 |
Welcome to Our Photo Gallery & Travelblog
|
|||||||||
|
|
May 2005: Texas Hill Country, Windy Open Desert, Painted Desert & Petrified Forest, Canyon de Chelly, Meteor Crater, Hopi Indian Reservation, Hot Desert, Joshua Tree National Park, Yosemite 31 May 2005: With Tom's techie help, we uploaded my new educational website today, k4teens.info. Tom gave a Ruby a bath and foraged for food. I did some cleaning in the RV. We grilled hamburgers, steaks, and veggies. It was a warm day and we did need the A/C for most of the afternoon. Temperatures drop fast when the sun sets behind the mountains! We do plan to venture into Yosemite Village tomorrow and take the free shuttle buses to most of the points of interests. No photos yet. 30 May 2005: Memorial Day. I remember Cookie, Skip, and Margaret--all passed away way too young. The noisemakers have gone and peace and quiet has returned to the park. We checked out the KOA and decided to stay at this park through June 21. The KOA was less space for more money, the trees would have blocked the satellite, and they do not have wireless Internet. Here at Yosemite Pines our satellite and their WiFi are working well connected to Tom's new "Dual WAN Router." UPS delivers right to our site. There's no phone service and only 3 of 4 washers and dryers are working, but we'll "phone home" when we're in town and how much dirty laundry can we make?! Lots! We ventured out for a hamburger at the Iron Door Saloon which has quite an interesting history. The hamburger wasn't anything special and the service was poor because the wait staff was short-handed, but the atmosphere was comfortable and wild west interesting. The ceiling is decorated with dollar bills. Folks are invited to throw a dollar bill toward the ceiling. If it sticks, with the help of a tack and some weight added with a quarter, you are invited via postcard to their next party. The ceiling holds several hundred dollars worth of bills! I do wonder how this "tradition" got started, probably by a few bored, drunken cowboys. 29 May 2005: It was a cold night and cool day, only in the high 60's. I was awakened by squealing twin boys age 5, barking rats (dogs), and blasting music! Sure hope these guys go back to school and back to work soon so we can once again enjoy some peace and quiet. It's great being retired! We took a long scenic drive through Yosemite for a re-con today. The wild, white dogwoods are blooming at about 5,000 feet. There were some patches of snow at 6,000 feet. According to the Yosemite website, Tioga Pass, which remains closed until June or later, still has about 5 feet of snow waiting to melt into the already rushing, overflowing Merced River. Crowds should leave tomorrow so we'll probably take a long day trip into Yosemite Valley on Tuesday. 28 May 2005: We've been quite lazy since arriving here after the three days of towing. Drove to Sonora to get groceries. It's a good size town with lots of stores and services. Did laundry. Took naps. Built fires. Grilled steaks, pork chops, and chicken. The park is quite full this Memorial Day Weekend with some rather large groups. There's an Asian group, Hispanic group, and Middle-Eastern group, making for quite an international gathering! There are lots of squealing kids riding bikes and playing in the pool! Met a German man from Homburg today in the laundry. He and his family are here in the USA for four weeks. They just came from Crater Lake, OR, where there was still snow and it was very cold. On Monday, they'll drive to San Francisco, about 150 miles from here, then up the West Coast to Seattle. He rented a room to someone who now lives in Seattle so he's visiting with him and his wife on both ends of this first trip to the USA. The crowds should leave on Monday, then we'll venture out into the park next week. It was cool today so we did not need air conditioning and as soon as the sun set behind the mountains, it got COLD. Temperatures will be in the 40's tonight. We have heat. The tenters might need to snuggle down deep into their sleeping bags to stay warm tonight! 24 May 2005: Our third day on the road getting to Yosemite NP... Mostly highway driving on CA 99 N to CA 108 to CA 120. Ruby struggled successfully to tow our house up Priest Grade, a very windy road from Big Oak Flat to Groveland. We're finally settled into Yosemite Pines RV Park for 14 nights, only about 20 miles from the entrance to Yosemite NP. We'll venture out today to shop for groceries, then do laundry. We'll begin exploring the park tomorrow. 23 May 2005: Another day on the road... We drove from Palmdale to Visalia, CA today, CA 14 N to CA 58 N to CA 99 N. Once again, we passed Tehachapi with its huge wind farm and intrinsic railway. The valleys have profited from the winter and spring rains. Oleanders heavy with red, pink, and white blooms fill the median strip of the freeways. The fruit and nut trees and vineyards are green and growing. It's hard to believe that the tasty filet mignon that I love comes from those nasty, smelly cows in the cattle feed lots. Every time we pass one, Tom says, "Mmmm, burgers on hooves." 22 May 2005: The heat wave continues, but we're heading into greener pastures with cooler temperatures. There is still some snow on the mountains at higher elevations. Ruby did a great job towing our house up and down some rather steep CA hills today. Many of the hillsides are alive with white yucca flowers and the joshua trees are abundant with seed pods, which the Native Americans roasted like chestnuts. As Route 62 joined I 10 W in Whitewater, we saw another huge wind farm! 21 May 2005: HEAT WAVE! It was just too hot to return to Joshua Tree NP today, so we stayed inside in the air conditioning resting up for our next 3 days of driving to Yosemite National Park. Both air conditioners worked continuously to keep the air inside the RV cool today as the temperatures outside climbed to 103 F in the late afternoon. 