Wordless Wednesday: House of Endearment

What regular rainfall will do

Driving 200 miles east in some parts of the country and you'd have crossed several state lines. Here, you're still well under the Lone Star, but you have crossed over into a completely different climatic zone. (Actually, as you can see from this natural regions map, you don't have to go very far from San Antonio in almost any direction, and you're in a different zone.)

Houston, our weekend destination a while ago, is definitely in another world as far as biomass is concerned. And there wasn't a better example than the gorgeous pinetree in our generous hosts front yard.

I couldn't get it all in one picture, but the top half is above and here's the bottom...

...and its very handsome crown...

Trees just don't get anywhere near that tall around here.

We had a nice walk around their attractive neighborhood and saw several more examples of Mother Nature's largess. Here was a particularly huge live oak that caught our eye:

Isn't that stunning?!

We didn't do much more sightseeing (the main reason for the visit was a reunion for my Rice graduation class—I'm vain enough to want to withhold the number, but suffice to say it was a large one). But I'll show you what we saw on another stroll next time.

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