It's Hot — It's hot. It is too hot for me to go outside. I don't even want to go to the mailbox. You can bet, if it is too hot for this girl to out exploring and photographing, then it is really bloody hot! At this moment I am working away in the UN-comfort of my easy chair. My very warm easy chair. I have the swamp cooler going full blast — or rather full "puff" ... More...

Arches National Park - Arches National Park protects the greatest concentration of natural sandstone arches anywhere on earth. Like many other parks on the Colorado Plateau, eroded sandstone provides the palette for sensational and colorful desert vistas. But special geological circumstances millions of years old, have made Arches unique... More...

Mesa Verde National Park - About 1500 years ago, a group of Indians living in the Four Corners region chose Mesa Verde as their home. For more than 700 years their descendants lived and flourished here, eventually building elaborate stone cities in the sheltered recesses of the canyon walls. Then in the late 1200s, within the span of one or two generations, they abandoned their homes and mysteriously moved away forever. More...

Carlsbad Caverns - Carlsbad Caverns National Park was established to preserve Carlsbad Cavern and numerous other caves within a Permian-age fossil reef. The park contains 83 separate caves, including the nation's deepest limestone cave -- 1,597 feet -- and third longest, Carlsbad Cavern, with one of the world's largest underground chambers and countless formations. More...

Newspaper Rock State Historic Park - Newspaper Rock is a petroglyph panel etched in sandstone that records perhaps 2,000 years of human activity in the area. Etched into the desert varnish are symbols representing the Fremont, Anasazi, Navajo and Anglo cultures. The exact nature of these symbols meaning is still not clearly understood. More...

Cooking - or not. — I am not much of a chef. Heck, I am not much of a cook and I sure as heck would not make it as a short-order cook at the famous Bagdad Cafe out on Route 66. "Tell me again, what is 'Sh*t on a Shingle?'" What got me thinking about cooking today? CostCo. Yes, that place where you can spend $200 on stuff you need but do you really need a case of it? More...