June is here and the Desert is heating up for another Summer. So, Hilda and I are taking trips to cooler places. Saturday, June 1st, we headed to the Four Peaks trail north of the Superstition Range. Sandie and Steve led the way with Hilda, Bruce, and I following. As always, the Arizona scenery was spectacular, with the added bonus that every minute brought cooler temperatures. There's so much green this year and the Saguraros are still in bloom.
At about 1 pm we arrived at Rosevelt Lake and had lunch while Hilda went swimming with Blue Harrons and White Cranes.
After lunch we drove south along the lake to Tonto National Monument and I saw the Salado Cliff Dwellings for the first time. I could almost hear the Salado Indians going about their everyday chores. Both Hilda and I were very reluctant to leave these peaceful, cool, and beautiful sorroundings and return home.

It's been a couple of months since the last entry, not that HIlda and I haven't been shooting anything, we've been shooting everything in sight. This past weekend we joined the Casa Grande 4 Wheelers on a trip into the Mineral Mountains over a trail leading to the Ajax Mine. Did I say trail? Actually, it's a creek bed filled with rocks and boulders, some as large or larger than my Jeep. At the end of the "trail" are two abandoned mines, the "Ajax" and "Orphan Boy". I haven't been able to discover what was being mined, but apparently whatever it was played out very quickly and the mines were abandoned.
Driving back from the mines, our group took an upper trail which was significantly easier than the creek bed, and spied the more adventurous members of the group tackling the extreme rocks in the upper Ajax trail. Over looking the creek, on the western wall of the canyon, is the remnants of the original trail used by the miners to get back to the Ajax. Using a 75mm lens, I captured a pretty good panorama of the old trail, which you'll see in the "Landscapes" gallery.
Hilda had another dispute with a Cholla cactus and several hundred burs, but I managed to pull all the cactus quills and cut out the burs. By the time we got home, Hilda crashed for the night, completely exhausted from all the day's activity.

New and Improved Website

It's Here.....The New and Improved Website has finally been launched!!!
Hilda and I are very proud of the new look, and hope everyone who comes to visit enjoys the experience.
The new features include: A "Fish Eye" menu; Pop up Panoramas which adjust to the users monitor resoulution; "Next" and "Previous" Buttons which allow for quick access to the next or previous panoramas.
Other features such as "Search" will be added soon. Any suggestions you may have for improving the site are most welcome. Thank you from Hilda and me.

The White Mountains

It was a bright and crisp morning when my friends Richard and Anna Blondis and I sat out for a trip into the White Mountains to take in the Autumn colors.
Poor, poor little Hilda didn't get to go on this trip. It was the first ever that she missed, but we were going in the Blondis' car and there just wasn't room.
Expectations rose with the elevation as we began to see a sprinkling of yellow in the Sycamores, but was dashed when the higher we went, the less beautiful color and more brown. Apparently we missed the golden day when all was ablaze in reds, yellows and shades in between.
All was not lost. We found magical and some poignant scenes along the way. There was a railroad car, turned diner, and turned derelict; a scene right out of the Little House on the Prairie; and a monument to Victorian Arrogance. The latter being Fort Apache Christian Indian School, where in a failed attempt, missionaries deprived a generation of Apache children of their language, customs, and culture in an effort to remake them into little white children in the late 1800s.
It turned out to be a very exhausting but full filling day, covering a little more than five hundred miles of awe inspiring White Mountain back roads.
Yes, Hilda was still awake and waiting for me when I got home. I think she was so glad to see me that I was forgiven for leaving her behind. At least I'd like to think so.

Sunflower Mine and Ghost Town

Today the weather is picture perfect for yet another forey into the mountains. This time Hilda and I along with our next door neighbor, Sue Stanisech are joining the Casa Grande 4 Wheeler's Club on an excursion to Sunflower. In 1868 Sunflower was a cavalry water station and abandoned in 1870. It was later reopened breifly as a Quicksilver mine and a great deal of equipment is still there to see.
This trip was made up of the largest convoy of offroad vehicles we've yet been part of. There were twelve Jeeps and trucks all told, snaking their way over a narrow, sometimes challenging and beautiful maountain trail. It was a short walk down a path to the mine, where I shot a couple of panoramas using a 35mm and 24mm lens respectively.
Hilda seemed to have a wonderful time. One of the other drivers brought his three year old son along, and he and Hilda became fast friends. The two ran themselves ragged and when we got home Hilda dropped into an instant comma.