What is more nostalgic than the memory of an American road trip: the sense of freedom and exploration, adventure and an open road, connection and memories, simplicity and escape? 
In The Great American Retro Road Trip: A Celebration of Roadside Americana (Artisan; hardcover; June 24, 2025), join journalist Rolando Pujol on a coast-to-coast celebration of the nostalgic pleasures of America's vintage signs, quirky roadside attractions, and offbeat fast-food relics.
A taste of the 1000 iconic locations listed includes:The 21-foot Buck Atom, a Muffler Man space cowboy deposited by aliens at an old gas station on Route 66 near Tulsa, Oklahoma. The 13-foot Smiling Peanut, inspired by President Jimmy Carter’s famous smile and constructed during his 1976 campaign, now sitting in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. The Sinclair Oil dinosaur Octane in Heber City, Utah, to see how local schoolteacher Christine Chappell has outfitted him (Octane has been dressed up as everything from a Utah Jazz player to Barbie to the Statue of Liberty and has promoted school fundraisers, political candidates, and helped celebrate holidays). The 9,370-pound World’s Largest Popcorn Ball, made from real, locally grown popcorn kernels in Sac City, IowaA corn dog at the Cozy Drive-In in Springfield, Illinois, whose founder sensationalized the 1946 Illinois State Fair when he debuted his hot dog on a stick. A hamburger and midcentury ambience at The Red Rooster in Brewster, New York in a 1963 A-frame decorated with candy- stripes and an ice-cream-cone cupola. Burger Chef, founded in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1954, was once neck-and-neck with Burger King in the race to catch up with McDonald’s. The chain faded away by the 1980s, but one of the finest remaining former Burger Chefs is in Rialto, California, is so authentic looking it appeared in Mad Men.

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