Happy Halloween!

We saw some cute, and quite elaborate, Halloween decorations during our walk around an upscale Houston neighborhood a while ago. 

One yard had a skeletal football game...

...complete with cheering crowds and referees...

We'll be visited this year by our own special Halloween mummy. I'll share pix of her when I can. 

Have a safe and fun All Hallows' Eve!

Wordless Wednesday: YUM!

Roller-rafter

I'm taking a tip from what a lot of TV shows do these days and showing you the last shot first. Of course, this technique is inherently super-spoilery: you know that we survived! But it's artful  .

So imagine a title now that says: "Several Seconds Earlier..." and then you'll see...

... our progress through Aragon Rapid on the Rio Chama, faithfully recorded by action photographer extraordinaire Larry:

both driver and passenger grit teeth as we approach the rock and its hole

tension mounts...I'm the one who can see clearly how deep the hole is!

down we go...note white knuckles

flattening out

"piece of pie" (a favorite 2010 quote of mine)

almost time to relax

NOW it's fun!

masterfully rowed!

This rapid is actually not that scary, especially in the cataraft (some of our friends in canoes had more exciting rides). Unfortunately, for the dramatic content of the blog, at least, I can't show you the rapids that are kind of scary further downstream. We made it through them alright, but had a couple of anxious moments hung up on rocks that required some rather strenuous weight-shifting and rocking.

Maybe on a future trip I can watch our boats go through these bigger rapids from the safety of the riverbank and be able to take photos for you.

NOTE: Henry has a blog post featuring a gear-less run through the rapid in a friend's canoe.

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Thus ends my series of posts on our multi-faceted August-September vacation. I have a little while to catch my blogging breath before more excitement happens next month in Austin. Stay tuned!

Ghost hike

Our last morning in New Mexico, Henry and I found time for a short, but very enjoyable hike behind the last cabins at Ghost Ranch.

We weren't up for anything very strenuous, as well as needing to get on the road, so we opted for this "On a Lark" Trail (the last one listed on the webpage). The most popular hike is to Chimney Rock, but it takes a few hours. We did get to see the distinctive, eponymous feature from our trail...

...as well as a lot of other spectacular scenery...

Perhaps the "ghostly" (sorry about that) presence of Georgia O'Keefe inspired me, but I was especially on the lookout for artsy compositions on the hike. Here's a sample:

dead trees are always an artistic draw, and keep well with the "ghost" theme, eh?

it was nice to see some flowers still in bloom,
and so artfully close to another dead tree

Lake Abiquiu in the distance

There were so many really great rocks along the hike, and I got a little carried away taking pictures with them as framing elements. Here's another, one of my favorites:

I even caught this guy from the other side, too. The red box encloses the artistic cleft that framed the mountain so nicely in the shot above:

Hope all the ghosts and goblins among my readers have a safe and happy Halloween!

Wordless Wednesday: Abiquiu

Transparency in nature

I do have have few more posts to milk from my August-September travels, but I thought I'd take a break and make a report on a paddling excursion closer to home

Weekend before last we took advantage of some higher-than-usual flows on the Medina and paddled a lovely stretch of this river that we don't get to see very often.

What was most appealing about the trip for me was the amazing clarity of the water. I hadn't seen water this clear since our wild adventure on the Devils River in 2010. Unfortunately, this Medina excursion also duplicated some of the negative features of that previous trip—specifically, too much excitement and concomitant hard work!—but I think you'll agree that the water was gorgeous when you see this selection from the many photos I took of its crystalline transparency.

doesn't it look like Henry is paddling on air?

lots of pretty plants and rocks to look at on the bottom

it's like a glass-bottom boat that stretches across the whole stream!

even in the deeper spots, you still can see straight down to the bottom

I was so entranced by the appearance of the water from on top, that I didn't get around to taking any underwater shots until we stopped for lunch...

As you can see, the water wasn't deep enough to be really dangerous for most of the paddle, but there were some tricky sections and I went swimming—non-intentionally—twice. Here's Larry expertly negotiating one of these little twisty-passages (they were "all different": Adventure reference!)

What made them tricky was the narrowness of the river at these points, which made the current really swift and left paddlers little time for adjustments.

Fortunately the shallow water made it pretty easy for me to retrieve my boat after my mishaps and get back in, but such adventures do tend to wear you out. And several of our compatriots had similar experiences, some of which involved sit-inside kayaks which aren't so easy to get back on track as my sit-on-top. So our trip ended up lasting probably twice as long as we had expected. I haven't been that tired in a long time!

