Here and There

Scenes of Colorado

 

In November, I took a trip to spend Thanksgiving with our Colorado family who live near Denver.  I was surprised to find that the family did not live near the mountains.  The housing developments seem to have been planned with ponds and trails, enabling residents to enjoy the outdoors.  Every morning, and on some afternoons, I took long walks to take photos and get the overall feel of the area.  The walks were very pleasant.  Since it was colder than I, a resident of Southern California, was accustomed to, I bundled up with 'underalls', a long sleeve sweater, a puffy vest and a pashima shawl to cover my head.  I noticed that a number of walkers wore shorts.   As I walked past two people in shorts. I heard them discussing how unusually warm the weather was.  My attire must have looked ridiculous.

One day, I saw a hawk sitting atop a fir tree, but it was too far away for me to get a decent photo.  I'm including the photo of it flying away because I thought it was interesting.  Visiting the family was very enjoyable and Colorado is a beautiful place to visit.  I didn't know Denver had its own ocean in the sky, though.  Notice the whale in the pictures below.  I was as surprised as you might be.

In early December, my friend, Marge, invited me to accompany her on her trip to see her long-time friends near Phoenix, Arizona.  The ride was fun for me.  The last time I drove through Arizona was about 15 years ago.  I was grateful to have the opportunity to see the state again.   The expansive vista reminded me that the United States still has a lot of open land.  The picture below of the rolling hills, or dunes, was a sight to see.  As we passed them, I spotted riders on top of one of the hills just starting their descent.

The next day, we spent the afternoon visiting with Marge's very gracious friends near Phoenix. After a wonderful lunch and conversation, we were already planning a trip to Scottsdale.  I had hoped to connect with a good friend from New York, who now lives in Mesa the next day, but unfortunately I could not reach her.  With such short notice, that's the chance I took.

When we reached Scottsdale, we went directly to the mall.  I remarked to Marge, "They have a Dillard's."  I thought they were just a Texas store, but drove past one in Denver.  So that I could experience a visit to the store, off we went through what I considered a gigantic mall until we reached Dillards.  Their "Christmas" section was not easy to find, but we succeeded.

Then, off to the outside of the mall, to see what we could see.  As we walked along a side street with very interesting restaurants, we reached a beautiful sculpture of 'pony express' riders near the Marshall Way Bridge.  The name of the sculpture was  "Passing the Legacy" by Herb Mignery.  

Female Bronzed Cowbird

     

After crossing the bridge, we discovered Scottsdale's 'Old Town.'  There were a number of the Cowbirds in the trees like the one shown at right. This section of town was much more interesting to me, but we had walked for a long time. 

Perhaps, a future trip? 

View from Marshall Way Bridge

As we left Arizona the next day, we stopped at Gila Bend.  My daughters stopped there while driving through on a recent trip.  They returned with two beautiful yard sculptures. The store is shown below.  When we stopped, I took a picture of a restaurant near there.  The name, "Space Age", as well as the design was interesting, but maybe at another time.

I enjoyed my travels and am now hunkering down for the winter.

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Perhaps by Catherine Hall (on Kindle and the Nook) 

The Book of Micah by Catherine Hall (on Kindle and the Nook) 

East Coast Earthquake

When I read this afternoon that Colorado had a 5.3 magnitude earthquake last night at 11:46pm (Mountain Daylight Time), I checked out the U.S. Geological Survey website. Having experienced three earthquakes since I moved to Southern California in 2001, the USGS website is on my "favorites" list. While looking at the USA Geological Map, I saw that Virginia had just experienced a 5.9 (later changed to 5.8) at 1:51pm (Eastern Daylight Time). I had no idea the extent to which it was felt throughout the East Coast until I received a phone call from my daughter in New York City advising me that she was unable to reach her husband or her mother-in-law who cares for my daughter's 10 months old baby. My daughter was concerned that she couldn't reach them and asked me to try. She experienced September 11, 2001, so this earthquake only heightened her awareness. I remember that on September 11, 2001, when I worked in New York City, we could not phone anyone, yet people outside of New York could call in. So today, I phoned both my daughter's home, where I got the answering machine, and her mother-in-law's cell phone. The cell phone didn't even connect, meaning I heard no ring...nothing but silence. Then, I tried my daughter's cell phone. That didn't connect either. Later I learned that cell phone activity immediately following the earthquake, figuratively, just flooded the system. I e-mailed my daughter about the dead cell phones and she responded that she had heard from her mother-in-law, who was evacuated with my granddaughter, and had now returned to the apartment. On August 7, 2011, I wrote about the importance of the Internet to the general public. If you haven't read it, I invite you do so. Today's occurrence is just another instance of our need to have unfettered access.

I do not take earthquakes lightly. I recently met friends for dinner where we asked one of our members about his elderly in-laws who live in Japan. He spoke about the multiple earthquakes that Japan is still experiencing. At this point the discussion veered to weather around the United States. My friends reiterated how they could not live in areas with tornadoes and hurricanes, yet everyday they risk possible earthquakes here in San Diego. Having had an earthquake literally lift me off the floor four years ago at 8:00am on Labor Day morning, I respect them. I was brushing my teeth and the next thing I knew, I had to hold on to the sink with my elbow in an effort to avoid falling to the floor. Yet I, too, choose the same risk as my California friends, to live in practically perpetual sunshine rather than ice and snow.

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