{"id":54417,"date":"2023-03-16T01:44:09","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T01:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=54417"},"modified":"2023-03-16T01:44:09","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T01:44:09","slug":"cadillac-ranch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=54417","title":{"rendered":"Cadillac Ranch is alive and bustling!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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AMARILLO, Texas<\/strong> — Wherever he is, Stanley Marsh 3 is smiling approvingly at what is happening to his roadside creation just west of this Texas Panhandle city.<\/p>\n

My first stop on my westward journey was to a place with which I am familiar, as we lived in Amarillo for 23 years before relocating a few years ago to the Dallas\/Fort Worth Metroplex.<\/p>\n

I use the word “familiar” with caution, because what I saw today bore little resemblance to what I have seen on countless visits to Cadillac Ranch, the attraction featuring 10 Caddies buried nose down in the dirt.<\/p>\n

What is happening to Cadillac Ranch is that it is becoming the kind of “roadside attraction” that could translate to serious cash for the community.<\/p>\n

The frontage road in front of the Ranch along Interstate 40 was packed with vehicles from many states. I saw license plates from Tennessee, Washington, California, Missouri, Oklahoma. That was just a fraction of the vehicles parked alongside the highway.<\/p>\n

The wind was howling (of course!). A concession stand was peddling spray paint cannisters. One woman walking toward the Caddies reminded me that she needed to keep her back to the 50 mph gusts.<\/p>\n

I purchased an overpriced ball cap inscribed with “Cadillac Ranch, Est. 1974, Amarillo, TX.” I told the kid hawking the caps that he was “quite proud of them,” to which he said he has told the owners they are overcharging for the merchandise.<\/p>\n

I am not privy to what Stanley Marsh had in mind when he buried the Cadillacs nose-first in ’74. However, I cannot help but think he would be happy as the dickens at what has transpired since he came up with the kookie notion.<\/p>\n

One of my sons believes that when Stanley was alive he was using Cadillacs as antennae to communicate with space aliens. You know what? Knowing the strange, rich guy as I did, I would put nothing past him. Nothing!<\/p>\n

But … he’s no longer among us. We are left now to applaud the growing attraction of Cadillac Ranch to visitors from far away.<\/p>\n

Stanley would be proud.<\/p>\n

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n

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AMARILLO, Texas — Wherever he is, Stanley Marsh 3 is smiling approvingly at what is happening to his roadside creation just west of this Texas Panhandle city. My first stop on my westward journey was to a place with which I am familiar, as we lived in Amarillo for 23 years before relocating a few … Continue reading Cadillac Ranch is alive and bustling!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[276,798,4392,4668],"class_list":["post-54417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amarillo","tag-cadillac-ranch","tag-stanley-marsh-3","tag-texas-panhandle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54417"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54420,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54417\/revisions\/54420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}