Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch

Another Route 66 treasure is Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch in Oro Grande, a spit away from Victorville in California.

This place is pure joy.

The wacky humor, whimsical creativity and colorful artistic ingenuity of the ranch immediately captured my quirky imagination. Made of tall metallic trees with welded rusty boughs topped with dazzling glass bottles glinting in the sunlight, tinkling hanging mobiles and moving art pieces, all made from repurposed, recycled glass and a hodge podge of everyday household objects; bicycle wheels, kitchen utensils, old TV sets, discarded tools, even a rusty old jeep and right at the back of the funky forest of delights, a huge satellite dish.

Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch traces its origins back to the 1960's when artist Elmer Long began transforming his desert property into a captivating showcase of repurposed glass and other discarded objects to delight and inspire passing visitors on Route 66. Clearly it was a passion project. Today it stands as a living testament to the vibrant culture and history of The Mother Road embodying the spirit of resourcefulness and resilience that defined the highway's heyday, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.