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Memorials along I-25

I left work a little early on Friday and stopped along the way to photograph these memorials people leave. It was a lot more dangerous that I thought it would be and I'm not going to even try the ones between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. I missed about half of them between Belen and Albuquerque because I couldn't safely pull over and get a picture.

I've been wanting to do this for a couple of years and am glad I was finally able to do it. Perhaps using a motorcycle would be safer or having someone else drive while I try to get the shot as we drive past would work, but this is it for this project.

If anyone has a suggestion or idea on how I could do this safely, please speak up; I'd love to try it.

and now... the pictures

Mile 212 NB

Mile 200 NB

Mile 199 CTR

Mile 202 CTR

Mile 203 CTR (2)

Mile 203 CTR

Mile 192 NB

Mile 191 NB

Tags: I-25, Interstate 25, Memorials, New Mexico

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Comment by Cupcake Pharaoh on November 23, 2008 at 6:26pm: beautiful photos! i love that people do this. what a lovely way to commemorate lost loved ones.

Comment by Greg Smith on November 23, 2008 at 7:43pm: I've wanted to do this to. There should be a Roadside Memorial group on Flickr (maybe there is).

Comment by James of al-Barran on November 23, 2008 at 7:51pm: a flickr search for "roadside memorial" came up with 3364 results. there were pix from several states posted with tags and pools named for highways.

Comment by Ron Da Bomb on November 23, 2008 at 8:23pm: More than one member of my family has been memorialized by these roadside tributes. Illegal or not, every time I see one, I pray a silent prayer for the families left behind. James, as a soldier and warrior I am sure you can relate... Thank you .

Comment by James of al-Barran on November 23, 2008 at 8:49pm: It was the sadness of seeing them that made me want to photograph them. They are a reminder to me that real people died there in a, perhaps, horrible way and they were probably very frightened. Then I think of their families and wonder how they were notified. Did a Chaplin or Police officer show up to tell them what happened? I've been through the Casualty Notification Officer/Casualty Affairs Officer training and imagine myself having to knock on a door to tell someone their loved one is dead.

Thanks for your comment Ron and Shawne; perhaps I will try to find a way to keep shooting these until I have them all.

When I took the first picture is looked so dark and sad; I decided to over expose them to make them look brighter, maybe in the spirit their families would want them remembered. (I hope it worked)

Comment by Ron Da Bomb on November 23, 2008 at 11:26pm: Thank you James. Thank you Shawne.

Comment by Sun Dog on November 24, 2008 at 8:48am: Does anyone know the history of these memorials? How long has this been going on and did it start in New Mexico? Way back in the 1970s I saw crosses by the roadside up near Pecos and on some northern mountain roads and I assumed that they were memorials for traffic victims. I mentioned it to someone there and they said that they marked the spot where pall bearers rested on the way to the cemetery. I wonder if that was the origin of the practice.

Comment by A Saucy Lass on November 24, 2008 at 10:49am: Cool, I've often thought of doing this too but haven't yet...

Comment by Phil_0 on November 24, 2008 at 11:17am: That's exactly right, Sun Dog: descansos ("resting places" in Spanish) were originally erected at the places funeral processions rested as they carried a coffin between the home, the church and the cemetery. Colonial Spanish New Mexico had very few resident priests or full-fledged consecrated churches (the parish church and cemetery for Placitas in the 18th century, for instance, were at San Felipe Pueblo), so a funeral procession could end up being quite a journey. Over the years, descansos have metamorphosized into markers of the place where a tragic death actually occurred, but I'm not sure exactly how that happened.

I hadn't heard it was illegal to erect a descanso, Shawne, but they are, in fact, recognized as cultural properties under state law and therefore subject to the protections accorded those properties. They are supposed to be identified and documented before any project involving state or federal money and the impacts of that project on the descansos have to be identified and mitigated if possible.

Comment by once banned twice shy on November 24, 2008 at 11:49am: PhilO: they are illegal in most states. Used to be here, but I think they changed the law and now NM is one of the only states which recognizes them as cultural properties--maybe the only state to do so. One more reason to like living here.

In SW France, the government puts up silhouettes of figures with a sharp red streak across them to mark places on highways where people have died in automobile accidents. This is to remind motorists to drive carefully. It's a pretty stark reminder