Let's start a new blog!

Okay -- this post is going to be a hodge-podge of pictures I've taken over the past couple years.

 

 An ambitious Robin selected my Basil pot for its nest. I figured she would give it up since it was under my deck by the back door and too busy. Nope. She raised a family there.

Katy Trail is across the river and a popular bike path. I decided to take a short walk along the trail and ended up spending most of the afternoon.

 

August, 2010 trip to New Mexico...one of many.

This is the less-than-famous Volkswagen version of Cadillac Ranch, located a couple interstate exits east of Amarillo. Cadillac Ranch is a few miles west of Amarillo and is being loved to death. It is now a tour bus stop where 30 German tourists or Chinese tourists or Japanese tourists show up every few hours. This is in addition to the many other people who stop on their way across the Texas panhandle.

 The Blue Swallow Motel is in Tucumcari NM and is a fully restored and renovated Route 66 motel that dates to the 1930s. This is owned and operated by a 'mom & pop' couple who enjoy visiting with the guests and continue to fix up those few things that remain to be done. There are interesting murals on some of the walls and inside the garages. The rooms are furnished as they were in the 1950s.

Matachines Dancers in the town of Bernalillo during the Fiestas de San Lorenzo. The dance has been held in this town every year since about 1693 and serves as a commemoration of the introduction of Christianity to the Aztecs. At the end of the dance the townspeople join in as a symbolic commitment to the church. The statues of San Lorenzo preside over the event and are paraded through the street to and from the sanctuary.

 What would a trip to New Mexico be without a visit to some sort of ruin?


This is the site of the San Jose mission in the Jemez Mountains. There were hundreds of Jemez Indians living here during the mission days but they eventually moved down the valley after the mission was abandoned. This picture shows Jill realizing that there might be rattlesnakes in the ruins.

The mission ruins are impressive and the location is very pretty. This is close to the little town of Jemez Springs and a short distance north of the Jemez Pueblo.

 Ranchos de Taos is a small village south of Taos NM and the site of the San Francisco de Asis church - famous for Ansel Adams' black and white photography. The interior is elegantly plain with the typical Hispanic New Mexican decorations.

The church is adobe and every few years the community comes together to put on a fresh coat of adobe mud stucco. This is a major undertaking and there aren't as many old adobe buildings anymore so the skill is becoming uncommon. There is a hacienda (a house museum) a few miles north in Taos that looks like it is slowly crumbling away.

The drive north from Albuquerque goes through Santa Fe and through part of the Rio Grande Gorge before getting to Taos. North of Taos the drive is very pretty and very empty as you cross over into Colorado

The Great Sand Dunes National Park is a tremendous pile of sand. The dunes reach several hundred feet in height and are continually moving and shifting with the wind.

The park was not very busy and there were only a few people out hiking on the dunes....a surprisingly difficult task.

Watching the cloud shadows moving across the dunes could occupy the whole day if you let it.