…planned a drive from Tucson, AZ to Albuquerque, NM by way of the old state highways. We wanted to see the land and the plants that occupied those areas.
By pure luck our route took us to within a few miles of what I'm showing you. It even stormed while we were there.
Start with a good breakfast at the Church Street Café in Old Town in Albuquerque, NM. The building is 300 years old, sits across the street from the back side of the San Felipi Neri Church in Old Town. Their breakfast tacos and huevos rancheros are formidable.
Then find your way to I-40 and head west. A few miles east of Grants, N.M. turn south on NM State Highway 17. Follow it all the way to the small town of Quemado. You will have traveled 148.7 miles from Albuquerque… but you are now only scant miles from…
The Lightning Field, an earth sculpture created by Walter De Maria in 1975.
"De Maria's piece is composed of 400 stainless steel poles 2 inches in diameter, standing at an average height of 20 feet, 7.5 inches, in such a way that all the tops are level. They are arranged in a grid with 16 rows of 25 poles stretching east to west and 25 rows of 16 poles stretching north to south. The poles are 225 feet apart, 311 on the diagonal, with the total east-west dimension of the piece running exactly one mile, the north-south distance just over a kilometer."
"He planned his work scrupulously to attract the lightning and thereby to concentrate its power and visual splendor."
"Few leave The Lightning Field untouched by the splendid desolation of its setting and the majesty of its purpose."
If you have never seen the deserts of the American Southwest at the height of spring bloom you have been deprived of a transcendent experience. The wildflowers that grow and bloom in the basin where the Lightning Field is located are spectacular.
