BIGGISH – Billboard People of AZ and CA
We don’t get out to the west coast as often as we’d like. Our last trip was to Anaheim and Carlsbad, CA in 2008 to visit Disneyland and LEGOLAND. Our last post featuring the west coast was over the summer, when my very own Dad reported “from the field.” My parents went to several BIG sites: San Francisco’s Chinatown; the tallest waterfall in North America at Yosemite National Park; and the world’s largest tree in Sequoia National Park.
This month’s guest post brings us back out to California, as well as Arizona. Tiffany and her hubby are a young, adventurous couple traveling full-time in their little painted Airstream, “eddie.” (p.s. Did you know that “Eddie” is also the name of the World’s Largest Kid? And that I like to insert shameless links to other posts on this blog to increase page visits?)
Their blog, WanderingAirstream.com, chronicles their journeys in their beloved 1973 Argosy Airstream. I just love that they’ve lovingly restored and renovated eddie. I’m a sucker for before-and-afters (too much time watching HGTV!)
This is what eddie looks like inside.
The "Go BIG" family would last about an hour together in this space.
I take issue with them for removing the avocado oven, but otherwise, COOL! And compact. I think Tiffany and her husband must have a VERY healthy relationship to spend all their time together in this vehicle!
Here’s Tiffany’s report about two larger-than-life billboard installations they found during their travels:
Traci invited me over today to share a couple of BIG roadside attractions that my husband and I found on our travels. We love the biggest, tiniest, quirkiest of just about anything, and as we are traveling the country full-time in our vintage airstream, we are always on the lookout for the unusual.
But these caught us out-of-the-blue. We had no idea of their existence, and were just lucky to have stumbled across them.
The first is a giant cut-out family outside of Temecula, CA. It is very close to Diamond Valley Lake, off of Hwy 74 East towards Hemet, CA. Turn right on Winchester Road, South towards Temecula, go about 10 miles and you’ll run right into them!
They are just off the side of the road and an easy place to stop and get close up photos. It is so unexpected when you aren’t aware or looking..as was our case. This road is fairly rural, with not much going on, and you come around a curve and here they are sort of in the middle of nowhere with nothing else directly around them! Definitely a fun stop if you are in the area.
The second billboard we found was a giant baby boy with toy tractors. This one also caught us off guard while we were in Goodyear, AZ. It is just off of I-10 and not accessible by foot, so you must be at the ready with your camera as you drive by — and it’s quite a busy highway!
A local farming family which runs Duncan Family Farms took actual photos and created this bigger than life billboard.
Both of these are individual billboards, each person, tractor, etc. is separate from the others. We thought both were very fun, and wishing there were more like them. It is certainly a nice break from the typical roadside signage!
The billboards are really cool, but I think that I like the AirStream even more. I hope that is okay 🙂 Fun post Tiffany. Enjoy yout travels.
thanks mike!! we’re giving it our best shot (O:
Enjoyed the read.
I did some research on the giant baby, and apparently there used to be a few more billboards surrounding him … there were small men, running away from the baby as he demolished their tractor and there was a giant mom, trying to get him to stop harassing the farmers!
Apparently, vandals ruined the other billboards, so all we’re left with is the baby and tractor.
at least, that’s what I read.
Wow, that’s interesting! I hate that the others billboards were destroyed…don’t people have better things to do with their time?! Thanks so much for providing the background info!
Hi. Interesting little story relating to the billboard with the boy playing with tractors: we run a paranormal investigation team in Wellington, New Zealand, with a specialty of examining possible photos of paranormal phenomena. In January 2011 we we sent a photo taken from the freeway that the person thought was a ghost. We could’nr work out the photo until someone saw the billboard and recognised the situation from my forum posting, then kindly told me about the billboard. This was in April 2012. Result: mystery solved!
I have told the story on http://www.photospace.co.nz/strange_pages/guest20.htm and borrowed a couple of photos from here, which are linked to this page also. Please let me know if this is a problem and I will remove the photos. Thanks.
That’s a great story; those photos he took were a little freaky when taken out of context! Thanks for sharing!
The baby in Arizona is by John Cerney. The family group by Diamond Lake in Temecula look like his work, too. You can find many of Cerney’s giant cut out people in the Salinas and Monterey area of CA as well as along HWY 101. For several of his works, there is no pull out to stop and take a photo, so you have to take a photo as you drive by. My husband and I call it ‘drive by shooting’. We’ve driven by some several times in order to get a photo we like. That’s not easy when off ramps are several miles apart. I wish his website, johncerney.com listed all his works and where they’re located as we enjoy them. But, he doesn’t keep the site up. A couple of years ago, we were taking a photo of one of his farm workers when an old man came driving up in a truck. “That’s me!” he told us. And was thrilled when we took his photo, too. We haven’t shot the Diamond Lake group yet. Sounds like tomorrow’s road trip.