This is a picture-book post of our recent trip in the Southwest of the United States of America, partly to see the total eclipse (it was cloudy where we were, but we made the most of it). More text and descriptions are on my Instagram; both my husband (who is a great photographer) and I posted using the hashtag #SW_eclipsetrip
More quilty posts begin again next week (if you are new here, they are usually on a Sunday morning.)
Gallery 1 (click to advance): Salton Sea, Felicity The Center of the World, stitching on my quilt Twilight Garden (a constant throughout the trip), Gardens of the LDS Temple in Tucson Arizona, wildflowers, roadrunner at the Las Cruces rest stop.
Lunch in El Paso, tiles that intimated an eclipse.
Hotel El Capitan in Van Horn Texas, Love’s blue sky.
Gallery Two: Eclipse Quilt made for my son and family, still stitching, beginning of eclipse, Texas hill town wildflowers, the old courthouse in Brady–which calls itself the Heart of Texas, a quilt shop (it wasn’t open yet).
North Texas prairie, with the red soil of that land.
Roswell sign, White Sands National Park.
Trinity Site Marker: I can’t separate the events on Trinity from what followed about a month later.
Gallery Three: One of three big reasons why we wanted to take this trip (family and the eclipse, the other two): The Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). Here are three shots, culled from the many that I took of this place, but it is incredibly difficult to have photos give a sense of that New Mexico high desert, ringed by dark mountains, with these twenty-eight giant dish antennas spread out (sometimes as far as 13 miles), aimed high into the heavens. As I write this, I have on the soundtrack from the movie Contact, where the main character (played by Jodi Foster) uses the VLA to make a life-changing discovery. The three people standing next to the fence (to the right) of the dish help give you a sense of its size.
Mural in Magdalena, New Mexico (about 27 miles from the VLA)
San Miguel Mission in Socorro, New Mexico, founded in 1598.
Kingman Arizona train with four engines. Trains are everywhere along Highway 40.
My son-in-law built these quilt racks for my daughter’s collection of (my) quilts. Some were made by her children, though, with my help. Out of all my grandchildren, only these have come to see me and make quilts, so I’m happy this family loves them.
A very happy view this early morning, welcoming us back to our home state.
Statistics
Elevation range: from 1258 feet above sea level to 7200 feet (Ruidoso, New Mexico)
Overall Mileage: 3301.4
Days: 12 and a half
Gas Mileage: 27.3 mpg on average
Repairs: only an oil change in Albuquerque
Quirkiest: Roswell, New Mexico, with the giant pistachio near Alamogordo a close second
Weirdest: Felicity, The (self-declared) Center of the World, a little collection of buildings, and long granite slabs with engravings; near Yuma, Arizona
Prettiest Wildflowers: Sides of the Road in Hill County about an hour outside of Austin, with the fields in the Mojave a close second (with totally different terrains and flowers)
How Many Times a Day We Were Cranky: I’ll never tell.
Stories on Instagram with more on our trip
Happy Road Tripping to you–
In case the website link above fails, here is the info on the Roadrunner Sculpture (from Jennifer Bourn, from Inspired Imperfection):
The Roadrunner, designed by artists Olin Calk and Dan Smith, was created in 1993 as part of a recycling education program for the Las Cruces Foothills Landfill. The large-scale artwork was meant to draw attention to the landfill and the issues regarding consumption, the potential reuse of some materials, and the recycling of mass consumed packaging residuals.
The giant Roadrunner has become an icon of Las Cruces and in 2001, it was moved to the Scenic View Rest Area. Unfortunately, over the years the harsh desert climate negatively affected the materials of the sculpture, which were never designed to be permanent, and vandalism by visitors who wanted to put their own spin on the artwork took its toll.
In 2012, the Roadrunner Statue was dismantled and moved to Olin Calk’s farm so it could be refurbished. The renovations were completed in 2014 and the statue was returned to its place at the Interstate 10 Scenic View Rest Stop, this time placed atop a giant base designed to look like a big rock.
The current version of the Roadrunner Sculpture uses multimedia recycled elements like Volkswagen headlights, used sneakers, golf clubs, a trophy, old plastic toys, metal from the City of Las Cruces’ recycling center, and things gathered from local thrift stores.
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Welcome home! Just a quick note- the last 2 links re: Olin Calk appear to be hijacked?
Love this post, will look at your IG tomorrow. Thank you!
I enjoyed getting to live vicariously through your Instagram posts and stories, and getting to see them here together is lovely. So glad you were able to be with family (I am so happy to see how they love your quilts!!), see the eclipse and experience the VLA!
gosh, just one of my favorite places in the whole world. Loved visiting it through you! Glad you are home safe!
It was great to travel along each day with you. It had to be hard to select a few photos out of all the great ones that you took to show in this post. Welcome home.
Wow! You really covered the miles. Bet it’s nice to be home. I love how you have documented the trip with so many great photos. It’s been fun to travel along with you via IG. I take a lot of photos while traveling but they tend toward strange little details and I never record the pertinent information.
Wonderful post! You and Dave should be private tour guides in your next life!☺️
Yes, I declare you are an official and highly experienced ‘road tripper’! We loved sharing your adventures on IG and here. How nice to have a few things ticked off your bucket list too! It must surely be time to start planning your next trip! Having something to look forward to is vital in these retirement years!
Sounds like a good trip! My husband is from Roswell and we lived in Texas for years, so I enjoyed seeing your pictures of that part of the world. However, my favorite pic is the quilt on the bridge over the pool–very cool!
Hello dear Elizabeth!
What an amazing travelogue! When I was in boarding academy, the Saturday night “movie” was often a travelogue and yours would have been a winner! I can’t remember one of our favorite film makers – a comedian of sorts who’d made his own camper on the back of a pickup and included all kinds of misadventures. Glad you didn’t have any of those! You’ve had a busy winter. So have we!
I may have talked to you about my 86 year old uncle that was living here in Redlands. His daughter, my cousin, lives in England and she came to visit shortly after we arrived in CA. He ended up in the hospital, then to skilled nursing, made the decision to stop his dialysis and go on hospice and passed away on February 14. We worked hard with my cousin, first just to get the house ready to show to sell (to raise funds for the hope of assisted living), then, the first person that saw it bought it. Then, it was a scramble to completely clean out the house during a 30 day escrow. My cousin lived with us during this time. That long paragraph is the condensed version! And all this as we finished up an inside flooring/base/casing/painting/plaster repair/termite mitigation project. I brought fabric back with me to work on a quilt – that didn’t happen!
So, we’re headed back to CO in 5 days and getting things buttoned up. I’m sorry I didn’t follow through on a plan to get together with you again for lunch. But, I feel like I’m right with the program with your great blog. I’m rarely on Instagram anymore… just too many other things on the agenda!
Just wanted you to know I think of you often with affection and admiration – and might as well throw “awe” in there… You’re the best. Big hug, Judy
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Thanks for sharing the pics of your trip: so fun to see!! that was quite a long trip! You guys sure packed a lot of things into all those miles. :-) How fun to see all those quilts at your daughter’s home! Take care, Hugs, H
What a great road trip and you saw so much! I enjoyed seeing your IG posts. The photos!! How wonderful, the quilt racks that your son in law made. It’s a great feeling when our loved ones actually love our quilts;).