We’ve logged a lot of highway miles this year in the RV. Lakes, mountains, small towns, and wide-open stretches of America have rolled by our windshield. But nothing—and I mean nothing—prepared us for what we found outside Holden Beach, North Carolina. We were simply driving down Stone Chimney Road when the roadside turned strange. Toilets lined a wall, mannequins were sticking out at odd angles, and a giant sign loomed like a warning and a welcome all in one. It felt like the Animal Wall at Cardiff Castle had collided with a junkyard sermon.
We’d stumbled on Fort Apache, and in that odd mashup of porcelain, plywood, and scripture, we found something surprisingly real. We came back the next day with my cousin Denise and her husband Mark to get a closer look. What we thought was just roadside weirdness turned out to be a visual sermon with a sense of humor and a punch to the gut. The creator, a local man named Dale Varnam—“Crazy Dale” to those who know him—built the place on his family land after doing hard time for drug trafficking.
He came out with a message and a mission. Fort Apache is his bemusement park, and it fits. You laugh, you stare, you shake your head, then somewhere in the middle of the mess, the message lands. Broken RVs warn of addiction’s toll. Signs preach “Worry Less, Pray More.” Jail cells shout “Busted.” Vodka bottles cover a truck like a cautionary tale in chrome. You walk through and realize this isn’t about condemnation—it’s a rescue story. Dale turned the wreckage of his life into an allegory about grace, the gritty kind that doesn’t wear a tie. This place is Romans 6:23 in living color: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Fort Apache is both bizarre and bold. It’s roadside theater with a message. Mark pointed out the kicker—this all sits in Brunswick County, home to more septic systems than anywhere else in North Carolina. Toilets, grace, and a county known for plumbing. You can’t make that up. Dale’s story is scrawled across every surface: flush out the junk and get right with God. By the time we climbed back into the RV, we were still laughing, but also thinking. We’ve seen majestic scenery this year, but it’s these unexpected stops that stick with you. Fort Apache wasn’t planned. It just appeared—like a sermon disguised as satire, sitting quietly by the roadside. Life’s a lot like that. You map out the big stops, but the unforgettable ones are often between Point A and Point B. If you ever head toward Holden Beach, keep your eyes open. Grace might be waiting for you between a mannequin and a toilet seat. And if God can redeem a junkyard, He can redeem just about anything.
