Okay, so you've done "traditional Illinois" before. You've visited places like the Bean in Chicago, where you also checked out the Mag Mile, went to the top of the Hancock or stood on the Willis sky-decks, then headed south, where you checked out the Lincoln Museum, Cahokia, Starved Rock, and even came north for Anderson Japanese Gardens.

Ready to get weird?

Brooks Catsup Bottle, Facebook
Brooks Catsup Bottle, Facebook
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Get Things Started With A Nice Selfie In Front Of The Brooks Catsup Bottle

Please don't call it a "ketchup" bottle. They'll know you're a tourist (even if you're from the same state) right off the bat, although the nice folks in Collinsville are probably too polite to say anything.

It's not actually full of ketchup...I mean catsup. It's a water tower. CatsupBottle.com:

In 1947, records show that the W.E. Caldwell Company of Louisville, Kentucky, entered a contract to build the 100,000 gallon water tower. Final drawings were approved in 1948 and the World's Largest Catsup Bottle was completed in October of 1949.

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Getty Images
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Love Egyptian History, But Hate Travel And Sand? Wadsworth Has You Covered

Wadsworth is where you'll find the Pyramid House, a 6-story, 17,000 square foot private home of Jim Onan, a wealthy Armenian garage builder, and his family. The home is reportedly "The largest 24-karat gold-plated object ever created," and features a 64-feet tall statue of Ramesses II, and a replica of King Tut's tomb.

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Getty Images
Getty Images
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Let's Close Out With Something Spooky, Something Eerie, And Something Very Close To Rockford

I'm under no illusion that this piece will cover everything and anything weird that Illinois has to offer, but I have only so much bandwidth that our company will allow me to pollute.

For the spooky, you've got this. The Witch Grave of St. Omer:

Enjoy Illinois, Facebook
Enjoy Illinois, Facebook
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Look closely at Caroline's date of death. The stone says she died on February 31, 1882. That's right, there's no such date, as February only has 29 days at the most (leap year). The story goes that Caroline Barnes was convicted of being a witch, and sentenced to hang. When she didn't die on the gallows, townsfolk buried her alive.

Graveline Tours, Facebook
Graveline Tours, Facebook
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The eerie label can be applied to Eternal Silence sculpture, also known as the Dexter Graves monument, or the Statue Of Death, located in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery.

Graveline Tours, Facebook
Graveline Tours, Facebook
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As far as the Rockford area tie-in goes, the sculptor who created Eternal Silence is also the same guy who sculpted something that all of us in the Rockford area are familiar with. His name was Lorado Taft, and you may have seen this before:

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