Recently, I discovered Atlas Obscura, “a compendium of this age’s wonders, curiosities, and esoterica.” It speaks to my heart:

The Atlas Obscura is a collaborative project with the goal of cataloging all of the singular, eccentric, bizarre, fantastical, and strange out-of-the-way places that get left out of traditional travel guidebooks and are ignored by the average tourist. If you’re looking for miniature cities, glass flowers, books bound in human skin, gigantic flaming holes in the ground, phallological museums, bone churches, balancing pagodas, or homes built entirely out of paper, the Atlas Obscura is where you’ll find them.

 
This guide is simply full of some of the most incredible stuff. For example, one of the entries in Pennsylvania, mere miles from where I went to high school, was totally unknown to me until now. How had I never heard of this place before!? It’s called The Sonorous Stones of Ringing Rocks Park, basically a field of musical, ringing boulders in the middle of the woods. Incredible.

[photo: David Hanauer]

Here in Philadelphia, you’ll find a number of odd spots, including the Shrine of Saint John Neuman. I’m going to have fun exploring (and contributing to!) this outstanding project. Lord Whimsy, you must be all over this already, yes?

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