My favorite people

What a way to close out July - what a day!

Today was an early start for a brew day, making an Irish Red. I brew out in the garage, so getting an early start to avoid the heat of the day is how I do it. I opened the garage doors to get some airflow, which is how I noticed the sky fire - the clouds were bright orange and pink in the east. I heard a little rumble of thunder to the west, so I took a look there, and ran to grab my camera. This rainbow disappeared a minute or two after taking my photo. True to form, Catherine really is the rainmaker - it might be raining here more than it did in Maryland!

My brew day was relatively uneventful - which is a good thing. I took a nice nap after lunch, and then Catherine, Leah, and I drove to El Paso to pick up our new glasses. We all got prescription sunglasses which is super nice in the desert.

It was time for dinner when we got home, and I decided I wanted to play with my camera again, so I broke out some flashes and went to work.

The set up and tear down took longer than the photo shoots. It took me a bit of time to dial in the lights, but once I did, the photos went quickly.

No doubt these are my favorite people - for quick photos, I think they turned out well and may be my favorites so far for this year.

Cheers!

Marc

Rainbows and Monsoons in the Desert

We had quite the storm a week ago, with a flash flood/landslide that closed the road to Las Cruces for 3 days. We had high winds and hard rain for a couple of hours, and on/off hail. It really was an impressive storm. There was a motorcyclist who took refuge under an overpass, but since it was low lying, it was filled up with sand and silt. The motorcyclist abandoned his motorcycle (he got out), but it was buried up to the handlebars in mud/sand/silt.

I was planning to go for a bike ride this morning, but it was raining. I looked out the window and saw this magnificent rainbow. I snapped a couple of photos, but the vantage from the backyard is not that great. So I loaded up in the car and drove 2 minutes to another location with unobstructed views of the Organ Mountains. This is what I saw.

I stayed for about 20 minutes grabbing photos as the light and rain changed, but this is probably my favorite. The rainbow lasted about 45 minutes, it was really pretty cool.

Cheers,

Marc

New Mexico Road Trip!

With Christina visiting, and the long 4th of July weekend here, we all decided to take a road trip through south-central New Mexico.

We started with a drive to Cloudcroft, complete with stops at the White Sands National Park visitor's center (get park coins for Leah and a sun hat for Catherine), at the Fresnal Creek tunnel view in Lincoln National Forest, a country store to pick up knick knacks and some food, and the Mexican Canyon trestle just below Cloudcroft.

We ate at a great barbecue place in Cloudcroft - we got there about 1130 and the line was already outside. Thankfully, they also have a food truck, which is where we picked up our lunch. From there, we drove north to Ruidoso, the Gatlinburg of the Sacramento mountains. We continued north until we drove down out of the mountains, chased by thunderstorms. We made our way to Valley of Fires, a BLM recreation area technically on the northern edge of White Sands Missile Range. It is an old lava flow where the cacti and other plants are slowly taking over.

It rained a tiny bit on us here - not even a drizzle - but it felt great compared to the mild heat of the desert floor.

Catherine found us a very nice Mexican restaurant in Tularosa, with some fantastic chips and salsa! We continued south towards home, which we were having a good bit of rain when we arrived.

We even had a complete, double rainbow, which was pretty cool.

Happy Independence Day!

Marc

Moon Rise over White Sands part 2

Just some more photos from Thursday's trip to see the full moon rise over White Sands National Park. These are all iPhone photos, so don't judge the quality too harshly - many of them were taken in dim light.

This first one is just a quick selfie I took after we had walked out into the dunes and staked our claim.

Leah and I did a tiny bit of exploring, so I grabbed a photo of her.

After I took Leah's photo, I turned around and saw this lone yucca with the last of the sunset coloring the sky behind it.

This panorama is one that Leah took.

And this one is also from Leah, closer to where our chairs were sitting.

Here is one that Catherine took, pretty much as soon as we staked our claim.

Ian sent me one photo. It looked good on his phone, but when I got it onto the computer, it was noisy and pixelated - he zoomed in tight on the moon, and the contrast between the bright moon and the dark sky was just too much for that iPhone sensor to resolve.

Cheers,

Marc

Moon Rise over White Sands National Park

Catherine and the kids arrived on Tuesday, so what better way to spend a Thursday night than to drive to White Sands National Park and watch the full moon rise over the desert floor?

We learned that this was a strawberry moon - the fullest it will look all year.

It was dark and a corner of the clouds was lighting up, when we finally realized it was the moon making its appearance. I really didn't change the colors on this - the moon was low to the horizon so it was quite warm colored.

Cheers,

Marc

Late Father's Day

Hey everyone - late Father's Day entry here.

Since Catherine and the kids were still on the road, I made my way to a cherry festival (they only had u-pick, and I didn't feel like picking cherries by myself), and then on up into the mountains to get away from the heat.

Right before you get into Cloudcroft, there is this old train trestle across a canyon/ravine. It is pretty photogenic, I'd like to be here for a sunset sometime when the tracks will catch some warm light.

From there, I drove south into Lincoln National Forest, trying to find some aspen trees for fall (found some!) and locate some camping spots. The below photo is from Bluff Springs, which is a small camping area.

It is hard to tell from the photo, but there is a waterfall dropping from the edge of the bluff - it was a small stream, but still pretty, and a world away from the desert 4,000 feet below.

Catherine and the kids arrive later today - can't wait to be reunited.

Cheers,

Marc

PLEASE RESPOND! Updating our email contact list.

 Hi Everyone!

The email program we were using to send messages through from our blog, feedburner, is being discontinued.  I'm merging our email mailing list into a new provider.  Please, please reply to this message so I know it's gone out & you still want to receive our notes & pictures from our Skinner Sightings. I will be deleting everyone's email from the list whom I haven't heard from by the end of June.

I added a new widget to the blog so if you know of a family member or friend who doesn't get the emails & would like to receive them, they can be added. 

Thank you! 

Catherine

Adding a recent pic I took of a rose just to make sure the pictures will still come through. Thank you!