Fashion Q 1982: Q on Route 66

Happy Labor Day! Hope everyone had a fabulous 3 day weekend! We QTs sure did!

It's QT Mariel here! My QT File (profile to get to know each blogger) hasn't been posted, so you guys probably don't know much about me just yet..but one thing to know is that I absolutely LOVE to drive and explore new places around SO-CAL!

To put more "order" in my fervor to see new things, I decided to research a list to follow. So sometime in the beginning of 2013, I found a list of 12 of the best unusual things to see in SO-CAL. Since the start of this year, I've been to 8 locations (see link below for full list)!

12 Unusual Things to See in SOCAL

So yesterday, September 1st, I decided to combine both work + fun and have a Fashion Q photography session at another place on the list!

Bottle Tree Ranch in Oro Grande, CA.

This place is a hidden gem, LITERALLY. If you're heading on your way to Vegas, this is a definite must-see! It is located on route 66, off the 15 N near Victorville. It's about 11 miles past the exit.

Bottle Tree Ranch is literally what the name reveals. It is a ranch made out of over 200 bottle trees in front of a man's home in the middle of the desert. From colorful bottles to beer bottles and old soda bottles, the collection is endless and you can't help but want to wonder the stories behind each of his findings. Along with bottles, the trees on the pipes are decorated with windmills, tires, old traffic lights boxes, antique guns from World War II, old surf boards...EVERYTHING.

The 4 of us with the artist himself, Elmer Long.

Elmer Long, the owner and artistic genius behind the hidden attraction is a quirky old man in his late 60s or early 70s with a lot of history and passion for what he does. The 4 of us (Me, Joanne, and 2 of our models) had the opportunity to talk to him personally since we were the only ones on the ranch. After all the positive reviews that I read about him on YELP, it was easy to trust him. He invited us inside his eco-friendly and incredible resourceful home and for an hour he told us stories and showed us old pictures of himself and of California back in the 1950s. His memory is endless. He can recall individual pieces of his collection and tell us everything about it...with some items tracing back to when he was 3 years old, or objects he found along the way in Arizona while migrating to California. But most importantly, the story behind the ranch in front of his home is a father-son tale. Elmer's dad was an aviation engineer and was fascinated with the desert, ghost towns, and mining. When Elmer's father, whose name is also Elmer, passed away, Elmer did not know what to the thousands of bottles his father had collected. Elmer is a natural and he isn't afraid to use anything he finds in his daily strolls through the desert. I can't stress enough how cool Elmer is. If I wasn't on a time crunch, I wish I could listen to him for days. ...

There isn't any fee to roam through his ranch. So make sure to consider visiting Bottle Tree Ranch and feel free to bring all of the empty bottles from your party to him too! Elmer doesn't ask for donations, but this man would be very grateful!