Something Green in the Desert

On one of our trips I saw a mesa well off the road so we stopped and I ran into the desert to get a better view of it with a nice foreground.  On the way back to the car I saw this small tree with green foliage, which stood out from all the brown around it - the brown plants and the brown desert soil.  And then when I was composing this image, did I notice the mountains in the distance that made this photograph perfect, because I have a foreground, a middle ground and, with the mountains, a background.  Perfect.

 

Mountains Beyond Mountains Beyond Mountains.

This is a very subtle photograph and I love what it shows.  Be sure to click on it to see it larger.  We are looking west toward Mexico.  There is a mountain in the foreground, and behind that another mountain range and another very faint range beyond that.  I love the subtle differences in each range as they recede into the distance.  In the second range behind the dark range in the foreground, do you see a little "notch?"  That is 14 miles away, and is called Santa Elena Canyon, and the Rio Grande river flows through that notch!  I also love the clouds in this photograph because in a way they seem to mirror the shape of the mountains.  I may make a large photograph print for my wall, of this image.

 

Double Lenticular

I am switching my subjects around so you won't get bored.  So back to clouds, if I may.  I thought this was a lenticular cloud, but to be sure I asked my friend George who was a meteorologist earlier in his life, and who is involved in "The Cloud Appreciation Society."  He gave me the gift of membership in the group.  I get an email each day with a different photograph of a cloud.  People send in photographs of clouds from all over the world.  So he mentioned that this is actually a double lenticular.  I love the three different mountain ranges in the lower left of the photograph.  What amazing scenery in Big Bend.

I Stole This Photograph

OK, I confess...   I stole this photograph!  Yeah, I did.  Stan and I were in the visitor center and I saw him take this photograph on his cellphone and I asked to look at it.  It grabbed me immediately, and I said that I was going to shoot it as well.  Stealing a close friend's photographs is allowed, I think.  I hope it's OK.  I was trying ti figure out why I was so attracted to this and I think I figured it out.  Big Bend National Park is huge with an area of 1,250 square miles!  It is all about wide open spaces and seeing from horizon to horizon.  So it seems so strange with distant horizons in every direction, that I would limit myself to just this narrow view through this window.  I guess that's what attracted me to this scene.

 

Texas Building, Texas Truck, Texas Sky

Back to Marfa, for this one.  Remember I talked about the early morning light on the way to breakfast?  This building is only about 100 feet from the restaurant where we had breakfast.  I may have noticed the building as we passed it on the way to where we were eating, but it was only after breakfast that I started looking at it, and then the white pickup truck pulled up and parked!  Perfect!

 

Ocotillo Blossom

This photograph of a blossom on an Ocotillo was taken maybe 30 feet from the photo of the plant I did yesterday.  Is this astounding or what!  Look at all the stuff that is going on in this blossom.  I went back and looked at yesterday's photo more carefully and I think I can see some yellowish things on the tips of some of those branches.  Notice in this photograph, behind the bright red parts are yellow parts.  I found this blossom on a smaller plant and it is only about4 feet off the ground.

This gives a good sense of where the blossom is located

And here is the smaller plant but the blossom is not showing.  I looked at the original photograph which is much larger, and there seem to be yellowish blossoms on the ends of most of these branches.  What amazing things I discovered when I looked at an individual plant instead of the whole landscape and then when I examine just one branch! I also discovered that Ocotillos reach their maturity in 60 to 100 years!  Wow they outlast us!

 

Cactus Lesson

We drove to this trailhead where a one mile hike would get you to an interesting site called Lower Burro Mesa Pouroff.  It was almost one hundered degrees so instead of hiking we took photographs of the landscape and the cacti within a short distance of the car.  This is an Ocotillo.  While often called a "cactus" it is not a true cactus but rather a unique desert plant related to the tea plant, and blueberries!  I would not have guessed that!  I love finding these Ocotillos in the landscape because they grow so high and make wonderful foreground objects for landscape photographs.

 

Clouds and Rocks

This photograph was not hard to take.  It is essentially the view from the front porch of the lodge where we stayed!  I came outside one morning to see these beautiful cirrus clouds over this rock formation which is only about 200 feet away.  I did walk over closer to the formation and then I could move left or right in the street to position the clouds where I wanted them in relation to the top of the peak. Beautiful skies, rocks, mountains and desert.  What more could one ask for in one place!

