A Day in New Mexico

There are few moments in time as precious as five days spent on the road, traveling through Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado with a couple of your greatest friends. And while these moments were special for all, I, in particular, found great joy in the experience with my camera in hand at all times. On the second day of the road trip, my friends and I drove from Amarillo, Texas to Tucumcari, New Mexico, a 90 minute drive on I-40 W.

Tucumcari, nestled along the mostly desolate Route 66, is a time capsule. Decorated by gas stations, motels, old theaters, saloons, and the occasional souvenir shop, I found the short time we spent in Tucumcari to be a truly magical experience, and perhaps the closest I have ever come to time travel. Our stop in Tucumcari was an equal mix of driving through the few streets in the town and frolicking through parking lots of motels that have since gone out of business, peeking into windows that haven't been washed in ages.

While we were driving, a man crossed the street, and I was able to capture it. He looked like he was pensively jaywalking to start his shift at Motel Americana, but how can we be so sure? 

The photo above was the last photograph I took while stopped in Tucumcari, New Mexico, as my friends were eager to continue our drive to the White Sand Dunes National Park further down the state. Yet my moments spent in that town made me seriously question my place in the world, as Tucumcari still has a population of 4,900, and I live in a city of over 8.6 million. As a visitor, how should I share these photos? Or do I let the few thousand residents of this town live in peace, without a photographer from one of the world's largest cities galavanting around with photos of their stomping grounds? At this moment, I treasure these photographs as a documentation of great times spent with wonderful friends, despite their absence from the images.