Stars in the making?

"Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup."

We drove over the the Angel Fire Viet Nam Veterans Memorial, their gift shop may want some of our photos we have taken there. Afer we went to an AF BBQ place Zebidayahs. A local fim was being shot so we sat and ate as extras right next to the two stars. We were directly in line with the camera! Movie name is Big Foot Election. Hope we make the cut!

Cooke City, MT

Tragedy in Cooke City, Montana, northeast of Yellowstone on the way to Cody. Cooke City is basically a one road town, usually closed in the winter, and it has some nice sandwich shops. The campground where the bear attach took place is certainly right off the road. A bear attacked tents, and the folks had taken all the precautions (food either hanging from trees or in locked metal storage containers).

We drove thru Cooke City in the summer of 2007. We were shaking as leaving Yellowstone, a ranger had us stop and she said (her voice shaking!) "keep driving until the next pull in; there's a grizzly with a meal maybe 50 yards off the road!" We did and the grizzly was there, having an early lunch.

The photograph is the Bear Tooth Mountains viewed to the west from downtown Cook City.

Sad show

We went to a closing party for a show, held at a local restaurant 4-6 on Thursday. Not surprisingly, give the day and time, there were few people there. Worse though, the art was poor and included obvious giclee photos; to me they stand out like a sore thumb next to darkroom work. Paintings were also quite amateurish. It was a benefit show and nothing sold!

Once Upon a Time in the West

Possibly the greatest western ever made, badly edited when released 40 years ago and bad review. Uncut it is a masterpiece. Henry Fonda plays Frank, the meanist SOB you will ever see him play. Bronson, Claudia Cardinale and Robards. Fimed largely in Monument Valley with individual frames that are poster quality!

Fuller Lodge Art Center

FLAC is located in Los Alamos, abouy 80 minutes away. Los Alamos is vastly different that during WW II.

www.fullerlodgeartcenter.com

Postcards to restaurant!

Our neighbor owns this restaurant maybe 15 minutes away. This is a shot now turned into postcards (2,000) that he will hand out with the final bill! Summer view north to Taos Mountain just next to the tree trunk.

As our web site is on the back side, great advertizing!

www.stakeoutrestaurant.com

Taos Art Museum

TAM will have its annual "Russia Night in Taos" to support the museum which shows works by Nicolai Fechin. The art donated to their auction does not have to be Russian and my choice is my cat "Bonne Chance!"

This photograph was taken in 2002 near Montmartre on the hill above Paris. I studied geometry as a grad student and I was trying to capture the cobblestones. The negative that preceeds this shot is just that. When I took the second exposure, the cat ran across! Because this was B&W film, I did not know until I returned from Paris, and my film developer said "You got the cat!"

No set up, no photoshop, this is nearly a full negative!

The weather changes

A few days ago we hit 101F; today mid-60's with rain all around. I celebrated by putting my lower back out. A simple callous on my heal (teach me to go barefoot) led to a step imbalance and I spent Friday in bed with a heating pad.

Shooting the Past

This was a three part BBC series rolled into a movie by Netflix. I assume readers like photography and this is well worth searching for as it is hard to find. From the start I could not stop watching! Not to give away the story, but a country home (think of Howard's End) is being foreclosed on and an investor wants to buy, to either tear it down or condo-ize it - I forget. But the stately home has hundreds of thousands of photos from WW II and after and the buyer is...?

BBC at its best!

101F Monday

Like most, we do not have a/c. Rarely need it as house are built well so you cool down at night w/50F and close the windows in the morning. This works well when the temp stays less than 90 but Monday we hit 101. I developed film this morning and had to use ice cubes to get the fluids down to 68F. Tomorrow we are supposed to return to low 80's.

Near Taos, I

I will try to describe a series of short trips around Taos. The first takes you east of Taos (7000ft) on 64, up over Palo Flechado (Broken Arrow) Pass (about 9000 ft) and down into Angel Fire. AF is in the Moreno Valley at 8000 ft. Heading towards Eagle Nest, where it was -47F one winter and that's where the thermometer broke, you pass a Viet Nam Memorial on the left, built by the father of a slain soldier.

