Before streaming services we had Blockbuster - but did you know one remains in operation? On this episode, we share the downfall of Blockbuster, and how the Bend, Oregon location keeps its doors open to this day. 

Over the more than 200 years of its existence, the US has become home to a number of iconic sites that domestic and international travelers alike place at the top of their must-see lists. The classic memorials and museums circling Washington, DC spring to mind, of course, because of their importance to both the history and future of our country, but other cities outside our capital possess an immediate connection with a building or structure: for instance, San Francisco’s graceful and majestic Golden Gate Bridge, the futuristic and awe-inspiring Space Needle in Seattle, the formidable and photogenic bronze lions guarding the entrance to Chicago’s famed Art Institute. America’s largest metropolis, New York City, is famous for, among other things: the Statue of Liberty, whose promise of freedom welcomed millions of immigrants to America’s shores; the legendary sports and performances at Madison Square Garden; and the delicious, titanic corned beef sandwiches and knishes at the Carnegie Deli. But one building alone symbolizes the strength, beauty, and spirit of New York.

Early in the morning of March 18, 1990, two thieves disguised as police officers robbed a Boston museum of thirteen works worth some $500 million – the greatest known property theft in history. Among the works was The Concert, one of only 34 known by Johannes Vermeer and thought to be the most valuable unrecovered painting at over $200 million. And The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt's only known seascape.

The story of the theft and its subsequent investigation is told in a thrilling new docuseries on Netflix. The unsolved heist is an epic tale, but it's not the subject of today's episode. Today, we're talking about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum itself, still one of the best museums in the world.

PEZ. Known for its collectible dispensers depicting thousands of beloved characters and for its fruity brick-like candies, the brand has solidified its place in United States pop culture. From stocking stuffers to Easter baskets, PEZ is a nostalgic staple constantly innovating its appeal to kids and collectors alike. Nestled in Orange, Connecticut, with over 4,000 square feet of PEZ collecting goodness, one Museum offers a peek into all things PEZ.

If you’re looking for places to visit that are visually and audibly stunning, spark the imagination, are in close proximity, appeal to the whole family, and are educational to boot, one of the best and most unique ideas is Chicago’s own Museum Campus, located on the shores of Lake Michigan, a short distance from downtown. While two components of the Museum Campus include the historic Soldier Field football and soccer stadium (home of the Chicago Bears) and the gigantic McCormick Place convention center, it’s also home to three of the city’s most famous and beloved attractions: the Shedd Aquarium, the Adler Planetarium, and the Field Museum of Natural History.

Artist Tyree Guyton is on a mission to rehabilitate the image of his community through art. Discarded stuffed animals cling to a boat like barnacles, an old, bright pink hummer shell protrudes from the ground, colorful polka dots decorate an old two-story house and painted numbers ornament another. Tyree has transformed his city block and his community into the third most visited cultural site in Detroit.

This week on the See America Podcast, The Heidelberg Project.

Many popular tourist destinations owe a large part of their identity to a singular aspect of their culture. In France, locals will introduce you to the joys of any one of their thousand distinct cheeses, while thoughts of Brazil might bring to mind their stunning beaches.

You know that if you visit Arizona that one way or another, you’ll probably catch a glimpse of the Grand Canyon.

If your travels bring you to the great state of Georgia, at some point, unless you take great pains not to do so, you will eat peaches.

This week, the Georgia Peach Festival.

What is a “Meow Wolf”? Some have said it's a “psychedelic funhouse.” Some liken it to “Burning Man,” the outdoor music festival. Others say it’s an “intergalactic, interdimensional travel agency.” While most have no idea what we’re talking about. 

Save 15% on a Roadtrippers PLUS subscription and start building your ultimate road trip. Use code RVMILES2X at checkout. 

Photo: Rusty Blazenhoff. 

Connect with See America on Instagram and Facebook, and share your love of road trips in the See America Facebook Group. 

Space Travel is starting to change dramatically, but the history of space travel is one of the most incredible pieces of America's story, and few places can it be better felt than in Cape Canaveral.

I'm Jason Epperson, and this is the See America Podcast. From coast to coast, we See America one mile at a time, discovering stops along the way that are eclectic, historic, ridiculous, breathtaking, inspiring, and humbling.

This week, the Kennedy Space Center. 

In the southwestern corner of Tennessee, a mountain towers over the city of Chattanooga, at its peak, it's rumored that you can see 7 states. This destination is certainly one borne of natural beauty and history, but the dawn of auto tourism led it down a similar path as the Niagra Falls - commercial kitsch, with See Rock City signs plastering that 7-state region. That's ok, that nostalgia is historic now, 90 years later. 

