Seniors Admire 10 Cadillacs Nose First in the Ground

 Do you have your coffee, senior friends?  Today’s blog is fun and different. Hope you enjoy it!

Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation and sculpture near Amarillo, Texas. It was created in 1974 by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels, who were a part of the art group called Ant Farm. The buried Cadillacs have been a popular senior tourist stop; they are unique in the world. The Ranch consists of ten Cadillac vehicles nose-driven into the ground in the same orientation as the pyramids of Egypt.

Senior visitors are always welcome at Cadillac Ranch. If you bring spray paint, make sure to also bring a camera. At first, the cars displayed their original paint jobs – turquoise, banana yellow, gold, and sky blue. But barely was the monument complete, when people were scratching or painting their names in the cars. “No worries if you forget your can of spray paint you can usually find a can or two laying around!”

Seniors Enjoy Texas Legend

Cadillac Ranch, standing along the famed Mother Road – Route 66 just west of Amarillo, was invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco, calling themselves The Ant Farm. Their silent partner was Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh 3 who died on June 17 in Amarillo at the age of 76. He wanted a piece of public art that would baffle the locals, and the hippies came up with a tribute to the evolution of the Cadillac tail fin.

Decades have passed. The Cadillacs have now been in the ground as art longer than they were on the road as cars. They are stripped to their battered frames, splattered in day-glo paint, and barely recognizable as automobiles.

Senior travelers can’t miss Cadillac Ranch, visible from the highway, and though it is located on private land, visiting it by driving along a frontage road and entering the pasture by walking through an unlocked gate is tacitly encouraged. In addition, writing graffiti on or otherwise spray-painting the vehicles is also encouraged, and the vehicles, which have long since lost their original colors, are wildly decorated.

The cars are periodically repainted various colors (once white for the filming of a television commercial, another time pink in honor of Stanley’s wife, Wendy’s birthday, and yet another time all 10 cars were painted flat black to mark the passing of Ant Farm artist Doug Michels or simply to provide a fresh canvas for future visitors.

So bring along your camera and enjoy spraying your name on one of your favorite Caddies. That’s what others do and you may enjoy doing it as well.  jeb