The International Car Forest of the Last Church. This was one of the very few things I had found and plotted out before we flew out of Cleveland, and I was so excited to see it!
My normal vacation planning method goes as follows;
- Find something I want to visit.
- Locate said item on map.
- Zoom out and take note of surrounding cities.
- Look up surrounding cities on the Roadside America app.
So I started with The Seven Magic Mountains, found a town called Goldfield nearby, and basically felt like I hit the jackpot when I looked it up. Not only is it super close to Tonopah where I’d visit one of the most interesting cemeteries, there is also a field full of half buried cars located right outside of town. Jeff and I have actually been trying to get to Amarillo, Texas for a while now to visit Cadillac Ranch. Cadillac Ranch is an art installation where there are a bunch of Cadillacs buried nose first in the ground. We just haven’t made it into Texas yet! The International Car Forest of the Last Chuch seemed like it’d be a solid alternative.
It seemed that there were a few roads leading to the car forest, all of which are rough and dirt. We didn’t realize there were multiple roads in though. We just took the first one we found… and it was ROUGH. Steep hills that were basically in the shape of the letter M threatened the front end of our silly little rental car. We contemplated parking and just hiking in but I was feeling a little lazy and kept insisting we drive on. Eventually the “road” straightened out and we were able to see the extent of the car forest. It was pretty darn incredible!
Over forty cars, trucks, and buses are planted around the property. Each one uniquely decorated with spray paint, stickers, and in the case of the car below, tinier cars! I know this sort of thing doesn’t appeal to everyone but to me this is essentially the holy grail of roadside attractions! It’s weird, there was no one around, and it makes no sense at all – I’m all about it!!!
What was your favorite part of the International Car Forest of the Last Church, Kaylah? I was hoping you’d ask because I most certainly had a favorite part. The cars were really awesome. I don’t have to tell you guys how much I adore things like this. My favorite part hopped out of a small hole beside the first car I squatted down to take photos of though. It was a jackrabbit. I’ve spotted them a handful of times on our previous trips out west. They’re so darn quick that I usually just seem a glimpse of them. This guy though? He was clearly a model. He let me get super close, and just chilled while I snapped a million photos of him. I was shooting with Jeff’s 70-200mm lens (now my second favorite lens!) I could not be any happier with my photos! It was so darn exciting how willing this little dude was to get his photo taken.
I spend the first half our time at the car forest shooting the jackrabbit. I eventually realized that Jeff was way far away and that I should probably catch up so I happily moved on, satisfied with my shots. After I shot all the cars I ended up back near where the jackrabbit lived since it was on the way to our car. Jeff was still shooting, which is weird because he’s always done before me, but luck was on my side because guess who popped back out of their hole! So, I got to shoot some more photos. My favorite of the bunch is the first one in this post. It might even be one of my favorites from the whole trip!
Check out these other posts from 2017’s road trip out west:
Seven Magic Mountains
Extraterrestrial Highway
Tonopah Cemetery
It’s the little things (sunset at the Salton Sea)
4th annual road trip out west recap