This week, Chattanooga's Lookout Mountain. 

See America is back! We're kicking off season 7 with a fun roundup of some of the most interesting and amazing bathrooms in America, along with the best places to stop when you have to do your business on a road trip!

This week, we are adding to our ever-growing list of episodes highlighting international landmark replicas that dot the American landscape with a road trip to the iconic Parthenon, located not in Athens...but in Nashville, Tennessee.  

The small town of Wamego, Kansas, with its modest population of nearly 5,000, is not a sprawling, sepia-toned farmland featuring Aunty Em, Miss Gulch, and Professor Marvel. It does not look like much of the Midwest landscape that comes to mind. Oh, no. Wamego, Kansas has poppy fields and Emerald Cities; yellow brick roads and ruby red slippers and lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Because somewhere over the rainbow is Wamego, Kansas, a town whose cultural identity has been oz-ified into no place like home.

The world's most famous gunfight didn't happen where you think it did, and it only lasted for 30 seconds. But the spat between the lawmen Earps and Cowboy Clantons is one of the most enduring legends of America. And really, how long does a gunfight need to last? The town it happened in is one of the few places you can truly step back in time and be there, much as it was, at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881.

This week, one of the last boomtowns in the American Frontier, Tombstone, Arizona. 

In upstate New York, one museum is dedicated to a boxed dessert that's been a part of America for nearly 125 years. America's Most Famous Dessert's success story is the result of marketing that would help shape the advertising industry throughout the 20th century. There's always room for Jell-O...

This week, The Jell-O Gallery Museum in LeRoy, New York.

This week, a celebration of the Pine Tree State's 40,000 acres of Wild Blueberries at Wild Blueberry Land in Columbia Falls, Maine.

Our journey today definitely spends some time in Europe, as much of America's story does. But it ends in the 1970s, in Lake Havasu, Arizona, where a piece of world history was salvaged for a tourist attraction like no other: The London Bridge

This week, we journey to the world's largest convenience store — Texas' famed Buc-ee's. A place filled with miles of treats and sodas and bathrooms so clean you'll hold it for an extra fifty miles just to use them. It's a chain that's become a legend. 

It's been called the "King of sodas" and "liquid sunshine," and over the years it's gone through several variations - Red Fusion, Diet Cherry Chocolate, and "made with real sugar," but at the end of the day, the original reigns supreme. In an industry where companies are constantly trying to reinvent themselves, this brand's original formula has stayed near the top of the leader board since it was first introduced over 100 years ago.

This week, the history of Dr. Pepper and the Dr. Pepper museum in Waco, Texas. 

One of the world's most well-known roadside attractions, nearly in the middle of nowhere South Dakota began as a stop for free ice water, coffee, and donuts for service personnel on the way to an Air Force Base. Today, it's a tourism icon. And the coffee price has gone up drastically — from free all the way up to a whopping $.05. 

This week, the Wall Drug store in Wall South Dakota. 

Evel Knievel made the leap from rural county fairs to sold-out stadiums through a unique combination of bravado, determination, and promotional genius. He invented himself and his business, jumping, crashing, and miraculously recovering to promise even more outrageous stunts to come.

Each winter, thousands of people descend upon Alaska in hopes of catching one of the most spectacular light shows on earth. Steeped in legends and myths that can be found in cultures throughout the world, these brilliant lights are one of our most majestic natural wonders, and certainly, one of the most highly photographed. Their presence gives a sense of the otherwordly to a state that already feels far removed from its 49 other brothers and sisters.

This week, Alaska and The Aurora Borealis: the Northern Lights.

It's surely not a stretch for me to say that most people imagine that all the stunning major hotels in the US are in popular tourist destinations. But what if we told you one that has been called the 8th wonder of the world—an architectural marvel with nearly 250 exquisitely appointed suites, a world-class spa, 45 holes of championship golf, and an atrium dome that was once the largest in the world—is in a town called French Lick, Indiana?

From modest beginnings in the small town of Burlington, Vermont, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and other products can now be found in freezers in over 30 countries. This is their story. 

Normally on this show, we take you to a single destination, but this week we're changing it up a bit. We're going to take a journey across the country to the final resting places of —some famous, some infamous, some completely unknown. These people all left their mark at the last possible moment, with some of the strangest tombs you'll find on earth.

The Great River Road follows the Mississippi River’s length, on both sides, providing access to much of this beauty, mixed with the industrial history of America. We’ve covered several Mississippi river towns on this show - Minneapolis, Rock Island, St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans - but there’s one town where you can get the quintessential Mississippi river experience. A town where much of the popular image of the Mighty Miss’ was born, home to Samuel Clemons, who would use a Mississippi River term to craft his pseudonym: the second mark on the line that measured depth signified two fathoms, or twelve feet—safe depth for the steamboat—Mark Twain.

