I guess I start off with the flora of the desert because I am madly in love with the deserts and mountains of the old western United States. Had I seen it 30 or 40 years ago, I would have done everything in my power to move out there but alas it's a little late for that now. However, since we discovered it about ten years ago we have made many trips to the west and enjoyed every minute of it. When I first saw the vast plains of Texas and New Mexico I couldn't help thinking of the settlers of the old days and what they must have suffered to get out there. All that and unfriendly Indians raiding and killing as many of them as they could.
Then when we came to mountain range after mountain range it seemed impossible to us that anyone with the equipment they had at the time could get either over or around them. We still marvel about it every time we drive out there. Talk about "gutsy" people! The plants you see on either side, I do not know the name of but when I started to explore the desert I found that it literally teems with flora and fauna! When it rains there ... and that is not too often ... there is the most beautiful aroma that comes from the desert! You couldn't buy that nice of an aroma at the best "perfumery" if you tried! It's just that most everything is different than what we are used of, that's all. Other than snakes and scorpians, most of the animals are fairly harmless.
I think the biggest thrill I got out of the many trips out there was seeing a "Road Runner" cross my path on the highway. He wasn't working at it very hard but he sure was moving! I was amazed at the size of him ... about the size of a turkey. As Joyce was dozing at the time, she missed seeing it. I sure wish I had gotten a picture of it though. I couldn't help but laugh because that cartoonist sure has him "pegged" right in the movies. Except for the colors I couldn't help thinking of that damn cartoon as he ran across in front of my car. **** Footnote It is now 24th March, 2001 and my niece and nephew, Stan and Terry Cowling recently got back from Arizona and while there, were lucky enough to get a shot of a roadrunner! They didn't have it on telephoto and I had to scan it from their snap, boost it up as far as I dare and try to get as sharp a picture as I could by using every trick I've learned on Photo Shop. Anyway, here is what the "cheeky little buggers" look like. I still think the cartoonist that did the Roadrunner Shows had him down to a "T" .... what do you think??
I thought I'd toss these two pictures in here just to show you what a diverse country the west is. Actually the picture on your left was taken in Oklahoma where you see a good many of these wells scattered all over the country. They apparently all pump to pipes underground to a larger system and it all comes together at some refinery and/or oil storage facility. The picture on the right is a long way from Oklahoma but I wanted to show you a picture of an actual working well first as the place on the right was actaully too far a drive for us at the time. What you are looking at on the right is in New Mexico. It is part of a Navajoe Indian Reservation and one of the members had obtained his degree in minerology and discovered oil right there! The tribe, under his supervision has become very self-sustaining since then and they own one of the nicest Oil Companies in the west, "Giant" is the brand name. They also have the most beautiful Truck Stop I have ever seen. It's on I-40 at "marker 39" which is just 39 miles from the easterly border of Arizona and New Mexico. The "Giant Truck Stop" has everything anyone would ever need. Boutiques, shopping, restaurant, clothing .... everything ... and they are the most obliging, pleasant people you could ever want to meet.
Meanwhile back to the mountains and cliffs. The two scenes right and left are both in the mountains of southeastern Utah near where we lived (Mesquite, Nevada) when we stayed out there. When you are driving along toward the mountain range for the first time, it suddenly dawns on you that somehow you are going to have to either go around those suckers or "through" them and as they always seem to be closer to you than you think, you start wondering about it. However, it may take a little getting used of but those mountains you have been looking at for the past few hours are not just a few miles away .... they are "mountains" and as such can be 50 to 100 or more miles away from you when you first started to notice them! Well the pictures here should give you and idea of how you get "through" them! I swear ... the first time we went into a gigantic mountain, we started going down ... like into "the bowels of hell itself!" we wondered more than ever about those brave pioneers of old that did it on foot and with covered wagon! To us ... to this day and at our age we still marvel at the great engineering feats that were accomplished to make these mountains so accessible to everyone. We often wonder if the people travelling them so easily today ever take a moment to pay "homage" to their forefathers and the pioneers that opened that formidabe country up for them. Cynical perhaps ... but I doubt there are very many that do.
