Going down Fox Canyon

Years ago I read a Louis Lamour novel that took place close to here. He described the protagonist traveling through  a series of canyons on his way to the Spanish Peaks. It sounded so much like the land around here.

Of course, all canyons seems pretty much the same on paper. I think the ones he described were called Cougar and Coyote canyon. The ones right behind us here are Coyote and Fox Canyon. 

The latter makes a right angle bend and comes to the edge of our property. In fact we own down to the bottom of it.

I've tried taking pictures of it, but it just doesn't look as steep as when you try to climb it.

The gran kids have built a tepee about half way down and like to go play there. 

It's so calm and secluded.

It makes you think you are at the last scene of Kevin Costner's "Dances with wolves".
You can almost see the tribe spending the winter in this place.

Looking at the almost full moon.

Up in the mountains, without TV, we get entertainment by looking up at the nigh time skies.

It is strange to realize that we, the common folk, can now snap a picture of the moon
and make it look almost as good a one form NASA or National Geographic Magazine from a few decades ago.

The future astronauts.

I was going outside, to set up my tripod for some moon shots later tonight,
when suddenly a jet shoots straight up behind the moon.

Then heads straight west, towards the setting sun.

And finally three others break sonic speeds, right over the horizon.

No, those are not UFO's over the San Luis Valley.

They're just pilots in training.
But, at least the first one is aspiring to reach the moon, and perhaps the sun, 
as a future astronaut!

Watching daylight go

near 5:30 PM, in southern Colorado.

"Amarillo by morning...

up from San Antone"
was the song we used to sing while trying to stay awake when we drove up to Colorado.

That was back in the days of 55 and 60 mph speed limits.

But now that we can drive at 75 for most of the trip (and 80 in IH10), its more like…..

"Trinidad by morning….."

Yes, thinking of a combination of the mesas of the SW

and clear Rocky Mountain snows

in the early morning gives you a boost to keep on driving 


and make those 765 miles as the sun comes up.

Who would have thought...

......that San Antonio has the first bookless library in the country!
 

 

Its on the other side of town, so we have not seen it yet ( We copied these pics off the web).

Apparently the costs of the I-Pads that are lent out, the computers on site, and the purchasing of the e-books by the city was the same as just purchasing paper books.

But it was a lot cheaper to get space in a strip mall than build a whole building to house books.

Check it out:

http://www.click2houston.com/news/san-antonio-library-offers-glimpse-of-bookless-future/-/1735978/23758560/-/a7nm9oz/-/index.html

It's surprising to us that half the e-reader machines are checked out at one time and none have been stolen or damaged.

Happy New Year

from San Antonio

where 250,000 showed up at the Hemishere Plaza to celebrate the New Year.

But, this year, because of the recent rains, they allowed people to fire off their own fireworks.

In the neighborhoods, it seemed another quarter million people were firing away,
almost making the ground tremble!

Happy New Year!

(PS These are pictures I got off the  Internet. But, it sure looks like a good party to photograph!)