Oro Grande, New Mexico

Oro Grande is located at the south east tip of the White Sands Military Reservation, about half way between El Paso, TX and Alamogordo, NM. The first time we drove through Oro Grande we were heading up to the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo with Husband’s dad. The town is tiny…you know the type that if you blink you will miss it. The main drag consists of a gas station, a tavern, an RV park, a one room school house, and a post office. Set back off of the main drag are maybe 9 or 10 mobile homes. While tiny, to me it had kind of a quirky character. My kinda town. Oro Grande was a mining town established in 1905 and was originally called Jarilla Junction due to its proximity to the Jarilla Mountains. The name was changed to Oro Grande (Big Gold) during the 1906 gold rush. The population of Oro Grande boomed to 2000 during that time, but quickly collapsed when it was found there was far less gold than expected. If you were to Google Oro Grande you would find that most sites have it listed as a ghost town.So why would a ghost town have a gas station, a tavern and a post office? That would be because Oro Grande is not a ghost town at all. While I would guess the population as less than 20 people, there are people there. In the few seconds it took us to drive through town Husband’s dad told us that in the early 1980s they started to put in the infrastructure for Oro Grange to once again be a booming town. Ronald Reagan had this idea for the use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missles. It was loving dubbed “Star Wars”. This program would take place at White Sands Missile Range. The people who had jobs created by this program would live in Oro Grande. Well we all know how that worked out. Anyway…like I said it was a quirky town and I wanted to take pictures of it. Even though I exclaimed that I thought it was a great little town and I that I would like to take some pictures…we didn’t stop. Coming or going. Boo! I was bummed but had a plan. I asked husband if we could detour our route north to Denver so that we could go through Oro Grande. And because he loves me and wants me to be happy he agreed. It worked out well because the light first thing in the morning was way better than the harsh desert light in the middle of the day.

Carlsbad Caverns

I’m not gonna lie, when it was first suggested that we go to Carlsbad I was not all “WOOHOO let’s go to a cave”. I guess going into caves can be added to my list of irrational fears. Caves are dark, dank, and down right creepy. There are things in caves that could jump out of the darkness and onto to you. Really, what it is to keep a stalactite from dropping from the roof of the cave and impaling you…WHAT I ask you? But we went to the big cave anyway. When I say big cave I mean super giant, humongous, gargantuan cave. I knew it was big, I just didn’t know it was that BIG. And thank goodness it was so big…because this is one gal you are not going to find spelunking. As we enter this HUGE cave, I cannot help but to wonder aloud about the odds of the ceiling falling down on us. Husband looked at me (I am guessing he looked at me as it was very dark) and said that maybe I should not be thinking like that…and while I was at it maybe I should keep my irrational fears to myself…and hows about I busy myself with snapping photos instead of trying to freak myself out. So I snapped some photos. Well what I actually did was point my camera into the darkness and hoped I would get something worth looking at. After playing with settings and shutter speed I got a lot of dark blurry images. I also got a few really cool ones too. I loved all textures and how alive the cave felt. I have never been someplace that felt so other worldly. It was truly amazing. All in all I was very happy with our cave excursion. I want to thank my in-laws for taking us up there. If I ever get the chance to go back I need to remember to bring a tripod, a shoe-mount flash, and maybe a macro lens. That’s not too much extra to carry a mile down into the ground is it? If the mood strikes, you can look at some of the other images I took here.

Bucket

This handsome devil is named Bucket. He is a very sweet boy.

four corners

I lived in Colorado for roughly 30 years. I took for granted the fact that I lived in a state that had so many beautiful places to go and things to do. Take for instance Mesa Verde, The Great Sand Dunes, and Four Corners. I had always wanted to go but never managed to make it to any of those places. Well on our third and final day of driving Husband and I figured we could tick Four Corners off our list as it was sorta on our way south. Now if you are not familiar with what the Four Corners area is then I am betting you failed basic US geography. Anyway…Four Corners is a geographic survey point where the states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico come together. It is a popular stop for tourist because it is the only place in the United States that you can stand in four states at the same time. I am a little excited because I love cheesy tourist traps. So I drive up the hill, make the right turn, and this is what we see… Ummmmm…Yeah…Maybe next time. So we weren't able to stand in four states at one time. As a consolation prize the road we were in took us into and out of each of those four states in less than 20 minutes.

