Day 70 of our Journey
This is a road trip that celebrates the long and storied car culture of America, so it took us about 30 seconds to decide to take a side trip from Rapid City out to Alliance, Nebraska to check out Carhenge.
Carhenge in South Dakota.
In person, Carhenge is less of a gimmick and more of a legitimately interesting art installation. Started on a lark as an ode to Stonehenge but constructed in junk cars instead of stone slabs, the place has expanded over the years and now includes a number of other clever projects.
The “Ford Seasons” at Carhenge in South Dakota.
There’s The Ford Seasons, a series of old Fords planted grill first in the ground and painted four different pastel colors. Then there’s the Covered Wagon, an old station wagon with a covered wagon frame welded to the roof and a horse hitch out the front with old engines (the horsepower) laid on the ground where the four horses would have been.
Carhenge in South Dakota.
One of the other visitors to the site was a woman who said she’s been taking pictures at Carhenge for 20 years. She was there to take “inventory” since, she whispered, someone stole one of the cars a few weeks earlier.
Carhenge in South Dakota.
Before she headed off to complete her work, she pointed out two features in the main Carhenge structure. 1. If you look at the front end of a Caddy positioned horizontally off the ground (and dredge up enough imagination) you can see a dragon’s head. 2. There’s a horizontal Plymouth that brings to mind a shark if you look at it from underneath just right.
Carhenge in South Dakota.
Carhenge in South Dakota.
As you leave Carhenge, turn right out of the parking lot and travel down the road a mile or so and you’ll see another, less visited, art installation. Called Rest Area, the site is a huge pile of straw bales with a toilet on top. Everyone’s an artist, right?
Here’s more about travel in the USA
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