 

Jack Daniel’s may sound like a ubiquitous, mass-produced brand, but it’s always been made the same way, in the same place, the same way it was made by the man whose name is on the label.

Many historians cite the first bank robbery in the United States as February 13, 1866 when associates of Jesse and Frank James robbed the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri. If that date sounds way to modern, your history senses are keen. To find out more about the real first U.S. bank robbery you’d have to travel back to 1798, 68 years before Jesse and Frank James, and 1,127 miles northeast to the city of brotherly love.

This week, Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Lizzie Borden took an axe,

And gave her mother forty whacks; 

When she saw what she had done,

She gave her father forty-one.

Actually, the bordens received only 29 whacks, not the 81 suggested by the famous ditty, but regardless, Lizzie Borden’s alleged murder of her parents is one of the most famous murder trials in history. 

This week, on our special Halloween edition of the podcast, the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast / Museum, where you too can sleep if you dare, as the specters of Andrew and Abby Borden haunt the house.

New York City. The bright lights of Broadway shine on no less than 40 of the greatest stages on earth, and yet, one venue in the Big Apple outshines all others. This week, Radio City Musical Hall.

Up until about 30 years ago, there wasn’t much that made the North Star State  — Minnesota — a destination for international tourists. It’s 10,000 lakes included. That all changed on August 11, 1992, when 10,000 people all had their first day of work in Bloomington, a suburb of the twin cities, at what would become one of the most popular tourist destinations in America, second only to Times Square. 

This week, the Mall of America.

In Wiltshire, England sits a prehistoric monument of epic proportions. Featuring a ring of standing stones each around 13 feet high, seven feet wide, and weighing about 25 tons, Stonehenge is a household name shrouded in folklore and fame. Constructed between 3,000 BC and 2,000 BC it has been legally protected since 1882 and was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. It’s an awe-inspiring and curious site for sure, and if we ever do a See the World Podcast, Stonehenge will be on the shortlist. But what if you can’t make the road trip to England to take in these stone wonders for yourself? Well, don’t worry, because here in the states we have our very own tribute to this magnificent monument, one that only dates back 33 years, and has replaced 25-ton stones with cars—and you only have to go as far as Nebraska to see it.

This week, Carhenge, the 38 car tribute to England’s Stonehenge in Alliance, Nebraska. 

America is home to lots of things that we get to claim are the biggest and greatest, but there’s one facility in the U.S. that probably deserves more bragging rights than any other, and it’s not one that’s often talked about. It’s the biggest library in the world, and It also just happens to be one incredible display of American architecture. 

This week, the Library of Congress. 

Last week we talked about Elvis’s major failure at the Grand Ole Opry, and this week, we thought it would be a good idea to let him redeem himself. The Opry might be the mother church of country music, but Graceland is the palace of rock & roll.

Every year, from February to May, 1,800 acres of desert plateau spring to life with color. Purples, yellows, oranges, and blues all come together on the sprawling arid landscape to emulate an Impressionist painting; a fluid composition of light and hue, playing with intensity and movement. The four-petaled, burning orange poppy is illuminated as it contrasts with a vast, blue California sky. This week on the See America Podcast, the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve in Los Angeles County, California. 

 

This week, we take you behind the scenes of the world's longest-running radio show and country music's pinnacle of achievement, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. 

St. Louis, Missouri. Along the mighty Mississippi. Home of the Arch, the Cardinals, and Budweiser beer. Whatever you feel about a “Bud,” the Anheuser-Busch Family revolutionized the brewing industry and distribution of beer to America and the world. And they made a fortune doing it. Here, in the Gateway to the West, you can visit the fruits of their labor, at the estate that is featured in dedicates of Budweiser imagery, with a team of massive clydesdales hitched to that red Budweiser wagon. This week, Grant’s Farm

Hollywood, California. Land of make-believe. If you’ve ever been, you know that a lot of what is glitters, isn’t actually gold. A trip down Hollywood Boulevard these days is chock full of cheap costumed look-sort-of-alikes. The Hollywood walk-of-fame has somehow become the major symbol of this once harrowed place, and it’s a giant pay-to-pay scam. Does anyone really need to get their picture taken with David Spade’s star? Thankfully, Hollywood Boulevard isn’t all urine stench and phony idols. There’s one place where you can still, instantly be whisked back in time. 

This week, Hollywood’s Chinese Theater. 

Bricktown. Oklahoma city. A museum in this vibrant city tells the story of the only real, truly American musical instrument. It wasn’t just developed in America, it was borne through the struggle for freedom, and tells the story of our country through its percussive draw, its rapid-fire playing style, and it’s expressive and exquisite construction.