Sneak Peak...Moab

We went to Moab on our way to Texas. I have some editing to do on the images I shot but thought I would give you a quick preview. I call it "Moab gives you the finger". Enjoy!

drive, drive, and drive some more

We left the house at 4:50 this morning for the first leg of our road trip south. We had a reservation at a hotel in Orem, Utah…a mere 900 miles from our starting point. We drove though parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah that I had never been to before. There were so many things that I saw in the quick glimpse I got as we sped by at 80 mph that I wanted to stop and take pictures of. Mostly old barns…I really have a thing for old barns. While Husband supports me getting back into photography, he really does not have the patience for me getting back into photography while we are trying to drive 900 miles in a reasonable amount of time. So only one photo was taken today and it was taken by Husband as he does not like me snapping photos while driving…go figure. This image was captured just west of the Cascades at about 6:45 this morning. Not too shabby for being taken through a cracked windshield of a vehicle traveling a tad over the posted speed limit. We did end up getting to the hotel in a reasonable amount of time, 15 hours. That includes stopping for gas, food, and at 6 different rest stops (we drink way too much water for people on a road trip). Tomorrow is an easy drive day. We are going to Moab and Arches National Park. The weather is supposed to be crappy but I am still very excited! Side note: After a year of driving in Washington, I cannot tell you how nice it was to be driving in the Rocky Mountains again…you know where driving at or above the speed limit and tailgating is not only the norm but is practically expected. Ahhhh…it is good to be heading home.

early signs of spring

I am loving the trees up here right now. It seems with the mild weather that spring has come early. Everywhere you look you see the soft pinks and whites of cherry and plum blossoms. I went for a walk this afternoon and it was like walking in a fairytale with all the petals delicately floating down around me. There are so many things that flower up here this time of year. I hope that with our upcoming trip that everything will still be in bloom when we get back.

La Conner, WA

I have had the pleasure of meeting many of Liza’s relatives. If I were to sum up this brood in one word it would be creative. Her father was a beat poet, her sister a talented painter, and Liza herself is a talented writer. So when she said she wanted to drive up to La Conner to visit her uncle, I was game. Liza’s uncle is Fred Owens, author of the Frog Hospital blog (soon to be a book by the same name) and a contributor to the La Conner Weekly News. La Conner is located about an hour north of Seattle in the Skagit Valley. The Skagit Valley is most famously know for the tulip festival in the spring (it might be known for something other than the festival, but I don’t know what that would be). We met Fred at a tiny little café called Le Crema Coffee (which has the best Chai in the world…no really…the best). It had been 10 years since the last time Liza had seen her uncle so they had a lot of catching up to do. So we sat back, drank our coffee, and they did just that. We then went on a walking tour of the village of La Conner with Fred pointing out the sights, giving us a brief history lesson, and telling us funny stories. We stopped for lunch at a little deli over looking the Swinomish Channel. Fred then took us on a driving tour of some of the local farms located along the Skagit river. We saw cows, sheep, daffodils, and cabbage. The cabbage farms up there produce seeds, not large heads of cabbage. Fred had just written an article about the farming of cabbage seeds. We learned so much about the process of farming cabbage seeds that I am confident that Liza and I now had enough knowledge that we could start our own farm. La Conner has a lot of cute little shops and boutiques, so after we said our goodbyes to Fred we did a little window shopping and then stopped at the La Conner Brewing Company for a beer. We had a really fun day and I really enjoyed meeting Fred. He was quite the character, which I had come to expect from a member of Liza’s family. It is good to know that if I am ever up that way that I have someone to have a cup of coffee with.

a day out

My oldest friend Liza has come to visit. Yesterday was her birthday so we went down town to do touristy things. I snapped a few photos while we were out.

