I'm told some people can't access my blog. Try it and let me know!

Rockin' out

Is this horizontal or vertical?

Aerial view of something

I have always loved rocks, but I can't remember schist! Igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary I get, but then I hit a cliff at Cambrian, Permian, Ordowhatever. I have given myself permission to like rocks without knowing or understanding geology. I guess this could be called appreciating.

There's probably an app for identifying the rocks you look at, or the scenes that pass below you on a plane. The aerial view on the left was somewhere between Dallas and San Jose. Narrows it down, doesn't it?
 

Nature's gift-wrap

When I go to a beach known for its pebbles I just plain enjoy it -- the sights and the sounds of the waves shusshing among the pebbles. Every rounded stone is a work of art, sculpted and painted by God and all the angels. I want to bring them home with me -- I sometimes do smuggle a few.

ladybug on a rock on a hand at the beach

arrangement by tides

Shiny objects

What's the scale?

There's a lady in my neighborhood whose whole front yard is towers of graduated-sized rocks, balnced with no mortar. She's also the one who planted trees and inscribed paths on the flood-plain and rearranges the rocks in the creek so it will babble more! I haven't gotten this bad yet.


 

Here's how I classify my photos of rocks:
Rocks that stick up

lava tree Hawaii

Walnut Canyon AZ

Pescadero penis rock - now gone

 Rocks you can look through

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Window Rock AZ

 

        natural bridges Santa Cruz

 

 

                                            Rocks that stick out

 

Santa Cruz

Rocks that look back at you!

 

Rocks that look like maps

Rocks that look like cakes

   
 

Taking pictures of the mesas, buttes, and canyons on my trip was a case of "Look! There's another neat rock!"  And another, and another! The colors, the way the sunlight hit and reflected and shadowed; the wish again, like my pebbles on the beach, to take them all home with me. Some places did not allow photographs of people or cultural remains, but scenery was OK. It's not easy to shoot from the back seat of a van or from a jouncing 4WD!

Walnut Canyon

Canyon de Chelly overlook

I think White House is in the niche

Lichens at Canyon de Chelly

Driving along Chinle Wash into C. de Chelly

cat rock

natural bridge

Near the Zuni Reservation, NM

Why do they always change things?

+
I just get used to doing something on the computer and then they go and "improve" it to the point where I feel I'm starting all over. This may be an advantage to some people, I'm sure, but not me. Isn't there an app or something called same-old-same-old, where you don't have to re-familiarize yourself with the formatting, the design, the functions, the settings every few months (or even weeks, it seems). Is it just me?Am I really an old dog? Facebook -- this means you! Blogger, you too!

When is a vacation not a vacation?

Ordinarily when I am on vacation I watch as little news as possible. Part of getting away from it all is getting away from politics. But this vacation was different because government shutdown happened on the second day. Everyone on the trip kept hoping for an eleventh hour Congressional sanity attack, and then we all hoped there would be work-arounds: Maybe OUR national parks would be exempted. Rumors flew: somebody would find a back door in. The organizers at Road Scholar held meetings on Plans B, C, D.

The first day, the first canyon (Walnut Canyon outside Flagstaff) was still open when we got there.

The Hopi Mesas were, of course, not part of the park system, so our day there was as scheduled.

 The next day Canyon de Chelly was visible from the state highway overlooks, but the gates were down; the visitors centers were shut. Luckily, the Navajos who live and farm in the canyon were allowed in, and the four-wheel-drive rides they guide were in operation, so we did get to see this magnificent place.





















But on days four and five we were unable to visit either the Hubble Trading Post or Chaco Canyon -- the latter being the main reason I came on this trip. We made do with Navajo Museum and Code Talker Memorial at Window Rock, and visited the Zuni Reservation, and shopped in Gallup NM.

It was a good trip, but disappointing. I know the Park Service employees and the local people who make their living from tourists were much more adversely affected than I was. I seriously need to go back to see Chaco Canyon, but when?

Coyote Hills

"the" monarch

 I spent a lovely Sunday noontime up at Coyote Hills Regional Park. I hadn't been up there, I think, since Jeffrey's fourth grade field trip! It was the day after the first big rain of the season.
Noelle, Matt, Channah, Nathan and I went to the Visitor Center (a spot of great significance in Noelle's family history), the Butterfly Garden (where Nathan reunited with a butterfly he swore was the caterpillar he'd seen on his last visit) and we also watched swarming winged ants lose their wings and run around in little tandem pairs.

a monarch caterpillar

I've forgotten the name of this plant already -- it's a relative of milkweed, the monarchs' favorite.

Then we participated in the Stone Age Olympics: fire starting by twirling a stick (no success) flint-knapping (just watched) spearing targets and mammoth using an atlatl, flinging a bola, and playing throw the spear through the hoop -- all skills that early Native tribes needed to survive. 

The only one of us who wouldn't have starved to death was Noelle -- her 1/8? native blood and years of experience helped her! 

t

Matt retrieves spears from mammoth hunt

Channah lets loose the spear!

Noelle poses next to her spear through the mammoth's heart (Matt hit its hoof)

Meanwhile, back in the twenty-first century, I'm getting ready for my trip to the ancient pueblo ruins in Arizona and New Mexico -- so all this Indian lore is very a propos.

Assorted sunsets

 I've always loved sunsets, but it's really hard to capture the moments in photos: I guess because it's dynamic, changing so subtly but relentlessly, and also because it's a surround-experience, not just one-directional.  The eye is so much more than a camera!

Usually I think I need to be at a beautiful place to see a beautiful sunset -- the beach, of course! or the mountains, but these pictures show that the spectacle is lovely from my own neighborhood, in the case of the first two photos, my own backyard. It's an effort to get out of my recliner and find my i-phone, and go outside.

Taking a sunset walk is another option, although these hot days it doesn't really get cool enough until it's too late. These virga-like streaks were almost impossible to capture. I wished I could levitate into them!
Usually an hour or so before sunset you can tell by the clouds that  it's going to be a good one, but then the breeze blows the clouds away, or the fog sets in. Or I lose track of time!

The silhouettes of the trees are another factor.
Seasonal changes and angles make a big difference in the photos. I don't take nearly enough shots. I haven't gotten used to the idea that digital photography never runs out of film! (Of course, I do have to keep my batteries charged, and I just broke another camera by dropping it one too many times).

This is my street -- the cypresses on the left side are my trees, and the light pole is in front of my house.  If I live to be 90, I'll see around 8000 more sunsets. WATCH THIS SPACE!