Vacation - Day 1

We headed out at 5:20 this morning and started north for the first day of our driving vacation.

Here's Master J looking bright and perky (much more so than the rest of us I might add.)



He didn't know I'm was taking the picture or he would have acted goofy.



Vermillion cliffs.



Burned tree on the side of the road. The wildfires have done a lot of damage the past few years but the amount of regrowth is really amazing.



The Colorado river, taken from the original, 1929 Navajo bridge.



The new Navojo bridge is on the left, the original one is the right. These two bridges are one of only seven land crossings of the Colorado for 750 miles.



Mister C with Master J on the Navajo bridge (you can't get out of your car on the new bridge.)



The bunch of us looking a little rough after the first six hours in the car. Only five more hours of driving after this picture was taken...

San Xavier del Bac

Mister C and I went to Tucson on Thursday to hear a lecture by a photographer. The lecture wasn't until five thirty but we headed down early so I could visit San Xavier del Bac, which I absolutely love. It's so beautiful and so very out of place. You come around a bend in the *rode and it just rises up out of the desert. This gorgeous, blindingly white mission contrasting sharply with the mostly brown background.

It's really hard to get a decent photo of the place though because of the tourists. When we went a few years ago, we made the mistake of going on a weekend and there were thousands of tourists milling aimlessly around. This time, since it was a Thursday afternoon, there were probably less than a hundred. But it was still amazingly difficult to get a decent photo because even though the total numbers were down substantially, the number of idiots didn't seem to be reduced much.

I don't mean to judge (or maybe I do), but the fact is that NOBODY needs to make a cell phone call while standing smack dab in the middle of the front gate to the place. Nobody. Especially not four hundred pound bald guys with mismatched outfits and heavy facial hair. And especially not for an extended period of time. I mean come on, it's obvious that other tourists are trying to take a picture of the place in it's entirety. Which means that we'd like to get the whole path leading through the pillars with the gorgeous heavy wooden doors to the chapel beyond. No, really, we would. We're not actually all standing here with our cameras pointed in your direction because we want you in our pictures. I finally gave up and went to take the rest of the pictures I wanted and then managed to get a few on our way out. Even then though, it was like playing a game of cat and mouse trying to avoid having a tourist show up through one of the portholes just as I was pushing the button.

But, idiots aside, it's really such a beautiful, peaceful place and they've done a fantastic job on the renovations so far. When my friend Brandy eventually comes down here we're going to head on down to Tucson so she can take pictures as well. I've already given her the heads up that I want to try and get there right about when they open, which is seven in the morning. Which means that we'll have to leave our house by about five am. It won't be pretty, but it's doable.

So anyway, here are a few shots that I managed to take that didn't have tourists milling around in them. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm pretty sure there's a tourist in the fifth portal from the left but he/she is wearing a brown or black top so they aren't standing out.









*I'm leaving this in as written because it made me laugh out loud when my mother pointed it out to me. Guess I shouldn't type up posts past my bedtime! I do actually know the difference between "rode" and "road", just not late at night apparently. Thanks for the heads up Mamoo!

It's Here!

They dedicated and opened our new library today. We walked over to take a tour and get our new cards. That's right people, we walked over. How cool is it to be walking distance to a library? It's one of my favorite places to be and one of Master J's favorite places as well. We walked over. I am so excited!

I got a decent picture of the outside of the building. It's a really neat design, although I'm not really sure what you would call it. Mid-Century Modern? I don't know, it looks like a big wave. The inside is awesome too. Lots of chrome, clean lines, funky lime green chairs. I was in the process of taking a photo of one of the sitting areas with the green chairs and some art work behind it. It was a really cool shot. And just as I was about to press the button, three pre-teen girls walked right into my frame and plopped their butts down on the chairs completely ruining it. Talk about oblivious. I'll go back when it's not a madhouse and try again.

Here's the wave...



Here's a bush outside of it (very exciting, I know!)



On a totally unrelated subject, I've taken Master J off of cow's milk for the next two weeks to help rule out an allergy. It's the weekend and I always make waffles on the weekend. Waffles made with soy milk suck. I may have to tweak that recipe. Tweak it right out of existence that is. Blech!