Blanche & Lucy visit Oak Creek Canyon

Blanche and Lucy loved the beauty and space of Oak Creek Canyon - they ran all over the grounds and looked out over the Ponderosa Pine Trees.









Blanche and Lucy invited Luey to ride the ATV through Oak Creek Canyon with them... (just kidding - didn't tell the Ranger that we were using his ATV for a 'prop' for our girls.)








If you look closely to the right of this photo you can see the road that circles the mountain - this is the road we drove to get to the top of the ridge to see the vistas of Oak Creek Canyon. My ears 'popped' a couple of times on the climb.






This Poster talks about the various life that you can find in Oak Creek Canyon. If you double click on the image it will enlarge for easy reading.











Beautiful Poderosa Pines as far as the eye can see.










We were told that Oak Creek Canyon has the greatest concentration of Ponderosa Pine Trees than anywhere else in the country (actually they said the world - but I am reluctant to say 'world')







Behind us is Oak Creek Canyon Vista.

Daily Ping Pong Excersise for all

Every day we try to get our exercising - every morning we take a long walk around the Thousand Trail Park here and almost every evening we play a couple of hours of Ping Pong. When Jane visited us she joined in the fun and exercising.





Jane hits the ball across - she and I rotated turns in the foursome to all get to play...












Cheryl is a great Ping Ponger - and very serious.












Flo shows Jane how the 'pros' hit the ball.......










Co reaches to get the ball back across the table.

Blanche & Lucy visit Montezuma's Castle & Well

Our friend Jane and her dog Puzzle came with us on our day trip to Montezuma's Castle National Monument and Montezuma Well.
Here we are all pictured together - Flo, Jane & Puz, me and Luey (Flo & Co's dog), Cheryl & Lucy, and Co and Blanche - ready for our adventure. Above us you can see the ruins.















Montezuma's Castle is an ancient cliff dwelling which dates back to 1150. We found a Park Ranger along the route that explained how the archeologists are still getting information about the people who lived in these dwellings in this area.




This is a close up view of the Castle which stands in a cliff recess 100 feet above the valley.











This diorama - a small replica of the ruins cut away shows us how the people may have worked and lived in this structure.









We all found the ruins beautiful and fascinating and the dogs all loved running up and down the paths of this National Monument.












As we left the Montezuma's Castle, we decided to visit Montezuma Well a funnel shaped limestone sink containing a pool of water 55ft deep and 368ft across. the springs of warm water replenish the well with over a million and a half gallons of water a day; an amount unvarying, apparently since prehistoric times.








This plaque is a description of Montezuma Well - if you click on photo you may be able to enlarge it to read the printing... The Well is a limestone sinkhole and was an important source of water for the Singua Indians about 11,000 years ago.






Montezuma Well is a subterranean spring that maintains a temperature of 78 degrees year-round.










This plaque explains the forming of Montezuma's Well - if you double click on the image you may be able to enlarge it to read how it all started 12 million years ago -




The beautiful blue water of the well looks inviting and cool.











The 'girls' Puzzle, Lucy, Blanche & Luey in front of the Well - they said "let us go in mommies" we're hot and need a swim....







Jane, Flo and the dogs Luey & Puzzle rest in the shade - by noon temps had already reached 80 degrees - time to head back to camp and out of the heat for the dogs and gals.












Puzzle - Blanche - Lucy & Luey sit under the shade of a tree - tired & hot - ready to go home after their interesting and informative day.

Poking around Antiques

While driving around we came upon Candy's Creekside Antique Store and grounds - sprawling property with tons of interesting great old stuff... loved poking around some of the nostalgic things here. Hope you like what I did with some of the photos that I took to make them look old...










Here are some great old Kitchen antiques that Cheryl found - remember all that old 'milk glass' kitchenware and how about that old Sunbeam Mixer... cake anyone?










This beautiful old tractor in mint condition sat in front of Candy's Creekside Cottage Antiques in a beautiful pink glow - couldn't help but shoot it... tough but feminine.
















I worked a little creative magic on this photo - I Sepia toned it with a browntone color and then I colorized the tractor and wheels alone and leaving the rest of the photo antique brown to give it an old feel.








We came across this old truck and broken down building and from where I stood I could see an old antique wringer washer through the open window...look closely - can you see it? I love this scene...everything just forgotten and left behind.





