Antelope Island–My World Tuesday

In August I promised to do a post on Antelope Island for My World Tuesday. Finally, here it is.

Although I have been to Salt Lake City many times for conventions for my business, I had never been to the lake.  This time my family and I made a point to spend part of a day there, and we chose Antelope Island. Wise choice. We will go back every chance we get when we are in  Salt Lake City.

We really thought the lake would be pretty non-exciting and smelly. It smelled a little, but was not bad. It might be worse at different times of the year.

We drove the 17-mile length of the island and took one hike. There are thousands of birds there as well as antelope and buffalo. (We only saw buffalo.) What a beautiful place. (Most pictures can be enlarged when clicked.)

The water was such an icy blue.

We hiked through these boulders, then I just sat and absorbed the view.

The boulders had many areas where the girls could play and hide.

Part of my view from atop a boulder.

We saw quite a few buffalo, but the bird on the back of this one makes it my favorite picture.

The terrain of the island as we drove from one end to the other.

This is the view one direction from the causeway as we were leaving. The number of birds along the causeway was astounding. And the colors and reflections captivated me.

My World is a weekly meme in which participants are virtual tour guides. Go check it out and see the worlds of others. Or better yet, take a look at the guidelines, and do your own My World Post!

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My Mountain Again–My World Tuesday

I have shown “my” mountain before, but this weekend I was in Corrales, a quaint country village outside of Albuquerque, walking along an arroyo and got some new pictures from a different angle. It was a springlike day, giving me some hope for warmth, but it is over now. We had more rain and snow today.  (Sorry for the graininess in some of the pictures. I did not realize until I uploaded that I had one of my camera settings not exactly where it should have been.) All pictures will enlarge when clicked unless otherwise noted.

This is the arroyo along which we walked. Chicklet is in the bottom. During other seasons there are varying amounts of water in this. It stretches for several miles along the "back road" of Corrales. One rarely can take even a short walk beside it without seeing people with dogs and horses.

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My World is a weekly meme in which participants are virtual tour guides. Go check it out and see the worlds of others. Or better yet, take a look at the guidelines, and do your own My World Post!

 

Winter. Spring. Winter. Spring.–My World

Sandia Mountains as viewed from Albuquerque's west side 18-Apr-09. (click photo to enlarge)

Like most places, Albuquerque seems to not be able to decide whether it is winter or spring. However, in my 6-1/2 years of living here, this is the latest I have seen snow. (And if you are on Facebook and know anyone from  Albuquerque, you know the whole city flipped out.)  Easter weekend was cold and rainy (snowy on the mountain), and last Friday it snowed for half of the day at my house (the least likely place in the metropolitan area to get snow). The mountain was gorgeous the next day.

I am sure I will still see snow on the mountain today, but down at my house we are having spring again. Last night while I was working on a stamping class for tonight, we left the door open. The warm air wafted in bringing the scents of spring and the sounds of crickets. The evening sunset was warm and springlike. It made me truly content.

But if it snows again next weekend…

My World is a weekly meme in which participants are virtual tour guides. Go check it out and see the worlds of others. Or better yet, take a look at the guidelines, and do your own My World Post!

 

Snow Squalls–SkyWatch

It is cold here. Extremely cold. It was 12 (F) when I got up yesterday. OK, it is not as cold as some of you have it, but my house is cold inside. COLD. (Note: That was the outdoor temperature. Inside it slightly warmer!)

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Because our elevation is around 5000 feet, our heat depends on sun. Thank goodness we have a lot of it–310 days a year. However, this week has been short on sun. Tuesday was a day with mixed snow and sun. There were large snow squalls all day. Toward the end of the day I thought it was actually going to get busy and snow, but three minutes later the sun was shining.  (I am not sure what made me so delusional. Probably wishful thinking about the possibility of no school on Wednesday–“art day.”)

The first photo is one I took on the way to an appointment. I loved seeing part of the city obscured in a snow storm while it was perfectly clear where I was. When I left, however, I drove about 500 feet and got in a mini blizzard myself.

The next photo shows how hard the pellets (yes, usually they were pellets, not flakes) were coming down at times. If these episodes had lasted more than a few minutes, we would have been buried!

click photo to enlarge and see snow detail better

To see LOTS more terrific sky pictures or to find out how to participate in this meme, head to the SkyWatch blog.

 

Spud Mountain–Sky Watch

This is another December 2007 photo. It was taken in the opposite directions of last week’s photo.

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It seems I do not have much to say about this other than I think it is a beautiful mountain, but the name “Spud” does not quite convey its majesty, in my opinion.  To go through the mountain pass in this area is something I have done once and never intend to do again.  If I need to get to the other side of the mountain, I will choose an alternate route!

This is taken from Purgatory Ski Resort near Durango, Colorado. Apparently it is really called “Durango Mountain Resort,” but no one calls it that since it was “Purgatory” for years before they changed the name.

To see LOTS more terrific sky pictures or to find out how to participate in this meme, head to the SkyWatch blog.

Note about name of mountain: I can already see this is going to be a question. SOOO, first I’m not 100% sure that’s the mountain’s name. But it IS the name of one of the mountains that could be seen from where I am standing, and the expert I asked said she THOUGHT it was that one. It supposedly looks like a potato???  (WHATEVER!) I did not name it!

