Exploring the Past

Hey Peoples!!  Bet you all thought I fell off the face of the earth (again!!).  It just amazes me how time really does fly!!

I don't have a card for today (I know, I know, whats new!!) but instead, I thought I would share some photos that my oldest son (age 13) and I took while exploring the Flagstaff, AZ area last week.

We went to Flagstaff so that I could take a continuing education course on Whole Body Kinesiology Therapeutic Taping.  This is the taping that could be seen being worn by some of the Olympians, such as Kerri Walsh, during these past games.  It is amazing how this stuff works!!

Anyhoos!! I digress!!  While I was in class on Saturday and Sunday, the rest of my family did some exploring without me (go figure!).  On Saturday, they went to the Lowell Observatory and came back with quite the fascination on how much work went into tracking planets.  Sorry, no pictures of the telescopes as all three of the boys (that would include the Toad) forgot their cameras!

The next morning they did some hiking in Walnut Canyon to see some 12th century Sinagua cliff dwellings.  These pictures were taken by my son with a Nikon coolpix2100 (point and shoot).  I think you can click on any of the pictures for a larger view.

(the barely black lettering points to where the dwellings are)

close up shot of one of the rooms

There are two hikes to these dwellings, a steep trail and a less strenuous Rim Trail.  These photos were taken from the steep trail.

The boys then spent their afternoon at an arboretum for a birds of prey presentation.  Again, these next photos were taken by my son with his point and shoot Nikon.

I find it totally amazing how this owl is camouflaged against the tree!!

Love this shot!!

(mom playing around with some filtering in Picassa!)

Monday was the day we saved for the Grand Canyon.  Since my family has "seen" this monument a few times, we decided to view it from a hikers standpoint.  Great day for it.  Some grey clouds overhead, but looked about the same as the previous two days.  OH NO.  BUCKETS OF RAIN.  WIND.  LIGHTENING and THUNDER that shook the truck.  There was NO hiking!!  We resigned ourselves to just driving further east along the rim and the rain let up enough to take in some views from the scenic outlets.  But COOOOLD!!  It was still windy and the temps were in the upper 40's/low 50's.  Despite my uncontrollable shaking, the overcast skies made for some great pictures! Again, the photos were taken with the Nikon.

That patch of green would be the Colorado River on the Canyon Floor

We continued on to the Wapatki National Monument that includes 12th century Wapatki Pueblo, a 100 room ruin, which is the largest of the monument's ruins. 

Believe it or not, at one point, the first Ranger and his wife to this area lived in one of the upstairs rooms in this ruin!!  He would haul water up to fill a tank.  They used a ladder to reach their two rooms!  It just amazed me that there was no thought at that time to the fragility of this structure!

My three "boys" in one of the rooms that you were allowed to stand in (this is actually one of the rooms that you can see were the second floor to the structure would have been.  Come to think of it, it was pretty close to where the Ranger's living quarters were!)  *The black tape on the Toad's arm is the kinesio taping that I learned over the weekend!

This was an interesting natural underground "vent".  Depending on the time of year, either warm or cool air flows up out of the ground from this "blow hole".  My youngest is standing over it to show how the air was enough to billow his clothes!

Finally, our parting shot of the area would be of the lava from the volcano whose name is no where in my brain right now!!

It was a quick trip, but rated a "great" one by the boys! (which, when it is all said and done, is all that matters!)

Since our return home, I've been busy trying to find my house and do all the running around that is needed to get the boys ready to head back to school in a couple of weeks. I did manage to clean up my creative area and am hoping to get some play time in this week between errands and chores (errands will get done, the house chores just might get put on hold for some "me" time! hehe!!).

I hope you enjoyed a little different creativity with the photographs.  In years past (college), I took a basic photography class and realized that I kinda miss that type of creativity.  Who knows?!  You may see more "artistic exploring" of this creative medium in the future!

Thanks for dropping by again today!!  Remember:  Creativity comes in many different mediums.  Pull one out and have some fun!!