sunset

back to our beach trip, evening-time. many of these are classic, and therefore oft-done and unavoidably perhaps a bit saccharine. sunsets at the beach make saps of us all, and the only thing to do then is sit back and enjoy the squish-squishing of your heartmuscle. this is from the bluff above, and yes, you do know those people down by the water...

there is a glut of photos of yours truly, which is a bit perplexing and i hope will not happen again. but e did a lovely job of them, i think, and his work deserves some viewing, too. many of these are better if you click on them to enlarge them...and there's always that handy 'comments' feature! (not that i'm fishing or anything, but i'll take the cheap thrills any day of the week.) and just wait, there's another whole day of these that i have yet to weed through. there are so many great ones that i don't include because of time and energy, and the generosity of your patience...

all together now

the kind lady who took pictures of us really had some difficulties with my camera, but this one turned out pretty sweet (poor e is still fuzzy, though...).

a

sandals

whorls

nuzzle

daddy and boy

y.t.

sand

perspective point

cuddle

wild kids!

anatole loved this exuberant gang, they were in constant joyous movement.

jump!

this is almost an exact replica of one of my brother and i when we were wee...must be irresistible for children to jump into the sunset.

postcard finale

a pox of chickens!

the wee is spotted...




but far from miserable.

salts

to kick off our next photomarathon: The Oregon Coast.

leap?

maybe he suddenly sprouted wings...

blue shovel

moments before he was swept over by a wee wave...subsequent nude shots are telling of the results. hereafter, he loved to stand among the waves...as long as it was his parents getting wet.

driftwood

beach treasure

tell me the last time you were so excited to find a bottle cap.

roots

take a bow

well friends, this concludes our great southwestern adventure. these last two pictures are from an afternoon we spent in silver city's Community Built Park, commonly called Penny Park since it was created entirely out of donations and community sweat, and it is truly the most amazing park i've ever seen, anywhere. i stupidly did not take more pictures of it, but there you go. there was just too much fun to be had...i regret extremely the oversight of not taking any pictures of my incredible mom to share, but whenever we were all hanging out we were usually too busy to then go waving a camera around -- busy riding her gigantic and noble steed (who is also notably absent from this blog), playing, eating, laughing and falling in the dirt (ahem, this was mostly my province, as is my wont).

to follow in the next few days are photos from our camping trip to the beach this past weekend. and holy moly, i took near five hundred photographs. prepare yourselves...

the red swing

mesa

this heads up City of Rocks Adventure: Part the Second. this mesa sits roughly to the north of the city of rocks, and my intrepid companions gazed upon it and said, "we desire to climb that. it should be no problem." i hemmed and hawed, but in the end the adventure was too seductive -- and i didn't want to be the spoilsport who denied them their proper scouring. because scouring was what it was -- the sun hits you like a ton of bricks out there, and in the springtime (the 'windy' season) the wind and blowing grit can graft you a new set of skin in under an hour. (that's my own scientific measurement, quote me at your own risk.) nevermind about snakes (of which we saw none). so we wrapped anatole up like a mummy, strapped him to ethan's back, and he slept through the ensuing jolly hike up the hill. we actually had a great time, but felt like mummies ourselves after we'd managed to climb back down and disengage ourselves from the bafflingly frequent series of barbed wire cattle fencing. no real artistic shots in this series, just try to imagine the roaring in your ears and appreciate the view...

wind power

this is the first tier of the mesa, ethan is crouched because otherwise the wind would use him (and anatole) as a kite. i was not at all worried about them falling off the cliff because i had every faith that they'd just be pushed right back up. my sunglasses got blown off my face right before this shot. the peppering of pebbles in the background is the city of rocks, all that tan stuff in the air is dust. much dustier than that, and you can't see. the southwest has all these quaintly illiterate roadsigns that say things like "dust storms may exist" and "zero visibility possible." these signs are very mysterious to the non-resident, and for all future travelers, this dust (and sometimes the rain) is what they're talking about. if you concentrate (or click on the picture to enlarge it) you can see a faint line of mountains in the distance: that, ladies and gentlemen, is Mexico.

v.

trying not to get blown into oblivion (by wind, that is), and what a view.

stairway

this was taken from the well of a completely natural winding rock staircase that andrew found. it drops through about fifteen feet of cliff at the northern edge of the mesa and actually corkscrews out all the way to the bottom. very amazing.

orange

picnic before the ascent.

city of rocks

for the next installment in our new mexico adventures, we go to the city of rocks (unimaginative name, but a fair description), and man, it was bright. and hot. and win. dee. this is actually City of Rocks Adventures: Part the First. Part the Second will follow, and is rather more indelibly seared into my memory...but more on that another day. for now, we are clambering about on some seriously cool rocks and frying our eyeballs. you'll notice that the pictures are rather on the more highlighty (this is now a word, feel free to use it in scrabble) end of the spectrum, and that's after significant darkening by yours truly. yes, it is that bright in new mexico. and yes, the sky is that blue. ahhhhhh.

the colors are aggravatingly washed out, more because of the image flattening to jpeg than the sun. imagine these as richer, usually i fiddle around for hours so that they come through to you as clean and interesting as they appear on my screen, but i'm tired tonight and thusly a wee bit apathetic.

bright!

shades

this is probably my favorite of the set, but only just.

hang there

feet

cracker

howdy

serious

i'm taking a break from the new mexico pics tonight and posting eight from my evening walk to the store with the boy (you might have to click to the next page to view them all). here he is in our yard looking so much more grown up than i need him to be yet. truly, he is rarely so solemn as when i'm pointing a camera at him, i'm often hard-pressed to catch candid shots of greater levity. there is one of these further down tonight's lineup, as well as many of the neighborhood. these were all taken within about four blocks of our house.

laurelhurst theater

to me this shot is quintessential portland, from the Prius to the bicycles to the old neighborhood theater, and -- of course -- the clouds.

esparza's

steps!

red wall

red and yellow window

window tree

brass creech parking

vanishing point

another from the cliff dwellings, my three traveling companions.

ponder boots

my lovely guys. these next few images are from our first new mexico outing to the gila (pronounced HEE-la) cliff dwellings nestled in the canyons of the gila national forest (our proud nation's first designated wilderness area). the dwellings were occupied by the mogollon people whose disappearance, i believe, is somewhat of a mystery (like the mayans). there remains a lot of argument about the true nature of this site -- whether it was used for day-to-day living, ceremonies, or what -- which i take to mean that we really don't know much at all. we do know that they chose very scenic locations and they built to last. the cave ceilings are still black with soot from their fires, and in some of the chambers you can still see desiccated and well-gnawed corn ears. this has as much to do with the natural protection afforded by the caves and the aridity as it does their architectural acumen. if you have any further question, please leave a comment and i will answer/fabricate to the best of my ability. oh, and this is but a fraction of the photos i took, i am dizzy with trying to select. more to come, no doubt.

car door

another image that was easier to conceive than execute -- i eventually went with b/w because the colors were washed out beyond my help. imagine it in oxidized blue with huge rashes of rust. the rest of the vehicle was twisted beyond recognition.