 

Blue and White–SkyWatch

My USB port is not working today, so this is an archived pictured.

click photo to enlarge.

It is from December 2007 when we went with some friends to their condo at Purgatory Ski Village. I used this photo on my Christmas cards last year because I did not get my regular stamped ones made and someone had the nerve to say, “Your card just wasn’t as cute as I was expecting.”

I’m not sure what could be more beautiful than this!

To see LOTS more terrific sky pictures or to find out how to participate in this meme, head to the SkyWatch blog.

Note:  Please do not think I was offended by the comment about the Christmas card. I realize the world is full of  people without a clue, and that was one of them!  After reading some of the comments, I thought I should tell you this. It takes a lot to make me feel attacked.  A WHOLE lot more than that! I mostly put it in because I thought it was funny.

 

A Different View of the Mountain–Sky Watch

 

A week ago yesterday I took to the skies to Orlando for a business conference. There is no better time than early January for a little shot-in-the-arm for motivation, especially if it is in a warmer place than where my flight was originating!

The sky was incredible that day. On the way to the airport I noticed some really interesting clouds above the mountains, but they had mostly broken up while waiting on the plane. In this photo, THOSE clouds are the small ones hanging right over the tops of the mountains.

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This is the same mountain I have shown in many previous posts, but a view from the south–and a little higher. Probably about 1/3 of Albuquerque is also in the picture. It seems bit drab and barren in the winter, but I certainly do not mind with a brilliant blue sky nearly every day!

To see LOTS more terrific sky pictures or to find out how to participate in this meme, head to the SkyWatch blog.

 

Shrouded Mountain–My World

It was my plan to spend a day over the holidays doing nothing but being a tourist in my city to take pictures for this meme.  My plans do not always work out. In fact, they do not work out a lot of the time. So the result is that I only have a couple of things in the hopper for MWT posts, and they are not things I want to use right now.

We got snow yesterday.  The last time I showed snow, I received many comments of surprise that we had snow in New Mexico. Yes, there is snow, and some places have a lot of it.  There are many mountain ranges here and many ski areas.  “My” mountain, next to Albuquerque has snow most of the winter on the east side of it. And Albuquerque itself is at an altitude of 5,000 feet, so our winters are chilly and do include snow–though not like that of some of you in more northern climates.

Not having any new material for MWT posts, I decided to use the mountain from yesterday. While putting this post together I realized I could probably do the mountain every post because it has so many faces and moods. I have said before that it is not the most glamorous mountain on the planet, but it IS a mountain, and therefore it has a certain beauty that only mountains can have.

My World is a weekly meme in which participants are virtual tour guides. Go check it out and see the worlds of others. Or better yet, take a look at the guidelines, and do your own My World Post!

 

The Climbing Tree — My World

In an earlier My World post, I mentioned Cottonwood trees and that I would probably post about them more as part of My World. Well, here I am with another Cottonwood tree post.

I take Chic to gymnastics in a neighboring town every Monday. When the trees were in their blaze of autumn glory, we noticed this tree. We did not have time to stop that day, but we KNEW it was made to be climbed. Since then on every nice day (most) when we had time (some), we have stopped to play in the tree.

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It has ten giant branch/trunks sticking out. Two more have been cut off. My girls love to play and climb here and usually pretend they are the Ingalls girls (as in Laura Ingalls Wilder) living on the Kansas prairie and making friends with “Indians.” The girls are in the first two pictures, so you can get an idea of the size of the tree compared to them.

Climbing trees are probably part of the everyday world of many of you, but they are not for us. They are special treasures.

A view of the mountain from the climbing tree

My World is a weekly meme in which participants are virtual tour guides. Go check it out and see the worlds of others. Or better yet, take a look at the guidelines, and do your own My World Post!

 

World’s Longest Tram–My World

The world’s longest tram stretches from the base to the top of Sandia Peak. The 15-minute ride takes riders over deep, wooded canyons and up steep granite rock faces.

It's not scary even if you are a little afraid of heights--I mean, falling!

The view from the top is spectacular as any mountaintop view would be. I always have a hard time believing, however, that I was not transported to a different planet, not just a few thousand feet because the top of the mountain (and the other side of it) is so different from my desert side.

My house is near the end of civilization close to the middle of this photo.

The tram is used widely for visitors wanting to get to the top of the mountain, but it is also used for skiers and hikers. (There are some great hiking trails that people hike up, but ride the tram down.)

In the summer, the angle of the sun lights the tram wires. During the warmer months from my house I can see most of the tram wires in the morning. My house is at least 20 miles from the wires. To see a car, however, one must be quite close.

At the top there is a small building with some nature posters and samples. There is a restaurant, a ski area and hiking trails at the peak. One can drive up the “back” of the mountain to the same location (or get relatively close), but it takes about an hour longer to do so.

My World is a meme put on by the same people who do SkyWatch Friday. Go check it out and see the worlds of other people!

This week, I joined the MWT/SWF team, so there are more pictures of/from the tram at the main My World site.