(A postcard of Petrified Wood Park and Museum, Lemmon, South Dakota.)

You will not find many if not all of the places toured by Roadside America listed in Fodor, Frommers, or even in the bible of alternative tourism, Lonely Planet. Yet these places tell us more about the American cultural landscape than Central Park. Well, not quite perhaps, but I bet an afternoon in Petrified Wood Park and Museum or Dinosaur Kingdom in Natural Bridge, Virginia will teach us more about landscape than a Peter Walker civic center. Plan your summer road trip now.