Dobbins Lookout

When we were up on top of South Mountain, I mentioned that we parked at Dobbins Lookout.

I thought I would show you that building that was made back in the Great Depression in the 1930's by the Civil Conservation Corps.

I mentioned yesterday that the building was deserted, though there was a city worker cleaning off the graffiti, while we were there.

That is why I do not have photos of the interior. I am not into breathing in fumes from those chemicals.

As a matter of fact, in the second photo you can see the pressure hose he was using in this process.

No idea why they take care of the ruin, but don't allow it to have a purpose, anymore.

In cool things, I really love that view of the city and kind of wish we had more time to explore the area.

South Mountain Park

On Monday morning, before our tour of Taliesin West, our friends decided to take us for a ride up to South Mountain Park.

I seem to remember them taking me up there, many decades ago and it came up in conversation.

Next thing I know, we get in our cars and instead of Indian Fry Bread, I am driving my rental car on a barely 2 lane road with steep curves on it.

It went further then I expected, but at the end of the road, there was something called Dobbins Lookout and the towers of the TV and Radio stations, behind us.

The view up there was incredible and you could see from Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale (dead center in the first photo), all the way to places like Glendale.

The lookout itself has some old buildings that were put in by the CCC, back in the 30's and our friend said that at a point in time, they sold snacks at the structure. It is a ruin, now days.

When you turn around, you see behind you, those TV and Radio Towers. It looks a lot like Mount Wilson, but I don't have a clue which tower is which, though THIS website does.

The are on Mt. Suppoa, the highest point in the park at 2690 feet tall.

I had fun looking at it and seeing the resemblance between their antenna farm...and ours.

Two Days, Two Sunsets

We spent 3 evenings in Phoenix, Arizona and these are two of them.

We were brought to the Luminaria Evening at the Desert Botanical Garden. We went there last year and expected to see cactus's and trees all lit up and that is exactly what we got.

The sun was going down, as we arrived and so the first thing we did, was try (as fast as we could) to shoot the sunset.

This photo was the best one I got.

Love the colored lights on the Saguaro cactus's. :-)

On Monday evening, we had hoped to catch the sunset at Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home. Unfortunately for us, there are power lines that totally block the sunset. As a matter of fact, FLW was horrified when they put in the smallest of the obstructions, which are the telephone poles.

The bottom line, for this entire situation, is that we decided to bail and we drove home, during sunset.

In spite of that fact, my Husband did get a few photos of the Valley of the Sun and this is one of them.

We were right by the Salt River, when we took this photo, in case you care about location.

All in all, a wonderful weekend, at least sunset wise.

More on the trip, another day.

Happy Hanukkah (2017)

We will be flying back to Los Angeles, this morning.

Tonight will be the first night of Hanukkah and with some luck, my guys might get a Hanukkah meal together for us all.

I do have a tri-tip roast and russet potatoes, to make pancakes, so what the heck.

In a weird thing...our local market was very sparse with holiday foods and I have no idea why that is.

As you can see, the house is decorated and ready, so we hope to celebrate the festival of lights tonight.

Happy Hanukkah, for those who celebrate.

Bok Tower, Florida

My Water Post For Today.

Bok Tower Gardens is in Central Florida, not far from Orlando.

Our friends from Phoenix visited it recently and were showing me a few photos.

In some ways it reminded me of something that my family had visited back in the 60's. Upon further reflection, I believe that was another tower called The Citrus Tower.

This one, though speaks to me on an artistic level.

So I asked for my friend to forward one of the images, to me.

I would like to paint it sometime. We will see if that happens...

Being it has water in the photo, I thought you would enjoy it. Especially the reflection of the tower, in the water.

The House This Christmas (2017)

We are in Phoenix, Arizona and are happy to see our friends and the desert, at the holidays.

I thought I would show off this year's decorations.

First off, are the outside decorations.

It has been this essential style, for many years, especially with the latest lights.

So far, none of them have failed and may it stay that way. Without going back further, I see them on my house in 2011. So they are at least 6 years old...but probably a little older.

Our tree lights have been having problems and I had to replace a set last year and another set, this year.

I thought it came out nice, even though I put quite a bit less onto the tree this year.

As usual, the first 3 branches down below, are basically naked. The Cat Zone. :-)

Happy Holiday's From The Walt Disney Studio (2017)

I got dropped off inside the charmed lot, on Thursday and so I took that opportunity to get this years decorations onto my cell phone camera.

There were those 7 Dwarfs standing on Disney Corporate, with Dopey and his Santa cap, at the top.

I like taking the photo from behind Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse, since it gives the photo more interest.

What made the shot even more interesting, is the fact that there is an almost full moon, up in the sky.

Win!

Disney's Christmas Tree Lighting is tonight at 4PM.

I will, hopefully, be in Arizona by the time this event happens.

The Pointe Decorations (2017)

I guess I must be getting used to the starkness of the decorations.

Each year it is different, though this one is similar to last year's...which you can see HERE.

The two wreaths actually look decent.

It doesn't look terrible, so I guess that is a win for The Pointe Lobby.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas.

Moon Shot

To get off the subject of trees hanging around my backyard (now removed), I thought I would give a quick review of a 23 year old book that a friend of my son let him read. He offered us first crack at it and I took him up on the generous offer.

The book is called Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Race To The Moon.

I have read several books on lunar flight, including Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 (James Lovell's book) & For Spacious Skies (Scott Carpenter's book). So I am no novice to accounts from our Astronauts.

This book is written by Deke Slayton and Alan Shepard. Both Mercury Astronauts and part of the original 7.

