Tuesday, March 28, 2017

March 26-28, 2017 Shoshone, California


Making progress on the master piece. Going to do a bit more beading. A hummer at the feeder. This one dive bombed me when I was bringing the refilled feeder out, then hung behind my head till I started hanging it. She then started eating while I was still tying it up. 
Metal cactus sculpture in the Shoshone Park. The Shoshone Museum. 
Walk like an egyptian shadow and reflection. A black butte studded with bright yellow brittle bush and reeds below in evening light.
Flowery bush, curly grass and dried salts on the ground, look kind of like snow covered mountains. The path is lined with back lit pink monkey flowers.

Brittle Bush.
Brittle bush in the foreground and up both mountains in the background.

Door to the dynomite room for the mine-  cut into the cliff by the miners and  cool formations. 
Wooly daisy, orange dotter- a parasite that kills it’s host, white flowers on a bush. Pincushion, chia and indigo bush.
Fat beetle, the inside of the powder room showing the cut marks on the sides where the miners cut out the room, mojave aster. White flowering bush, grass found at the end of an arroyo, woolly daisy and pink monkey flower, beavertail cactus bloom.
Sprouting sugar snap pea that looks like a bug and beavertail cactus in bloom. Happy hour by the bus with John, Laurie, Jeff- a friend from Colorado and Judy.




















Saturday, March 25, 2017

March 22-24, 2017 Death Valley Back to Shoshone, California

The view from our room at Furnace Creek Inn of the garden below through the screen. A mushroom in Death Valley??I looked it up and it is a desert shaggy mane.



A dove checking out the jewels. He probably thought they were food.  The family before dinner at Furnace Creek Inn- Laurie, Judy, Jill , Suep and John. We have been doing this trip since  1991 and most years we took a photo in front of this fireplace. They are going to remodel this year and this fireplace will look different. 
We do this trip over Judy’s birthday. Happy Birthday Judy.  Our good bye breakfast on our last morning in Death Valley.

Just finished this little purple basket. The bead work is called peyote stitch.  This white basket is the the new masterpiece in progress. The center is an abalone shell carved into love birds. Not sure where I am going with this from here. Stay tuned.

I took a water color class on Saturday. We had three students and one instructor and painted up by the pup fish pond. It was lovely weather a fun, informtive class and I think water color is not my medium. My first masterpiece. I gave it to Mac, she named it Calm after the hurricane. 


Sue and Toni painting the pond. Me in front of the scene with my painting. 


Judy and I hiked the loop and the flowers are popping.  A wash and a hillside of flowers.


More brittle bush in another wash. A pile of Master Blister Beetles.




Wednesday, March 22, 2017

March 21-22, 2017 Death Valley, California


After our dune hike we  had an appetizing dinner at the Bistro in Tecopa. Then into Death Valley the  next day. Rock formation on Twenty Mule Team canyon scenic drive.

Angie, Judy D, Jill, John and I  started out with a hike from Zabriskie point to Golden Canyon at around noon. The sign says Extreme Heat Danger, walking after 10 am not recommended. Fortunately it cooled down to the high 80's and  the wind was blowing cooling it off. It is a mostly downhill hike, we had a car at the top and one at the bottom.  

Beautiful colors washed out by the bright sunshine and shapes in a lunar kind of landscape.

Jill, Judy and John hiking along the top of a ridge, and Judy D and Angie traversing across a steep canyon wall.


 And into  Golden Canyon to the car.

When we got to Furnace Creek Inn our room was not ready, so I hung out in the garden and at the pool. It really is an oasis in the desert.


We had pre dinner appetizers on the rooftop deck outside our room with Mac, John, Kent, Judy D, Rod, Judy F and Sue D and dinner in the Inn diningroom with Angie, Jill, Judy P, Laurie and John.

 The next day Bec, Jill, Judy and I walked from the Inn to the Ranch (one mile each way) and back. Relaxed the rest of the day in our rooms, the gardens and pool. Bougainvillea flowers, a desert mushroom, a fossil Jill found and a water lily blooming in the garden at the Inn.

Emmet in his stylishly matching swim gear at the pool . For dinner we had heavy appetizers on our deck.