Off The Grid

This pretty much says it all.  I will be back to Albuquerque to fly out on Wednesday morning, but probably won't post anything until I get home  It feels SO strange not to have internet and email!

The Moon, Venus, and Mercury at Dawn

What an astounding start to our day today!  We woke a bit after 4 AM, then drove over to pick up Rush, our friend who put together the photo exhibit, then drove about 8 miles out of town, up route 66 to a hill overlooking Albuquerque.  It was dark and we were looking to view the five planets that are visible all at once, about an hour before sunrise.  What I forgot about was that there was a crescent moon, and that, along with two planets was the star of the show!  What a spectacular dawn, to see the moon rise, and Mercury shortly after.  But man, were we COLD!  The temperature was in the low 20's and we were outside for over an hour.  It took several hours to warm up.  But it was all worth it, because seeing this all in person was just sublime!

The Duke is in Town!

The Duke is in town, and he's packing heat - what looks like a Colt .45 revolver - and he's not asking any questions!  Fortunately, the gentleman eating lunch has no idea that the Duke is behind him.  We had lunch in this famous restaurant in Albuquerque, and the owner is a collector of all kinds of Western paintings, including a number of John Wayne.  This is a really cool place to visit, the food is really delicious, and the art collection is wonderful.

The Opening of the Exhibit

The opening of the photo exhibit of the work of five photographers, including me, was this evening.  We had about thirty or forty people visit, I guess.  It was fun to meet the two photographers that I didn't know and to see their work.  It is a strong show with a lot of really nice images.  And as in any museum, it was fun to walk around and try to get interesting photographs of both the prints on the wall and the people viewing them.  This is Charles, one of the photographers with his photographs on the wall behind him, talking to one of the visitors.

It Was Stan's Idea...

We went out to the car this morning, and it was cold.  I was surprised to find frost on all the windows.  Enterprise, the rental company, was a champ - they included a windshield scraper in the car!  I started to scrape off the windshield, and Stan said: "Wait, that could be a blog post!"  I thought for one second, then grabbed the camera and sat in the drivers seat to take some images like this, through the front window.  He was right!  They are little frost flakes as seen against the beautiful New Mexico Sky.  So while I was in the car shooting, he was outside in the cold scraping the other windows!  So thanks, Stan, for the idea, and the window cleaning!  I keep thinking that this looks like a flock of butterflies taking off.

Bridges of New York

I used to fly out of LaGuardia airport all the time, but for the last 10 years or so, that's been a rarity.  We fly Jet Blue mainly, and they are based at Kennedy airport. Today I left LaGuardia headed to Albuquerque for the opening of the photo exhibit I am in with 5 other photographers.  I had my camera ready, and wasn't disappointed.  We departed on runway 4, which is mainly headed north, and suddenly there was the Bronx Whitestone Bridge in the foreground, and the Throgs Neck Bridge in the distance.  I really had to scramble to get the composition right, and the plane was moving quickly, so  I only got one good frame, and this is it.  Lucky me.

Gray Kitten, Gray Couch

This is Sam, on his favorite new place to take his naps, on the new couch in the new back room.  I went in there today just to look at him, and for the first time - he sleeps there all the time - I noticed that he was almost exactly the same color as the couch!  Now here's the tricky part - slowly leaving the room to go get my camera, and then walking back in without Sam jumping up and running away. Whew!  Got it!  I do love the completely monochromatic color scheme.  If you doubt that this is a color photo, click on it and notice the faint pink in his ears.