La Jornada (The Journey) is part of the Cuarto Centenario project which commissioned artists Betty Sabo, Sonny Rivera, and Nora Naranjo-Morse to create life-sized statues that depicted the arrival of the Spanish settlers and their families 400 years previously. The settlers came in 1598 by way of 83 wagons and carts, and over 7,000 stock animals. It’s an impressive outdoor site, part of the Albuquerque Museum.

It’s impossible to capture this sculpture unless you shoot a picture from a drone or are lifted into the sky by a crane. The plaques list the names of all those early settlers. The settlers have descendants that still live here. I would love to meet the descendants.

We enjoy art that tells a story. This work of art is massive. It also illustrates a little known and perhaps taken for granted historical lesson. That the United States was populated with Europeans from the south and the East. These sculptures are found at the Albuquerque Museum. Viewing them is free as they are outside in a park like setting. The museum is not free. We parked on the street and walked through these sculptures. They have invested a lot of resources to represent this story and it is done in a very well done way. This is worthy of a short stop if you like art and history.

Numerous sculptures memorializing settlements of the American West.This is just before the driveway to the Albuquerque Museum. Nice photo op.

We are from California and had never heard of the journey portrayed in this exhibit. Very interesting to learn about this very historic trek. Beautiful sculptures!