Category: inspiration

Where two deserts meet. 

We visited Joshua Tree National Park yesterday, drove the entire length of the park, from south to north, and stopped to explore all of the varied terrain and plants.   The park is ruggedly beautiful, and marks the intersection of the Colorado Desert and the Mohave Desert.  


We had a blast.  And took a bazillion selfies.   I’ll share some photos, but also wanted to share this cool interview I found this morning…. it’s 10 minutes long… of Steve Averill, the guy that designed and photographed the album art for U2’s album The Joshua Tree, which is celebrating its 30th birthday this year.  I think this guy has my dream job.  🙂

A fine example of the namesake of the park, said to look like Dr Seuss trees:


Amazing rock horizons:


Skull Rock, spooky!


Another peek from beneath the rocks:


I love exploring new places, and I love hanging with my girlfriends.   A perfect day.  

Desert fun.  

I’ve met up with Irene and Linda, two girlfriends from high school, in Palm Desert for the weekend.  We are having fun catching up on three decades of our lives while enjoying this beautiful oasis.  

This is the view from our patio. Lucky us.  This is looking east across the Coachella Valley towards the Little San Bernardino Mountain range.  


This is the same view, later last night as the full moon was rising.  

Second chance.

I was sitting on the back patio today when four beautiful warblers decided to take a bath in the fountain, about 10 feet away from me!   I was treated to a yellow warbler, two black-throated green warblers, and a mourning warbler.  I had my binoculars so I enjoyed a nice long look.  But of course, the camera was in the house.   After they had moved on, I went back in for my camera.   The earlier photo opp didn’t repeat, but I did get a shot or two of a beautiful yellow warbler that dropped down to the fountain for a drink.   Fall migration is on!

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Who’s here?

Keeto often asks us, “Who’s here?”   Well, this morning, when I opened up the blinds to look at the back yard, I was excited to see a flock of baltimore orioles in the bird bath/fountain that I put out in the spring.  There were many more in the trees above, taking turns bathing.   The orioles are currently migrating south for the winter.  In the spring, on their way north, I only got a moment’s glance at a single male baltimore oriole.  Today though, I got to enjoy them for about 15 minutes.   And then, poof, they were gone.   I hope they remember to stop here on their way back next spring.

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Eclipse day 2017. 

We’ve wandered a bit and saw some interesting things today.

We hung out at a park in Cross Plains, Tennessee with a couple hundred other people on the line of totality for the solar eclipse…

Some enterprising kids recognized it as a business opportunity…

Of course, we bought some.

And I took some pictures of the amazing display in the sky above…

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It was an incredibly amazing experience.   I’m looking forward to the next one in Austin on April 8, 2024!

The wild outside.

I love finding visitors just outside my kitchen window.

A napping fawn on the lawn Saturday afternoon:

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A rare migrating Rufous (or possibly Allen’s?) hummingbird this morning hiding out from the rain.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Beautiful view.

We spent the weekend on the lake — floating with Marty & Sue, and doing some boat chores.  I got up at 1 AM and 3:30 AM early Sunday morning to try to see meteors from the Perseids shower, but didn’t spot any.  We went for a fun sail late on Sunday afternoon in some good north winds.  The cold front that they brought in will drop our temps into the frosty mid-nineties for a change this week.  🙂

This view never gets old…

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Sweaty betties.

I went birding and hiking today with my friend, Doray.  We started early, at Reimer’s Ranch Park, and then did the guided tour of the canyon and grotto at Westcave Preserve.  After that, we went back to Reimer’s to hike their River Trail.

Let me just say, “Whoo dogie, it was HOT!”   Whew!  100 degrees or so.  But it was beautiful, we did see lots of birdies, and we enjoyed a lovely day in our hill country.  Pretty good day.

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Welcome back, Celis!

We attended tonight’s Grand Opening for the new Celis Brewery.  Celis opened in 1992 producing award winning local craft beer.   Sadly, it closed in 2000.  But the original founder’s daughter worked hard to make todays re-opening of  Celis Brewery a reality, 25 years from the original brewery’s birthday.  Cheers!

Pizza and beer. 

We met up for lunch today with old friends that were visiting Austin for the day.  Pinthouse Pizza did not disappoint.  Lots of local beers on tap.  Check them out!

A mess o’martins.

I checked out a Purple Martin Party tonight – a spectator event coordinated by the Travis Audubon Society.   Every Friday and Saturday night in July, from 8-9:30pm, people gather on the lawn outside the Texas Land & Cattle restaurant to watch tens of thousands of purple martins roost at sunset.  These guys are done nesting and breeding and are on their way south to complete the annual migration cycle of life.  They tell me that by the end of the month there may be hundreds of thousands of them.

How can one possibly photograph this event?  Here is one shot I took, a small portion of the overall scene.  Can you count them?

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Her third Fourth.

Our niece, Laura, has been visiting us for the last few days.  Yesterday afternoon we headed out to the lake to spend the night at our marina with a group of friends.  Today we enjoyed a great sail up and down the lake.  We figured that this is the third 4th of July that Laura has spent with us on Lake Travis.   I’m looking forward to the next one.

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Magic mug. 

My sweet sister-in-law, Susanne, gave me this wonderful coffee mug at the reunion last week.  I love it!  It makes me smile every morning.

 

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Fungus amungus.

We spent last week driving to Florida and back to attend the best-reunion-evah.  🙂  I have so many pictures, my eyes are glazing over.  I kind of like this one.  The old gives life to the new.  Bloom where you are planted, my friends.

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