Silliness in Jerome

Our friends of 45 years plus, Joan and Rudy, came for the weekend to celebrate Joan and my birthdays- just 5 days apart. It was a quick visit, but we managed to have an outing to the old mining town of Jerome, just over the mountain from us. Joan had been there before with us, but it was Rudy’s first trip there.

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Jerome is a funky and fun town, which inspired a bit of silliness in us.

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The photos were edited with some HDR-ish effects in On1 for an over-the-top look which I think is fitting for Jerome.

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Where’s Waldo?

Here’s yet another view of Sunnylands- I just can’t get enough of the palo verde trees! During the editing process of this photo, I discovered something that I didn’t realize I had captured when I snapped the shutter. Can you find it?

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No, it’s not the people in the background- it’s in the foreground, and may be pretty pixelated in this online version. It’s in the orange flowers, and it starts with H!

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Sunnylands

The focus of our short stay in Palm Springs was of course our reunion with the Rapunzels. We enjoyed some great meals and spent a lot of time catching up on each other’s lives. Our one outing was to Sunnylands, which had been highly recommended by my cousin, Charlaine who was just there. Sunnylands was the estate (built in 1966) of Walter Annenberg, the late publisher, diplomat, and philanthropist. We hadn’t bought tickets for the tour (which included the house), but took our time walking around the beautiful grounds. I was especially captivated by the palo verde trees (state tree of Arizona!), the trunks of which you can see in the below photos.

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The Rapunzels Do Palm Springs

20160310-MMA_9621_melinda_anderson-EditWe returned last night from a delightful mini-vacation to get together with my Rapunzel friends in Palm Springs.  It was our first trip there- slightly less than 5 hours away now that we live in Arizona- and it was great fun! It was the first time that the six (of the seven) of us who came had been together as a group for over 3 years. Oh yes- the husbands were along too! We had a blast- and it was as if no time had passed at all for these forever friends of over 40 years. More photos to follow. . .

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Petroglyphs

Yesterday, I spent the morning with some friends at the V Bar V Heritage site near the Verde Valley, about an hour from home, and saw some spectacular petroglyphs.  These petroglyphs were made by the Sinaguan people in what has been termed the Beaver Creek Rock Art style (dating from about 1100 AD).  What was fascinating to me was that they have discovered sunbeams hitting certain parts of a stair-step type design on certain days of the years, which experts believe are signs of when planting should occur.  There is also a small area that has been carved out that casts a shadow resembling the San Francisco peaks, a sacred site to local native populations.

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If you look closely at the upper right part of the photo above, you can see the stair step (zigzag) glyph, each step of which is lit by sunbeams on a specific day during the growing season.  Early calendar!

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Sonoran Light, Part 2

There were other light installations besides the wonderful water towers.  Here’s that bejeweled hill again- this time with cacti in the foreground.

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The lights continually changed colors, making an ever-changing display.

Here’s what the lights at the bottom of the hill look like up close.  Notice that they have changed color!

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And last, but not least, here is one of several beautiful hanging light sculptures, which rotated slowly as we walked by:

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Sonoran Light

Sunday night we visited Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden for the Sonoran Light exhibit by Bruce Munro.  We got there around 5pm, before sunset to see the plants and to preview the installation before it got dark.  We stopped for snacks after the sun went down- and then ventured back out on the now dim and crowded garden paths.

This post could easily be titled “Stumbling Around in the Dark.” I have new appreciation for my photo buddy, Carol, of In Focus Daily as she walks along jungle paths at night lugging all her camera gear.  At one point I simply lost my balance and fell over! And then there was the problem of attaching my camera to the tripod and adjusting my settings in the dark! Lonnie learned how to work the flashlight on his new iPhone finally which helped- but didn’t save me from accidentally changing from RAW to jpg file format in the dark.

Below are some images of Water Towers, a huge installation of water bottles that lit up and changed color.  Using a long exposure was a bit tricky as people continually walked in front of the lens- sometimes not even showing up in the photo. I am not very experienced in night photography, so I just went with the flow- and it was fun!

Here is a view of the general scene- note the lights on the hill in the background!

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A closer look:

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I’ll be posting more photos from Sonoran Light as the week goes by.  By the way- these were all jpgs.

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