As anyone who’s visited Colorado Springs can tell you, it sits in the shadow of an ominous mountain - it’s is an amazing sight to behold. The 14,115-foot summit rises over the plains with a sort of ancient majesty. It predates humanity by millions of years and was here long before anyone first settled the region. For centuries and even millennia, it’s been recognized by people of all cultures as one of the most striking landmarks in Colorado. Everyone has had their own name for it, each trying to capture the beauty and splendor of the peak.

 

This week, Pikes Peak.

A glowing white stone castle shines like a beacon of hope to weary travelers in the southeast corner of Wisconsin...but no knights in armor or kings and queens live here. This is a castle of another type, one that enshrines Wisconsin’s most prized product. Cheese. This Week, Kenosha Wisconsin’s Mars Cheese Castle

Amidst the hustle and bustle of America’s largest city sits an incredible greenspace that just happens to be one of the most filmed locations in the world, appearing in over 350 films and counting over the years. It’s been home to dozens of iconic concerts and is the second most visited tourist destination in America. Yet it’s so big, it never really feels too crowded. It also happens to be America’s first landscaped public park: New York’s Central Park.

This week, we journey to the "rollercoaster capital of the word" to hear the history of the second-oldest theme park in America — Sandusky, Ohio's Cedar Point.

On the eastern edge of New Mexico’s Sacramento Mountains, a few miles west of the rolling dunes of White Sands National Park sit the remains of two unassuming cabins in a place called Dog Canyon. If you walked by them today, you probably wouldn’t realize they sparked a famous conflict that would have ramifications for years to come. 

Today, on See America, Oliver Lee State Park

Season 4 is here! We kick it off with one of the most American places you could imagine. Nestled in the city of Boston is what is often called "America's Most Beloved Ballpark.” A place where dreams are made, traditions are celebrated and baseball is forever. It’s the home of Red Sox Legends, and a looming Green Monster which has befuddled pitchers for a century: Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox and the pulse of Red Sox Nation.

When Americans travel internationally, they often encounter nations and civilizations far older than their 245-year-old home country. As they explore new cultures, the travelers learn the depth and breadth of antiquity, often well-preserved, in many of these foreign lands.

How wonderful it is, they marvel, that we can take a trip back in time and see government buildings, houses of worship, homes, roads, markets: elements of entire societies that were established and active hundreds of years before the US was even a thought in anyone’s mind. While it’s true that the story of the United States goes back only a few hundred years, Indigenous cultures in North America had been thriving for centuries before Europeans set foot on the continent.

Though sadly much of the history of Native American tribes have been lost or destroyed, a shining example of a Native American city lives on in southwestern Illinois, only a few miles from modern-day St. Louis. 

If you're enjoying the show, please consider helping us reach even more people by leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/see-america/id1479148682

Save 15% off your Roadtrippers PLUS membership with code RVMILES2X at https://roadtrippers.com/

Connect with See America across social media: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seeamerica.travel/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SeeAmericaPodcast

See America Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SeeAmerica

Have a suggestion for a future episode? Email us at editor@rvmiles.com. 

See America is part of the RV Miles Network of resources for the North American traveler. Check out our other podcasts - RV Miles and America's National Parks. Available where you listen to this podcast. 

Combined with the surrounding mesas, buttes, and desert environment, Monument Valley Tribal Park truly is one of the natural wonders of the world. Set aside by the Navajo Tribal Council in 1958, the park covers almost 92,000 acres in northern Arizona and southern Utah and lies entirely within the Navajo Nation reservation.

Rock Island is one of those towns that pops up in nostalgic culture over and over, but not a lot of people know where it is or much about it. It's almost mythical in a way, due especially to the Rock Island Line, a real train route, short for the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, memorialized in the folk song of the same name. But Rock Island's story is steeped in real history — especially the actual Rock Island, the largest island on the Mississippi River, for which the town is named.

This week, the island now known as Arsenal Island in Rock Island, Illinois. 

A 100-year old building that stands as a symbol of community. It's the place generations have gone to eat to celebrate life's joys - before prom, on Mother's day, a rehearsal dinner. It's part of the fabric of a town that has witnessed disaster and rebirth. And it's been reinvented for today's refined palate.

This week, the White Pillars restaurant in Biloxi, Mississippi.

In the summer of 1971, a Minnesota Junior High School guidance counselor took a severe fall from a friend's roof. While recovering from his injuries, he set out to build a dream. A replica of a ship from his ancestral Viking heritage. One that would sail him all the way to Norway.

This week, the Hjemkomst, the Viking ship that inspired a community.