20 May 2005: Another hot one with temperatures reaching 102 F in the late afternoon! We did trek to Joshua Tree National Park about mid-morning. There's very little grass around here because of the heat and lack of water; there is some grass on the golf course and in the city park. Most of the yards are dirt; some have native cactus plants and oleanders. I did find a few spring flowers above 4,000 feet in Joshua Tree NP today. Few cactus plants are blooming yet, but I did find one solitary beaver tail cactus in bloom on top of a huge rock. Some photos have been uploaded to the Joshua Tree National Park Gallery. These photos will eventually be moved into appropriate existing galleries and more photos will be edited and uploaded soon. 19 May 2005: Another day on the road... When we crossed the Colorado River into CA, the truck's thermometer read 100 F! The temperature rose to 103 F as we traversed the valley surrounded by the San Bernandino Mountains. We took a short break and turned on the generator so we could turn on the air conditioners and cool off the air in the RV for the cats. When I returned to Ruby, the thermometer read 113 F! It's hot here in this CA desert!! We're settled into Twentynine Palms RV Resort in CA, just a few miles from Joshua Tree National Park, which we will visit tomorrow morning before the afternoon heat wave turns us into crispy critters. I did see some interesting cactus blooms along the way here, so I'm hoping to get some quality photos of some while we're here this weekend. 18 May 2005: On the road again... We drove from Holbrook to Kingman, AZ. There was some snow still on top of the San Franciso Mountains near Flagstaff. On the other side of those mountains, we found ourselves in a pine forest, the Kaibob National Forest, then more desert. More driving tomorrow as we make our way to Joshua Tree National Park. 16 May 2005: Tom and I drove 30+ miles one-way to the nearest Walmart in Winslow, AZ to drop off my prescriptions. Know the country song lyric, "Standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona?" Well, we didn't do that. But, we did take a long drive through the Hopi Indian Reservation. Tom said it looked a lot like some parts of WV: POOR, with lots of single-wide trailers with old tires thrown up on their roofs for added weight to keep the tarps and tiles from blowing off in the strong desert winds. There were also some small adobe houses, standing alone and in small developments, and some modular houses. The school buildings that we saw looked new and we passed some well-maintained school buses on their routes taking students home. Along Route 87N there were some interesting plateaus and rock formations, but the windy weather was blowing dust and me around, so it was not a good day for taking photos. We did make a short stop at the Little Painted Desert, which looks a lot like the big one, but smaller. The two-mile drive around the rim was not possible because the road was closed other than at one over-look. 15 May 2005: This afternoon, we took a drive out to Meteor Crater. Tom was most interested in this idea of giant meteors punching the Earth! Not me. It's the stuff that science fiction is made of, but based in reality. 15 May 2005: Yesterday, we took a very long drive to the Canyon de Chelly (d'shay) on the Navajo Indian Reservation. It's an awesome canyon with much history related to the Navajo and Hopi Indian tribes who have combined to form a Navajo Indian Capital at Window Rock. The trip was really too long for a day trip from Holbrook, and we should have made it an over-nighter and camped there. We only drove the North Rim of the canyon this time; we'll drive the South Rim next time around. The mountains of rocks along Route 12 on the return trip to Window Rock were catching the setting sun's rays making the red clay glow. Some photos will be uploaded soon to our Touring the USA Gallery. We are attributing our frequent headaches and TIRED feelings to the high altitude, nearing 8,000 feet sometimes. Coming from sea level at the Gulf of Mexico and much lower altitudes in southern Texas, our bodies are working hard to breathe. Our sinuses are complaining too about the high altitude and the dust! We will need to spend more time acclimating to the change of altitude and dust before we attempt much walking and photographing next time around. 14 May 2005: Happy Birthday to Tyler Jean Jane Sorrells who is a 5 years old today! She will start kindergarten this fall. "You can't fence time..." (from Sara Evans' song, "Suds in the Bucket") 13 May 2005: Friday the 13th! Hope only good things happen to you, and us. Several photos of the Painted Desert-Pertrified Forest were uploaded to our Touring the USA Gallery. We're heading out to do a truck load of laundry, really!, and tour the local museum and old jail in the town of Holbrook, AZ. (*5/15/05: Haven't done this yet.) 12 May 2005: The wind finally calmed down so we headed to the Painted Desert-Petrified Forest National Park. We spent most of the day there oohing and awing. Tom was tired from his long drive yesterday into Flagstaff to get Ruby repaired, so he took lots of naps in the truck. I took lots of photos. Some will be uploaded to our Touring the USA Gallery, others to a new gallery, Scenes of the Southwest, not yet created. As Tom said, "Mother Nature spent a long time painting this desert in earth tones." This area is much greener than the past two times I traveled through here as a result of a normal amount of snowfall last winter and more spring rain than usual. Spring wildflowers are numerous and there's still some snow on top of the higher mountains. 