Deep Shadows under a bright New Mexican sun at the Chapel in Albuquerque. Deep memories also. My sister and her husband got married there forty six years ago.
And here they are now (or at least back in October when they came for a visit,) Still going strong!! Way to go Ellen and Irv.
Last week my sister, Ellen, and her husband, Irv, came down from Colorado to visit us.
While here we joined our brother Bob at his residence. Management was throwing an Oktoberfest, food, drink, desert, entertainment! We were all up for that.
Music was provided by a local accordion band. I didn’t even know that accordion bands were a thing. These folks were great. They all played together, you know, like they were a band! It was jam packed with residents and guests and I think everyone had a good time.
The next day I showed off Turkey Mountain. They were very polite. They live on some acreage where they have a front row seat to Pikes Peak at 14,114 feet. Turkey Mountain is 804 feet. They did not snicker, not even once!! Hey you know, we in Tulsa are proud of 804 foot tall hill. We can call it a mountain if we want.
Irv is a fellow geocacher and he found one on the moutain.
Ellen made friends with Sasquatch.
We went by Pepsi Lake. They didn’t ask why the ponds on the Turkey Mountain hill are called lakes. I don’t know!!
We ended up going about 4.5 miles or so. I was worn out.
We had a really good visit.
I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join in the fun!!
My sister and her husband were in town recently to visit and attend the National Arabian Horse Show here in Tulsa. She and he were heavily involved in youth horse judging community in Colorado Springs and attended the horse show regularly for several years.
Heather and I attended the final night of the show with them and the show was amazing. Beautiful Arabian horses being ridden by people that know what they are doing. They had several different classes or style of riding.
The horses are gorgeous, groomed beautifully. The riders are dressed very well also. They ride their horses around the ring in various trots, walks, canters and hand gallops all the while scrutinized by a team of judges.
The audience is raucous during the competition cheering their favorites on loudly during the competition and judging. They also cheered the winners loudly. Great sportsmanship, not a boo heard the entire evening.
The horses have a distinctive gait. I’m told that they have to be trained to do it as it doesn’t come naturally.
Hopefully we can attend next year. It had been 2013 and 2014 when we last made the show.
We have a little hope. After a rocky period, we have a glimmer of hope for our brother Bob. He’s responding to therapy and so we are headed the right way. He’s a long distance runner with a bunch of marathons under his belt and he knows what hard work is.
The last week or so, our sister Ellen has been with brother Bob at the rehab hospital. that was after a week with her at the first hospital while the medical staff tried to figure out what was wrong with our brother. She and I quizzed doctors and nurses, googled the info they gave us like crazy, waited long hours for the specialists to show up on their rounds.
Just keep us in your thoughts and prayers is all I ask.
I am linking with Skywatch Friday
During my trip to Yellowstone Park earlier in August to see my sister, we took a hike up to Trout Lake. It was a hike that kicked my butt but was only 200 feet in elevation change. But it was worth the climb. The lake is absolutely gorgeous as are the the views from the lake.
There were a couple guys fishing from floats for cutthroat trout. One of them told us that he had caught (and released) eleven and they were gorgeous with deep rich colors. He was a little older guy and mentioned that the hard part was hauling all the gear up the trail from the road. I had a feeling that he lived not far from the Park. I am wondering if he stashes his gear nearby.
My fellow bloggers over the years have taught me the beauty of imperfection and change in plants. So I took lots of pics of plants in the midst of transition. Nature is beautiful in all its cycles.
Here is my sister Ellen, the Park Ranger. I felt guilty as we were out from 8 am to about 9 pm every day. She loves showing off Yellowstone Park. Check out her blog. She saw wolves today on a hike.
Here is my Garmin connect view of our outing. It doesn’t lie, like I might. It says 200 feet of elevation change, I’d of sworn 2000 feet. And 1. 4 miles long. Why, it was easily six miles, if not longer.
I am linking with Skywatch Friday today. Come join us! You don’t have a blog? You can link an Instagram photo!
I’m a little late with my post. I was going to write it Wednesday night along with setting up the Skywatch Friday meme and my brand spanking new Dell laptop with super duper quad core processor and solid state hard drive decided to not work, at all!!! As I thought about it though I remembered that Staples, where I bought it from, had given me a thumb drive which they said to keep track of because it was a recovery drive. So a few hours ago, I stuck it into my Dell and fired it up and it came up normally and asked if I wanted to restore my settings to factory, and I said yes and everything now works fine. What’s up? Can anybody tell me?
