ROADSIDE MONUMENTS TO SILLINESS, BOREDOM AND MAYBE A FEW TOO MANY BEERS

CATCH YOUR LIMIT ON US HWY.2

"I SHOT AN ARROW INTO THE AIR"...AND IT LANDED ON US HWY. 2

CARHENGE...A MONUMENT TO SILLINESS

Tuesday, 6:30 AM.  Up and going early to take the truck in to Ashland for brake work.  61 degrees F on the ferry dock, 56 on the back porch.  Wind WSW, calm with some light gusts.  The sky is mostly cloudy and the humidity is 89%.  The barometer is still trending down, at 29.86".  It looks and feels like rain is developing.
   Our trip to Duluth yesterday revealed few new signs of fall, although I did see one tamarack that was beginning to turn.  But I did stop and take a closer look and photos of some monumental roadside sculpture, very well done, a few miles west of Iron River.  Someone went to considerable expense and trouble to erect a huge wooden lawn chair, about fifteen feet high, with a rod and reel, about thirty feet long, standing next to it.   About fifty feet away is a giant arrow, perhaps twenty feet long, stuck in the ground.   The workmanship on these art objects is to scale, and very detailed.  There is no sign or other indicators of who was responsible for their erection or what purpose they serve.  They seem to be simply public works of art.
   Traveling the country by auto as much as we do we often come across art work displayed for evidently no other purpose than the urge to create and display art in public.  Along I90 near Sioux Falls, South Dakota, there are enormous metal sculptures of cattle, also without any explanation.  But my favorite boondocks public art is near Alliance, Nebraska, in the eastern Sandhills.
   Carhenge is a very detailed  replica of England's Stonehenge (although on a somewhat smaller scale).  It is, as the name implies, made out of junked American cars, painted slate gray.  It must have taken considerable effort and some large equipment to produce this "folly."  It was dedicated on the summer solstice, in 1987.  I first saw it shortly thereafter, simply stumbling across it as I travelled Nebraska while working for the university. It is one of those rare things it is really worth going far out of one's way to see.  It may have been erected as some sort of social commentary or satire, but I doubt it.  It is more likely the result of too long a Nebraska winter and a few too many beers.
   Are such goofy roadside installations truly works of art, or simply monuments to human boredom and silliness?  I'll let you be the judge, although I have seen much worse in great art museums.