volcanos are scary

I live in a state that has these… You know, because a little ol' mountain can go from looking like this one day… …to looking like this the next. And when this one decides to go all kablooy… …they say it could cause one of these. YIKES! Since moving here I have had to add earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis to my list of what one might call irrational fears. This list also includes tornadoes, public restrooms, touching raw chicken, and clowns (especially clowns). But let’s stick to volcanoes shall we. The town we live in is built in the path of the Osceola Mudflow (look it up) so if Mt Rainier decides to blow its top we are pretty much toast. They say there is no evidence of an imminent eruption…but that does not mean that it won’t happen. This is the same reason I am all sorts of leery about going to Yellowstone. Sure it is beautiful, has an amazing array of wildlife, and let’s not forget about Old Faithful…and oh yeah it is also a SUPER VOLCANO. That is like a regular volcano times a gazillion. And while they say there is no evidence of an imminent eruption there either, the irrational fear kicks in that if I get anywhere near it…BLAM-O! We could then kiss a big chunk Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho goodbye. My sister and her family live in Idaho. I don’t think that I could live with the fact that me going to Yellowstone caused them to be blown up. Granted I would have been blown up too…but you get my drift. Now here is the funny part. I am not a lover of anything having to do with science. I only took the minimum required amount of science classes in school so I could make room in my schedule for more art classes. Husband is totally into science (he went to a nerdy engineering school and everything) and once asked me if I were to choose a science-y type of job what would I choose. Do you know what I said? VOLCANOLOGY!!! My reason…because lava is sooooo cool looking and I want to take pictures of it and poke at it with sticks. Anyway…seeing as Husband and I blew our wad on our first day in Oregon, it left us with the second day of our trip wide open. Day one was more about things I wanted to do so I left the activities of day two up to Husband. He chose going to see Mt St Helens. YEAH!!! We stopped at the visitors center first and watched the 13 minute video about the eruption…very informative. Did you know that Harry Truman was killed in the blast? At first I was like ‘wow, why weren’t we taught in school?’ One would think that learning that the 33rd president of the United States was killed by a Volcano was an interesting bit of history. Then ones' husband reminds you that Harry Truman the president died in 1972 and that the Harry Truman that was killed in the eruption was just a man that happened to have the same name of said president. Because we were there in the winter we were not able to go up to the Johnston Ridge Observatory. One of the rangers at the visitors center told us the best place to get a good look at the mountain this time of year was at the Clearwater Viewpoint. We hopped in the truck and headed in that direction. We got lucky, just a few minutes after I snapped the last photo the clouds moved in and surrounded the top of the mountain. Husband wants to go back in the summer so we can get up close to the mountain. I figure that I got this close and nothing catastrophic happened so why not.

we went to Oregon

We get told all the time about all the beautiful places to see and cool things to do in the great state of Washington. Husband had a bunch of use or lose time to use up, so we decided to take a few days in between Christmas and New Years to go to beautiful places and do cool things. We decided to drive down to the Oregon coast. When there are so many things to do here in Washington, why would we drive down to Oregon? The answer is simple…Goonies was not filmed in Washington. (Don't worry...this is not a Goonies super fan post) It was just going to be a quick two day trip and there were only three things I wanted to do, go to Astoria and Cannon Beach (Goonies), then head down to Tillamook to eat cheese. We got to Astoria, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and drove around to see the Jail and the Walsh house. I did not take any pictures in town because I am lazy and there was no parking. Plus I mostly wanted to take pictures of the ocean. While driving down the northern Oregon coast you will come upon a different beach every few miles. The first one we stopped at was Seaside, a fun little resort town. We were surprised to find so many people on the beach on a Monday in December. I am sure this place is crazy in the summer…and that you don’t find people dressed like this: We then hopped back in the truck and drove down to Cannon Beach. I was excited to see Haystack Rock (yeah that’s right I was excited about seeing a rock). It was a beautiful day…warm and sunny. We spent about two hours walking on the beach, me snapping a million photos and Husband complaining about me taking so many pictures. Back in the truck and a few more stops to look at the pretty view… Then to Tillamook for cheese and ice cream. ROCKY ROAD! While I never saw a cow in Tillamook, I know they are there somewhere. The whole town smells like Greeley (those from Colorado know what I am talking about). We ended up doing all the things we had planned to do over the two days in the first day. That left us with nothing to do the next day. So as we drove towards the hotel in Portland we mulled over options for the next day. Tommorows post...Volcanos and why they scare the crap out of me!

80 gazillion twinkle lights

Last week Jenn posted some very cool and very trippy images she had taken of her girls last year at Zoo Lights at the Denver Zoo. It reminded me that I had a bunch of images that I took last year at Zoo Lights that I never did anything with. So because there are no original ideas left in the world I decided to steal Jenn’s idea and post some of Zoo Lights images of my own. (Thanks Jenn W00T W00T) I had never been to Zoo Lights. It was something I talked about doing every year and then never got around to it. So last year I made sure to go because I didn’t know how long it would be until I was in Denver for Christmas again. The night Husband and I went was cold as hell…no surprise it being December in Colorado and all. I wanted to take photos but was not all that excited about taking my gloves off to do so. We walked around a bit looking at the lights and bitching about the cold. We then stopped to get a hot chocolate and were pleasantly surprised to find that for a few dollars more you could get some peppermint schnapps added. Yes please! Nothing like a few shots of liquor to take the chill out of the air. I had been snapping a few shots here and there. Pretty basic, nothing too exciting. Then I got this one of the dragon… …and decided to have a little fun with my camera. The rest of my images look a little something like this: Yeah for cold, twinkle lights, peppermint scnapps...oh and Jenn too...you know for the idea!