From Pioneer Plaza we drove over to the art museum. We are captured every time someone says Impressionists. Gotta go see what we might be missing. Not really impressed about that part of their collection, but did see a few things that I liked. There was a landscape that did an amazing job of capturing the light. Rather mesmerizing.

And there was this plaster sculpture photographed below. I am an Associate at an Episcopal Convent. Twice a year they offer us a silent retreat. I find it refreshing and invigorating to my spiritual life when I can actually get quiet and stay in that listening mode for a few hours. I had to send this image to them. I love it! It was designed originally for funerary purposes. But I loved it for a reminder to keep silence.

When we stepped outside of the museum another figure caught my eye. It was so unusual and the background so noisy and complicated! We have had fun researching the work.

I sensed the man was in contemplation or meditation and with the crane, skyscrapers, stop light and traffic below that effort at contemplation would be, as are most efforts at contemplation, challenging. It is actually part of the Nasher Sculpture Center, across the street from the Dallas Museum of Art. The title is La Llarga Nit , which means the long night from the poem Ausias March to Vicent Adres Estelle .

The sculptor is Jaume Plensa. You Tube says “According to the artist, this work was inspired by Catalan poet Vicent Andrés Estellés, who wrote that it is the responsibility of the poet to watch out for the whole community. “

Another site says ” Throughout his career as a sculptor, Jaume Plensa (Barcelona, 1955) has drawn on spirituality, the body and collective memory as the primary sources which tie together his visual artwork. ” He has works all over the world and has done many versions of the sculpture we saw. Bob wants to see one of the ones that light up. I found the images below online.

So as I researched this blog I scrolled through some of the other works by James Plense. Something looked familiar about one of his other works. Voila! Here is a photo I snapped from the car as we were at a stoplight in Seattle, Washington.

It is called the Meeting of the Minds, Mirror and located outside the Allen Institute for Brain Science, 615 Westlake Avenue North. I had no idea at the time what the building was called or represented.

Even this blogger learns new things when she researches what she is trying to say and show!

When we woke in Odessa Texas we knew we had a long day of driving to reach Dallas by nightfall. We amused ourselves with the images we passed. The “oil grasshoppers” we saw were in many colors over the miles: white, beige, yellow, black, orange and black, blue and yellow, red and white.

There were many horses, also. We saw one group that was stunning with black manes and brown coats. There were five of these looking gorgeous under the trees on the edge of a green field , waiting for a dark, drippy rain cloud to pass over. We passed too quickly for me to get a photo.

We passed huge wind farms. They turbines looked like an invading alien army. The Stanton Wind Project contains 80 General Electric wind turbines with an estimated annual energy capability of 440 million kW hours.

In this area we also saw our first bluebonnets!

This for sale sign marked the house as overgrown. Look at the flowers out front though! We began seeing them in the highway median. At one point when the blue were mixing with the orange I made Bob stop so I could see what the orange flower was. Looking it up on line I learned the name. We wondered if Lady Bird Johnson had influence in getting these planted along the highways in her 1965 Highway Beautification Project?

There were also safety signs along the road with photos of a longhorn cow reading things like: “Text later …you herd me” and “I’ve got a beef with speeders.”

The Big Spring Refinery that “has the capacity of turning sweet and sour crude into highly refined products, from clean gasoline and petrochemical products to jet fuel and ultra-low-sulfur diesel – a cleaner, more-efficient fuel that offers an immediate answer to the concerns about greenhouse gas production and global warming.” Be that as it may, the place was eerily weird. flaming safety towers, acres of storage tanks, refinery plant after refining facility.

I saw one abandoned factory called the “Rogers Delinted Cottonseed Co.” Had never heard of that one. If I understand correctly, they processed cottonseed there using chemicals such as both sulfuric and hydrochloric acid, then neutralized the action of the acids with soda ash, lime or anhydrous ammonia. In 1984 the plant closed. In February, 2000 signs were posted warning of contamination and in 2002 the land received a hazard ranking system. In May, 2006 due to remediation actions the land was restricted for use of the property to commercial – industrial (non-residential). Yikes.

I would rather focus on the Bluebonnets!

On our way to Las Cruces we saw large pecan groves and processing plants. I had no idea this area was a top producer! Just south of Las Cruces you are suddenly in the middle of the world’s largest family owned pecan orchard. The farm produces between 8 and 10 million pounds of nuts a year from over 180,000 trees, about 48 trees per acre. The Stahmanns own this. One son moved to Australia, made success with orchards, and they became the largest pecan producing family in the world!

We made our way towards the outskirts of El Paso. Ate at a local chain we had never heard of in Ohio, Don Carbon’s. They had such huge portions we ate leftovers for two days! I had chicken fajitas with rice and charro beans. The counter clerk could not explain the beans to me. Had never tried those beans so I took a chance. SPICY!!

It was my idea to see El Paso again. I did not remember passing through all those many years ago when we made our way from Fremont, California to Ohio. The next morning we visited the Keystone Heritage Center with desert botanical plants and a wetlands walkway. We so wished the plants had been identified better!

The portion of the “wall” we saw at the border was just as ugly as imagined. Rusty iron and so unwelcoming.

Not at all like the Statue of Liberty sentiment that I had grown up believing. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” taken from an 1883 sonnet by Emma Lazarus. I understand the need to welcome people legally. This wall looked to me as if we are no longer welcoming even the legal immigrants.

When we got out of downtown and the road began to be elevated we could see the Rio Grande river and the many homes in Juarez. The many colors of the houses reminded me of Florida! As we left town we went through an immigration checkpoint.

Travel the rest of the day featured an area of scrubland where the main feature was the oil industry. Derricks, pumps, refineries, trucks and trains. We were glad to get to our hotel in Odessa. Our memory of driving Texas in 1971 was if we had a rope we could have fastened the steering wheel on the VW van to just drive along the straight boring road across the state. Pretty much the same now!