Geese in Flight — Enchanted Highway

Geese in Flight sits just off I-94 at Exit 72 near Gladstone, and the scale of it registers before you've even shut the engine off. The flock of Canadian geese — welded from oil tanks and oil well pipe — rises 110 feet into the prairie sky across a span of 154 feet, and the Guinness World Records certified it the world's largest scrap-metal sculpture in 2002. The approach itself gives you a preview: a short dirt road leads from the exit to the viewing area, and that road is lined on both sides with smaller steel geese on poles, all cut and welded by artist Gary Greff.

Greff built the sculpture as the northern anchor of a longer project. His intention was to draw traffic off the interstate and funnel it south through 32 miles of two-lane highway to Regent, his hometown, which had been losing population for decades. Stopping at Geese in Flight is, in that sense, the start of something — a commitment to the whole corridor, not just a single photo opportunity. The remaining sculptures along the highway each have a pull-out and informational kiosk, and the road runs through open farm country with intermittent buttes before reaching Regent.