 

For Sale - Used Car, Needs Work

The first time I saw this car on the street in Marfa, we were going fast enough that it didn't register quickly enough.  But the second time I told Stan to stop!  I had to photograph this!  I jumped out of the car with the toy camera and made about 8 exposures, four of them close, like this and four like the one below.  I like the photograph below for a sense of place, but I think the impact of the close up is a great way to begin the blog.  Please click on this because it is an extra large image and you can see it in better detail.  I have never seen a car this beat up, on the street. Ever!  I guess in New York State this car wouldn't even be allowed on the street because there is no way it would pass inspection looking like this.  I guess in Texas the requirements are less stringent. 

 

Green Sotol, Again

Believe it or not, I showed you this Sotol plant yesterday, but as a close up looking down into the plant.  Then I stepped away from it, and crouched down, and I put the camera almost on the ground and did this photograph so that I could get the mountain in the background.  So interesting after looking in detail into the plant to see what it really looks like from the outside.  You might not guess that this is the same plant as yesterday, but it is.

 

Green Sotol

At one of our many stops where we parked the car and walked around, I spotted this plant.  I believe it is a "Green Sotol" which is in the same family as the "skeleton" I showed you the other day.  But these leaves are much thinner than the broad ones in the dead plant I showed you.  And look at the sharp "hooks" all along each leaf!  You would not want to fall into one of these plants accidentally.  Watch where you walk!  I believe that at a time in the future, a central stalk will appear, as you saw in the other plant I photographed.  Be sure and click on this to see more detail!

 

Lenticular Cloud

We had stopped to eat our sandwiches for lunch while out exploring.  Stan said "Hey, look at that cloud over the peak!  I immediately grabbed my camera, thinking that this looked like a spaceship hovering over the top of this eroded mountain.  I recognized it right away as a lenticular cloud, Lenticular clouds are stationary clouds that form mostly in the troposphere.  They are often comparable in appearance to a lens or saucer. As air travels along the surface of the Earth, obstructions are often encountered, including natural features, such as mountains or hills,  which disrupt the flow of air into "eddies", or areas of turbulence.  If the temperature at the crest of the wave drops below the dew point, moisture in the air may condense to form lenticular clouds. This cloud sat there, unchanging in its appearance for all the time we were having lunch.

 

The Century Plant

This is known as a Century Plant.  Its name is Havard Agave and believe it or not, it is a member of the Asparagus Family!  This species lives for 8 to 30 years before blooming, setting seed and dying.  It is astounding looking, right?  When I mentioned to the woman at the reception desk that I had photographed it, she said "You are looking at a skeleton."   That had never occurred to me even though I could see that the plant was dead, as you can see.  The leaves at the bottom are all brown and hanging down. 

What's really wonderful is that the National Park Service doesn't knock it down and take it away - they leave it to decompose on its own, as a lesson about the life of this plant.

And look how beautiful and complex the top of the plant is!  I would love to see one of these in bloom sometime.  In fact, I think I will go look up photos online of one of these in bloom.

 

A Slight Change of Plan

Today is our day to fly home.  It is an early flight at 7:11.  We were up at 3:15 AM and our car was turned in and we were through security and sitting at the gate before sunrise.  Saw this aircraft being moved by a tug to take it away from the gate.

This is my view of the plane next to us from my seat as we prepared to push back.  Tug pushed us back from the gate and we awaited engine starts.  But we sat there and sat there and heard some strange noises but had no idea what was going on.  After 10 or 15 minutes the captain announced they couldn't start the right engine!  So we were pulled back to the gate and everyone got off the plane.  The short version is after an hour they still didn't know and an hour after that they took all our baggage off the plane.  Not a good sign!  So after all that delay we talked to a gate agent and because the next plane to DFW wasn't until 5 PM today, he suggested we fly from El Paso, to Chicago, and then on to New York.  We elected to do that because it seems like a more sure thing.

Here is a couple across from us trying to figure how they could get to where they were going.  The pilot and first officer left the plane and as they came through the gate area I followed them and got to ask what caused the problem, and they were really nice and explained some technical things, but they still didn't know what the problem was.  The one thing that was annoying is, we had to leave the secure area, go fetch our bags, and then start checkin and go through TSA security all over again!  

