Unusual Life

Incredible little house that is part-organic, part-pop culture. A miniature Flintstones House of delight.

The Heidelberg Project is an outdoor community art environment located in Detroit. The elements of the canvas contain recycled materials and found objects, most of which were salvaged from the streets and each work of art is carefully devised to tell a story about current issues plaguing society. As a whole, the Heidelberg Project is symbolic of how many communities in Detroit have become discarded.

The HP is the brainchild of native Detroit artist, Tyree Guyton. It began in 1986 and was originally designed as a creative response to ongoing blight and decay in the neighborhood in which he grew up.

The Heidelberg Project, as it came to be known, developed into a block long environment consisting of free standing found-object constructions and abandoned buildings and trees adorned with found objects. Much of the area and works are are simplistically painted upon with multi-colored polka dots being the signature icon.

The Heidelberg Project

Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica, CA

Voodoo has too many extreme doughnuts to feature just one. Some aren’t suitable for Unusual Life — we’ll refer to them as “anatomical” — but others are at once outlandish, deliciously addictive and rated G. Like the Bacon Maple Bar: a buttermilk topped with maple frosting and slices of crispy bacon; it sounds odd but really just mimics that marvelous moment when your pancake syrup runs into your breakfast meats. Voodoo also does wonders with cereal — try the Captain Crunch, Fruit Loop and Cocoa Puff doughnuts — and before health officials stepped in, patrons could even feast on NyQuil and Pepto-Bismol varieties.

Extreme Doughnuts at Voodoo Doughnut
22 SW 3rd Ave. | Portland, Ore.

Manmade Beach in Japan — Ocean Dome

If you can’t find a nearby crowded beach, make one! Only in Japan…

Ocean Dome is known as the world’s largest indoor water park
with a retractable roof. The air temperature is always kept around 30º C and the water temperature is kept at around 28º C.

The name Seagaia is a combination of the words “sea” and “gaia”, which is Greek for earth. It’s located near the Pacific Ocean on Kyushu Island.

Impact Lab’s photos of Ocean Dome

More photos of Seagaia

More photos here of Ocean Dome

Unbelievable photo set from Boston.com

It is Carnival Season in many countries around the world with a Roman Catholic heritage. Celebrations and parades put on just prior to the observance of Lent. Tomorrow will be the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but the past couple of weeks have seen parades and celebrations throughout Europe, the Caribbean and South America - notably Venice, Italy and Brazil. Collected here are just a glimpse of some of the elaborate celebrations of this Carnival season.

More fabulous photos about the Carnival on Boston.com

To celebrate Lincoln’s birthday and President’s Day, the editors at RoadsideAmerica.com have selected their favorite Lincoln tourist attractions and exhibits. From a much longer list, these 12 leapt onto the stage of infamy — from the Lincoln Watermelon Monument to the bronzed foundation of Lincoln’s Boyhood Home. There’s even one unmentionable exhibit (which they’ve chosen to mention, of course).

Buy Abraham Lincoln candy

Unusual Lincoln objects at Brown University

Abe Lincoln and Jesus Shrine

Lincoln Watermelon Monument

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Here’s a very red room we stayed in last August at The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California. They named it the Tack Room. I had red leather wall covering, red leather bedspreads, red stained wood walls, pink marble pedestal sinks, and lots more red stuff.
I wonder who’s staying there this Valentines Day?

See our full set of photos from the extraordinary Madonna Inn

The Madonna Inn has 109 unique theme rooms where you can stay, as well as multiple odd over-the-top dining environments. You can/should see photos of all 109 rooms here.

Click "Tour Our Rooms Online" at the top right, and then the "Next " button under the photos to tour through each room.

Grotto of the Redemption was the second folk-art installation I remember visiting as a child. It was a fascinating place, made completely out of rocks and gemstones by Father Paul Matthias Dobberstein.

It’s said that Father Dobberstein became critically ill with pneumonia. As he fought for his life he prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary to intercede for him for the grace of health. He promised to build a shrine in her honor of he lived.

And he did.

Official Grotto of the Redemption website

If you missed the opening, don’t worry, you can drop by anytime to the Official Bad Art Museum of Art at Cafe Racer because it’s now open from 7am until 2am, 7 days a week. Stop by for lunch or dinner or a cold one after work and view the stupendous art.
• Video by Marlow •

Subterranea Britannica is an organization with a website that features all sorts of underground man-made structures and places. There is information about 100’s of underground railways, postoffices, caves, bunkers, stations, tunnels. It has an especially interesting photo tour of Chernobyl, but this one is real (remember Chernobyl motorcycle girl? Not a hoax exactly, but a sort of fanciful photo tour.)

Official tours are available of the area, and these tours are in closed cars with a geiger counter, to make sure visitors aren’t exposed to dangerous levels of radioactivity. The site has an incredible photo tour, including photos of the town before the accident.

Via Boing Boing

This floating swimming pool in the river is called the Badeschiff (that’s German for “bathing ship”) this floating swimming pool is really just an old barge transformed into a public pool last year in Berlin, on the Spree river. Unfortunately, the river itself is much too polluted for people to swim in, so this idea, as crazy as it looks, makes some sense.

It was first spotted in 2007, during a very hot Summer and during the off-season it’s covered and closed to the public. But the hot Summer is here again and the Germans in Berlin will once again be able to enjoy a swim in the cool water of the Badeschiff. Would’ve been cool if it had a glass bottom though, so you could see the river.

The Floating Swimming Pool - Oddity Central

McDonald’s #1 Store Museum in Des Plaines, Ill.

Get a real taste for nostalgia at the McDonald’s #1 Store museum. The red-and-white-tiled museum in suburban Chicago recreates the first McDonald’s restaurant, opened by Ray Kroc on April 15, 1955. The entrance sign is original, as is much of the kitchen equipment once used for making burgers, fries and milkshakes. Plus, an all-male crew of mannequins dressed in vintage uniforms stands ready to take your order.

Top 10 Food Museums

Clingstone, an unusual, 103-year-old mansion in Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay, survives through the love and hard work of family and friends. Via Grow-a-Brain

What better way to celebrate the closing of Weep Week in Memphis than to look at some Elvis real estate for sale.

Scary Elvis’ Graceland replica for sale in L.A. for only $999,000.

It’s located at 17912 Parthenia St, Los Angeles, CA 91325, and has 3 bedrooms and 3 baths.

I wonder if it comes furnished?

And a REAL Elvis house for sale in Palm Springs.

The 5,000-square-foot estate at 845 W. Chino Canyon Road was bought by beloved music legend Elvis Presley in April 1970. He paid $85,000 for it, according to previous Desert Sun reports. According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s now on the market again for $17M. Right.

Elvis Honeymoon House photo tour