{"id":1094,"date":"2025-10-06T22:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T04:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2025-10-06T22:04:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T04:04:15","slug":"sports-balls-catching-tourist-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/?p=1094","title":{"rendered":"Sports Balls Catching Tourist Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Staff Writer: Trinidad Carrasco<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Credit: Trinidad Carrasco<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Photo Credit: Trinidad Carrasco – On the left Raul Larez,\u00a0Driver\/Painter.\u00a0On the right, Roy Estrada, Manager.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is Southwest LP Gas Co., located in Carlsbad, New Mexico. A new roadside attraction there is catching people\u2019s attention, five huge propane tanks painted to look like sports balls. Each one is a fun tribute to local sports and community pride. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea came from Roy Estrada, who has worked at Southwest for 44 years and has been the manager for 34 of them. He wanted to do something that would brighten up the area and give people a reason to stop and smile. \u201cWe\u2019ve got these big propane balls sitting out here, why not make them fun?\u201d he explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To bring the idea to life, Estrada turned to Raul Larez, a driver who\u2019s been with the company for 10 years. Larez isn\u2019t a professional artist, but he enjoys drawing in his free time. That creativity really showed in the results. He turned the plain white tanks into giant sports balls: a baseball, softball, tennis ball, basketball, and soccer ball. Each one is painted with realistic details and labeled with part of the company name, spelling out \u201cSOUTHWEST LP GAS CO.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I asked Larez about why he picked those sports balls, he had this to say, \u201cI just did what came to mind.\u201d Since Larez had never really played sports growing up, he chose to use the most popular, circular sports balls that represented the sports played in Carlsbad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The painted tanks have quickly become a local favorite. People stop to take pictures and admire the artwork.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a simple but creative way to turn something ordinary into something that brings joy to the community. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Staff Writer: Trinidad Carrasco This is Southwest LP Gas Co., located in Carlsbad, New Mexico. A new roadside attraction there is catching people\u2019s attention, five huge propane tanks painted to look like sports balls. Each one is a fun tribute to local sports and community pride.  The idea came from Roy Estrada, who has worked at Southwest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1098,"href":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions\/1098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enmuthechaseonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}