There many ways to start a poem. Some, like diamonds, are forged under years of pressure. Others, like pearls, show up wholly formed when you least expect it. Too many float by like garbage bags on the wind, tempting us with their facile elegance and tempting immediacy. I find some poems–often the best ones–only appear once you’ve emptied your mind of workday urgencies, the static of mass media, the horrors of our over-connected network of electronics. And that is what New Mexico offers: a sky to receive your disjointed blips and beeps and carry them off to outer space, allowing the poems to bubble up through the surface of your de-cluttered mind. I’ve been on roll since we got home.
The Great Southern Plains of North America, where trees go to get away from it all.
I had a lot of time to contemplate the mythology of the open road.
I have a favorite coffee mug with many of these sky colors in it.
Taking photos with my telephoto lens at highway speeds…not bad for 240,000 miles away:
So close…and yet so far away.
According to BBC’s Science Focus, it would take just under six months to drive to the moon at 60 miles/hour. Shoot, it felt like it might only take a few hours.
View on the road to Taos as the sun set. Nearing Las Vegas, New Mexico.
We decided to stop in Las Vegas (not that one) for dinner. We headed to the plaza because we figured if anything would be open late, we’d find it there. The famously haunted Plaza Hotel did not disappoint. Great food and, thanks to the very friendly and accommodating front desk manager, a tour of a haunted room as well rooms with framed announcements of the famous guests who have once stayed there: among others we saw plaques for John Lithgow, James Spader, the Coen Brothers, and (though I don’t believe it) Michelle Obama.
The Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Stay here if you dare. Didn’t see or photograph any ghosts (unless you count the ones in the upper windows here) but definitely got a creepy vibe. I learned I am not a fan of suits of armor standing in hidden corners of hallways.
We were also treated to this little gem of a seasonal decoration. At Christmas I hear he gets a Santa hat.
A bunny mountain goat under the grand staircase. Because Easter.
By the time we got to our hotel in Taos, it was a 11:00 p.m. and the town was all tucked in. We had a comfortable night at the Hotel La Fonda (eat your heart out, Kip), learned we could’ve ordered only ONE massive breakfast burrito at the friendly and delicious Taos Diner, enjoyed a little shopping on a beautiful spring morning (no, I did not take pictures), and then we were ready for home. It took a while to make our way, but the view in Cimarron Canyon on the way from Taos to I-25 is another reason I’m glad we decided to road trip this spring:
Palisades Sill in Cimarron Canyon. So much beauty on this amazing planet. I will never tire of looking up, around, below, and across.
When your vanishing point is just around the bend….
There aren’t a lot of things that last in this life…hell, we don’t even last in this life. But while we’re here, we might as well enjoy the view. And if you get a poem or two out of it, or a little insight on what’s important…well, that’s worth the trip, if you ask me.
See you again a little farther down the road.
Great to see the Plaza Hotel doing well – we stayed there back in the early 90s, shortly after its refurbishing. Les Vegas is an under-appreciated gem, an uncut garnet perhaps.
“…an uncut garnet” is the perfect metaphor, Zakariah!