It doesn't require a lot of maintenance. That much you can say for it. There's gravel all around and through it, but the wear-and-tear has to be, at best, minimal. Somebody's got to watch the weeds, I suppose. The town of Alliance owns it today; it's theirs to win or lose. But I'm guessing Alliance taxpayers aren't mounting a revolt because the place just doesn't require much upkeep. Can't.
I'm talking, of course, about Carhenge. If you're anywhere near northwest Nebraska, Carhenge is a must-see, even though when you come by, regardless of how long you stop, you're not at all sure of what you're seeing or why you even got off the road in the first place. One way or another, you can't help wishing you'd know more about Jim Reinders, the 90+ year-old retired architect from Houston, who, thirty years ago, put it together to resemble, with uncanny exactness, Stonehenge, the ancient monument in England.
Resemble is understatement. It's exact in design. I'm not making this up. Reinders studied Stonehenge closely when he lived in England, wrote down what he could measure of its dimensions. Jim Reinders, who graduated from high school in Alliance, class of 1944, thought the whole goofy project would be fun. Years ago, he'd returned for a family reunion. The whole thing's there because of a family reunion. I'm serious.
When Reinders steered his treasures to conform with the specs, the local sheriff got worried calls from locals who couldn't help wonder what on earth was happening just a few miles up the road from town, out in the middle of that field. Sheriff himself called the blame thing an eyesore. He did. But then, Reinders' own wife went on record to say she thought the whole blame idea was flat-out stupid.
But there it is, yet today, just outside of Alliance: Carhenge, a perfectly designed display of junk you plain can't not see. Really goofy genius.
On August 21, 2017, when the sun's total eclipse was visible here in its perfect totality, 4000 people, including the Governor of the state of Nebraska, watched it happen right here at Carhenge. True story. People came from miles and miles around, across the continent, and called the whole event "remarkable."
And it is. Even on a bad day, it's flat-out remarkable. If you're in Alliance, whether or not you're going north out of town, make it a point to drive by. You can't just drive by.
Remarkable. I guess that'll do. Remarkable. Maybe Weird. And bizarre too--strange, kooky, and really, really peculiar. Far out. Freaky. Funky. Eccentric as all heck. Nutty. Queer.
Call it what you will. I'll say this, having stopped not long ago. Carhenge is remarkable. Yes it is. Remarkable.
I'll leave it at that.
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