They Were Looking For Life. I Was Just Looking For a Hot Coffee.

I have always wanted to photograph the VLA. I finally had my chance.

The VLA keeps a constant ear on for signs of intelligent life in outer space. We all know they wont find it on earth.

I cycle through New Mexico every spring. A few of my favorite rides are the back road from Santa Fe to Taos, Los Alamos to Cuba, and Silver City to Caballo.

Cuba has some of the best Mexican Food I have ever had. Stop in at El Bruno’s for a taco plate or gourmet burritos. Worth the ride, my friend.

Highway 60 goes through the heart of New Mexico. Before the infamous Route 66, there was highway 60. Running from just west of Wickenburg, Arizona to Virginia Beach, Virginia, the 2,655 miles of blacktop takes an interesting and quirky route. I have plans to ride and photograph Highway 60 in 2024.

On this day I was simply following a good friend of mine as far as I could before we said goodbye. He was on his way to Ohio, and I was looking for an excuse to ride.

We stopped at a little diner in Springerville for lunch, and I ordered a cup of coffee.

“We are sorry, the coffee machine is on the fritz.” the waitress with a big yellow bow in her hair shouted from across the room. “We have tea if you’d like, hun.”

Sigh.

We made it to the VLA (Very Large Array) in New Mexico, along highway 60 for our last evening. In the morning he and his son would continue on east, and I would head back west and home.

These giant radio telescopes scan the universe for signs of intelligent life. God knows we need some of that on our planet today. I hope they find something, and soon. We are sorely running out of intelligence these days.

These beasts are huge, powerful, and in the context of bare desert landscape, they feel eerily prescient — as if they are tilting at windmills on one hand, and offering hope for contact with another world on the other.

Finding no hotels in Magdalena, we turned around and headed for Datil. The sun was waning and I wanted to shoot the amazing radio telescopes that were dotting the valley. I should mention that temperatures were dropping fast, as they do in the high desert, and I had to weigh getting a photograph or getting frostbite.

As usual, the photograph won out and I waited patiently until the sun slipped behind the low clouds and presented a soft, cool light that bathed the entire valley.

The air was crisp and clean from recent rains, so there was not much of a sunset… and that was OK. I liked the sweeping sky and space surrounding the telescope as a metaphor for the project.

I needed to wait a bit longer, but I wanted coffee — hot coffee — to warm my insides as I was starting to feel like a cucumber in a forgotten avocado-colored refrigerator.

I got the shot eventually and it was dark when we got to the hotel in Datil. All the restaurants were closed, so we got a frozen pizza from the gas station and micro-zapped that sucker to culinary perfection.

The coffee machine was broken.

Sigh.

We said goodbye the next morning and I rode west in the chilly hours of morning with only one thought on my mind… get that cup of coffee.

I got to Pietown, yes, you read that right — Pietown. It is a town with two major businesses, and both of them sell pies. I am not kidding.

I had to kill an hour before the restaurant opened, but when they opened the doors, I headed in and grabbed a booth before the family from Ohio with the screaming kids settled in the other corner.

Finally… “Can I get a cup of coffee?” I said to the smiling waitress.

“Sorry dear, the coffee machine is down today, do you want some pie?”

“Do you have cherry,” I asked hopefully? She smiled… sorta.

Sigh…

I am a photographer, designer, and photo editor. You can find me at my self-named website or at Project 52 Pro System (enrollment begins January 6, 2023) where I teach commercial photography online. This is our tenth year of teaching, and it is the most unique online class you will find anywhere.

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You can find my books on Amazon, and I have taught two classes at CREATIVELIVE.