Winter 2013-14 Chihuly in the Garden

 

 

World famous artist Dale Chihuly works mainly in glass.  One of his favorite ways to display his work is to place it in natural surroundings.  This winter he brought several semi-truck loads of his glass sculptures and placed them around the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden.  He did this several years ago but we could not resist seeing this new exhibit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the gift shop was a display of some of his smaller work.  Most of them had price tags of several thousand dollars.  I am not sure if my taking pictures of them fall under the prohibited acts previsions of the copy write laws but I decided it would be better to ask forgiveness than permission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter of 2013-14

 

 

We have had a very enjoyable winter.  We decided we wanted to do something different so we booked our first cruise.  We knew nothing about cruising so we gathered information from some friends and family,  did some research on the internet and took the plunge.  We were not sure where to go, and we decided that we wanted to see if we liked the whole experience of cruising. We booked a 14 day round trip cruise out of San Diego to Hawaii.  This trip had quite a few days at sea so when we got back we would know if we liked it or not.  This, perhaps, is not the best way to try out cruising but at least we would know.  The verdict ……… we did not want to get off when we got back to San Diego.  They told us we had to though, mainly because we had not paid them any more money.  We enjoyed the entire experience so much that we may now be hooked.  We talked to people that have been on 30 and 40 cruises to find out what we needed to know about different cruise lines and types and sizes of ships and got a lot of good information.

 

The day before our departure we drove to San Diego from Surprise, AZ our winter quarters and stayed in a hotel that allowed us to park at the hotel for the duration of our cruise.

 

Home sweet home for 14 days.

 

 

 

The cruise terminal is in downtown San Diego so we had a great view of the skyline from the ship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite things to do was to get up early and watch the sunrise over the ocean from the top deck of the ship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We did discover that if you wanted to really see Hawaii a cruise is probably not the best way to do it.  You just do not have the time to see much of the islands.  We stopped  at 3 islands and a total of 4 ports.  We would get to a port early enough to get off the ship by 8 or 9 am and would need to be back aboard by 5 or 6 PM.  If you wanted to see the islands it probably would be better just to fly there and rent a car or take tours from a hotel.  We, however,  did not care.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

 

I will not bore you with a lot of pictures of Hawaii.  We have all seen thousands of photos from there but I cannot resist throwing in a few.

 

 

 

 

We toured a botanical garden that had some strange and beautiful flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a great view.

 

 

 

 

We took a trip around the north shore of O’ahu. ( I hope I have these pictures on the proper island but I don’t guarantee it.  My memory is not what it use to be.  I must start writing stuff down.)

 

 

 

 

We stopped at a replica of a Buddhist Temple

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our tour we passed many beautiful  beaches.  They all looked pretty much alike, some just larger than the others.  We pulled into the parking lot of a beach, and I could not tell why we had stopped at this small, seemingly insignificant,  one.   When we looked over the wall to the beach I found the reason.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the only beach on the island where Green Sea Turtles haul out and just lay around.  No one knows why.  There were several on the beach and a few we could see in the water.

 

 

 

This is a view of the stern of our ship.

 

 

 

The large windows just above the lines are in the two story  main dining room.  Above them are several decks of cabins and above them, under the fabric roof, is the outside deck of the buffet.  When the ship docked in Honolulu it backed in, a very interesting maneuver to watch.  The dock is just across the street from downtown.  We were tired after our day long tour so we ate dinner ( that’s “supper” to you Midwesterners) on the outside deck of the buffet and had these views.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunrise and Diamond Head.

 

 

 

 

 

If you get really, really, really bored on your days at sea, you could take up towel folding.

 

 

This was waiting for us on the bed one evening when we returned from dinner.

 

 

 

One morning, after a few days at sea. we woke up to sunrise at San Diego.

 

 

 

 

They told us we just had to get off the boat so we reluctantly left,  thinking all the time……Hummmmmm ……perhaps the Panama Canal.

 

 

 

 

 

Summer of 2013, The Final Chapter

We had never spent much time in Taos, even when we lived in New Mexico, so we decided to spend the month of Sept. there.  We found a RV park with a great view of the mountains out our front and side windows.  We spent a lot of time watching the clouds forming and the usual, almost daily formation of rain showers.  Hey, someone has to do it so it might as well be us.




















