Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

  

Designed and directed by Joe Stephenson, these  images are part of murals that grace downtown buildings on Albuquerque's Central Avenue. This street is also the famous U.S.Route 66 as it passes through downtown heading westward.

This is part of another nearby mural. To me, this art has to be the very best and most creative way of disguising an ugly exhaust vent hood - the engine cowling on the biplane.

On a sleepy weekend morning, Central Ave slowly awakens. 

More than a half million people call Albuquerque, New Mexico home.  It is the largest city in the state and sits astride the Rio Grande in central New Mexico at an elevation of  5312 feet. Founded in 1706, the city enjoys fame throughout the world for the annual hot air balloon festival hosted each fall.

The Sandia Mountains stand east of the city and provide a dramatic background, rising above 10,000 feet. "Sandia" means "watermelon" in Spanish and is believed to derive from the reddish color along the crest at sunset.

While in town it is 95-degrees on a late June day, on top of the Sandia Mountains, the effects of altitude and a strong breeze lowered the temperature at the mountain crest to a perfect low humidity 75-degrees.

Colorful flowers bloom, the wind whistles through the evergreen trees, and the green quaking aspen leaves dance in the breeze.  It is a special and spectacularly beautiful place on the planet.