As with the tractor, I decided to work a little on this photo by colorizeing the truck and the Coke sign to give it a more antique look.









Not sure if you can read the sign to the left of the Antiques sign - above the tub... but it says "Loan for Farmers" which I loved - besides the outdoor tub of course.

Blanche & Lucy visit Sedona, Az

Blanche and Lucy have their friend Luey (she belongs to our friends Co & Flo) with them for this photo as we went up to the Sedona Airport for a view of the valley. We all picked up sandwiches on the way and had lunch up here and took lots of photos of the red rock formations from this great vantage point.




You can see Coffee Pot Rock to the right of this rock formation.












This is Courthouse Butte and Cathedral Rock






We all loved sitting on the many rock seats to enjoy the beauty of the vistas that we could see from the Sedona Airport - this is where many people come to watch the sunset over the Sedona Red Rocks every evening.









The beauty of Sedona is catchy... even Cheryl is taking photos from this vantage point where you can see so many beautiful rock formations.










More views from the Airport vista - this is called Chimney Rock - Cheryl took this photo.










Any outing with our dogs is not complete till we find a Dog Park for them to romp in.... and Sedona was no different... so we found a beautiful Dog Park here that had a great view of the red rocks and lots of dogs for the girls to play with.









Lucy loves the big dogs and had fun playing with Bailey - a Golden Doodle (cross between a Golden Retriever and a standard Poodle) - he reminded Lucy of her friends the big poodle mixes at SMR.






We had to leave the Dog park to discover more great places in Sedona - so Blanche said goodbye to her new friend 'Bailey'.










As we drove around Sedona we could find many 'turn-offs' where we could stop to take photos of the beautiful red rock vistas - off in the distance you can see Chathedral Rock - and yes that's me in the yellow shirt taking a pic...






This is what you first see when you walk through the entrance to Red Rock State Park - a beautiful vista of Cathedral Rock and a wide open meadow... see if you can see the small person on the bottom left... Flo and her dog Luey walking ahead of us all...







Co took this great pic of Blanche, Lucy, Cheryl & I with Chimney Rock behind us. Red Rock State Park in Sedona is one of the best places for people with dogs, or kids - they love the hiking and swiming in the cool water.






Blanche and Lucy loved swimming in the river in Red Rock - in fact Blanche had no problem doing the dog paddle when she went over her head... Lucy not so much....Since the temps were over 80degrees the water felt nice and cool for them.












As we took the dogs for a long hike through the Park - they climbed over rocks, and ran in the water and through the red dirt....which they loved. And we saw all sorts of things left behind by other hikers - in the way of messages and artwork.






As we hiked along the paths - we saw tons of little piles of rocks - called Carins - landmarks left by visitors who have also taken the same route... they were everywhere and just filled the park on the ground, in the trees, on the shore and even on other rocks.... we were fascinated by them and how many there were.




Flo and I decided that we should also leave a couple of our own Carin landmarks here in Red Rock State Park to say that we were there. So we crossed the river to the opposite shore and went to work piling up our little rocks as Co snapped our photos from the opposite shore, and Cheryl and the dogs watched us.







Flo & I rested after we built our Carins and Co took photos from the shore across the river.









I was barefoot and Flo had sneakers so as we crossed back over the river - Flo lent me a helping hand.

















After we built our little Carin landmarks - we left them on the big red rock slab for others to find. Flo and I crossed back over the river to where everyone was waiting. At one point I thought for sure I was going to slip into the river....






These are our own - finished little 'Carins' - our own little 'landmarks' to show that we were here at Red Rock State Park in Sedona, Az.

If you want to know more about Carins go to Google.com and type in carin or rock piles.

Here's what the Wikipedia encyclopedia has to say about carins or these stone structures:

A cairn (from càrn in Scottish Gaelic, carnedd in Welsh, karn or carn in Cornish, carn in Irish) is a man-made pile of stones. Cairns are found all over the world in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, and also in barren desert and tundra areas. They vary in size from small stone markers to entire artificial hills, and in complexity from loose, conical rock piles to delicately balanced sculptures and elaborate feats of megalithic engineering. Cairns may be painted or otherwise decorated, e.g. for increased visibility or for religious reasons.

In modern times, cairns are often erected as landmarks, a use they have had since ancient times. Since prehistory, they have also been built as sepulchral monuments, or used for defensive, hunting, ceremonial, astronomical and other purposes.