We are not sure when the mechanic arrived because some of them were working on the rear of the plane where the Auxiliary Power Unit is installed, but they told us that was not the problem.  So we watched him work for a bit.  We were no longer going to take our original flight but they kept setting back the time it would finally leave for DFW.

Then a couple of hours later this notice appeared on the screen behind the gate agents!  "Flight Canceled!"

Man oh man, we made, with the gate agent, the right decision to switch routes.  We may actually get home tonight!  More news tomorrow.  As I finish this, our aircraft is just pulling in to the gate, and we should be boarding soon!

 

A Walk to Breakfast

We left Big Bend National Park yesterday and drove to Marfa, Texas because we wanted to see and photograph some of the works of Donald Judd at the Chinati Foundation.  More on that in another post. This morning we woke and decided to walk from our hotel to a breakfast place we found.  We could not go more than 50 feet without finding something to photograph, such is the nature of the buildings in Marfa.  This is the old Godbold feed mill which has been a landmark in town forever.  It was recently sold and will become a distillery and a restaurant.  But this is a classic scene all over parts of Texas.  I photographed the first one of these I ever saw in San Angelo, TX when I went to visit my friend Ginger back in February of 2007.

 

A Night to Remember!

The first night we arrived at Big Bend National Park, the skies were as clear as could be, so we found a great place to set up our cameras after it got dark.  We went to bed at 11 PM and set the clock for 2:30 AM wakeup.  We dressed and headed to our spot, and started taking photographs as the Milky Way rose in the east.  We continued to photograph all night until dawn at 6:30AM!  I have never stayed up that long, but this seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime chance.  This is a 10 second exposure of the Milky Way.  It is a "straight" photograph and has not been enhanced at all.  THIS is what the Milky Way looks like from a really dark sky site.  The tones are pearly and there are faint colorations and it is subtle but the Milky Way does not require Photoshop work to add contrast and color.  Subtlety and accuracy of what we see is paramount.  To have a clear night in a dark sky and to stay up until dawn was certainly a night to remember for me!

And as a bonus today, for all of you who stuck with my story this far, here is a photograph of Venus rising in the east, near Casa Grande, the large black shape to the right.  You can still see stars in the ski as the dawn breaks!

 

The Sun, the Moon, the Photographers

After dinner we went back to "The Window" where we watched the sun the other night but never saw it set.  We tried again tonight along with 20 other people hoping to see the orange ball descend below the horizon.  Success!  It was fun to be with 20 other people and all of us doing something together.  There were small conversations that could be heard among some others.  So nice to have people making small connections with each other.  It was spectacular to see the sun emerge from the bottom of a cloud and then sink behind the horizon. What a joy!

As we were leaving the overlook, I saw Stan turn around and look up.  There were some trees, but they were not very attractive really.  Then I looked again, and he was looking above the trees at a very thin crescent moon!  It was in and out of the clouds but several of us managed to get a photograph, incuding one young woman who was using her mom's borrowed camera.

While we were waiting for the sun to appear from the clouds, I was looking around and saw Stan with his camera, and then in almost the same pose, saw this gentleman shooting the scene with his cellphone!  Almost a perfect match!

 

Arts and Crafts

Today we drove 40 miles from Chisos Basin, where we are staying, over to the Boquillas Canyon Trail at the east end of the park.  At this point in the park, the Rio Grande river separates the U.S From Mexico and it is pretty shallow at many points here.  We climbed up the trail about one hundred feet to the top.  This is what I saw.  People from Mexico cross the river in the morning, by canoe or boat and climb the trail and put their arts and crafts items for sale to visitors in the park.  It is on the honor system.

Here is a note from one of the people who left their wares for sale.  When I was here in March of 2018, there were only a few vendors who left their things for sale.  One man was with his crafts at the end of the trail and he said that if a Park Ranger came along, which he could see from a distance with his binoculars, he would quickly gather up everything, and toss it in his boat, and row back across the river.  The items that others had left on the honor system, would be confiscated along with any money left for the purchaces.  I did buy a walking stick from him, and then he asked if I had anything to eat that I could give him.  That's how much the sales of these small items means to them.  But on this trip there were displays everywhere, so I am guessing that these displays are now allowed, which is a wonderful thing.

