The Palace of Gold in Moundsville, West Virginia, is one of those places that makes you wonder what the hell you just drove into. You’re cruising through West Virginia expecting hills, old buildings, and the general Appalachian scenery, and suddenly there’s this completely ridiculous explosion of gold, domes, carvings, statues, gardens, and architecture that looks like somebody dropped an Indian palace into the middle of the Ohio Valley.

My wife and I went to check it out, and honestly, it was pretty damn impressive. The amount of detail everywhere is insane. Gold everywhere. Ornate designs everywhere. Statues everywhere. At some point your brain just gives up trying to process it all. It’s not exactly what you expect to find in Moundsville, which is probably part of what makes it so interesting. There’s something almost surreal about standing there taking pictures while knowing that just down the road is regular West Virginia doing regular West Virginia things.

I’m not particularly interested in pretending every tourist attraction is “magical,” because apparently that’s required by law now, but the Palace of Gold is genuinely worth seeing. It’s weird, beautiful, elaborate, and completely different from anything else around here. And I’ll take weird and interesting over another gift shop selling the same damn refrigerator magnets any day.