My last few posts have been about my recent trip to Yellowstone National Park to see my sister Ellen, the Park Ranger (so proud of her, our father was a Forest Ranger so it is great to see her carrying on the tradition). I only spent a few days with her as we went around the Park and the adjoining Grand Teton National Park, but I saw so much.
So one day we went to see the Grand Prismatic Spring at Midway Geyser Basin. I’ve seen lots of photos of it the last few years and maybe, or maybe not, I saw it as a kid during our whirlwind 1960’s style vacations that we took as kids.
This trip I was wondering what the first people who saw the thermal features in the park thought. Steam and boiling hot water coming out of the ground. What a wonderland or what a nightmare. Plus the ground could give way any time sending somebody to their doom or at the very least severe burns. Something that happens to the dummies today who think the rules do not apply to them.
Yellowstone is a wonderland in many senses of the term. Its natural beauty is astounding and its supernatural features such as the geysers and hot springs are bewildering.
When you leave the parking lot of the Grand Prismatic Spring you come upon this scene of boiling hot water entering the aptly named Firehole River. The chemical engineer in me was doing mixing calculations trying to figure out how much the temperature of the hot water raised the river temperature plus wondering how much bad stuff from deep down in the earth is now dissolved in that how water, and how much precipitates out of solution when it mixes with the cold water, and how the remaining dissolved minerals and higher temperature affected the trout fishing. My sister just said she sees lots of fishermen (fisherwomen too!) on the River and so I decided I would worry about something else, especially since I didn’t bring my calculator with me.
But it was like entering a different world with all the steam all around us. I learned that autofocus cameras don’t like swirling clouds of steam so I would focus a on a rock and then pan away. Just in case you are wondering why the steam is out of focus and the rocks are not.
The closer you get to the Spring, the more steam you see, especially on a chilly morning.
They have benches but they are mainly for people getting a better angle on the water.
At first, I could see why you got up on the benches. So much steam swirling around obscuring the view.
I liked this view. You can’t really see the spring, but you can see the colors of the spring reflecting off the steam.
Ah here you go, things kind of cleared up a bit. The different colors are from some of the bacteria that live in the spring that thrive at high temperatures. I find that concept fascinating. How can anything live close to boiling point with all sorts of strange chemicals involved.
The strangeness just extends away from the spring.
There is an overlook trail that Ellen took us to where you can get a better look of the Grand Prismatic Spring. You have some elevation and perspective that you don’t get at a lower level and it is easier to see. It is more than just a little walk but it is worth it if you are up to it. I think the spring is gorgeous. And I love the name Grand Prismatic Spring. I think it lives up to its name.
One thing about Yellowstone that I learned very quickly is that not just Americans love Yellowstone. The world loves Yellowstone Park. A huge percentage of visitors are from outside the USA. Somehow I feel that increases the responsibility of us to take care and preserve the park. The international visitors bring their culture with them and selfie sticks but somehow it all works and everybody gets along. I think that is great.
This is a view at ground level below the overlook. We are pretty far away but one can still see the colors of the spring in the spring.
I’m linking with Our World Tuesday, come check it out.
Another Father’s Day and I am blessed to still have my Father. He lives a thousand miles away but I think about him all the time. He is my personal hero. Dad is getting better at the group selfie thing.
He grew up in the plains of South Dakota but somehow became a Forest Ranger with the US Forest Service.
We lived in some really out of the way places. This was Coyote, New Mexico. In case you are wondering, I am the good looking kid. It has been years since my brother and I have held hands like that. It may be a few years before it happens again.
He fought forest fires for a living.
And suffered from the same photography frustrations as I do now. Left to right I think that is me, sister Ellen, and brother Bob.
Dad was always student of history. We took a journey to Fort Sill, Oklahoma several years ago and found Geronimo’s grave in a very out of the way place on a very cold day in November.
Here is a publicity still by the Forest Service with him and me and my Smokey Bear on the Santa Fe National Forest. I am still waiting for the royalty check.