This photo is taken about 20 feet from the display shown in the first photo.  This is the Rio Grande river and the land in the center of the photo is Mexico.  All the land in the foreground, and that on the right of the river in the photo, is in the United States.  Just in case you were curious, since you could wade across the river here, and there are no fences, when you arrived on the U.S. side, you would be facing a walk of 90 miles across a desert with temperatures, like today, of just over 100 degrees, and directly north to the nearest town.  Certainly not much chance people would try to enter the U.S. this way.

 

The Rays of a Setting Sun

 

We didn't actually see the Sun set this evening, but we did get to experience these beautiful "Crepuscular Rays" which are caused by shafts of sunlight shining between gaps in the clouds and as they emerge as beams of light, they strike dust particles in the air, and we get to see these beautiful rays of light.  A beautiful ending to a really nice day in Big Bend National Park.  There were about a dozen or more people gathered at the end of a walkway at a viewing site to see the famous "Window" between these massive rock formations, and there were nice conversations among the viewers as we watched this beautiful event.

Approaching Big Bend National Park

Stan and I left El Paso at about 10 AM this morning on our way to Big Bend National Park.  It was about a 7 hour drive, if you include stopping for lunch in Marfa, Texas.  This view is from quite a distance away from the park itself, but man, oh man, what a stunning landscape.  In this case, mountains on mountains.

This is a view of two mountains and some cacti shortly after we entered the park itself.  You can see how rugged these mountains are if you look closely. I wonder it these are not volcanic plugs, as Shiprock is, but I can't be sure.  I will ask a ranger tomorrow.  It can be seen as a desolate landscaper at times but it is really beautiful in so many ways.  Just a different beauty than you would expect, but it grows on you.

 

A Wonderful Flight

What a wonderful flight I had today.  I left New York on an American Airlines flight to Dallas, then on to El Paso.  On the flight from New York, these two women were seated next to me.  I don't usually say anything to people sitting next to me on the plane but I did say "Good Morning" and then the conversation started.  They wondered what I was doing with my iPad, which was tracking our flight and they were fascinated with that. They were also curious about me shooting out the window with my toy camera.  We all talked about where we were going.  They are students training to be Optometrists, and were headed to a conference in Dallas.  So I had a lot of questions about their studies and what Optometrists do.  I think we talked for two hours straight, on the three hour flight and had such a nice time.  It is so unusual that I talk to people sitting next to me - the conversations never get started, but talking to both of these young women was so interesting and made an ordinary flight something really special!

 

The Magnolia Tree

I was sitting at the dinner table when I looked out the dining room windows and saw our neighbor's Magnolia tree in the late afternoon sunlight.  I gobbled the last bits of dinner, and grabbed my camera and went out to investigate.  I don't thnk the tree was at it's peak yet, but it sure is beautiful.

The brilliant blooms were even more spectacular when seen against the blue sky - the contrast only heightened the brilliance of each color.

I kept photographing the tree after the sunlight was off of the blossoms.  Notice how the color of the blossoms seems to change.  Without the sunlight, the light from the sky is more blue and so the blossom are more purple.  So many different ways to see this beautiful tree.

 

Neil Hogan, May 20, 1936 - April 10, 2025

 

We lost our wonderful brother-in-law, Neil Hogan.  He was the husband of Kathy’s sister Elaine.  He has been a writer all his life, and an editor and then columnist at the New Haven Register.  Neil researched and wrote many books, articles, newsletters and editorials about local history, and especially Irish Connecticut history. Neil was Irish to the core, with a sparkle in his eye and an easy smile on his face.  I took this photograph at a hospital where one of his grandchildren had been for treatment and someone sent this dog as a gift.  Neil was carrying it out of the hospital to take it home.  He was always fun to be around because he was so passionate and curious about history,  He traveled to Ireland for some of his research.  In an effort to preserve Irish culture and heritage, he also wrote an Irish newsletter, The “Shanachie,” for many years. The volumes are currently housed at the UCONN Library and the library of Sacred Heart University. He did books on the history of the Irish in Connecticut, where he lived in Wallingford, near his two daughters and his seven grand children.  Neil loved to dance, especially Irish set dancing. The energy required for set dancing would prepare you for running a marathon!  He was a set dancer in New Haven and Glastonbury for many years. He loved Genealogy, biking, golfing, tennis, softball, singing, traveling to Ireland many times and spending time with his grandchildren.
We will all will miss his kind and gentle soul, his humor, sweet demeanor and thoughtfulness. He was a quiet man, who spoke eloquently and passionately through his writing.

