Beauty along 550...

The stretch of highway on 550 between Cuba and San Ysidro contains some of my favorite land formations in the area. If I have a choice, I'll pick 550 for travel, though often it is not overly convenient for most places I'm going these days. I used to travel this stretch of road almost every weekend, going home to visit when I first moved to Albuquerque for school. These days, I don't drive this way often, usually opting for the faster route through Santa Fe. I was up in Cuba doing some outreach presentations at the elementary school there, so got to experience the hills and mesas lit up in the afternoon sun on my way back home.

I also did some alterations to a couple of the photos from my trip, turning the photo of the motel waiting room into an architectural kaleidoscope and making a strange alien-insect face out of one of the highway panoramas.

I probably added a half-hour to my drive home, stopping so frequently to try and capture the beauty of my surroundings lit by the setting sun, but it was well worth it.