Summer's coming up faster than a giant ball of twine rolling down a steep hill. So, what is a red-blooded American going to do about it?

There's really only one thing to do: Get into a car and drive off in hot pursuit of the twine and other roadside attractions that make America great.

Sometimes, you just have to pity our fellow human beings on other continents. Sure, they have Stonehenge, the Parthenon, and the great pyramids of Egypt. Here in America, we have all those things too--and we have the twine.

And that's not all. We also have giant fish and creepy collections of human remains--even giant heads carved in rock. Entire books have been written about bizarre roadside attractions in America. Some of the attractions are so strange, such as the double-decker outhouse of Booger Hollow, Arkansas, that it's hard to create categories that encompass them all.

However, it's safe to say that if someone has collected something unusual, copied something famous, or just made something really big, it can qualify as a tourist magnet in the U.S. of A.

Now, critics might say that our contribution to the world of monuments and museums is a little bit like the improvement powdered orange juice made over the real thing. A Stonehenge made out of concrete? This is not as cool as the real Stonehenge, which was built over a 1,500-year period starting as long as 5,000 years ago.

But Sam Hill's Stonehenge happens to be located in Maryhill, Washington--a four-hour drive from my house--whereas the real Stonehenge is in southwestern England. Last time I checked, that was pretty far away.

I think this is one reason Americans have gone to great lengths to copy the great monuments of Europe. It's a lot easier to get to Memphis, Tennessee, than to the vicinity of Memphis, Egypt. And while you're in Tennessee, you're not too far from Nashville, where you can visit a faux Parthenon.

In short, we have cars and we use them. Mainly, though, roadside attractions exist for the same reason they have existed since ancient times. What is that reason, you ask? Read on.