What's your state's sporting event of the year?

Growing up in Trenton, we were a Seaside family. I was in high school before I knew the far superior Wildwood even existed.

And speaking of NJ oddities, there's a mansion in Trenton that has no earthly business being there. It's the headquarters of some Ukrainian group now, but used to belong to Napoleon Bonaparte's brother. Supposedly there's tunnels underneath it that run for miles. They were supposed to be in case he needed to escape.
The mansion is sitting in an open field back behind my grandmother's house, smack dab in the middle of this huge urban/suburban area but with tons of open land around it. It looks for all the world like something from a Scooby Doo episode. Always creeped me out when I was a kid.

 

I heard it used to be a real gas.

 

Should've been. The people who built it were into that.

 

Most of the people and families I grew up with were Wildwood folks, but I always preferred Ocean City.
And of course, OC is the home of Mack & Manco's - the greatest pizza on earth.

I don't know Trenton well.
I went to some shows at City Gardens in my teens and 20s, and I covered some HS sports in and around there as a young reporter.
Is this Scooby Doo mansion open to the public? I'd love to check it out next time I get out there to visit, which admittedly might be a few years, but still I'd like to check it out.

 

I like seeing unique local stuff and places.

Did you know Temple University has the largest collection of human teeth?
Philadelphia Oddities: Painless Parker's" Bucket of Teeth
I wanted to check it out once when we were visiting my family but the wife-then-GF said she didn't want to see a bucket of teeth.

 

Just looked it up, and apparently it's now owned by a Ukrainian credit union and has office hours listed. So it might well be open to the public on some level.
Here's some history about the house itself. It's a good 1/4 to 1/2 mile down a long driveway, and as a kid there never seemed to be anybody there. My parents, aunts and uncles always said it was private property and to stay away from it, so it had an air of mystery. Maybe not so much now.

Bow Hill Mansion –

 

The Mütter Museum of medical oddities is also in Philadelphia and has a large collection of ... other stuff.
There's an entire card catalog, about 4 feet tall and 10 feet long and filled with drawers, of stuff they've pulled out of people (foreign objects, kidney stones, what have you).

 

As a Vandy grad, I approve of this message. Fun random piece of trivia: what state touches more states than any other?

Answer: Tennessee, 8 (tied with Missouri)

Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi

I knew rednecks of all stripes in college

 

I would love to check that out.

 

Oh, I've been there. Fantastic place.
And General Wayne Inn.
And of course, Lucy the Margate Elephant. I have framed renderings of her hanging in my living room here in CA.

I didn't know about the bucket of teeth when I lived in SJ.
Also, I didn't know about Ringing Rocks, although friends now tell me they did and have been there.
Didn't know about the Whisper Bench.

 

They say you can see eight states from atop Lookout Mountain.

 

And on a windy day you can hear the wind yell, "S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-C!"