Airborne

The morning that I went to the airshow early to see the hot air balloons go up, I spotted these sandhill cranes flying in. I've always wanted to shoot these guys in the air, but never had the luck of catching them when I had a camera around my neck. These guys happened to be in the right place at the right time, and so was I. You can tell that they are cranes by the way their necks stick out while flying. Most other birds with long necks tend to fold their neck up. Lots of other pictures of sandhill cranes here on the blog, so go have a look.

Not The Cadillac Ranch

Here's a posting I've been meaning to bring you for a while, but I've been a little preoccupied lately. On my way to Lakeland recently for the airshow, I finally remembered that I wanted to stop and take some pictures of a little roadside attraction called Airstream Ranch. And I just happened to stop in the middle of a press conference they were holding. So I just pretended that I belonged and walked out into the field where these 8 Airstream trailers are planted. Turns out that they were put there in January as a promotion for a camper salesman who's got a dealership at the next exit along the interstate. (That's interstate 4 near Dover, Florida, that you see running along behind the trailers.) Not long after the trailers were put in, the dealership was informed that the property under the trailers was not zoned for advertising. The dealership claimed it wasn't advertising, as there was no sign anywhere on the trailers or the property, and thus it was art. The county balked and gave a deadline to have the trailers out. That deadline happened to be a couple of days after I stopped by, and I haven't heard what happened. I guess I need to go look up the outcome. To me, it is art, much like the original Cadillac Ranch, or the sculpture in Sarasota called Dance.