The 3 Witches of Eastwick!! 10 yards of Tulle and Voila!!

Moi as the Recycle Galactic Queen!

And the winner of the Costume Award....Meg as Frieda Kahlo!!!!

HOME!!! after 4 months

I arrived "HOME" just in time to celebrate Laura Beth's 24th Birthday....all 3 of my daughters were here and we had a little family celebration!! It is really nice to be home! And even nicer to see my family!!!

Caverns of Sonora

I have passed these caverns probably 100 times while traveling on Interstate 10 in West Texas on my way to Big Bend and have never stopped....soooo in keeping with this journey and sampling the most beautiful places that North America has to offer, I took the opportunity to stop and tour it. The $20 tour lasted almost 2 hours and covered about 2 miles of passageways. It is a limestone cave carved by water between 1.5 and 5 millions years ago and somewhere between 1 and 3 million years ago the water drained from the cave. The mineral formations, known as speleothems, all formed after the water drained from the cave. They are still forming and growing today.

There were several pools of water and the deeper we descended into the earth the wetter it got...it was warm and felt like 100 % humidity.

The most amazing (to me) of the calcite crystal formations are called helictites. They have a curved or angular form that seem to defy gravity, growing sideways or up.......supposedly there is a room not open to the public that is full of these formations!

Tallest Peak in Texas - 8,749 feet

Driving up to the Guadalupe Mountains in West Texas.....finally....I have always wanted to hike the highest peak in Texas....an ancient fossilized marine reef!

There was a photo of the mountain with the well established trail superimposed on the image that shows you the path of the strenuous 3,000 feet of elevation gain....a total of 8.4 miles round-trip.It took me exactly 3 hours to climb it...I know because I took my cell phone with me and had the time plus I could make a phone call from up there.On top there is this shiny steel marker that looks odd in contrast to the natural beauty of the mountains.....there is an artillery can there with a book inside where everyone signs. There was also a small bag with a water bottle inside. I was the first person up there for the day and within the next 15 minutes there were 3 others. Then for the next 3 hours I did not see a soul.View of the Plains of the Chihuahua Desert from on top.....the whitish areas are the Salt Flats and the green circles are crop irrigation. View of El Capitan. The air was not very clear today as you can see... at the beginning of the hike there was a sign similar to the one at Grand Canyon depicting the direction of the air pollution.

Towards the bottom of the trail were a few rare Texas Madrone trees....identified by their smooth reddish bark and evergreen leaves....the brilliant red berry-like fruits were ripe and a nice treat for the birds...edible for people too....I tried one...the red outside part was sweet....the inner seed part was not so much. This tree is common in the Pacific Northwest and they call it by its scientific name -Arbutus.

The resident wildlife include Elk, Black Bear and Mountain Lions though I saw none of the above...I was packing my bear spray on the hike just in case.......I did see several small deer upon my evening arrival though.

Sweet Home of El Cerrito

I felt like I had come full circle when I arrived back in El Cerrito.....I just love this little village in the middle of the Pecos Valley.

A friend came to celebrate and we built the first fire in the little Horno that some students from Florida had built in the backyard of the schoolhouse. It was built of adobe blocks and worked just fine! providing a warm and toasty fire through the evening.....we did cook in it using some of the coals to grill some zuccini squash, but I have yet to bake in one the traditional way!!

Petroglyph National Monument

Petroglyphs are rock engravings that were pecked or chiseled in stone. These chunks of basalt boulders are on a table (mesa) of land west of the Rio Grande, very near the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Archeologists estimate that most of these particular images were made 400 to 700 years ago.
After viewing the petroglyphs I took a short drive to a neighborhood that I used to live in when I was in the 4th and 5th grade. It used to be on the edge of Albuquerque but now is swallowed by suburbia.

Hubbell Trading Post

The Hubbell Trading Post, a few miles south of Canyon de Chelly in Arizona, has served as a direct link between Native and non-Native Americans since 1876. John Lorenzo Hubbell (distant cousin to Edwin Hubbell the astronomer whom the Space Telescope was named after) learned the language and ways of the Navajo people in his travels in the southwest. He was also known for his honesty and hospitality as many people stayed at the trading post.Today it still operates as a trading post...there are stacks of Navajo wool rugs with the picture of the weaver attached....the cheapest one I saw was over $300.......there are everyday staples as well.... I purchased a metal bucket that I have wanted several times on my trip to heat water over a fire.

In the Visitor Center there was a Navajo woman weaving a rug that she has been working on for 5 weeks now....weaving 8 hours a day she has the geometric design in her head.

Canyon de Chelly (pronounced D'Shay)

This majestic rock canyon is located in the Navajo Reservation in northeast Arizona......it is the only National Park that I have been to that has Native American Indians living in the Park....they are still farming on the canyon floor and raising sheep! The many cliff dwellings were built by the Ancient Puebloans before the Navajo's arrived but they are very well preserved and there are LOTs of them.
Petroglyphs are also abundant. This one is called Antelope something.....

You can only hike down to one site in the canyon, otherwise you have to have a Navajo guide to accompany you...whether it is a hike or in your 4 wheel drive or theirs....I inquired about a hiking guide and it costs $20 per hour......needless to say I hiked the one free trail to the bottom and back. The rest of it is free to drive around the rim and look over at designated overlooks.

The Cottonwood Trees are all turning colors at this time of the year and the Canyon floor is actually MUCH colder than the rim......(opposite of the Grand Canyon that is hotter inside the canyon??)

A truck filled with tourists taking a tour of the canyon from below.

A traditional Hogan....8 sided with the door facing east...or rather the sunrise.

Painted Desert & Petrified Forest

I was surprised to see that the Petrified Forest is located in a desert...smac dab in the middle of the Painted Desert in eastern Arizona.....

The fossilized trees look as if they have been cut into sections with a chainsaw...HA! What a 21st century interpretation...........actually here is the story as told in the Park service brochure...
This high (5,500 feet elevation) dry grassland was once a vast floodplain crossed by many streams. Tall stately conifer trees grew along the banks and small dinosaurs roamed around...some 225 million years ago!!! then the trees fell, and were washed into adjacent floodplains and eventually covered by silt, mud and volcanic ash. The sediments cut off oxygen and slowed the log's decay....Silica-laden groundwater seeped through the logs and replaced the original wood tissues with silica deposits that crystallized into quartz and the logs were preserved as petrified wood! But that is not the end of the story...THEN the continents moved around and this region was uplifted (that is what broke the trees in sections) ...then over time the climate changed from tropical to desert and wind and water have eroded away the rock layers exposing these fossilized ancient plants and animals!

The colors in the logs are just as amazing as the colors in the sedimentary layers of the Painted Desert.