Hmeep Hmeep!

I have been wanting to stop at this roadrunner for years.  The New Mexico state bird sits high above Las Cruces and can be seen for miles from the interstate.

Unfortunately, I've still never seen it in person.  Every time I passed by I wondered how I'd get a picture because it's not a place where you can just pull off the road and get a good shot of it.  Or so I thought.  

Ed took this picture when he stopped to do a load check - apparently there's a rest area right there!  Why didn't I know about this?  And how did Ed find it first??  When I woke up, he told me there was a little present in my email.  It was this photo.

The roadrunner stands 20 feet high and 40 feet long and was designed by artist Olin Calk in 1993 as part of a recycling education project.  The artist wanted to call attention to "consumption, recycling, and stuff we throw away." so it was originally made exclusively from materials procured from the city landfill.  A few years later when it needed a little sprucing up, thrift store finds and scrap metal from the Las Cruces recyclying center were added.  The belly is made almost entirely from discarded white shoes!  

What a great way to turn rubbish into something beautiful and unique.



* Hmeep Hmeep! is the way artist Paul Julian - who voiced the "beep beep" sound effect for the Roadrunner cartoons - preferred to spell this sound effect, so I'm going with that.

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2015: Spring In The Sky
2014: Power To The Tree
2013: For Mommy
2012: There’s Always Room For La Dolce Vita
2011: Drop It Like It’s Hot
2010: The Art Of Being Tardy
2009: Vantage Point
2008: Cape Cahd Hadba
2007: Waxing Brilliant
2006: Seven! Seven! Seven! Seven! Seveeeeennnn!
2005: Sorry, no post on this day. The blog didn’t start until May 2005!