SPS: Red Rocks & A Plea for Help :)

Sandy's got me in the mood to post some red rocks this Saturday!

These are all from Canyon De Chelly in Arizona. Canyon De Chelly (pronounced D'Shay) is a National Monument, but members of the Navajo Nation live in and farm the bottom of the canyon. Visitors are only allowed on the floor of the canyon on one trail, unless they are accompanied by a Navajo guide.

Canyon De Chelly has wonderful red rock walls.

Here you can see how one layer of rock looks like layers of sand.

Geologists probably have field days in this place.

Here's a wider view of the canyon landscape. A truly beautiful place.

And now that I've schnookered you way down here with park pictures, I'd like to ask if anyone has any advice for traveling to and/or taking pictures in Zion or Bryce Canyon, or Las Vegas. I'll be heading there in about two weeks, and any "hot tips" on scenic views, must-see attractions, or beautiful day hikes would be greatly appreciated.

Doggie Day & Other Sights

It was Fala Day (aka Doggie Day) at Hopewell Furnace, which meant that admission was free and puppies were welcome. The day is in honor of Fala, one of the more famous of presidential pets. Fala was Franklin Delano Roosevelt's beloved scottish terrier. Doggie-oriented activities were the order of the day.

There were a pair of horses in the park. They were extremely even-tempered, and were happy to meet-and-greet with the dogs in the park.


Here's a better shot of one horse by itself. A park ranger was nearby at all times, but the horse was content to stand and be petted. This guy was huge!

Here is a scene from inside one of the reconstructed worker's homes at Hopewell Furnace. The items in this house were reproductions that you could freely handle.

I guess I should've explained that Hopewell Furnace was an early ironworks that produced cannon and stove parts, among other things, before and after the American Revolution. Several of the buildings are still standing and are open to the public.

And I'll leave you with an early spring bloom we found in the woods. I'm not sure what type of flower it is, but it was brave to be out so early!

Warning: Extreme Cuteness Ahead!

It was lambing season at Hopewell Furnace Historic Park, where we went for a jaunt today. The park ranger on duty said that the lambs were adorable for a few weeks, and then they turn into holy terrors.

These lambs are still on the cute side, but I could see a few holy terror tendencies emerging:

"Wake up!"

"No, really, wake up!!"

"Being ornery makes me itchy!"

A Canyon by Any Other Name is Just as Grand

While there's still a little nip in the air, I thought I would post a picture from last spring's trip to Colroado, where we ran into some snow in the higher elevations. This shot is from Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

To get the full sweep of the depth of the canyon, I used the panoramic function to stitch three or four photos together.

I have visited the Grand Canyon before, and I must say that Black Canyon to me was every bit as impressive. The scale of the place, with the narrow but very deep canyon, and near vertical walls, is breathtaking. Here's one more, taken directly behind the Visitor's Center.

It was snowing pretty heavily when we got there, and it was also foggy, so we hung around for a while at the Visitor's Center, hoping for the weather to break and the views to clear. Once the snow cooperated, we had a lovely, if chilly, afternoon to explore the park.

If you would like to join us on our park rambles every Saturday, you can sign up here.

It's Probably Spring by Now, in Knoxville

These pictures are from my archives, and were taken mid-March of 2006 in Knoxville. I worked in an office there that was across the road from a very large cemetery. The cemetery had beautiful landscaping and many people liked to walk through it on their lunch hour.

Knoxville may have long, dreary, rainy winters, but springtime comes early and absolutely knock your socks off :)

I admit it, I was playing with the "soft focus" function in the above picture.

Most of the spring bulbs are up around here now. Daffodils and hyacinths and crocuses. I love the return of blooms as winter blends into spring and finally passes on.

Tuesday's Walk

I took my camera out with me this evening, and this is what I found:

A slightly ironic street name ...

some little flags (surely the cables must be buried, cause I don't see them up top anywhere :)

And a buzzard (vulture) floating on an air current. A trick of the lighting took the natural sheen of the feathers and made them appear white.

Piney River

In honor of springtime and Super Park Saturday, I am digging into my archives. These shots are from spring of two years ago (has it really been that long?!?), when I was living in Knoxville, Tennessee.

We took a hike, based solely on a listing in a guidebook, through this area. I'm not sure that you could technically call it a park, but the public was definitely welcome to follow this trail through lands held by the Bowater Southern Paper Corporation. Many parts of the trail followed one or another of several streams. This one had pleasing falls.

I don't know what type of feathered friend layed these eggs. The nest was at ground level, tucked in a rotting stump. I chanced upon them while looking at some wildflowers blooming nearby.

And lastly, I posted lots of wildflower pictures last April, but I don't believe I ever got around to posting any stonecrop, so I thought I'd throw this in here.

Mad Skills of Goat Girl may not be publishing an SPS post quite yet - but all is forgiven, because she is seeking out tons of new park pictures in the four corners area of the U.S! She'll post as soon as internet access allows :) If you'd like to join us on our parkstravaganza, just sign up right here, and we'll check out your parks, too!

First Shots with Increased Firepower

This past weekend, my father handed down to me a camera of his that he doesn't use much anymore, a Canon, of course. I immediately put the 10D to use on the short but fierce snowstorm that blew through Saturday morning:

The snow fell furiously for all of about 20 minutes, just enough to coat the grass and trees.

Within two hours, the snow had disappeared and the weather cleared off. I caught the above shot before the snow (hopefully the last of the year!) melted away.

On Sunday, I was able to capture some very close shots of Mom's favorite little red-breasted nuthatch.

Mom regularly sees one red-breasted nuthatch, along with four or five white-breasted nuthatches. I imagine its the very same bird that I posted a picture of back around New Year's, here. I had much better lighting this time :)

Harbingers of Spring

My grandmother was a dedicated gardener, and her garden always had a healthy percentage devoted to flowers. But the flowers weren't limited to the garden. Over the years, she planted crocus bulbs throughout the yard of the house, mostly at the bases of the large catalpa trees that ring the house.

Much has changed, but still quite a few crocuses were peeping up through the grass this weekend. As a kid, finding these out in the yard was as good as finding easter eggs!

Parks are Super!

My friend Sandy and I really enjoy the ABC Wednesday and SkyWatch Friday group posts that many of our bloggisphere friends take part in, and it sparked a little idea in our heads.

Now if you've kept up with either one of our blogs, I'm sure you know that we like to get out and about and travel. And that both of us are incurable National Park junkies :)

Something you may not know is that we both have lots and lots of pictures from parks that we've been itching to post, and now, we've decided to give ourselves an excuse to post park pictures every week:


I'm not sure how the other groups are managed, or how everyone keeps up with everyone else who posts, but I'm imagining this as a really informal group. If you want to come and visit and see what parks we have up on a particular Saturday, that's great. If you want to use the emblem and post your own park pictures on Saturday, that's great, too! If you want to make your own emblem and post your own park pictures, why not?!? [NOTE: After some helpful comments from other posters, I am trying out the Mr. Linky system ... look for it at the very end of the post! Big thanks to those who suggested it.]

I'm planning on posting shots from National Parks all the way down to neighborhood parks. As long as its public land, its fair game :)

If you would like to join us, I will keep a "master list" of folks who are posting park pictures, until the point when (if it ever does) it gets complicated enough that we need a better organizational thingamajiggy :)

Since I wanted to start things out with a bang (or maybe I should say, splash!) here's my first park shot:

This is a geyser in Yellowstone National Park, which, to risk sounding 13 years old, is my favorite park EVER :) It isn't Old Faithful, but it was within spitting distance of it. Its name escapes me now.