Continue north to Eagle Nest and head east toward Cimarron. You will pass by the Palisades, with a nice stream with good fishing. The movie 3:10 to Yuma was fimed in and around Taos, and the interiors were filmed in the St James Hotel in Cimarron.

A good day trip from Taos and lots of photo ops.

The myth of Siberia

Sue and I went to Russia in 2005 and 2008, near the end of June. These trips included Moscow as a stop over, and two Siberian cities. I'd like a dollar for each time I have told a person we went to Siberia last summer and they say "Wasn't it cold?"

OK, today here in Taos it is 95F. In central Siberia it is 37C (that's about 100F). Because of the high latitude, much like Alaska, at the end of June the sun sets about 11PM and rises about 2AM. The daily summer temp is usually 90F and it never cools!

Buffalo

We went to Yellowstone a few years ago, about a good two days from Taos and over three scary climbs in CO (Durango - Grand Junction). If you ever get a chance, start at Jackson and head north into the Teton Nat'l, and then continue int o Yellowstone. When we went the entry was $25 per car, seven days with unlimited in and out and covered both parks. The little fella in the photo wasn't far from me (21mm superwide lens). They sleep on the paved roads at night to get the heat, so driving then is not a good idea!

Allergies

A couple times a year I get killed by allergies. In the spring it seems to be the junipers as they come out. Now, it is chamisa and grasses. I used to take Zyrtec, but while it works, I ended up sleeping all day, I went to Taos Herb and got a Chinese med Bi Yan Pian that works. Usually 3-4 a day but 3-4 every four hours if things are bad. No real side effects. I ran out yesterday and took a half Zyrtec and slept about 10 hours!

More wildlife

Some come in the house. The occasional mouse, usually dead and hidden some where. Having lived in New England, the smell of a dead mouse is quite specific and lasts about 72 hours. In a New England house they usally die inside a wall.

Well, several years ago we had a desert toad, quite alive, come in. It hid in the fireplace (summer, no fire). We released it.

"Monsoon-Like" Conditions

One of my winter pet peeves is when I am sitting in front of a fire, it is 10F outside and it is snowing horizontally with 30 mph winds, and the weather calls it "blizzard-like". My summer version is "monsoon-like". This time of year the usual weather comes from the south, often Baja, and we get afternoon gully washers for maybe 15 minutes (it is very unusual to have a long, rainy day here).

So, what's a blizzard and what's a monsoon?

The Quail

We have quail, very funny birds as while they can fly they prefer to walk. When scared they will lift off about ten feet up and fly maybe 100 feet. A friend of ours years ago said you can't hunt them as you are likely to kill your dogs.

A few days ago we saw babies! Mom had about a dozen out, certainly for the first day. The babies were literally as big as the thumbnail joint on your hand. But they were running around screaming at Mom to feed them. Days later they had doubled in size; Mom must be a good cook.

More about country life

We bought this house in 2000 and in 2001 sold a house outside Albuquerque and moved here full time. The night the big furniture was delivered we set up the master bed and put the TV in the trastero (Mexican cabinet). A local company came out and ran a length of coax down from the roof so we had one working TV. This required leaving a window open about the width of RG 58 (1/2 inch). We went to dinner to celebrate.

When we got back, and Sue called from the bedroom that there was a snake. I said "It's just coax!" and went in to find her standing on the bed. There was a three foot snake on the floor. She played "Marlin Perkins - while so-and-so wrestles the alligator I'll be on top of the RV mixing drinks" and directed me to get rid of the snake. I got a broom and the fire screen, opened the outside door and shoo'd the thing out.

Next day while I reposed in the master bath, a snake head poked out from under the vanity - not something you want to see. We stuffed things in the hole.

A couple days later with boxes all around, I walked into the LR and confronted the snake and it hissed. I was ready and got it into a box and taped it shut. I drove it it about five miles away and released it and learned it was a young bull snake, harmless and they eat young rattlers.

