http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson Mon, 09 Nov 2026 14:55:15 -0500 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1651/17-april-on-the-golf-course http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1651
Taken with my phone, with maximum "zoom" (which is just digital zoom, so lost quality...  )





I don't know one bird from another, but a Google search tells me it is probably a Grey Hawk .
And on the road, on the way home:

It had already been run over... but it was still moving so I stayed a safe distance away!
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]]> Mon, 09 Apr 2018 18:00:11 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1634/castle-dome-one http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1634
I'm a history buff, so I've dragged my wife along to visit any number of ghost towns here in the Southwest. The best, by far, is only a forty-five minute drive from Yuma... but mostly over unfinished roads.
So Castle Dome has all three of the ideal characteristics for a tourist spot: intrinsic interest, photogenic, ... and very few tourists!
It's a great place for "impressionist photography" - studies in form and color - with lots of old machinery... and a half-dozen bars. 













]]> Sun, 08 Apr 2018 15:58:53 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1631/day-7-joshua-tree http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1631







And if you like to pick berries... be VERY careful...


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]]> Wed, 04 Apr 2018 19:39:44 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1628/day-4-wupatki-national-monument http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1628

Sunrise  at Monument Valley


Wupatki
From the NPS site:


People gathered here during the 1100s, gradually building this 100-room pueblo with a community room and ballcourt. By 1182, perhaps 85 to 100 people lived at Wupatki Pueblo, the largest building for at least fifty miles. Within a day's walk, a population of several thousand surrounded Wupatki.
Wupatki appears empty and abandoned. Though it is no longer physically occupied, Hopi believe the people who lived and died here remain as spiritual guardians. Stories of Wupatki are passed on among Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, and perhaps other tribes. Members of the Hopi Bear, Sand, Lizard, Rattlesnake, Water, Snow, and Katsina Clans return periodically to enrich their personal understanding of their clan history. Wupatki is remembered and cared for, not abandoned.









There's another stone circle, further downslope on the right, without a "bench",
so the circle we see here was probably a meeting place, and the other a place for games.

The pueblo was built up against and on top of a rocky ridge-line, supplying the rear wall for many of the pueblo's rooms.
]]> Tue, 03 Apr 2018 12:41:34 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1627/re-treatment http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1627
These were all taken late in the day. The light was horrible: dim and fog-murky. So they've become experiments in making lemonade from lemons. A TON of post-treatment!












]]> Mon, 02 Apr 2018 19:13:14 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1625/day-three-cloudy-skies http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1625
I like "complicated" skies: turbulent clouds, spears of sunlight, and all that. Sometimes, though, there's just grey skies, and one must do what one can...
All of these photos have been reworked. I use paint.net, a free app that's got all the tools I understand. GIMP has more tools, but it's a hassle... and Photoshop is expensive! I've paid attention to the sky, sometimes more than to the landscape. Some of these photos are closer to surrealist blobs of form and color, than to realistic landscapes.
Monument Valley lends itself to surrealism...











]]> Sun, 01 Apr 2018 16:47:28 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1624/day-three-monument-valley http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1624
THE scenery for "Big Sky western" movies. One overlook is named for John Ford.










Our great little Buick Encore (with the help of a topbox almost as big as the car)
carried four adults in quiet comfort for two weeks.
I've encrusted the front plate (which is not mandatory in Arizona-.
Anyone who tells us all what it is wins... more photos tomorrow!
]]> Sat, 31 Mar 2018 19:15:22 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1623/the-canyon-de-chelly-overflows http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1623
de Chelly is a photographer's delight. Here are a few more.

Strata plus erosion...

Looking D-O-W-N !!

Some ancient pueblans homesteaded high in the cliffs, and climbed up to work their fields.

This is quite low in the wall. Someone has put in stairs... but who and when???