But it was a lovely day and a mostly fun paddle in gorgeous water, so I'm glad I participated.

Ghostly glorious clouds

By the time we got off the Chama on Labor Day and unloaded and repacked all our gear, it was almost sunset in the New Mexico desert. But fortunately, we didn't have far to drive to reach supper, showers, and a bed.

The famous Ghost Ranch lodge is just a mile or two up the road and we had wisely reserved a room there for the night. What a wonderful time of day to see this glorious landscape! 

The one fly in the ointment was that we arrived just after their dining room stopped serving dinner. Now we ate so well on the river, we didn't really need another big meal, but against all logic, we were hungry. And we must have looked rather pitiful, since the nice lady at the reception desk called over to the dining hall and asked if we could sneak in before they put up all the food, and the kind kitchen staff agreed. Whew! a supper of granola bars and prunes averted!

So, thanks to these nice folks, we were able to enjoy the amazing scenery and sunset on full stomachs. The clouds, I think you will agree, were particularly spectacular this evening.

that's Chimney Rock on the lower right horizon; you'll see it
again in a future post in different lighting

the road to the lodge is just visible on the right

on the bottom right is the parking lot of the welcome center, where
kind folks took pity on us and arranged for us to be fed after hours

My camera usually doesn't take very good low light pictures, but the photography gods smiled on me for this one, taken outside the group of rooms where we stayed the night:

The cool clouds stuck around until morning, too, when I took this not-too-long-after-sunrise shot:

We got to see more of the Ghost Ranch scenery, in closer detail, later in the day, before we hit the road for home and Colorado. I'll show you scenes from that hike in a future post.

Wordless Wednesday: reflections and reality at Ghost Ranch

Celebrating the Millennium!

Millennium Park, that is. What a wonderful urban space, bordered by gorgeous Chicago architecture and featuring the greatest public art.

The picture above was taken by Henry from the window of the University Club on Michigan Avenue, where we enjoyed a scrumptious rehearsal dinner in a setting worthy of Harry Potter. And I think you'll agree that the views looking east were incomparable.

We were lucky enough not only to be able to attend an event in this grand venue, but our lodgings for the wedding weekend were just a block away, in the fabulous Palmer House; sharing rooms made the price doable, and the location was fantastic! (On the right is a photo of its opulent lobby, fairly recently renovated and restored to its Jazz Age glory.)

The best thing about the hotel, though, was its proximity to the Park. We were able to make more than one visit there, and couldn't seem to stop taking pictures of its most iconic symbol, which has not one, but two, equally evocative names: The Bean, and the Cloud Gate.

The Bean peeks out from among the Park's trees,
if you approach it from the south

Its quirky nickname and its ethereal "official" name are somehow both appropriate. It does look like a kidney bean, in overall shape...

...although it could also be called the "egg," don't you think?

But Cloud Gate fits, too. Especially when you consider the reflections of sky and buildings that it offers...

doesn't that look like it could be a Gate to another dimension?

The combination of its shape, shininess (we did wonder how hard it is to keep it polished), and reflectivity are just irresistible, and absolutely require you to take dozens of pictures.

Experiencing the different aspects of the sculpture is so much fun! First of all, we had trouble finding ourselves on the wildly convex surface. But we finally got the hang of it. Here we are, waving in the red box...

But the outer, bean-like contours aren't all there is to it! Underneath is a whole different, both convex and concave experience; we're in another red box here...

What an absolutely gorgeous, funny, and sublime piece of public art!

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And that's not all the Park has to offer, either. Not far away is another clever, whimsical sculpture that offers an additional feature, especially welcome on hot summer days.

The Crown Fountain produces enough cooling spray for scores of hot Chicagoans at a time, especially when the projected faces pucker up, every 5 minutes or so, and shoot out a firehose worth of water...

(If you're interested in how all this works, the Wikipedia entry linked above gives an exhaustive account of the fountain's design, engineering, and construction.)

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But I'm still not through! There's also a huge outdoor amphitheatre in the Park that is a work of art in itself...

The Pritzker Pavilion is empty in this picture, but when we emerged from our marathon visit to the Art Institute on Thursday evening, there was a concert going on that entertained the whole Park.

For sure, you need to be within walking distance to this fabulous Park whenever you visit Chicago...we certainly will be on our next trip there!