With the lotto jackpot making headlines, I started thinking about what a person could do in Amarillo with that kind of money. One of the options I came up with is start your own version of Cadillac Ranch.

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Here are a few ideas to help us brainstorm on what to bury.

Newspaper Vending Machines

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Sarah Clark/TSM
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My editor (of course) mentioned that she would bury old newspaper vending machines. That honestly would work out as long as you kept the door above ground; that way you could still open them up.

Plus you have the "vintage" aspect, hearkening back to the simpler times of years gone by.

Phonebooths

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Sarah Clark/TSM
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It's part of growing up, I suppose. There are parts of your life that your children will never understand; unless you bury a row of them in a field somewhere. That might be the only way our children will ever understand what it was like buying a cheap piece of candy to make change out of a dollar so you could make a phone call.

Also, these fit the comforting nostalgia category of the newspaper vending machines.

Horses

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Sarah Clark/TSM
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Not real horses. Don't cancel me PETA. If a person was going to make their own version of Cadillac Ranch, why not go with something inspired by something local. We are all familiar with the horse statues around town. Why not put some in a field and let we the people paint on them?

If you wanted to go more along the "inspired by" route, you could bury cow statues.

Former Mascots

Let's keep it hyper local for a minute. We could honor all of our former mascots by putting statues of them in an open field. Imagine it. There would be a gorilla. There would be a giant yellow sock that makes sports announcers giggle like preteen boys. Eventually, there would be a bull.

No painting on this one. It would be hallowed ground.

72lb Steaks

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Sarah Clark/TSM
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Staying local, we could get giant steaks made up that weigh 72lbs and bury them.

Your move, Big Texan.

Harleys

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Sarah Clark/TSM
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A co-worker of mine mentioned how cool it would be to have a Harley Ranch. Surely we can all agree that actually would be pretty neat to see.

Old Arcade Cabinets

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Sarah Clark/TSM
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If we go back to the nostalgia angle, these would work really well. Sure, we have "arcades" now; but those aren't the same arcades that we had.

There isn't some sketchy looking man sitting behind a counter smoking cigarettes and taking tickets. Most of the machines in the new "arcades" actually work, which takes the excitement out of rolling the dice on whether or not you just wasted a quarter.

Which reminds me, the new machines don't take quarters. No more raiding mom's stash of laundromat money. Where's the fun in that?

Giant Traffic Cones

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Sarah Clark/TSM
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Back to being hyper local. If we're going to be making something in the spirit of Cadillac Ranch, this is the choice for me. It identifies with the open road and Route 66. They are an every day part of our lives. The one thing that unifies us all is that we all hate seeing them.

We even get nostalgic about the times when they weren't on our way to work, and we hope for the day we never see them again. Unity, hope, nostalgia...sounds like a winner to me.

What would you put in your own version of Cadillac Ranch?

 

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