Alan Shepard was the first man in space, but they found problems with his inner ear, as he was training for his second mission and so he got grounded.

Deke Slayton was found to have an irregular heartbeat and at the last minute, they decided to pull him, rather than allow him to fly in Mercury.

Both men, managed to get back up into space, before retiring, Shepard on Apollo 14 and Deke Slayton flew on the Apollo-Soyuz Mission.

What brings this book into a different realm (and this could be because Deke Slayton knew Russian Cosmonauts from his mission) is the fact that you get the blow by blow of each of the Russian firsts in flight. The names of the people involved, their experiences as they fought us for supremacy in the skies and their failures along the way.

Our failures were more well known, but no less heartbreaking, especially Apollo 1.

Truly, I just wanted to cry.

I was so lucky to have a family that instilled in me a love of space and this book brings so many memories back to me.

Even after 23 years, it is worth the time to read.

Enjoy.

It Was Just A Tree Branch

The day started bad.

I knew we had a fire in Ventura, but being it is far from us, I was worried for my work partner...but not for me.

When I woke up, I found out that a fire was just beginning in the Sylmar area of LA. Between me and where I work.

Great...

I make it in, my work partner makes it in and my boss (flying in from San Francisco) makes it in.

We were hoping for smooth sailing...but it was not to be.

My Husband calls me around noon, to let me know that we were now the proud owners of a tree branch, that fell off the tree in my neighbor's yard.

It hit the top of the house next to ours, our fence and our pond and is laying in our backyard.

Pretty scary all around.

If you remember, I go up onto my part of the hill and I cut back the pine trees each year. You can see that post, with the pine tree that is now missing a branch, HERE.

My Husband sends me photos and a video, but the bottom line is that I am at work and can only do so much. Like contact our neighbor and let him know he now is the proud owner of a tree branch on his roof.

He is a fireman so, to say the least, he is busy.

I got home just after sunset, so I can't see very much, but the second photo shows where the branch came from. See the center of the photo, for the stub.

Photo number 3 shows where the branch eventually ended up. We hope that location is a bit more stable.

A tree trimmer was called...but obviously, they did not make it here in time to get the branch cut and removed.

Oh well...

Guinness Bread

My son was given some kind of Stout Beer flavored with coffee.

To say the least, he was not impressed.

He didn't want to throw the beer out and so I said, why not beer bread?

Voilà! I found a recipe HERE.

It came out OK, though I am sure with a better beer, it would be even better.

Guinness Bread

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Servings 1 loaf

Ingredients

3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder 1/3 cup oats
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
12 oz Guinness
1 tbsp oats
1 tbsp butter

Instructions

Preheat oven at 350F
Grease a loaf pan with the 1 tbsp butter.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, 1/3 cup oats and brown sugar.
Slowly beat in the Guinness into the dry ingredients using a wooden spoon or an electric mixer on the low setting. Do not over mix the batter, but make sure that it is not too lumpy.
Pour the batter in the greased loaf pan and sprinkle the 1 tbsp of oats on top. Bake the bread for 50 minutes. The bread is done when a toothpick inserted, comes out clean. Check at 45 minutes just in case the bread is done early.
Place on a cooling rack until at room temperature.

The Fountain At Fountain Hills Redux

My Water Post For Today. (Courtesy of my real son)

Since we are flying over to Phoenix, Arizona this weekend, I thought I would revisit a photo that my son took 7 years ago, this month.

This photo was taken in Fountain Hills, Arizona and it is not too far from Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's Winter Home and school.

Being I kind of knew it was near this fountain, I decided to check into it and see if we wanted to visit Taliesin West.

We think that we are and so maybe we will make that detour and visit the fountain, one more time. :-)

Here is what I wrote, back in 2010. Again, kudos to my son, for the great photograph.

"While we were in Phoenix, Arizona, our friends decided to drive all the way out to Fountain Hills, because they had heard from their son that I did a water thing here on my blog. Nice...

When they said they were going to take me to a fountain, I thought it would be local, but instead it was up on the far north east end of the Phoenix metro area.

The fountain goes off every hour for exactly 15 minutes. It used to the the tallest fountain, though now days it is only the 4th tallest. Still, it takes 3 pumps to get it to its full height of 560 feet. Normally, it is only run using 2 of the pumps, which is how we saw it. Impressive as all heck though.

The photo was taken with our new camera and my son bracketed the exposures using something called High Dynamic Range (HDR). That is what gives the photo its almost 3D quality."

The Coin Expert

We went to dinner on Saturday and our "Magic" son decided to come along.

So we order and are waiting for our food and instead of just cards, he is flipping a coin through his fingers.

The man never stops working on his magic.

What ended up being even more interesting, was the fact that at another table sat the couple that sponsored his family into this Country.

He went over and said hello to them and then they came by our table at the end of their dinner.

I commented that he is our son and they said, "ours too".

A pretty popular person, that son of mine. :-)

Cold Moon Rising

I left work at sunset on Friday evening.

I knew that this is not quite the full cold moon, but it is close and it is a stunner.

The photo is taken just outside my building, at work.

I was running very late and so I only had this one chance at a shot.

Definitely try to catch it, tonight or tomorrow.

You won't regret it.

Fall At The Pointe

Today is the first day of December. The Thanksgiving Holiday time is officially OVER.

Before we get all misty eyed for the holiday decorations at my place of work, I thought I would take a photo of the Fall colors now appearing in front of the building.

We lost many of these trees, in the 5 year drought, so last year they planted new ones.

They seem to be doing well, so far and we've got leaves changing color, too.

Win!