William and I decided to drive from our home in North Carolina west to visit the “Big 5” National Parks in Utah. While some would think this a crazy idea it is actually quite appealing to our adventurous spirit. We have been on the road for a couple of days now and have made it as far west as Amarillo Texas. As we were driving today I told William about seeing these Cadillacs about 30 some years ago that were buried in the ground along the interstate in Amarillo and mentioned that we should stop and take a look at them. In 1974, three artists from San Francisco know as The Ant Farm buried these ten Cadillacs nose first into a Texas field. This display would eventually come to be known as Cadillac Ranch.

It was really cool to walk out into the field and see the Cadillacs, so completely covered with graffiti they hardly looked like cars at all anymore. We walked around and snapped several interesting photos.

As we walked back to our car I told William it was all cool but it wasn’t at all what I had remembered them to be. First, they were much closer to the road and when I drove by many years ago, they immediately caught your eye and you found yourself asking, “Why are all those cars buried in the ground like that.”

So when we got to our hotel I had to do a little research. I learned that as the city of Amarillo grew the cars had to be moved several miles west from their original location along Interstate 40 and Route 66. I also learned that in the 90’s when I would have seen Cadillac Ranch the cars were painted solid colors but once the graffiti got started there was no stopping it. I borrowed the picture below from an article in the Texas Monthly to share with you just how I remembered it all.

Although things had changed significantly it was still really fun to visit Cadillac Ranch one more time.