Sharp Corners: Painting The Town

I am sure just about every tourist that passes through this area makes a point to stop at the Cadillac Ranch. It is a road side attraction on a frontage road next to the side of Interstate 40, that from what we have seen, is visited by a lot of people. Every time we have gone past there are upwards of fifteen to twenty vehicles parked along the road. In fact, if you search for that on google maps and turn on the traffic layer it always shows yellow or red because of the number of people stopped on the side of the road. There is a truck and trailer parked inside the fence selling souvenirs and spray paint cans. These are likely overpriced as no-one was at the trailer buying any, but everyone that was there were painting their own messages on the cars.

You can read the Wikipedia link above for a lot of history on how these cars became an attraction, but it is entirely possible the metal may have rusted away long ago because the paint is thick enough it is hard to see the underlying car.

The notion of painting stuff as a tourist attraction has caught on in Amarillo as we also came across the field that contains two large legs as some form of art exhibition. To be honest I read the plaque and googled the legs, but am still not exactly sure what they are there to represent. This site is not nearly as well visited as the cars, but it appears there are visitors as the roadside is equally worn where people park their cars.

We have not been, but there is a painted cowboy in town that is at the site of an old Route 66 motel, and apparently the guy who was the creator of the Cadillac Ranch also came up with about a thousand fake signs scattered throughout the city that have strange sayings and comments on them. They must be well hidden as we have not found any yet, but if I do I will come back and edit the post to include them.

Perhaps the most interesting painted objects in town have been installed to recognize the American Quarterhorse Hall of Fame and Museum. A number of businesses around the city have life sized statues painted to represent their brand. There are a few at Ford dealerships, restaurants and just random horses. It is similar to the moose they used to have throughout Toronto.

Statue Titled ‘Early Morning Disagreement’

We spent a half day at the museum and it is quite an interesting stop, particularly to outline the history of the quarterhorse as the best breed to run a race of a quarter mile. There is no question this part of the United States has a lot of history surrounding horses for fairly obvious reasons, and the head offices for the American Quarterhorse Association are right next door.

It was worth the visit.