I hope you are not getting tired of mountains because I have always been so fascinated by them I couldn't help but take many pictures of them. I think they are awesome. Here on the right and left again are the mountain ranges that you have to go through to get from Las Vegas, Nevada to Salt Lake City in Utah. All the mountains in this page are taken in Utah from Interstate I-15. I know that the pictures are quite dark but I wanted them to show the reality of just how awesome they really are. Between the Arizona border and St. George, Utah you have to go through a chain of them and as you start into them you would think you are going down right into the blowels of hell! It seems so strange that you have so much mountain above you yet you descend into extremely deep gorges and valleys between them to get to the other side. It's amazing how far down you have to go before you start up again on the far side.
I'm guilty again of "hopping around" indiscriminately and again this time I'm about 2,500 miles from Nevada and Utah. However I spotted these pictures in my collection and wanted to show them to you for a reason. The two bridges here are the Sunshine Skyway that goes over Tampa Bay from St. Petersburg to Bradenton, Florida. We used to live near there in Clearwater and made the trip across many times. It is fourteen miles long counting the causeway. I have spent many wonderful sunny days fishing at the approach or under the first section of that bridge. I cannot remember the year it happened but it was after we moved back to Canada that a large ocean vessel struck it on a foggy night and many people, including a busload of people went into the Bay and were of course killed. They didn't see the road missing in time due to the heavy fog and the bus and several other veicles took that fatal plunge that night. You must have heard of it on the news at the time.
The bridge on your right is the new one and it took years to complete it. You will notice that on the new one there are two spans and apparently the engineering on this one was more carefully planned as well. Having the two spans alone reduced the stress of each structure as they only carried traffic one way each way. We were down a couple of times during the re-building of the new one and it sort of joined together in a couple of places to allow traffic to continue while it was being done. A bit nerve-racking to say the least.
Okay ... Okay ... I told you I'd be jumping all over the place "willy-nilly" but I did finally get my slide copier for my Nikon 990 Digital and was copying some old slides I had. Here is a picture I took from the highway in Washington State sometime in the early eighties. We had flown to Vancouver, rented a car there and were on our way to Portland, Oregon on a business trip when I stopped to take this picture. I'm not positive but I think it is Mount Rainier. We also passed Mount Hood on the way and I'll find that picture and drop it in here when I do. One thing that astonished me was that these mountains were actually over seventy miles from the Interstate we were driving on! Can you imagine how big those suckers are??
Pictures to the right above are ..... okay ... now for the grand finale for this page. Yup ... that's right .... another 1500 miles but NORTH this time! That's right ... after all that nice sunshine and warm weather I shared with you, being the sadist I am I'm going to give you a taste of what we generally got back home to. You know what it is for Heaven's sake .... ice and snow of course! Lived and policed the Niagara area so I'm ending this session with what we often got back home to. Even though ... you have to admit that it's quite beautiful isn't it? Pretty as a picture ... Niagara Falls ... too bad it's the "cesspool of North America" what with all the pollution of all those heavy industry cities above our water level. Unceremoniously dumping so much of their crap into the lakes which ultimately flow past our door polluting and poisoning almost everything in its wake! Wake up to the environment people before it's too late .... that is if it isn't already.
I guess I start off with the flora of the desert because I am madly in love with the deserts and mountains of the old western United States. Had I seen it 30 or 40 years ago, I would have done everything in my power to move out there but alas it's a little late for that now. However, since we discovered it about ten years ago we have made many trips to the west and enjoyed every minute of it. When I first saw the vast plains of Texas and New Mexico I couldn't help thinking of the settlers of the old days and what they must have suffered to get out there. All that and unfriendly Indians raiding and killing as many of them as they could.
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I think the biggest thrill I got out of the many trips out there was seeing a "Road Runner" cross my path on the highway. He wasn't working at it very hard but he sure was moving! I was amazed at the size of him ... about the size of a turkey. As Joyce was dozing at the time, she missed seeing it. I sure wish I had gotten a picture of it though. I couldn't help but laugh because that cartoonist sure has him "pegged" right in the movies. Except for the colors I couldn't help thinking of that damn cartoon as he ran across in front of my car. **** Footnote It is now 24th March, 2001 and my niece and nephew, Stan and Terry Cowling recently got back from Arizona and while there, were lucky enough to get a shot of a roadrunner! They didn't have it on telephoto and I had to scan it from their snap, boost it up as far as I dare and try to get as sharp a picture as I could by using every trick I've learned on Photo Shop. Anyway, here is what the "cheeky little buggers" look like. I still think the cartoonist that did the Roadrunner Shows had him down to a "T" .... what do you think??
