Tucumcari NM!

This entry is coming to you from Tucumcari. My first memory of Tucumcari is the summer my sister and I decided to take a road trip from Oklahoma to Vancouver, Canada.... with three young children in tow all under the age of five! We stopped in Tucumcari to have lunch. It had to be at least a hundred degree day, very similar to what I am dealing with today. We came back to the car to find all the crayons they had been colouring with-- had melted! We found puddles of a rainbow of colurs. Needless to say I never did get wax colour or the smell of melted wax out of that car!

As, I look over the dessert plain of Tucumcari, I am transported back to when my children were so young. How quickly they grow up. I did want to retrace the original journey, but then decided, I needed to go to other areas of this fantastic country. Also, more often than not, nostalgia takes me to a sad place and I have to remind myself that children grow up, get married and begin their own lives. Just as I did when I moved away from my family in London. I now understand my mother's heartache. But, I am grateful for being able to talk to both my children often. And, with technology, I am able to stay in touch with them via the internet. For my mother and I, the only form of communication was letters, via snail mail!

Tomorrow, I am going to go to Mesa Verde National Park and then onto Arches National Park. Both places I have seen on the travel channel but didn't have the opportunity to explore before now. I do love the dessert vistas. I can see why the artist Georgia O'Keefe chose to live in New Mexico. As an artist, I can understand her desire to be surrounded by a bounty of beauty. It's rugged beauty. The sky here has such a different hue of blue, against the red dirt and sage bushes. Truly magnificent. The Mesas and Buttes jut from the ground as if to call attention to their stark presence. I would be very happy to stay anywhere in New Mexico or Arizona and paint all day long. Even if no one bought any of my paintings, I would be happy painting. However, it would be good to have unlimited funds in my bank account! 

As I was driving through the panhandle of Texas, I enjoyed seeing the flat plains. There are no gently rolling hills of Oklahoma, it's just plain flat!  The eye could see in a perfect 360 degree circumference. And, it was also easy to spot the Texas rangers in their speeding police cars. No way am I going to be surprised by a hi-way patrol car!

Well, I will write more tomorrow, It's good to be on the road again. I am singing the Willie Nelson song in my head.... good job, since I really don't know how to carry a tune! Until tomorrow...