Ah! Country life.

Yes, we have rabbits

We live amongst the sage and juniper, and the coyotes and rabbits. They somewhat get along because the coyotes sleep during the day and the rabbits largely at night. If you put out water you will have bunnies; if you ad bired food (they love it on the ground) you will have lots of bunnies! This AM we saw our first baby of the season, maybe about 5" long. The picture is an adult (just center left) maybe 5 ft from me thinking it's hiding. They are very tame. We have food about three feet from our porch door and I can walk past them without them moving!

Coyote!

No fresh tracks into the den, but I went out a 6AM to water and spooked one. It ran off on our dirt road at an estimated 40mph!

Coyote Den!

We have a low patio off our Master bedroom, and about 15 ft past its wall we found the entrance to a coyotes den. Fresh. We have seen an adult jump the 4 ft patio wall and have spooked one at our watering areas before 6 AM. The opening on the flat ground is about 1 ft by 2 ft, a real ankle breaker, so I added a painted post about 4ft tall. The top shot shows the entrance at the end of the black line with my size 9 sneaker in view. The lower shows me at 5'6" as close as I am going to get! Coyotes are nocturnal and since the cubs are probably 4-6 weeks old now they are ready to emerge. Mom wouldn't be too happy if I got closer!

Viet Nam Memorial, New Mexico

Most agree that the Viet Nam war was a terrible event in US history. But most also agree that the troops lost deserve to receive respect for their service. These pictures show the Memorial built by the father of a slain soldier using private funding when the US government failed to take action. The Memorial sits on a bluff below the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and looks out on the 8,000 ft Moreno Valley.

Taos Rodeo

Every year the Taos Sheriff's Posse sponsors a rodeo. This include young and old, with the rodeo part of a tour of competitve events. The riders range from 4 to 84 and the youngest girls outride the boys!

This is the Posse at the start of the event. The right hand mountain between the buildings is Taos Mountain above the Pueblo. It is sacred land and non-Pueblo are not allowed to climb it.

Temp, humidity and altitude

Sunday night the temp dropped to 42F. Clear skies allowed for radiational cooling. The humidty here at 7000ft is about 10% and I know from experience that dehydration can hurt. The worst thing to drink? Water! As I know from a car accident 4 years ago, drinking plain water depletes the salt, potassium and other electrolytes and you pass out. I ended up in UNM Hospital for skull surgery (I hit a tree). I woke up a week after and learned it had taken 12 hours for the doctors to raise my electrolyte levels to where the could operate. The technical term is hyponatremia (not to be confused with hypothermia) and the lay person knows it as water poisoning.

We met a friend on the Plaza in Santa Fe and during drinks he asked why his friends from the west coast (where he had lived) always said they felt worse when they visited and drank water! The secret is to have sports drinks and salt supplements. The great salt debate perpretrated by Bloomberg of NYC is a myth.

About 11AM we went out to hack dead plants over the leach field. Temp 70, cool in the shade, broiling in the high altitude sun. Copious amounts of Gatorade (developed for the Florida Gators football team). It felt like 110F.

Come visit NM but be careful!

Back to the Stakeout

I drove over to the Stakeout about 7AM today (4th) and got the patio shots I wanted including looking thru a gate and down towards the Rio Grande Gorge about a dozen miles away. It's a view the owner and everyone else likes. He has expressed interest but this is a very busy weekend to discuss anything! I'll develop the roll maybe tonight and post some pix soon.

Architecture shots

We are now taking photos of well known buildings and areas in and around Taos.

This is the Stakeout Restaurant, about 1/2 miles up the hills to the east of the main road into taos. The name derived from the fact the the land behind the building was known as the Stakeout Hills, as that is where outlaws hid from the searchers in the 1800's. The restaurant has been open since 1978 and run by a neighbor for about 20 years. The building was originally a private home built by a man who wanted to get away from it all.

http://www.stakeoutrestaurant.com/