I thought I'd toss these two pictures in here just to show you what a diverse country the west is. Actually the picture on your left was taken in Oklahoma where you see a good many of these wells scattered all over the country. They apparently all pump to pipes underground to a larger system and it all comes together at some refinery and/or oil storage facility. The picture on the right is a long way from Oklahoma but I wanted to show you a picture of an actual working well first as the place on the right was actaully too far a drive for us at the time. What you are looking at on the right is in New Mexico. It is part of a Navajoe Indian Reservation and one of the members had obtained his degree in minerology and discovered oil right there! The tribe, under his supervision has become very self-sustaining since then and they own one of the nicest Oil Companies in the west, "Giant" is the brand name. They also have the most beautiful Truck Stop I have ever seen. It's on I-40 at "marker 39" which is just 39 miles from the easterly border of Arizona and New Mexico. The "Giant Truck Stop" has everything anyone would ever need. Boutiques, shopping, restaurant, clothing .... everything ... and they are the most obliging, pleasant people you could ever want to meet.
Meanwhile back to the mountains and cliffs. The two scenes right and left are both in the mountains of southeastern Utah near where we lived (Mesquite, Nevada) when we stayed out there. When you are driving along toward the mountain range for the first time, it suddenly dawns on you that somehow you are going to have to either go around those suckers or "through" them and as they always seem to be closer to you than you think, you start wondering about it. However, it may take a little getting used of but those mountains you have been looking at for the past few hours are not just a few miles away .... they are "mountains" and as such can be 50 to 100 or more miles away from you when you first started to notice them! Well the pictures here should give you and idea of how you get "through" them! I swear ... the first time we went into a gigantic mountain, we started going down ... like into "the bowels of hell itself!" we wondered more than ever about those brave pioneers of old that did it on foot and with covered wagon! To us ... to this day and at our age we still marvel at the great engineering feats that were accomplished to make these mountains so accessible to everyone. We often wonder if the people travelling them so easily today ever take a moment to pay "homage" to their forefathers and the pioneers that opened that formidabe country up for them. Cynical perhaps ... but I doubt there are very many that do.
I hope you are not getting tired of mountains because I have always been so fascinated by them I couldn't help but take many pictures of them. I think they are awesome. Here on the right and left again are the mountain ranges that you have to go through to get from Las Vegas, Nevada to Salt Lake City in Utah. All the mountains in this page are taken in Utah from Interstate I-15. I know that the pictures are quite dark but I wanted them to show the reality of just how awesome they really are. Between the Arizona border and St. George, Utah you have to go through a chain of them and as you start into them you would think you are going down right into the blowels of hell! It seems so strange that you have so much mountain above you yet you descend into extremely deep gorges and valleys between them to get to the other side. It's amazing how far down you have to go before you start up again on the far side.
I'm guilty again of "hopping around" indiscriminately and again this time I'm about 2,500 miles from Nevada and Utah. However I spotted these pictures in my collection and wanted to show them to you for a reason. The two bridges here are the Sunshine Skyway that goes over Tampa Bay from St. Petersburg to Bradenton, Florida. We used to live near there in Clearwater and made the trip across many times. It is fourteen miles long counting the causeway. I have spent many wonderful sunny days fishing at the approach or under the first section of that bridge. I cannot remember the year it happened but it was after we moved back to Canada that a large ocean vessel struck it on a foggy night and many people, including a busload of people went into the Bay and were of course killed. They didn't see the road missing in time due to the heavy fog and the bus and several other veicles took that fatal plunge that night. You must have heard of it on the news at the time.
Okay ... Okay ... I told you I'd be jumping all over the place "willy-nilly" but I did finally get my slide copier for my Nikon 990 Digital and was copying some old slides I had. Here is a picture I took from the highway in Washington State sometime in the early eighties. We had flown to Vancouver, rented a car there and were on our way to Portland, Oregon on a business trip when I stopped to take this picture. I'm not positive but I think it is Mount Rainier. We also passed Mount Hood on the way and I'll find that picture and drop it in here when I do. One thing that astonished me was that these mountains were actually over seventy miles from the Interstate we were driving on! Can you imagine how big those suckers are??