Here is Mom and Dad in Ireland back in the 80’s. They had lots of fun together.
This is Dad with my sister Ellen, brother Bob, and me at a church reunion in Payson, Arizona.
Dad even tried a little geocaching, here with me and sister Ellen. Mainly trying to be a good sport more than a love for the sport. He was always a good sport.
He has slowed down a little bit but is still sharp as a tack and is still living life.
Happy Father’s Day Dad, I love you.
I have been flying lately up to and back from Idaho Falls, Idaho where my Dad lives.
I’ve been going through the Denver Airport, which is huge and has limitless opportunity for people watching.
It also has the best airport pub in the country, The New Belgium Hub. It was pretty empty last time I was there.
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The Idaho Falls Airport is kind of small by comparison.
My dad called my sister and said that he was ready to change his living arrangements. We all went up in early July and looked around and found him a place. My sister and her husband took over from there and got him moved and his house ready to sell. So he has moved from his house of over thirty three years with the beautiful shady back yard to a very nice place in the same town where people are checking on him and life is quite a bit easier.
And he is doing very well. And still has a shady place to sit.
Thanks to my sister Ellen and world’s greatest brother-in-law, Irv. (Shown here with their grandson Mr. Beans)
Dad likes nothing better than sitting in the shade talking.
Dad, Mom, and my aunt Lois somewhere in Ireland I’m guessing.
Here we are in Coyote, New Mexico. I had to label everything because when I said that I was the good looking kid people were still confused.
With son Logan at Dad’s church in Idaho.
Forest Service publicity still in 1957. I am still waiting for my royalty checks.
Dad at his beloved Flandreau, South Dakota with my cousin Bob on his right, and Dad’s brother Glenn on his left.
Dad with one of us kids. I am not sure which kid. Not a very good son am I.
Here we are, my sister Ellen and brother Bob in Payson, Arizona.
Happy Father’s Day to all you Fathers out there!!
Well the rapidly rushing river headed towards Niagra Falls of Logan’s senior year finally came to the end and I guess we all survived. Wow, a lot happened this year, and wow, it all accelerated and got very fast at the end and then the end came and I guess we were all right.
It was all very emotional for me as my little baby boy that we brought home from the hospital 18 years ago is now a big strapping young man.
He is still our baby boy though except he is going to register to vote next week.
We were fortunate to have my Sister Ellen (far right) her dashing husband Irv (far left), and my brother Bob (betwsen Logan and Ellen) travel a long distance to share the event with us.
The High School principal, Dr. Burrows, a very nice man came by and congratulated Logan. He told Heather a few weeks ago that they took a risk admitting Logan and he was very glad that he did. We are glad that he they gave Logan a chance also.
And here is me. No we didn’t plan on being so color coordinated.
And one of Logan’s classmates, Matt. Matt went out of his way to make Logan feel welcome when he first attended.
And this is Logan’s Kindergarten teacher from a long time ago. She had her hands full with an oversize class and Logan took a lot of attention but she hung with him. She was the first of a series of teachers from several schools who had a heart of kids and went the extra mile to give kids like Logan the attention he needed.
And this is the Kindergarten teacher’s daughter who went to school with Logan way back when and also graduated from the same school with Logan. She spent a lot of time helping Logan back then and they reconnected when Logan enrolled at the new school.
Another look at Irv and Ellen. They make a very handsome couple don’t they. They are very nice. Our dogs fell in love with them though and have been down in the dumps since Irv and Ellen left to go back to Colorado.
Afterwards Nana hosted a party for Logan at her house the next day. Many of Heather’s relatives attended the party as wells as Ellen and Irvin.
The party was a combined graduation and birthday party and had a drama theme since Logan’s first love is acting and performing. Notice the cake with the marquee.
And the little chalk board like they use for movies. Or used to use anyway.
Several of Logan’s friends showed up and all had a good time. This is where I admit that I am a bad son in law and did not get a picture of Logan and his grandmother together. Don’t you worry though because I will get a picture and add it to this post. One nice thing about blogging is that you can rewrite history any time you want!
And then we sang Happy Birthday!!
I did get a picture of the boy and his mom. They have a special bond that brings tears to eyes when I think about it.
So anyways, maybe I’ll be a better blog friend now. We have been busy lately!!