Cadillac Ranch

 

I got back late last night from a roadtrip that took me across much of the country. I am not really a roadtrip girl; I like flying. But I liked this joyride  because I saw some things I had never seen before and I got to catch up on my reading.

While crossing Amarillo, Texas a thick rain poured down and blurred the horizon. Once it passed, the air was sticky and warm (how I always remember Texas). In the distance we saw the famous ends of cars shoot out from above the sand and I made my boyfriend pull over. We approached Cadillac Ranch with caution, not knowing that to expect from the line of brightly colored cars and tourists swarming everywhere. As we got closer the thick air reeked of paint and spray paint cans littered the ground, almost as colorful as the cars themselves. Since this was just three days after the fourth of July, the American flag stood untouched on one of the bodies.

It was in this place some call a ranch, some a graveyard, that I realized how far the power of art can stretch. We are all really not that far apart from each other. There really isn't ever that much distance between us. As long as the rode that divides us can be driven and the blandness between  cities contains spots of brightness, we are free to roam and to imagine -- in fact, we are silly not to.