Even the best laid plans are executed imperfectly. I managed to forget my camera battery charger and battery I was charging in the hotel room back in Winslow. So, once I finished at the Grand Canyon, I reversed course and went back to the hotel to fetch the forgotten items. Along the way I realized that I was now easy to stop for a look about at Meteor Crater.
Looking at the formations from a distance, there is little sense of scale. I cannot tell if the distance between the smallest ravines is 10's or 100's of feet nor if their height is 100 or 500 feet.
There are sections of the rock formations that give the appearance of something organic.
After our house sit in Albuquerque ended, I dropped E off at the airport to fly home for a wedding and I started the drive west across Arizona. My first stop was an afternoon visit at the painted desert.
Santa Fe is a place for color. Even among the bare trees, the red chilies and the blue sky belies the winter season.
Sometimes even the mundane around us has a symmetry and design that catches the eye.
On a clear and a little cold day, we visited Santa Fe. Next to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi is a small park and there are some interesting statues found there.
At part of the celebrations of the annual balloon festival in Albuquerque, there is a really good museum. It is filled with balloon equipment that span much of the history of their usage. Lots of displays on expeditions that I knew nothing about that included ballooning.
This place is the ruins of the village built by the ancestors of the current residents of Jemez Springs.
The clouds continue to gather and it begins to rain just a little.
This area is filled with natural beauty and expansive vistas. As in much of New Mexico, the people here are not wealthy. While there are some impressive houses near the main road, Jemez Springs proper is a Pueblo and inhabited by people of very modest means.
I really love the contrast of the golden leaves and the dark bark of the aspens this time of year (November). It brings a new life to the otherwise mostly monochrome hills.
We decided to drive north to Jemez Springs and have a look about. This is on the southern side of the crater of the ancient volcano on which Los Alamos sits on the northern side.
The trails are well marked and roped off from the petroglyphs and the wild desert. As a result, we cannot get close to the stones to see these in any detail or from better angles.
In addition to the park along the Rio Grande you saw yesterday, there are places north and west of the central city where one can enjoy the desert. On such place is Piedras Marcadas Canyon where there are hundreds of dark stones that are etched with native american drawings.
North of downtown is a state park in Albuquerque that straddles the Rio Grande river and provides a quiet place for humans and other animals to gather, rest, and enjoy what nature has to offer. It is a delightful place with the Sandia Mountains in the background.
We found it a nice way to get out the house to drive to Old Town for a short stroll and cup of coffee.
Not everything in Madrid is converted to a store for selling things or a home for living in. Somethings are simply bits of a bygone era that sit and slowly decay.
A trip to Albuquerque is not complete with a drive to Madrid to see all the funky art, clothes, and jewelry. On this visit, there was a bubble machine in front of one of the stores and I managed to catch one resting in a bush.
This was a really nice museum, fittingly located in Albuquerque. I suppose it might be better sited in Los Alamos, but Albuquerque is a much more visited city and sitting on the edge of Kirtland Air force Base is also a plus for the museum. It contains lots of exhibits of the history of the US atomic bomb development in New Mexico, the science behind it, and the people and places that dropped it during the war.
There were three star exhibits: reconstructions of the first three atomic bombs. Above the the 'gadget' detonated at the Trinity site near Almagordo as a proof of concept.
This Chimayo chilli seller is closed for the season. I think it would be interesting to visit when he's open, don't you?
The small village of Chamayo is known for two things: their chilli and the Santuario de Chimayo. Although we are here in the off season (God doesn't close shop but the locals do), you can still tell that the religious tourists also spend money on chilli as well.
Inside the church on the square in Old Town, we find some intense locations for veneration.
In Old Town, there a buildings that are old and filled with character even if they are now filled with chachkies.
As the sun continued its daily journey across the sky, the mountains got redder and the color moved towards the top as the sun dipped below the hills to the west.
After a couple weeks at home recharging our batteries, we hit the road again. This time, in our trusty Honda CR-V, we headed south and east from Snohomish to Albuquerque, NM. One of the first nights there, I checked out a place near the road where I could get a clear view of the Sandia mountains just before sunset. Above, you can see most of the range of mountains that lie to the east of town. The city center lies well to the right in the photo since we are to the north of town.
And so we leave our visit to the Lake Country with a few views of the big industry here (after tourism)...cows and sheep.
The ship we ride in a pretty complete rebuild of the original. While some parts of the original remain, the hull, superstructure and steam engine are all new.
The Gondola Barrow plies the serene Coniston Water with passenger rides up and down the lake.
The serenity of this place is addictive. Even looking at this image, I feel I could sit by this lake and be happy even it I never did anything else.
I realize that these are out of order, but that shouldn't matter. Before we arrived in Stratford-upon-Avon, we visited Lake Country, as I'm sure all you faithful followers recall. I realized that I have not posted the photos of the drive to Coniston. Driving through Lake Country on a day with clouds floating overhead makes it clear why everyone is taken with this part of England.
Yesterday you saw Shakespeare's birthplace as a curious building. Today I bring it to you as you might see it, without all the people. this is most likely much harder to get during the season when the crowds abound. Nevertheless, I stood or several minutes to get a view with no one in sight.
Wandering Stratford, I found a few things worth a snap or two. I through this contrast with the little bin with the discarded umbrella in front of the upscale jewelry store to be interesting.
There were several gardens here, some small such as this one, and some very large. In late summer, we missed most of the good stuff but there were still some flowers to be found.
