Tent Rocks

This past January I decided I wanted to visit Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. It’s less than an hour from Albuquerque, on the way to Santa Fe. The cone-shaped tent rock formations are the products of volcanic eruptions which left pumice, ash and tuft deposits over 1,000’ thick. Mixtures of the materials along with erosion caused by wind and water has resulted in these formations.

The name Kasha-Katuwe means ‘white cliffs’ in the Keresan language, from one of the local pueblos.

There are two trails that go in and along the canyons that make up Tent Rocks. The Canyon trail actually goes into and eventually ends up on the top of the formation with overlooks all around. The climb is over 600’ to the top with the trail slightly over a mile in length.

Another stop you should make, the Veteran’s Memorial, is another 3 miles to the west by way of the same gravel road taken to Tent Rocks. It has a wheel-chair accessible 1 mile long path which provides many views of the Peralta Canyon and Jemez Mountain peaks. Picnic table and toilets are available.

I had a wonderful time on that Saturday. I got there relatively early, 1030, and while on the way up to the top ran into a half dozen other hikers. The way down was busy with hikers, coming upon 30 - 40 on the return trip. As you can see by one of my photos it gets kind of tight in a few spots so your hike may be slowed down by one-way traffic. It was very nice in January, snow in spots where the sun didn’t shine but the temperatures were very comfortable for hiking. I am not certain I would want to do this hike in the summer unless it is early in the day with lots of water and sunscreen.



Veteran's Memorial panorama



For more information go to http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/recreation/rio_puerco/kasha_katuwe_tent_rocks.html

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

Da Bears

I’m assuming you remember the reference to the Chicago Bears by John Ratzenberger.

I have included images of my five bears, now four, with Roxy now living in AZ. Two of my needle felted pieces were also adopted. White must have been ‘in’ this year as all of the adopted bears were white, both mohair and needle felted.

Christopher - 15” tall, ¾” Buttercup, curly mohair

Patrick - 15” tall, 3/8” Honey, distressed mohair

Holly - 11”, 3/8” White, distressed mohair

Joey - 9” tall, Sandy beige, ¾” distressed and wavy mohair

 

Roxy (adopted) - 9” tall, 3/8” White, distressed mohair

Needle felted Fox Terrier (adopted, and happily living in AZ)

  

Dalmatian 3” tall and 4” long

If  you are interested in adopting any of these boys or girls feel free to email me.

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark

Bear trails

Those of you that read my January 12 posting saw all kinds of bear parts. I am happy to report that five of the six piles of parts are now finished bears and one of them was adopted at the Phoenix Teddy Bear Show on March 17.


I actually finished the bears the week before I had to leave but I was still busy getting paperwork together along with all the show stuff. I’m sure glad I was organized enough several years ago that I put together a checklist of all the stuff I need for a show.

My table

I did this show because it is the closest one to home. I have skipped all the recent shows in Albuquerque because they are mainly doll shows with only one or two bear artists. Some of the people attending the shows don’t seem to appreciate that my bears are one of a kind and handmade, they wanted to bargain for a lower price. Phoenix is a 7 hour drive from home. I found a good book at the library and listened to a 10 hour book for my 14 hours of driving. It was 60° or so when I left Albq., around noon and by the time I got to Phoenix it was 91. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Phoenix, when I got to the edge of town I thought ‘I should be downtown in about 20 minutes’. Well 30 minutes later I was still a good 10 minutes from downtown. Traffic was full speed ahead so the long time was not due to slow traffic.

My table, another view

There were 9 artists at the show. I knew a few of them from previous shows and I had the opportunity to meet a few of the others so we had a nice time visiting when the crowds slowed down. They all suggest that I get on Facebook and start promoting on the web. I am not a Facebook fan at this point. I joined so I could join a few other groups I am interested in but up until this point I go to my Facebook page once a month whether I need to or not.

Once the show was over I got packed up in about 20 minutes and was back on the road for my 7 hour trip to Albq. It was only upper 80’s when I got in the car but the temperature dropped nicely as I started to climb back into the high desert just south of Flagstaff, low 70’s, much better! I got home around midnight and was up and off to work at 800 on Monday.

I did fairly well at the show, and I am planning on going again next year. In the mean time I have to get my name out on FB and who knows where else. The artists I spoke with have offered to provide information on what they did and how it works so I believe I will be on this computer even more than normal getting my name outon the web. I hope to have some time left to make some more bears and needle felted animals.

Stay tuned for the latest bears.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

On Comet, on Cupi....

Wrong Comet, sorry.

I work with a bunch of photographers and people that really enjoy being outside.  Living in NM makes it easy to be outside, especially in the colder part of the year.  I'm not a real go getter to be outside from late June through September.  I don't really get along with mid to upper 90's so I don't go out of my way to hike around in that weather.  Anyhow, a couple of the guys I work with got out to see Comet pan-STARRS earlier this week.  The photos were great so I went out the following night.  Earlier this year I had scouted out a parking lot on the east side of town at the foothills of the Sandia mountians that has a great view of the whole Rio Grande valley.  It was a great spot for viewing the comet.

I set up around sunset and learning from the guys that were out the previous night I knew to wait until it got dark.  After a while I felt like a tour guide with all the people stopping by asking "Where's the comet?"  I think they were expecting something a bit smaller than the one that went over Russia a few weeks ago.  I was afraid that the clouds would move in taking away any chance of seeing it.  You can see from the photo that there are clouds all around and at times we had to wait for the clouds to move out of the way.  The comet is in the upper quarter of the image just to the left of center.  You should be able to see it by double clicking on the image, expanding it.

Once we could see it, with binoculars, I had to point out which landmark to line up on to assist at least a half dozen people in finding it.  My binoculars were busy all night, but not with me.  That was okay, I had my camera to play with.  I made a number of different exposures experimenting with settings until I found a combination I liked, a huge advantage of digital over film.  I have several images but wanted to share this one because I like the coloring of the sky post sunset. Living at this altitude along with low humidiy make for great seeing conditions.  The farthest city lights are between 12 and 15 miles away and the mountain making up the lower right horizon is just over 60 miles away.

Enjoy.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark