Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch

The Bottle Tree Ranch is located out in the Mojave Desert, on Route 66. Elmer, the creator, has spent the past 14 years working on this wonderful installation welding metal poles together and adding thousands of recycled bottles and other found pieces of, well just about everything! The ranch sits on about two acres near the town of Oro Grande. It is free to visit and chances are Elmer himself will come out and chat with you about his creation.

The entrance.

Soon after my arrival a large rabbit came hopping up to greet me.

Elmer said there are two rabbits here,one male and one female. I wouldn't be surprised to see more next time I visit!

An old jeep.

I met a couple from Sweden there. For their vacation they flew to Chicago, rented a car, and were spending ten days driving the entire length of Route 66. This is the wife, she was delighted by the place. The sign says it all!

The female rabbit shows up.

And there's Elmer, walking amidst his creation.

The sun was getting low and shining through the bottles.

Sunset at San Pedro

I spent the 2nd day of 2014 at San Pedro, a place I had never visited before. I took too many photos to show at once, so maybe I'll break them down into several posts. These show the end of the day, sunset at Point Fermi Park, a beautiful spot with a clear view of Catalina across the channel. After seeing the lighthouse, Fort MacArthur, kite flyers,seals, tide pools, ruins of what I thought was the Sunken City (but wasn't- I returned the next day to finally see that), it was getting late and the sun was beginning to set. Of course I had to wait for that! As it turns out, some unusual sights were seen!

An airplane flying low in front of Catalina.

A light on Catalina. Probably the sun's reflection off a water tank or other large structure.

Looks like Hawaii, doesn't it? The temperature was 82 degrees that day, with a nice breeze.

The sun!

Now that's unusual! At first I thought it was an airplane coming up from the horizon.

But no! It's coming up from the sea. And there are no boats around...

My guess is it's a missile launched from a submarine.

Can you see the white dot in front of the dark cloud in the upper left area? That's not a dust speck. I think it's probably a drone. I saw several when I was at the beach.

You could feel the temperature drop noticeably after the sun dropped below the horizon.

Soon the show was over and it was time to leave. Home was only 25 miles away, but I had rush hour traffic waiting for me!

And here's a composite picture showing closeups of the objects I saw.