Blog Archives
Handmade marker
I’ve been to some fancy cemeteries – and have posted a lot of images from them – but the cemeteries I like the best are ones like these, in out-of-the-way towns that are mostly forgotten (the towns and the cemeteries, I mean.)
Last year, my friend Donna Catterick and I spent some time in Puerto de Luna, New Mexico, and of course the cemeteries were included in our itinerary. In El Calvario Cemetery, we spotted this tiny marker, clearly made by a family member and brought to the cemetery.
It reminds me of brown sugar that’s been pressed into a mold and then left in the elements to crumble away.
El Calvario Cemetery
Puerto de Luna, New Mexico
photographed 9.21.2014
Please pay
Meanwhile, back in Santa Rosa, the paint’s so faded on the sign that it’s hard to tell where, exactly, you’d go to pay for your gas. But it doesn’t matter: neither the gas station nor anything in the direction of that arrow are still in business.
Santa Rosa, New Mexico
photographed 5.4.2013
The swings don’t, anymore
Beside the old Route 66 is an old playground. It’s hard to imagine anyone playing here, with the hard ground littered with glittery bits of broken beer bottles, but maybe in the past someone did.
Maybe I did. Santa Rosa was on our family’s route from home to the mountains, where we camped each summer of my childhood. We didn’t stop often on these trips; Santa Rosa would have been the first stop since home, and I guess there’s a chance that my sister and I were shooed from the car to go use up some energy before the next part of the trip commenced. (I am almost positive that it was in Santa Rosa that my dad gave me, in the very early days of my literacy, a lesson on how to find the correct restroom. The one I wanted, he explained, said, “Whoa, men.”)
These days, the swing set and the rest of that playground don’t have any visitors. Except for a photographer or two, stopping by.
Santa Rosa, New Mexico
photographed 5.4.2013
Fresh, hot coffee
I am positive that there IS a place to get fresh, hot coffee in Santa Rosa. But I am just as positive that this isn’t it.
Santa Rosa, New Mexico
photographed 5.4.2013
Olive
I’ve written previously about the sacred place El Santuario de Chimayó; the chain link fence along the walkway between the parking lot and the church has hundreds of small crosses on it.
Sometimes a detail captures the overall feeling of a place better than a wide shot; this was one of those times. Olive’s cross stands in for all of them.
El Santuario de Chimayó
Chimayó, New Mexico
photographed 7.1.2014
One Day | One Image 