Deb's Birthday Month

My friend Deb Peters is the only person I know who celebrates her birthday all month long. It has turned out to be kind of a fun joke. At the first part of August, we went to Las Cruces to shop. I suggested that we do lunch at the Double Eagle in Old Mesilla, and since she had never been there, it was my chance to play tour guide. Here are some shots from inside the restaurant.

This is the church. We toured some of the shops. I thought the dressed up bear was cute.

Then we went to a huge pottery place and curious Deb (notice the tip-toes) was trying to see inside the pot. When she saw the camera, I caught a smile.

I forgot to mention that while we having lunch she told the waiter that it was her birthday this month, so he promptly returned with a gift certificate for Sunday brunch. That's the reason for our return trip last Sunday. We also had a good time at Toucan's, the health food store. Here are some more pics of the dining rooms.

That's quite a balcony. Can't you just see some turn of the century patrons dining up there?

Notice the young lady contemplating the picture.

And here's the birthday girl enjoying her mimosa!

There were vendors on the plaza when we left the restaurant, so Deb decided to pick up a couple Christmas presents. She so good about that sort of thing. She has a very lucky family. And she was generous to the mariachis also!

Zinnias

While I was in Albuquerque I practiced taking pictures. Can you imagine that?! These are in Sue and Marty's backyard. We also used the mister to keep cool.

I hope you can see the bug.

More Summer

It's hard to believe summer is half over. One Sunday I decided to take a ride up to Pie Town. If you blink, you'll miss it. There are two places that serve pie. I stopped at one for lunch; no pie. Silly me!

On the way home, I couldn't resist getting a picture of one of the Very Large Arrays and the clouds above the Plains of Augustine.

Since I'm going to be around this summer instead of traveling as previously planned, I decided to take some interesting pictures of the local area. A portion of the newly renovated courthouse and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church caught my attention.

Then I went down to the little park next to the restaurant at Dam Site Marina. A few years ago they dedicated this statue of a civilian conservation corps worker.

This is my monsoon sunset that I used my poetic/artistic license to alter.

I went up to Albuquerque a couple of weeks ago so the medical community could take pictures of my perfect colon. On Sunday morning I drove up to the picnic grounds at the base of La Luz Trail that goes to the crest at Sandia Peak. The round building is the restroom, but someone left his/her shoe behind. I have no idea what the abandon building was.

This picnic table would have been a perfect place for breakfast had I thought ahead.

Yucca Time

All of the desert flowers were exceptional this, starting in February in the Arizona desert. I've never seen the ocotillo as lush as they were in my neighbor'a yard. Last year I had 18 yucca in my backyard. This year I only had 6. This is the yucca outside my garage door. When I took the shot, I didn't realize I was getting a lady bug and spider web. Can't fault dumb luck!

St. David, AZ

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I visited Holy Ghost Monastery which has an RV campground. It's a very quiet restful place with lots of trails to explore along the San Pedro River. The best part of the trip was experimenting with taking pictures not using the auto setting on my camera. The first pictures are of the grounds and buildings. 

Chapel

Courtyard

This is a statue of St. Benedict as it is a Benedictine monastery.

These were some glass grapes attached to the tree for what reason, I haven't a clue.

Beautiful restful meditation garden

This was a dead tree along the hiking path. The designs in the bark caught my eye.

The San Pedro River runs north to south out of Mexico. In this case, it's subterranean right behind the monastery. About 20 miles south, I got these shots along the river and bird refuge.

This is a bark pattern that caught my eye. Don't know the name of the tree.

Just more strange pieces of bark.

The following pictures were taken at Ramsey Canyon outside of Sierra Vista.

Mule deer

Tree lips

Tree huggers

Time to get busy on some scrapbooking projects and ignore those pesky wabbits.

Where did May go?

Well, here it is the middle of June and I've no excuse but laziness. Marty and Sue came the weekend before Mother's Day, and we did our first boat trip of the season. We did some exploring, played with a couple of fish and called it a day. Marty planted my Mother's Day cactus. It bloomed before they brought it, but it's the perfect addition to my new cactus garden.

These are my new ones that bloomed so beautifully, but only lasted a few days.

This is my rose that I photo-shopped. The rabbits are eating my rose bushes too.

Will get back to posting my St. David trip shortly.