It's beginning to look a lot like an Eccentric Roadside Christmas

With Christmas just around the corner, we thought we'd share some Christmas cards we've made over the years commemorating our road trips with a little help from our friend Mr. Photoshop, including these great eccentric roadside sights...

...the American Gothic house in Eldon, Iowa...

 ...Death Valley...

 ...The Big Duck, Long Island, New York...

 ...Presidents Park, Williamsburg, Virginia...

...and the Hudson River, Kingston, New York.

We'd mail you one but we just ran out of stamps.

I Goth You, Babe: The American Gothic sculpture of Trenton, New Jersey

 Sculptor J. Seward Johnson calls his 25-foot rendition of "American Gothic" "God Bless America".

 There's a terrific realistic sculpture of two normal-sized people across the street called "It's So Big!"

 Baby Goth back.

 Seward's sculpture has traveled around. Here it is in Chicago.

There's a renown sculptor named J. Seward Johnson who likes to work big. Really big. So when he decided to replicate Grant Wood's "American Gothic," he liberated the simple farm couple from their house backdrop and made them 25 feet tall and cast of aluminum. He also added a suitcase with travel decals from faraway places. Are the couple world travelers or is this a symbol of America's immigrant roots? You decide. A suitcase is also an appropriate addition because Mr. Johnson leases the sculpture out to different municipalities and it has traveled to several different locations, including Chicago, Indiana and Grant Wood's native Iowa. We were lucky enough to see it when it was on Chicago's Michigan Avenue back in 2009 so imagine the delight of seeing it again while passing near Trenton, New Jersey. There it sits near the Trenton train station and across from the Congoleum factory as part of the "Sculpture Along the Way" installations put on by The Sculpture Foundation. Across the street is another Johnson sculpture called "It's so big!" depicting a normal-sized man and woman gawking at the American Goths. This is a great visual effect because it gives a terrific sense of scale to the farm couple, and the regular-sized couple look extremely realistic (and a little bit randy) from a distance. Mr. Johnson is quite a hero to us eccentric roadside attraction fans, with his huge and wacky works of art that make you stand back and go "Wow!". We Goth to hand it to him.

Goth to get you into my life: The American Gothic house of Eldon, Iowa

That's Grant Wood's sister and his dentist.

They were thrilled.

The original owners of the house were Charles and Catharine Dibble. They lived here with their eight (!) children. The Gideon and Mary Hart Jones family owned it when Wood saw it. He asked and got their permission to paint it. The house fell into disrepair in the 1960s and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

They've done a nice job of landscaping around the house and the Grant Wood museum...

...seen here.

Here's Alan, one of the awesome docents we talked to, and a portrait of Wood...

...and his wife Rosie. We really enjoyed their friendly Midwestern hospitality.

The house sits on the corner of American Gothic and Burton.

You'd never guess such a famous house would be in such an unassuming neighborhood.

Inside the museum, there's a great wall of parodies.

The house was left by its owner to the State Historical Society of Iowa, who lease it out to private tenants and the public isn't allowed inside. The current tenant is Beth Howard, who has a pie baking business. No kidding.

At the museum, they'll loan you costumes and take your picture. Some folks get pretty creative...

We're purists and opted for the dour-faced traditional approach. It was 97 degrees, windy, and humid.

There are only a few paintings that are so well known, they're part of popular culture. Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Mona Lisa" is one, Edvard Munch's "The Scream", another. And, of course, there's "American Gothic" by Grant Wood. In 1930, Wood noticed a simple house built in Carpenter Gothic style in his home state of Iowa and decided to use it as the backdrop of a Midwestern American scene with "the kind of people I fancied should live in that house": an elderly farmer and his daughter. The model for the farmer was his Cedar Rapids dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby, and for the daughter he used his sister Nan. All three elements -- the farmer, the daughter and the house -- were painted separately and no one posed in front of the house. Wood entered the painting in an Art Institute of Chicago competition and the judges gave it a bronze medal and $300. The Institute also bought the painting and it remains in their collection today (not bad: 300 clams for a priceless work of art). At first, some local Iowans thought the painting was disrespectful and made fun of their way of life. This could not have been further from Wood's intentions, as he had great reverence for the local people and gave up a European painter's life to locate in Iowa as a working artist. Eventually the painting was seen with affection by both Iowans and critics, and hundreds of parodies have resulted (that's how you know you've really made it). The house is now owned by the state of Iowa and sits in an unassuming, quiet neighborhood in the small town of Eldon. They've put up a very nice Grant Wood museum next to it and when we were there, two terrific docents, Alan and Rosie, told us all about Wood and the area. Best of all, they have a whole closet full of bib overalls, blazers, colonial print aprons, white-collared dresses and a pitchfork or two so you can get your picture taken, free of charge mind you, in front of the house. We loved visiting this place so much...you don't get more Americana than this. Goth bless America.

Chicago's 25-foot American Gothic Sculpture: When you come to pitchfork in the road, take it!

Who doesn't like having their picture taken in front of a 25-foot replica of a Grant Wood painting?

Baby got back!

Chicago is a city laden with great outdoor artworks, not the least of which is this 25-foot interpretation of Grant Wood's famous (and often parodied) painting American Gothic by renown sculptor (and Johnson & Johnson heir) J. Seward Johnson. The original painting resides just down the road at the outstanding Chicago Institute of Art, so who better to host this eccentric eye-catcher, which rests along the city's Magnificent Mile at 401 Michigan Avenue. It's awesome in its incongruity: earnest farm folk among gleaming skyscrapers, the Midwest's salt of the earth among the Midwest's most sophisticated urban backdrop, humble farmers blown up to giant urban dwellers. It's also awesome in its execution as a really faithful and really beautiful work of art in its own right. And its just plain fun to walk around, gawk at, and have your picture taken in front of, as any really big thing ought to be. I'm not quite sure what the suitcase signifies... perhaps the sculptor is imagining the farmers are visiting the city for the weekend and are looking for their hotel. In any event, you can't miss it, nor should you. It's pitchfork perfect.