10 May 2005: Early this morning, Tom left to take Ruby into Flagstaff, AZ, to get the leak in the air ride suspension repaired. He returned successful. Yesterday, we ventured out to THE grocery store in Holbrook, AZ, a typical Safeway, except for its shoppers. I was shopping with Native Americans, mostly of the Hopi tribe. One of them was a beautiful old woman with long, straight white hair, dark skin bronzed by the sun, wearing a light blue denim shirt with a dark green, full-length crinkle skirt, decorated with fine turquoise jewelry. She was so mesmerizing in her beauty that I never noticed her shoes or if she even had any on. I plan to visit some of the Hopi villages tomorrow. Many of the Hopi tribes do not allow any photographs to be taken of them or in their villages. I will take photos of the surrounding areas. The wind is whipping way too much for this photographer, but I've got an itch to get back out into the field. 08 May 2005: After three days of towing, we're exhausted! We passed through some very interesting desert-mountain-alpine-plateau-desert areas today. I get very frustrated when we go speeding by such beautiful landscapes on our way to somewhere else with no time or space to stop for photo-ops. We're just traveling way too fast! We'll be in the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert region this week. Temperatures are cool, 50's at night and 70's during the day. Sunny skies with a few clouds are predicted for this whole week so there should be several good days for exploring and taking photos. 06 May 2005: As we were preparing to leave Fredericksburg, TX, today, I had a strong feeling that I was just not finished with this place. The old stone cottages decorated with beautiful flowers were inviting me to stay, or at least, to come back. Land is affordable and there's lots of it. There are no major geological disasters waiting to happen here, other than storms. We both get a little "German fix," cake for me and sausages for Tom, who agrees that we should research the possibility of purchasing land on a hilltop when we come back this way next winter. We drove I-10 W from Fredericksburg to Ft. Stockton, an old Army base camp built to protect travelers who stopped this way for water at Comanche Springs. As the vegetation thinned out, the plateaus became more numerous. There's a huge wind turbine farm near here. The highway was decorated with a variety of yellow wildflowers, white prickly poppies, and a little pink and lemon paintbrush, as well as yellow cacti blooms, yucca plants, and a few Joshua trees. It's very windy here in the open western desert of Texas! Our RV is rockin'-n-rollin'. As we were setting up the RV, I saw a roadrunner. The KOA here has a Roadrunner Cafe where breakfast and dinner are offered. Everything comes fried with gravy, except the smoked pork BBQ which is their specialty. We tasted it tonight and it was more pork than ribs and the tender smoked meat just fell off of the few bones. The sunset train photo finished in second place. This week's season finale of Judging Amy was full of heart. 04 May 2005: I took lots of photos of cactus flowers and the rocks at the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. We could have spent many more hours there rock climbing and exploring the plants growing in between the rocks. The cactus flowers were especially beautiful. A new gallery of some of these photos is being created and will be uploaded soon. We could also spend much more time here in Fredericksburg, TX exploring the nearby historical and natural areas. We will return. 03 May 2005: I visited the Fredericksburg, TX, town center and took some photos of the Maypole and local houses made of stone. I also spent several hours at the Wildseed Farms photographing wildflowers and butterflies. Our satellite system is having some difficulties right now, so only one photo has been uploaded to our new gallery, Butterflies, Hummingbirds, and Flowers. More photos will be uploaded when the satellite system cooperates again. The train photo in the Photoshop Contest is holding in second place. We're off to the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. 02 May 2005: After a very lazy Sunday morning, we took a long afternoon drive through the Texas Hill Country through Kerrville to the Lost Maples State Natural Area in Vanderpool. We actually did see some hills! We also saw lots of common wildlife along the way: goats, sheep, deer, cows, longhorned cattle, horses, hawks, buzzards, and a few gazelles. The park office had a hummingbird feeder out and the hummers were a'buzzing! I got a few decent photos, but need to practice more using our new telephoto lens with image stabilizer and the rapid fire shot capability on my Canon EOS10D camera. They grow stone here ;-) so many of the houses are built with stone. Most of the ranches have beautiful stone walls and iron gates at their entrances. If I had more time here, I would just drive around and take photos of those gates for a gallery. I'll be photographing butterflies and wildflowers this afternoon before the predicted rain gets here. 01 May 2005: After a rather disturbing night's sleep, I awoke to a beautiful sunrise. Last week's episode of Judging Amy stirred some memories of tough teaching times and frustrations with the system that is supposed to help juvenile offenders, not throw them away. It also created some feelings of guilt that I have abandoned ship. Anyway, temperatures fell to the mid-forties last night and remain very chilly this morning. When the air warms up, we'll venture out to explore more of the Texas Hill Country near Fredericksburg, Texas. Check out Photoshop Contest. Another photographer has used, with my permission, one of my sunset photos as a background in a stock photo of an oncoming train and entered it into a contest. |
|||||||||
To view more of our photos or to purchase prints and gifts,
|
