Las Cruces Salsa Fest

"Go to the Salsa Fest" they said.
"It will be fun" they said.

Our friends Bill and Clair, the ones with the six dogs, several cats, countless chickens and one rooster, always say don't go to these kinds of things. That includes the Salsa Fest, Enchilada Fest, Taco Challenge, and many, many others. "Too crowded" or "Too hot" or "Too something or other." Well today, I did not take their advice and went to the Salsa Fest to take some pictures. Yes, it was too crowded. Yes it was too hot. But I did get some good photos.

We arrived after brunch at about 12:30 and drove around a bit to find a close parking spot. When we exited the car, the smells of spicy food and Mariachi music assaulted us. And what a great assault it was.

We stayed for an hour or so, got good pictures and the Mrs. tasted some good salsas. We drank water, listened to music and watched dancers. Saw the tiniest baby we have ever seen and got back into the the air conditioned car and drove to our air conditioned house after an hour.

So as they say on the intertubes, pictures or it didn't happen. What follows are a few pictures!

Mariachi band

Mr Balloon Man

More Mariachi

COLD DRINKS!!

Cool Sax...

The sign of a really good salsa? Wearing it so everyone knows you like it. 

Mandatory husband comments:

1. You can take the girl out of the northeast to the southwest but you can't take the salsa out of the clothes...

2. I can dress her up but I can't take her out...

  

What I did on my summer vacation

Part 1: The Wedding...

We knew that there was going to be a wedding, in Colorado, this summer, about 18 months ago. When we first checked and saw it was an 800 mile drive, we decided then and there that we would take our time, do some sightseeing and enjoy visiting a couple of states.

As the date slowly approached, we refined our thoughts to include a couple of National Parks - Arches and Grand Canyon. This was our agenda for quite awhile until about a month or two before the wedding when we began to realize how far a trip the Grand Canyon was from the wedding town of Estes Park, CO and how long a return trip it would be from there. This was complicated by the fact that we were going to send our dogs to a "Pet Spa" that was more costly then I had hoped for and we didn't want to leave them for all that long for the first time ever.

We spent a great deal of time studying the maps of the area and decided on a grand circle tour from Estes Park  toward home, visiting 2 other National Parks in the process, Rocky Mountain and Mesa Verde. Today I will talk about the wedding weekend.

I have known Bill for almost 40 years. He gave me my first job out of college, encouraged me (demanded really if you know Bill) that I go back to school for a MSW and then helped me get my first job in Massachusetts and hired me essentially for my second job there that I stayed with for 30 years. He has two sons, who I watched grow up, playing little league and hearing all about the traumas of adolescence, college and their growing up. It had been close to 15 years since I had seen either of them but that would change as one, Fred, was getting married.

The wedding weekend took place on in a lodge on the Lake Estes, a very beautiful location. We were invited to the rehearsal dinner where we caught up with friends and new acquaintances, and then spent the rest of the evening at the lounge discussing life. Saturday was a bit threatening with clouds and we spent part of the day looking at the town and the mountains during a bit of a drive. A passing shower had people concerned about an outdoor wedding but the clouds opened up, sun shined and the wedding went off without a hitch. The reception featured non stop dancing that left participants and bystanders dizzy for sure.

Overall it was a wonderful weekend of celebrating, catching up and enjoying the mountains and lake. Sunday morning would bring us to the Big Climb!

Storm approaching from the west

Threatening skies

"and the bastard dog becomes legal..." maid of honor

Three day countdown

Anyone who knows me might think this is about Dunkin Donuts coming to Las Cruces, but it is not. Well, DD will be mentioned again so perhaps it is, but the underlying theme for today is 3 days to vacation. My vacation or Mycation as we used to say where I worked. On Thursday morning at some ungodly hour, we will put the dogs in the car for a ride south to the Doggie Spa (more about that later) and then head north for day one's adventure - Trinidad, CO. No, there is not much to see there but it is a stepping stone to Day 2's goal, Estes Park Colorado, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. There we will attend my best friends, son's wedding, play and drink at the Lodge, catching up on old times and then leave for Rocky Mountain National Park

Over the next several days we will also visit Arches National Park and also Mesa Verde National Park with the cliff dwellings. I hope to post almost every day, include some iPhone pictures and then do a couple of photo blog posts when we return.

We will finish up our trip in Taos, NM before returning home. Our friends Bill and Clair visited there and raved about the little social and artistic mecca of the northern New Mexico frontier so we are looking forward to that too.

