a peek around Oro Grande, CA

Playing: Boring-The Brobecks
Reading: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (Actually not as good as I thought it would be.)

In general, I have a fascination with art and artists that choose to create beautiful things out of their surroundings. After visiting Noah Purifoy's Outdoor Desert Museum and Watt's Towers, I thought it was sensible that I go out to Elmer Long's Bottle Tree Ranch. It was quite a drive, but I found the drive to be really beautiful. Seeing how Southern California's landscape changes so quickly has always been interesting to me.

Elmer Long still lives on the property, so if you have any questions, he's more than happy to answer them and give you tours of the area. He's been working on his creation for more than 14 years now and started collecting bottles with his dad as a child on camping trips. Most of the materials he found are things that others tossed away, so it's really incredible to see how he has preserved pieces of history that would've otherwise been lost such as rifles from WWII and glass bottles of Aunt Jemima maple syrup.

Since I went that far to take a look around the Bottle Tree Ranch, I decided to look at the town surrounding it. I liked how rural everything was and it was very picturesque. There's something about how nostalgic and worn in everything looks in places like the desert or inland California that I really enjoy. I like broad, open spaces, but I could never live there. I would choose to live in a big city over a rural area just because I need a lot of human interaction, even if it's just walking in a big group of people.

About a five minute drive away from the ranch was an ostrich farm, so I had to check it out and I realized I actually really like ostriches. They were all curious about us and were really friendly. They would watch me walking around and follow me the way Jacques does. (Seeing them being this cute and amiable makes me feel kind of guilty about owning two ostrich skin purses.) If you decide to check out the ranch or the ostrich farm, I highly recommend getting to Oro Grande earlier because there was a conglomeration of antique shops called Antique Station along the same road that was all closed by the time I got there and I wished I could've seen it.

PS I just got tickets to see New Politics with my friends, so I'm really excited about that. It'll be the sixth concert I've gone to this school year.