If you're planning on taking a road trip through the South, you'll no doubt want to visit some of the region's most popular attractions. The old classics include the controversial and imposing Stone Mountain State Park, the massive Peachoid, or the incredible Georgia Aquarium. But what if you're looking to do something a little, well, weirder?
Just follow this guide to the strangest road trip stops in the South, and you'll find yourself wandering abandoned movie sets, watching dolls be physically "born", or reading mysterious stone tablets built for the apocalypse.
Sometimes referred to as "America's Stonehenge", the Georgia Guidestones are granite monuments in Elbert County, Georgia, USA, with messages inscribed in four ancient languages: Babylonian, Classical Greek, Sanskrit and Egyptian hieroglyphs. General consensus is that the slabs were created to guide humanity in the aftermath of an apocalyptic event.
The mysterious stones have been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories since their unveiling, as the shadowy figure behind the strange monument has never come forward with an explanation for their creation, and has yet to be publicly named. As a result, the slabs are often vandalized.
All that is known about the financiers of the project is an inscription on the ground that reads, "a small group of Americans who seek the Age of Reason."
A few feet from the monument, an additional tablet sits on the ground and identifies the structure and the languages used, lists various facts about the size, weight, and astronomical features of the stones, the date it was installed, and the sponsors of the project. It also speaks of a time capsule buried under the tablet, but the fields for the bury and open date are missing, making it unclear whether or not a time capsule was actually buried.
From apocalyptic guidestones to an abandoned movie set... Built specifically for the 2003 Tim Burton film "Big Fish", the fictional Town of Spectre actually exists on the banks of the Alabama river, unused since the movie's production. Each of the buildings created for the film still stand, from a general store to a chapel at the end of the short road, slowly decaying on a private island.
You can visit the town of Spectre, complete with plasterboard bricks and roofs covered in moss and mold. You can almost imagine the residents still strolling through the fictional town. Be warned that the town is on private property, and to visit, you'll need an "OK" from the owners of the island... but it's worth the hassle.
Next up: A haunted B&B... Long thought to be one of the most haunted buildings in the entire Unites States, the The Marshall House Bed & Breakfast, is Savannah's oldest hotel. Guests have reported seeing a man holding a severed arm wandering the halls, desperately seeking someone to reattach it. Guests and hotel staff who have seen the strange apparition said that it was so real they believed it was a Civil War reenactor trying to scare them.
In the past, the Marshall House served as both a hospital and boarding house first occupied by the Confederate forces in desperate need of medical attention. During one excavation, loads of human remains were discovered, leading people to believe that they were the remains of amputated soldiers housed in the building during the war. Some believe that the paranormal activity was caused by disturbing these remains.
The strange occurances happen so often that the staff has been maintaining an "event journal" for the last few years, reporting all of the bizarre anomalies that have tken place. In the list are guests complaining of waking up with an arm outstretched, as if a nurse was checking their puse. Doors will rattle, faucets will turn on by themselves, and ghostly visages of Civil War soldiers are seen on a regular basis.
And probably the weirdest place in Georgia... Babyland General Hospital is a cringe-inducing toy store camouflaged to look like the inside of a sterilized operating room. Why? So that attendees can take part in the “live birth” of their adopted Cabbage Patch Kid from the womb of the Cabbage Mother…I'm not kidding.
Creeped out yet? Just wait. The inside of the building, which is actually an abandoned medical facility, is a creepy labyrinth of stuffed dolls and makeshift baby nurseries. Once you make it to the “delivery” room, you take a seat in front of the “Birthing Tree” surrounded by cabbages, each of them crowned with the dismembered heads of babies not yet ripe enough to “be born”. Preemies, if you will.
During the “birthing process”, the lights around the Birthing Tree go dim and strange purple crystals begin to glow in the cabbage patch. Suddenly, an announcer lets the audience know that the Mother Cabbage is fully dilated. After several minutes, a “doctor” appears on set and produces a pair of salad tongs that he then uses to pull the doll baby from it’s leafy cabbage hole. He then gives the doll a hearty tap on the butt and you go on your merry way with enough nightmare fuel to last a lifetime.
These are just a few of the strangest road trip stops in the South. If you're feeling adventures spend the night in a haunted B&B, or try to decipher an apocalyptic guidestone.