Sunday, January 6, 2013

Just another sunrise

I'm playing around with Photoshop trying to learn how
to make panoramas.

This is one of my first.
Photoshop wouldn't stitch them together automatically - 
I think I didn't have enough overlap for it to match up - so
I had to do it myself and it gave me a small workspace so I couldn't see
the detail in order to match it better...

But here's this morning none the less.


Meanwhile Kate & the Doods are snug in bed.
Kate is viewing the sunrise right out the bedroom window.



La Luna Bella!


While running around in the dark - its important not to bump into
(or kneel on) a Cholla Cactus.


After my early morning photoshoot & blog composition,
I cooked up a breakfast of Apple Cinnamon Pancakes
and turkey bacon strips...

That got my girls out of bed!



Saturday, January 5, 2013

Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in

Today we went into Fountain Hills to explore the town.
What a beautiful town.
They have this enormous fountain that shoots 330' into the air
every hour on the hour.
On certain days they run all three pumps (rather than just two) and
the fountain shoots almost 600' into the air.

The fountain was built in 1970 by Robert McCulloch - of McCulloch
chainsaw fame.  Mr McCulloch was also the man who purchased and rebuilt
the London Bridge in Lake Havasu, Az putting that town on the map.

Around the fountain is a man made lake that uses reclaimed water to
operate the pump and water the expansive park area that surrounds the lake.
The park has shops, restaurants, and galleries at one end and includes a walking
path around the perimeter as well as an 18 hole disc golf course.

Making several circumnavigations of the park with the Doodles today
gave us an opportunity to meet quite a few of the locals.
We even visited 2 open houses doing some recon for work.

Of course I thought that I had forgot the cameras... did not have the phone..
so we were unable to get any photos.

Until.....

Towards the end of our day we were driving thru a neighborhood in town
and all of a sudden a flock of Roadrunners...
That's right I said Roadrunners..  ran in front of the truck taunting me.

The did their little Roadrunner chirps and seemed like they were daring me to
try and take a picture.  As we lamented the lack of a camera we realize that we had
the little point and shoot so I immediately got to work.

Of course as soon as I pulled out the camera they made for the bush.

The result...



So now I've got Roadrunner back on the menu along with Snowbird.

Regarding my last post with the Sunrise pictures...
We've had several people tell us which is their favorite.

Let us know which is yours...
Cast your vote.

We have almost 80 people following this blog but only hear regularly
from less than a dozen...

Cast your vote.  Let us know you are still out there.

I'll post the results in a later post.