WEDNESDAY

Spikehorn Meyer’s “Only Bear Den In World That Visitors Are Allowed To Shake Hands With Bear,” (quoted from the barnside ad) in Harrison, Mich. The I.Q. Zoo in Hot Springs, Ark., featuring Chickey Mantle, the baseball-playing chicken, and the high-flying, slam-dunking Rufus the Raccoon. George Daynor’s “Palace Depression” in Vineland, N.J., a castle built by Daynor alone in the early ’30s of auto parts, rocks, logs, and clay (described in promotional literature as “the greatest idea of originality ever conceived in the history of the world by one man with his two hands”). Like many of the sites from Fun Along the Road, these are no more, but author John Margolies has crafted a striking yet unsentimental scrapbook—postcards, souvenirs, brochures, and other ephemera, as well as his own color photos of the survivors. It’s a portrait of a mostly long-gone roadside America, a fantasy world of dinosaur parks, rock gardens, storybook lands (Ellicott City’s Enchanted Forest is pictured), and alligator farms. Author of nine books about commercial architecture, including Pump and Circumstance, a study of early gas stations, and Miniature Golf, the definitive history of putt-putt courses, Margolies has travelled more than 100,000 miles on his quest, and unlike other pop-culture chroniclers like Jan and Michael Stern, he never sneers in his celebration of the odd and unique man-made structures in the American landscape. Margolies presents a slide show on some of his favorite roadside attractions, followed by a book signing at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 10, at the National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW. $12. (202) 272-2448. (Eddie Dean)