Yeeeeeeee.....haaaa!!!

I've been in Alamogordo for four months now and any assignment, good or bad, has to end.  Due to news I've heard from the home office, this could very well be my last weekend here.  However, that's not a definite.

This is the Otero County Fair weekend and I'm a fan of fairs, especially in small towns where everyone tries to get involved.  Aside from the usual handicrafts, jellies and photos there's the livestock competitions.  For anyone never going to one like this, they have missed out on all the elements involving the senses.  Temperatures have cooled some but this place is dry so when there is any movement,  the dust is stirred and hangs in the air.   With that and the smoke from barbeques, there is a light haze over everything.

As for smells, it's a unique combination of the charcoal smoke and the livestock.  Every other ride has music blaring, bingo callers yelling "G 19!", pigs squealing, chickens squawking and throngs of unlovely people laughing and talking.

My particular interest was the rodeo so I climbed up into the bleachers and sat on some of the hardest wood I've had my backside on in years.  As I sat around a wide mixture of young and old, I could hear part of conversations begin in English, merge into local Spanish and back again into English. I suppose that's Spanglish.

As for the rodeo itself, it was run by a small rodeo company that provided the bucking bulls, horses and calves.  It was complete with two rodeo clowns that cracked some of the most corny politically incorrect comments and jokes I've heard in ages.  I loved it.

Enough with the ramblings.  Here's some pictures.  Clicking on the photos will enlarge them some.

The usual Ferris wheels and rides

 

The Merry-Go-Round had seen better days

 Rodeo Queens (also contestants)

 Saddled Bronc Busters

Some went the full 8 seconds

Women's Calf Roping

 

Bareback

Then there were the Bull Riders

I'm pretty certain there were no qualifications in this.

At any rate, it was a very pleasant evening and everyone

had a good time.......except maybe for some of the horses, 

calves and bulls.

Birds and Bees Weekend

There's not much story to tell, other than riding around hoping to take pictures of smaller things this weekend.

The first part was Friday afternoon south of town at a local state park, where I was continually watching for rattlesnakes.  Thinking (maybe my imagination was going wild)  I heard a light rattle, I changed directions and in doing so, a large Jackrabbit hopped across the trail and scared me.  I believe I've seen deer that size in south Texas.  Anyway, the only slinking thing I positively saw was a couple of lizards.

In a small cluster of flowers, there were quite a bit of honey bees gathering pollen.

Saturday afternoon, I rode up into the mountains east of town near Sunspot.  Way out in the boondocks, I was attracted to a small waterfall near where a group of ATV enthusiasts were camping.  This time, I figured if I fell off the side of the thing, somebody might be able to rescue me.

The best part of the whole thing was a patch of gypsum weeds and thistles growing in the delta of the falls.  Dozens hummingbirds of a couple of different varieties battled for the choice flowers.  I was totally absorbed it it and shot birds until it was really too dark to be doing so.

All of these pictures were taken with a Nikon D7000 with a Tamron 60mm prime lens.  As for the bird pictures, I was not able to get very close so most of the pictures have been cropped from a larger shot, as much as 400%.

Here's a few.

 

 

 

I am not sure what this was.  It was much larger than the Hummers 

and looked quite a bit like a parakeet.

 

 

 This is not a bird but some kind of huge insect.

 

As I mentioned before, dark came much earlier than I wanted, so I left and drove slowly, being careful not to hit any of the several deer that stood on the edge of the road.

Beautiful sundowns as usual.

 

Allons Danser

Still a little displaced because of a certain lending institution dragging it's feet in processing a loan for our home buyers, I took a little break this morning and spent a little time at the downtown Baton Rouge Redstick Market.

It's somewhat of a farmers' market where local growers sell fresh garden items as well as a few artisans presenting their work.

Aside from the jellies, cucumbers and tomatoes, there were other good eats as well.  Music filled the air with the regular zydeco musician playing for tips near the entrance.













Some of the natives seemed to be peaceful enough, even dancing at times.

 

This afternoon, we mowed and trimmed the lawn of the new one.  I would take a picture but I just don't want to jinx the progress. Complete carpet cleaning tomorrow.

Hopefully, we will be able to close on both the selling of our old house as well as the one we are buying within the next week.

Beautiful day in the neighborhood

OK, I'm gonna have to 'fess up here.  A couple of weeks ago, I may have overdone it a bit climbing around in the canyons, causing an old knee injury to reappear.  That with the added stress of moving this past weekend rendered me down to virtually incapable of getting around without the aid of a cane.  However, with the aid of some nice meds from my doctor back in Baton Rouge, the swelling has significantly dropped but there is a little pain left.

That being said, sitting around in the hotel room is pretty boring.   Looking out the window and seeing the mountains to the east, I thought maybe I could ride up to Sunspot and perhaps see some wildlife along the way.

I did just that but larger animals were elusive today and saw only flowers, birds, bees and the occasional squirrel along some of the small roads.

Today, I decided to be amazed at God's creations in macro mode.

Bigger is not always better, especially looking up close at some of the flora.

My Secret Is Out....

...I'm not 21 anymore. 

It looks like my tenure in New Mexico may be coming to an end and this could be my last weekend here for a while.  No promises but there are elements out there that are pointing in that direction.

So, to take in the a few more sights, I drove up toward Ruidoso Saturday just to see anything that might spark my interests.

