Borrego Springs

I learned of these large metal sculptures in Escapee's magazine and was intrigued by the concept of life size (and larger) sculptures out in the middle of the desert.

Since this was only about an hour away from our current location, we decided to head out and take a look.  We just had to rise up a couple thousand feet and get over that mountain first.

The road doesn't show up well, but this is the mountain we went over to reach our destination.

These sculptures were created by Ricardo Breceda and they are located on private parcels of land known as Galleta Meadows Estate.  This land was owned by Dennis Avery (Avery Labels) and the sculptures are open for display with no fee.... you just have to be willing to travel over rocks and dirt to reach them.  Thankfully our vehicle has a pretty good clearance on it, or things may have went badly.

Here are a group of farmers working on the vineyards, first from a distance.

And closer to see more detail.  Keep in mind these are all life-size.

Our first glimpse of the elephants at a distance

Here's a little closer up for detail.

Many of the sculptures are of prehistoric animals and are based on renditions found in the book 'Fossil Treasures of the Anzo-Borrego Desert'.

Saber tooth tiger

prehistoric horses

We visited the ones on the north side of town first and found
these some spooky little ....er, huge....insects.

I wouldn't want to see a swarm of these in my yard.

Run Left Brain!  It's a scorpion!

My favorite had to be the serpent.  It is very long with high segments of its body showing.  The road goes over part of its back.

Here is Left Brain under one of those body parts to show the size.

Here is the car next to the head for another size reference.

The detail in this creation is simply amazing.

After a lunch break, we went to the south side of town and located the dinosaurs and saber tooth tigers.

Look out - he's going to poop on our car!

I think he's roaring because he just sat on that cactus.

Several of the scenes depict the struggle to survive back in prehistoric times.

Some of the smaller ones were just so darn cute I had to take a moment to dance with them.  They are surprisingly light on their feet and very good dance partners.

There were some more normal animals, like this camel.  Due to the way they are constructed and the wind that day, it sounded as if it had a case of flatulence.  That definitely added something to the experience.

These mountain goats were pretty sweet.

At a distance, these mountain goats look very real

Here's a closer view.

Not everything was in animal form - this is called Willy's Jeep.

As we left, this giant tortoise tried to pass us on the right side, so Left Brain felt compelled to do a little racing in the desert...we won.

Long Live the Queen of Rusty Metal Art

The full portfolio of photos will be going up on my Facebook page.