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Travel West guide to unique destinations, sight-seeing, history and
culture, budget travel vacation ideas for the U.S., Canada and Caribbean.
Travel Bargain destination in Texas
CADILLAC
RANCH – AMARILLO
Roadside Americana
In
some places around the country, something called the Cadillac Ranch would be
a restaurant or a maybe car dealership. In the Texas Panhandle,
along Interstate 40, following the old Route 66 route across country
it is a roadside icon of distinctly American kitsch. A row of old classic
Cadillacs, with noses buried in a farm field and tail fins pointed
ass to the sky and covered in spry painted graffiti. Where other Krylon
tagging
is frowned upon and criminalized, on these old icons of the American
motoring past it is part of the point, for this not a used car graveyard,
but an ever changing art project. The original factory sheen of this
sheet metal is now a random chaos of casually scrawled names and impromptu
designs in interior and exterior acrylic.
First
installed back in 1974 by an art group called the Ant Farm and supported
by local Texas millionaire Stanley Marsh, the 10
Cadillacs
dating from 1949 to 1963 align at an angle matching the Great Pyramid
of Giza. The project was moved in 1997 from a former location since
encroached upon by the strip malls and housing developments slowly
spreading out
the I40 corridor from Amarillo. The Cadillacs of the ranch are on
private land, with no admission charge, just entered through
a metal gate to
keep the cows from escaping. The cars are covered with layers of
spray paint. You can bring your own, purchased at the nearby
Home Depot up
the road, or very likely may find a can someone has kindly left behind
in the spirit of socialism. Probably the best time to visit is the
late afternoon close to sunset when the shadows of the cars stretch
out across
the dirt and field in eerie aligned angles.
The
Cadillac Ranch may be familiar to kids and parents from the Pixar and
Disney animated
film “Cars”. A lot of the movie is inspired
by the fading old towns along the historic Route 66 which is essentially
now followed by I40, where the fictional town of Radiator Springs
lies at the edge of the "Cadillac Range" of mountains,
where rock formations shaped like the titled cars are seen on the
horizon
backdrop.
Though you’re more likely to spot a forming tornado here
in the panhandle plains than a mountain, and one of the old classic
sections
of Route 66 where it survives as a “business route” through
Amarillo is just a bit up the highway.
Visiting
the Cadillac Ranch
The Cadillac Ranch cars are visible from the interstate just as
you near the civilization of the suburban sprawl of Amarillo.
Entrance is from
the south frontage road parallel to the highway. Parking is along
the roadside. But though the painting of the cars is encouraged,
should
you be tempted to color outside the lines, graffiti painting
of anything
outside the fence is illegal, as if that should stop anyone. © Bargain
Travel West
Find the best travel and hotel deals in Amarillo on TripAdvisor
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See these other articles on Bargain Travel West:
AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE HALL OF FAME & MUSEUM
TEXAS RANGERS HALL OF FAME & MUSEUM WACO
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