Texas has the Cadilac Ranch and now, Florida has the Airstream Ranch near Plant City. When I heard about it on the news, I just knew I had to get some shots of it. So last Sunday I took the drive to Plant City and took my photos. I wish I could have gotten closer but I wasn't going to attempt to get through the barbed wire.

The Ranch was the idea of  Frank Bates who says he created the display as a tribute to roadside architecture, and what "his critics claim is his most audacious advertising stunt yet."  Bates buried eight Airstream travel trailers nose-down, on a piece of his property that runs along the eastbound lanes of Interstate 4 in Dover, Florida.

While some of the neighbors are not thrilled with Bates' art, he is bothered by this only because he now realizes that the beat-up sides face south, where the light is, and that most of the people who've stopped to take pictures of Airstream Ranch have photographed the crappy side. "Man, I never thought about that," he said.

During an interveiw with an Orlando station, WFLO-TV, Bates explained, "There is some history buried there. A 1957 Airstream, a 1963 mini, known as the Bambi model. But the rest are from a scrap yard up in North Florida. Each RV stands for a decade the Airstream’s been around. They just celebrated their 75th anniversary. The ‘63 Bambi stands for the half decade."

See Roadside America:

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tnews/NewsItemDisplay.php?Tip_AttrId==17257