Hostas!

It has been fun to watch the Hostas come out of the ground this year.  It happens every year, of course, it's just that I haven really noticed all that has happened.  Thesa are such astounding leaves as they come out of the ground as small tubular shapes and then as the plant grows, they unroll.  Look at all these beautiful shapes all within the frame.  Please be sure and click on this, because it is stunning when seen with more detail.

It was interesting to see this pointed little purple spikes emerging.  Interesting, but not beautiful, I thought.

Looking for something beautiful I moved in with my closeup lens and the detail is interesting but not beautiful, really.

So the two previous photographs were taken on March 29.  And then today we have this! These Hosta leaves are quite different and simply beautiful!  This is the wide-angle photograph of the whole plant, and then the lead-off photograph was a close-up from directly overhead.

 

 

Symmetry

Guess what we had for dinner tonight.  Right!  Pizza.  I drove in to the Pizza Parlor lot, facing this way and turned left to park.  It was only when I got out of my car that I saw this.  Stopped me in my tracks!  Because of the repettive shapes which jumped out at me.  I had my "toy" camera on my belt and there was only one viewpoint so I only shot 5 frames.  Unheard of for me.  I have never noticed this fence and trees, and I am guessing they are new.  I didn't think to ask when I got inside, but I will on my next trip.  Yeah, I think the fence is new as well.  There is something simple about this photograph that I really like.

 

An Easter Sunday Walk

It was a nice Easter Sunday afternoon with sunshine and moderate temperatures.  Everyone was out walking along the harbor which was nice to see.  We decided to take a short walk as well.  About 20 feet from where our street meets Shore Road, we saw this beautiful cross made of palms.  So I crouched down to get a good angle and took a few photographs as people walked by.  So we did our walk, headed to the beach pavillion, and sat for a while then walked back.  The cross was gone!  What?  It was so nice to see that someone had posted this beautiful cross by the bench, but who would come along and take that away?  

 

The Moss Killer!

Look out moss!  Here I come!  Because our house faces North, the roof over the front porch is both in shade all day long, and it is under the cover of the giant Hickory tree.  So moss has grown there forever.  When I tore off all the roofing in 2007 and 2008 I put a brand new roof on the house, it looked so beautiful.  But slowly the moss began to accumulate again.  In the fall sometimes I climb up on the roof with a ladder and wearing work gloves, I rub the moss by hand gently and it rolls up into balls sort of and then rolls off the roof.  But that doesnt remove it enough.  So I did some research and found a commercial chemical  that will kill the moss.  I got the material last Fall but the weather was not good.  So I started reading the instructions and discovered that I need to be really protected when using this material.  It can damage my eyes!  And you can't allow it to touch your skin!  Yikes!  The material is in small granules and you can either sprinkle that on the moss, or you can mix it with water in a sprayer, and spray it on.  I elected to do that, and I had the sprayer set, not to spray a mist, but a steady stream so that there were no fine mist particles in the air while I was working.   That was a good choice and I could carefully control the stream and soak all of the moss on the roof.  I just needed to be careful and I was.  I had another idea - instead of being out on the roof, I sprayed the front roof from the windows in Liz and Amy's bedrooms.  It worked perfectly, and no risk of sliding off the roof!

This photograph shows how much moss there is and how thick it is.  It is kind of beautiful in a way with the deep green colors.  By the way, you can't use a hose with a spray nozzle, or a power washer, because that high pressure stream will start to remove the protective granules that are embedded in the asphalt  of the roofing.  You muse be gentle with these asphalt roofs to keep them in good condition.  I am glad to be done with this project

 

That Was Fast!

On March 31st I stopped and photographed this house which I have been riding by for 20 years.  I know the signs now when a temporary chain link fence goes up.

I rode by the site three days ago, and there was a giant trailer truck pulling out of the property with much of the wreckage in the truck.  Man, that was fast! I can't believe how quickly the house was demolished.  They have a big excavator in the background, and that made short work of the house.  To suddenly see this house gone, I stop to wonder who all the people who lived here were.  I guess that there were families and children who lived their lives here.  I am guessing this house was built in the 1950's so that could be three families at least who lives were lived here. So it seems a shame that all evidence of their lives are now gone.