Los Alamos, NM

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Today is our last full day in Los Alamos.  We decided we would clean Jessica's house, since she is not supposed to be doing that.  

We took a short break after lunch.

When Tic sat down both Jessica's pets decided they needed to join him.  Sabastian the cat and Maggie the dog are both crazy about Tic.

A little later in the afternoon, it started hailing.

I took this looking out the front door.  It was raining now and some of the hail had already melted.

It actually snowed on Pajarito Ski Hill while it was hailing and raining in town.  You can see some of the aspen still have not lost all their leaves.  This photo was shared by Jessica on her Facebook page.  I don't know who actually took this photo, but it was so neat, I wanted to share it too!

Time to head for Texas. 

Los Alamos Nature Center

Monday, October 19, 2015

Los Alamos opened a new Nature Center.  We decided to check it out.

Interesting looking building on the edge of a mesa in town.

   There was lots of hands on stuff and even some live snakes, scorpions and a tarantula spider.  There is even a planetarium, but it was not open the day we went.

There was a viewing room where we could watch several kinds of birds and some chipmunks.  The following pictures are a few we took from the viewing room.

These birds actually hung upside down on the feeders when they ate.  Interesting.

We never did learn the name of any of the birds.  It was fun watching them.  They were all very active.

Fun Time. 

Train Ride from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, NM

Sunday, October 18, 2015

For fun we decided to ride the train from Santa Fe to Albuquerque.  We chose to ride on Sunday as opposed to a weekday due to the scheduling.

Here we are at the furthest south train depot in Santa Fe.  We park on the east side of I-25 then take the crosswalk to the middle of the freeway.  The train runs between the north and southbound sides of the freeway.

We are still at the Santa Fe stop looking northward.  This shows the train tracks running between the north and southbound sides of I-25.  Interesting!  The train tracks do move away from I-25 not far from this train stop.

Here we are on the upper level of the train.

Here are the Sangre de Cristos as we see them from the train window.

We have arrived at the Downtown Albuquerque train depot.

We packed our lunch.  We sat on a bench on the other side of this building and ate our lunch.  Then we went to the movie and saw Bridge of Spies.  Excellent acting in this movie!
     After the movie, we ate an early dinner at Tucanos, which was right next door to the movie theater.  Sorry no pictures.


After dinner we walked around downtown and saw several murals painted on the sides of buildings.  The following 6 pictures are of the murals we got pictures of.

 The picture below is a continuation of this picture.

This is the train depot from the opposite side of the building we arrived.  This is the intersection of Central and 1st.

We walked around downtown about 15-20 minutes when it started sprinkling.  We decided to head back to the train depot. We arrived at the intersection of Central & 1st.  The cop cars with flashing light do not show in this picture.  However, we were told that someone got stabbed in the underpass.

This picture shows the cops taking pictures of the scene in the underpass on Central just before 1st.

We missed the excitement, thank the Lord.  By the time we rode the train back to Santa Fe, shopped in Walmart and drove home, it was nearly 8:30pm.  It had been a long day, but fun to do something different. 

Jessica's Baby Shower

Saturday, October 17, 2015

 Yesterday I took the 2 pictures below of the trees in Jessica's back yard as seen from her deck.

 They have such beautiful views from their deck.  They are blessed.




 



This afternoon Jessica's best friend & her daughters are giving Jessica a baby shower. 
    The dining area had been set up with 3 tables in a U shape as seen in the following 3 pictures.

Left side 

Middle

Right side
Lots of food and drink

This is a close-up of the diaper cake.

This is the actual cake.  I love the foxes, owl & squirrel.  The bottom layer was white cake and the top layer was chocolate.

This is only a few of the people attending.  There are more around the corner.  There were 16-18 people there, I think.  Baby Privette got lots of nice things.

Left to right, Beverly (Jessica's step-mom), Jessica, and me.

Jessica is excited that her belly is finally sticking out past her boobs.  Hee Hee  Isn't she cute!!!

It was a wonderful party!  I was so glad I could be here for it.

From Tres Piedras to Tierra Amarilla, NM and Echo Amphitheater

Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - continued

Our drive from Tres Piedras to Tierra Amarilla on Hwy 64 was absolutely beautiful.  We probably missed the peak of the changing leaves by one week, but it was still beautiful to say the least!

We took the following pictures on our way up to 10,545 ft elevation.

Aren't all the colors so beautiful!!

Here we are at 10,545 ft elevation.  As you can see many of the trees at this higher elevation have already lost their leaves.

This is a panorama from the top.  We stood and just enjoyed the beauty for a few minutes.
    Next we tried to find Heron Lake where we used to sail frequently.  However, our GPS could not get us there so we gave up.

Then we headed to the Echo Amphitheater south of Tierra Amarilla.

Both the picture above and below are of the cliff walls as we walked towards the amphitheater.

This is the Echo Amphitheater from a little ways out.

The colors in the rocks here are amazing.

Here we are looking up from inside the amphitheater

The Ghost Ranch was just down the road.  We planned to stop there also.  However when we got there it was closed. Oh well. Maybe next time. ☺

As we were leaving the amphitheater, we noticed these cliffs on the other side of the highway.  The varying colors intrigued us.

From this angle the very tip of the rocks were very white.

We headed back to Los Alamos.

On our way up the hill, we stopped to get this picture of the canyons & mountains.  Have I said, it is gorgeous here!

What a wonderful day enjoying the beauty of northern New Mexico.