About half way up, passing through the Indian Village of Mescalero, I happened up on a local parade celebrating something of what I know not.  I stopped for a while to look but unfortunately, wasn't able to get close enough before the parade was over.

Sunday afternoon found me out scouting for sights again when I remembered someone telling me about some waterfalls in the canyon going up to Cloudcroft.

With a backpack full of extra water, some emergency supplies and my camera, I gingerly made my way down the edge of the canyon.  The canyon was about 250 feet deep and 300 feet wide with sharp cliffs  along the way.  On the side next to the road, there was more of an opportunity to crawl down and many people had done so.

I emailed (GPS enabled) a cell phone photo of the back of my rental car to my brother, telling him to send the calvary if I didn't call or text him back in 2 or 3 hours, then started descending.  I won't say this was mountain climbing but the grade was loose small rocks that slipped from under my feet, making me grab larger boulders and small trees on the way down and use my tripod as a walking staff.

Getting to the bottom a small stream flowed over the rocks causing several little waterfalls.  It was cool there and gave quite a relief from the 100° temperatures down in the basin.  I snapped a few photos and talked to a few young people who came down as well.

Within 30 minutes, I felt a few drops of rain and noticed the clouds darkening and thought being in a narrow canyon might not be the best place to be. 

The trip up was entirely different than coming down.   Now, the backpack seemed twice as heavy and the rock that I had slid on coming down, now required crawling up on all fours.  It had taken me 20 minutes to get down but now, I was stopping every 5 minutes to catch a breath in the 6,000 ft altitude.

Others had started coming up too and teenage boys scrambled past me trying to get to their cars before the rain and lightening became worse.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped to let my pounding heart catch up, catch a breath and ponder what in the world made me think going down there was a good idea.  At one point, I sat and pondered what I would do if I could not continue and no one else came along.  The cell phone showed no signal available and the ground was not flat enough to sleep on.

Finally, I mustered up enough energy to get to the top where I sat in the car for a good 10 minutes with the air conditioner blowing hard while I recovered.

I confess, the reason it was hard on me was,

•  I'm not in shape, 
• the altitude was 6,000+ and........
•  I'm just not 21 years old anymore.

Fourth of July in a small town

One of the great things I like about Alamogordo is the lack of pretentiousness.  It's somewhat eclectic and the home of just about any kind of philosophy under the sun.  One might think that would be a problem but for some reason, it's just a live and let live place.

It's a quasi military town, being next to Holloman Air Force Base, so it stands to reason that the 4th of July is taken pretty seriously here.

This morning, the parade started with the usual color guard, fire trucks, police cars, motorcycles (no Hondas), Mustang car club (no Hondas), horses in trailers, horses pulling trailers and young women on horses.

There were old trucks (no Hondas), old cars (no Hondas) and hot and cold running politicians in convertibles...again, no Hondas.

People brought their folding chairs, some stood and some sat in parked cars next to the parade route.

The small parade lasted about 30 minutes with the end coming with a line of fire trucks and some more motorcycles.  This time, two Hondas.

The Space Center planned a fireworks display and exploded a lot of pyrotechnics  next to the cliffs for 30 minutes just as a rare blowing rain appeared.

Quite impressive.  I loved it.

Eclipse at White Sands / Alamogordo, NM

Summer is coming to southern New Mexico.  It was 94­° at 5:30 P.M. when I headed to the desert to for the annular solar eclipse late this afternoon.  I can only imagine what August will be like.

After lathering on the sun screen and stuffing a couple of 94° bottles of water in my backpack, I trudged off across the dunes to find a good place for a shot.  I staked out a place that I felt would have a good foreground to go with the eclipse and waited.......for 1½ hours.  Around 7:30, it began to show itself.

 

I really needed a little more equipment, a lot more skill and about 100 miles more distance to the north to have gotten this right but here are my efforts on the show this afternoon.  The Alamogordo version was only about a 90% eclipse so the moon, so from my vantage point, it did not go completely through the center of the sun.

 

And what self respecting desert would be without a camel to celebrate the event?

Desert Moon

I had anticipated the "Super Moon" for May 5, quite a while.  It was supposed to be 14% larger than any other full moons.  That sounds pretty big but someone else said it's like comparing a 15 inch pizza to a 16 inch pizza; yes it's bigger but if they aren't side by side, you don't really notice.

Friday evening, I went out to White Sands again to scout out where I thought may be a good place for a moon shot.  It's really a amazing place and I can find something fascinating there each time I visit.

Early in the afternoon, before the sun had even set, the moon rose in the east over the mountains.  Even though it wasn't completely full, it proved spectacular.  Saturday came and in the afternoon,  clouds began to appear.  I kept grumbling in my head, "Oh, no!...clouds won't help much in the full moon photography department."

I, along with half the state of New Mexico began filling the park and as the sun began to set, I roamed around on the dunes looking for a spot where I could get a clear shot without the added benefit of a hundred people in my frame.  That's if the moon showed itself.  The winds had swept the dunes causing ripples in the sand and building berms against the roots and plant life.

Finally, just after 8:00 p.m., the moon lazily peaked out between the some clouds.  It never really presented itself with clarity but that's the chances you take when you have no control over the elements.  I hung around another 30 minutes attempting some clear shots but around 8:45, I folded my tripod, made my way back to the car and exited before the rangers chased me out.