A village on Tatouine?
]]> Fri, 30 Mar 2018 11:37:50 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1622/day-two-canyon-de-chelly http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1622
Canyon de Chelly (pronounced de shay ) is a National Monument,
whose administration is shared between the US Park Service and the Navaho Nation.
It's a site that deserves to be visited both for its scenic beauty and for its archaeological interest.
It's a deep, straight-walled canyon,
with a flat alluvial plain at the bottom, which the ancient pueblans (Anasazi) cultivated.
A glimpse of the canyon floor. (You can hike down... if you're in great shape and somewhat insane...)
The ancient pueblans lived in pueblos (hey! I'll bet you hadn't guessed!) built high up in the canyon wall.
In case of an emergency, they just had to pull up the ladders...
Check out the size of the trees on the canyon floor.



Notice the round construction, half fallen down the slope. A kiva?


And if you look too long at the opposite wall of the canyon, you get vertigo...

]]> Thu, 29 Mar 2018 16:18:47 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1620/day-2-petrified-forest http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1620
Hélène and I travel a lot. So I know that petrified wood can be found all around the world. But I have never seen... never heard of... an entire petrified forest, except the one in Arizona. It's the sheer volume of petrified wood that overwhelms the visitor. It's not a petrified tree or two or three. It's a whole petrified forest!

Trees collapsed in every direction... and were buried in the mud.
They have been stone since before T-Rex.

People ask who cut or broke the trees into such neat segments. No one, of course.
Wood is a flexible material - it will bend under a lateral effort. Quartz just breaks!

The colors are enhanced here, but a bit of water will reveal exactly the same.

Various metallic oxides give color to the quartz.

This blue, in shadow, looks almost luminous. I'd love to see what UV light would do...

Tree-rings are not individually distinguishable, but there are groups of rings.
I'd guess that they corespondent to several consecutive years of similar rainfall and temperature.
]]> Wed, 28 Mar 2018 18:19:42 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1619/day-2-painted-desert http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1619
Colors!




Here's the same scene, zoomed for the collapsed ridge:

Sometimes I like to play with shapes and colors:

... and the original:


]]> Tue, 27 Mar 2018 17:07:42 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1617/day-1-apache-trail http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1617
Either landscapes are really hard to photograph... or I'm a lousy photographer... or both... In any case, I don't do very well, and as a result am kinda apprehensive every time I try.
The " Apache Trail " is... gorgeous. Lots of gorges. Ha ha...
We also climbed up (and up and up and up... ) to the ancient pueblo at Tonto National Monument. It's very cool... but not very photogenic. Don't worry; there are others to come.

It's hard to apprehend the scale, here.
The little green vertical line near the bottom on the left side is a saguaro cactus about fifteen feet high.

Everything seemed to be painted in a bright light green.
It had rained a couple days earlier, so the lichens were euphoric.

The mountains themselves were bright green!

There are crazy people who hike in this country!

Strata, large and small, in many colors...
Previous post here.
]]> Mon, 26 Mar 2018 19:38:45 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1616/day-1-taliesin-west http://thenewstalkers.com/bob-nelson/blog/1616
Hélène and I have been on the road for the last two weeks, with her sister (Collette) and Collette's husband Jean-Pierre. The couple has never been to the Southwest before, so we tried to give them a Grand Tour. I bought a top-box for our baggage, damn near as big as our little car.
I of course took a ton of photos, which I'll post here.
----------
Our first stop was Taliesin West , Frank Lloyd Wright's "house" east of Phoenix.  I'm not very knowledgeable about architecture, but Wright's work just kinda hits ya over the head:


Wright wanted his work to fusion with the organic world.
He included flat-surfaced, oxidized rocks in the walls, which are rarely right-angles.
Note the crease in the taller section that flows seamlessly to the top of the lower section.


From the petroglyph boulder in the central plaza, the visitor's eye is led up the low stairs,
and then another boulder points up to the top of the hill behind the "house".
Wright did not want any "boundary" between the "house" and the surrounding wilderness.
(Phoenix was far away via terrible roads, back then.)

Another view across the same petroglyph boulder leads the eye
under a series of angular arches, open to the sky.

The triangular pool was a very late addition.
Wright let himself be convinced by his (third) wife, Olgivanna
who continued to remodel the house even after his death.

Not a single right angle to be found!
Despite the straight lines, there's definitely an "organic" feel to Wright's work.

This fountain was also inspired by Olgivanna . 

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