My finger is on the nozzle of the spray can. The paint is red. The sky is a dark and peppered with lightning. I have a moment of indecision.
“Kelley or Mommy?” I wrestle with who I am. “Kelley or Mommy?” Who do I want to be? A rain drop splattered on the back of my hand.
K-e-l-l-e-y I paint in foot-tall letters on the 1960s Cadillac face-planted into the red Texas dirt.
The Cadillac Ranch was once an iconic display of audacious automotive glory – tail fins and chrome glistening in the Texas sun.
Now, it’s different, but equally wonderful. It’s a piece of people’s art. Open 24/7, just off the highway in Amarillo, the ground is littered with spray cans and the cars are festooned with graffiti to within an inch of their lives. In fact, layer upon layer of spray paint may be the only thing holding them together at this point.
As we push open the creaky gate (also painted) and amble down the dirt path, some bad, bad weather is closing in. The few families in the field leaving their mark are making a run for it, dropping their cans where they stand. Drops of rain the size of cherries send tufts of red dust up from the foot path as they hit, one after another. The kids run ahead and begin to paint, unleashed in this moment of permissible rebellion.
As we paint, it’s like someone unzipped the sky everything you’ve heard about Texas storms has come true -- rain in buckets, wind whipping your hair in all directions, pea-sized hail here and there, and lightning floor to ceiling.
We watch our fresh paint struggle to cling to the fenders as the rain tries to slide it to the mud below. Realizing that we’re in a field with huge metal structures sticking out of the ground in a lightning storm, he ma, we run for it. Then, we learn about Texas Gumbo.
The red dirt path is now a slick ice rink of mud that slows our progress by half, then half again as the mud sticks to our shoes in globs and doubles their weight. We run and slip and laugh all the way back to the car, soaked through to our underwear.
We strip to skivvies roadside and no one blinks an eye. This is Texas and they’ve seen worse. We head toward civilization, hot showers, and fried chicken, the universal comfort food of travelers nationwide, with nothing but muddy shoes and paint crusted fingers to show for our adventure.
“Kelley or Mommy?” I wrestle with who I am. “Kelley or Mommy?” Who do I want to be? A rain drop splattered on the back of my hand.
K-e-l-l-e-y I paint in foot-tall letters on the 1960s Cadillac face-planted into the red Texas dirt.
The Cadillac Ranch was once an iconic display of audacious automotive glory – tail fins and chrome glistening in the Texas sun.
Now, it’s different, but equally wonderful. It’s a piece of people’s art. Open 24/7, just off the highway in Amarillo, the ground is littered with spray cans and the cars are festooned with graffiti to within an inch of their lives. In fact, layer upon layer of spray paint may be the only thing holding them together at this point.
As we push open the creaky gate (also painted) and amble down the dirt path, some bad, bad weather is closing in. The few families in the field leaving their mark are making a run for it, dropping their cans where they stand. Drops of rain the size of cherries send tufts of red dust up from the foot path as they hit, one after another. The kids run ahead and begin to paint, unleashed in this moment of permissible rebellion.
As we paint, it’s like someone unzipped the sky everything you’ve heard about Texas storms has come true -- rain in buckets, wind whipping your hair in all directions, pea-sized hail here and there, and lightning floor to ceiling.
We watch our fresh paint struggle to cling to the fenders as the rain tries to slide it to the mud below. Realizing that we’re in a field with huge metal structures sticking out of the ground in a lightning storm, he ma, we run for it. Then, we learn about Texas Gumbo.
The red dirt path is now a slick ice rink of mud that slows our progress by half, then half again as the mud sticks to our shoes in globs and doubles their weight. We run and slip and laugh all the way back to the car, soaked through to our underwear.
We strip to skivvies roadside and no one blinks an eye. This is Texas and they’ve seen worse. We head toward civilization, hot showers, and fried chicken, the universal comfort food of travelers nationwide, with nothing but muddy shoes and paint crusted fingers to show for our adventure.
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