Just a few miles from our park is the only bridge across the top of the Rio Grande River Gorge.  There are hiking trails along the top of the gorge so I spent lots of time walking along the edge.










There are two bridges across the river at the bottom of the gorge.  It looks very different from down there.
















While walking one must be careful where one puts ones feet.  It would not be fun to have one of these run up ones leg.








Taos is full of old hippies and some very strange people.  One of the more interesting people is an architect  who developed the idea of Earthship houses.  These are houses that are almost completely self contained.  If they hook them up to the electric grid as a backup, their yearly charge for electricity is about $100.  They collect rainwater and recycle their grey water using it to grow plants for food and decoration and they get their heat and electricity from the sun.  They use old tires, bottles, cans and a lot of different stuff in their construction.

The first photo is of one just being built.  It is much taller than the other ones we saw.  Most of them are partly underground.  Cans and bottles are used in the construction of the interior and exterior walls.









Here they are making a wall with tires and bottles.  Sometimes they completely cover the wall and other times they will let the ends of the bottles show.







If you are interested in buying one they have a few for sale or they will build you one.  They start at about $350,000.







If an Earthship house is a bit above your budget we found a house that you could get for a bit less.  It might take a little updating however.






Taos is a very old Spanish town.  Most of the buildings are built in the Spanish style even though they may not be very old.











We visited 5 museums while there but we still missed one or two.  I guess we will just have to go back.  The museums ranged from art to old Indian stuff to this one, an old original trading house that had goods brought up from  Mexico City.  Notice there are no windows.  That was to protect the inhabitants during an Indian attack.


































We went to an arts and craft show in the park.  It was nowhere near as large as the one in Santa Fe but it was interesting.







Pat is a distant relative of the famous old mountain man Kit Carson.  He lived a lot of his life here in Taos so we had to visit his house.







Just south of Taos is the small town of Rancho de Taos.  Now it is a suburb of Taos but back in the day it was several miles away.  Its one claim to fame is an old Spanish church that has fascinated painters and photographers for years.  Oddly enough it is not the front of the church that is so compelling.   The front looks like many of the old churches.










Things start to get more interesting and you get a hint of things to come when you walk around to the side.









Notice the straw in the plaster.  These old adobe buildings must be replastered  with a mixture of mud and straw every year.  If they are not,  they just melt away.


 
The rear of the building is what has held the interest of artists. 




The large rounded structures are buttresses used to hold up the walls.  They had no steel in those days to hold up tall adobe walls.  The shapes and angles, the shadow and sun lines which constantly change throughout the day, have fascinated some of the most famous artists and photographers in the country.  The birds seem to enjoy it too.


It was starting to cool down here in northern New Mexico so it was time to head south.  We decided to go down to the Dexter area to visit our many friends we made there during our 30 year stay.  This year we stayed at Bottomless Lakes State Park a few miles outside of Roswell.  The lakes here are, of course, not bottomless.  They are a series of sink holes that formed at the base of the cliff and filled with water.














The overflow from the springs that feed the lakes forms a great wetland for the many birds that spend the winter.






While we were here we drove 25 miles south to the town of Artesia which sets in a large oil producing area.  Like all oil field towns, it is now booming and apparently has more money than it knows what to do with.  There are now many sculptures along the main street.  We stopped at this larger than life size one that depicts the drilling floor of an oil rig.












Sitting beside this huge sculpture was a smaller one that was our favorite.  It depicts two of the famous, original oil men of the area leaning against the hood of a pickup, a sight that is frequently seen around oil and farming country.









After a wonderful visit it was time to head west.  There is a huge used book store in Las Cruses.   It is supposed to be the largest used book store between Dallas and Los Angeles. We stop here every time we get close to stock up. When we first started to full time in our RV we had many boxes of books and told ourselves that we would gradually cut down the number as we went along.  Here we are, 14 years later, and have at least as many as we started with.  There is no telling how many gallons of fuel it has taken to haul that many books around.  Oh well,  if we ever get stranded on a deserted island (an interesting thought in an RV) we will at least have some reading material.
When we stop in the area we stay at Leasburg Dam State Park.  It has some wonderful views of the mountains and seams to always reward us with a beautiful sunset.  A very fitting end to our summer of 2013 Irwin adventure.