Now, if you listen to the show regularly, you might be used to hearing me alongside a

couple other members of the Places team.

We share short stories about some of our favorite entries from the Atlas Obscura database,

but today it's just me.

And that's because I love J.R.R. Tolkien.

I was 10 years old when the first Lord of the Rings movie came out.

I remember sitting in the Uptown Theater, totally captivated by the story that was unfolding

in front of me.

After we left the theater, it was the only thing I wanted to think about.

I picked up a box set of the books that Barnes and Noble and I quickly figured out that

beyond the Hobbit, they're tough reading for a fifth grader.

I wouldn't dare to call myself the world's biggest Tolkien fan.

I haven't learned how to speak Quenya, Kustal, or any of the other languages that he created.

I haven't even read all of the Silmarillion, but I have poured over his watercolor paintings

and I spend my days in the company of a wise Gray Dog named Gandalf.

And Tolkien's world has been an important part of my world for the better part of 20 years.

I'm Michelle Cassidy, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange,

incredible, and wondrous places.

This fall marks 50 years since Tolkien's death.

In honor of the writer's life and legacy, we wanted to take you back to a few of the

places where it all began, more after this.

We're most used to seeing John Ronald, Ray Old Tolkien, referred to as J.R.R. To his family,

...