bighorn Campground, where there is easy access to the river and—more importantly—the darkest, most astonishing skies in the whole recreation area. Occasionally, Walker River park rangers host on-site astronomy nights, where visitors can experiment with different telescopic equipment and learn more about the numerous planets viewable from the park.

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The East Walker River runs through this rolling landscape, with designated access points for kayakers, floaters, and fishers, and the area’s winding dirt roads are popular with hikers, mountain bikers, and equestrians. While Walker River is a popular site for daytime treks and picnics, it’s also an incredible place to spend the night. Whether you choose to pitch a tent, hook up your RV, or rent one of the campgrounds’ riverside cabins, there’s a whole new world to explore when the sun sets over Walker River.

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Lunar Crater

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Recognized as one of Nevada’s six National Natural Landmarks, the Lunar Crater volcanic field is one of the state’s most remarkable, otherworldly features, containing a whopping, 400-acre crater thought to have been formed by several shallow volcanic eruptions. Lunar Crater and its surrounding, smaller craters are so much like the landscape of the moon that the area was classified as an official “Terrestrial Analogue Site” and used for NASA’s Apollo astronaut training during the 1970s.

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While its space-training days may be over, Lunar Crater is still an unbeatable spot for taking in the night sky. Explorers of the crater can camp anywhere along the pull-offs of the Backcountry Byway, all of which offer unobstructed views of the inky black sky and, often, a look at the Milky Way. The crater is a great place to experience zodiacal light—the sunlight that reflects off dust in the sun’s orbit path and produces a faint, pyramid-shaped glow in the night sky. Stargazers at Lunar Crater can also witness an astonishing red and green airglow across the sky and even get glimpses of the Dark Horse Nebula in the Milky Way’s Great Rift.

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The Lunar Crater Backcountry Byway passes by the crater with a stopping point where visitors can get out of their cars for a closer look. Along the bumpy dirt road, it’s easy to spot natural formations like cinder cones and basalt flows, as well as some lovely wildflowers. The Byway also takes you past 20 different extinct volcanoes and ancient, obsidian-covered lava beds.

]]> - - Nectar Soda Tue, 03 Dec 2024 11:00:00 -0500