This will be  one of our typical whirlwind tours but hopefully will give is some ideas about future vacation trips. I know the National Park Hat Trick (Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion) are in our future as is Death Valley and San Diego so our trips out are stacked up for us.

Just to whet your appetite and mine, a couple of pictures of what to expect, courtesy of the National Park Service;

RMNP 

RMNP

MVNP

MVNP

MVNP

ANP

ANP

Why U Mad ???

Yea, so it has been almost 6 weeks since I wrote last. Part of it was writers block, part recent medical stuff and part is that along with reddit boy, we have been working to move the blog (and a photography portfolio) to their very own domain. This is been hard to coordinate because, first I did not know how to use WordPress, and secondly, reddit boy is the urban social media type, in his job which eats up significant parts of his type. But we are moving there slowly. If you would like to see the progress, go to http://www.dylanhulser.com/PatHulserPhoto/ a take a look. Not too much there but construction is under way!

Life in Cruces continues its slow meandering pace. Retirement is good, the sky sunny, the time to work on projects etc. is delightful. I continue as the event planner for the State Park and just had a storyteller come in for a show. They usually charge about $350 for a show but because we are a state park and they were going to be in the area, and we had become friends with them in T or C at the hot springs, they did it for free. Attendance was not great but there were 8 people at the evening story tell and they were fantastic. We went out for a drink after and spent a couple of hours swapping stories and experiences with them and some friends. Again a wonderful time.

Two other things are on my horizon for late summer - I have been asked to run the annual symposium on photography which is a big learning experience for me. Also I am planning a Native American Heritage Day at the Park in November. That same day we met the story tellers, I met a NMSU business professor who was working with the Native American program at NMSU for NA entrepreneurship and he is going to make the project a class event where the students  will earn credits for all the work they do, which is significant. I got the Friends of the Park group to give $500 seed money and we are off. More about this as it develops.

Anyway, this has been my last six weeks and I am looking forward to continued work on the blog and photography site. By the way, I also taught myself basic inDesign, an Adobe graphic arts program and Lightroom, an image editing program for my photographs. And WordPress too!

Just because, here are two of my latest images:

Trapped

Trapped Again

Three Days in Tucson: Day Two

Me: Hi, my name is penguin and I am a dunkinaholic.

The Group: Hi Penguin

Me: It was 509 days since my last drink of Dunkin Donuts coffee until we went to Tucson

The group: Tell us more.

Me: OK, Here is my story

After day one in Tucson and a nice dinner, while driving home we passed a DD about 500 yards from our hotel door. I knew this is where we would be on Day 2, bright and early, and we were. When we got inside of the store, I smelled the coffee and fresh baked goods and broke out into a cold sweat. By time the lightly toasted bagel, smothered in cream cheese and hot coffee, large, arrived I had developed the shakes. We sat outside and after each sip, an “ahh” escaped my lips. It was the best morning of my life but then I realized I had given into the crack infused coffee dream and had a problem. The new DD in Las Cruces will open in May and it is a quarter mile from our  home. What should I do?

The Group: Get on line there NOW! What are you waiting for?

Me: I knew you would understand.

(the above is a dramatization of the actual event.)

Our first goal for day 2 was the Sonoran Desert Museum. Everyone we told that we were going to Tucson, and I mean EVERYONE, said to go there. It was a bit of a ride but worth every single mile. We knew we only had limited time and dove right in. The museum, most of which is outside, features a 2 mile paved trail, through various areas of desert features like a butterfly garden, a bee garden and the like. The flowers and cactus along the way were spectacular and we planned to go as far as the hummingbird exhibit. We were not disappointed. There were hundreds of hummers all around and I got to see my first hummingbird nests ever which was wonderful. We spent a total of about 2 hours there and enjoyed every second.

Flowers along the Museum Trail

Hummer in action

Docent and Harrison Hawk

Next up was a drive through the western part of Saguaro National Park, which is so different and more rustic than the east part. The views there were more spectacular and the cactus and flowers seemed to be in a more natural desert setting.

Saguaro in the afternoon sun

Having ignored the dogs in their crate in the hotel for several hours, we treated them to a trip to the local dog park where they ran around with other dogs their size for over an hour. They really seemed to enjoy themselves. Their second treat was a hamburger from a fast food joint which they also loved. Overall Skippy and the Desert Rat did well on the trip and that makes it easier to plan future trips.

We went to dinner at a place that served Mexican and was also recommended. President Clinton dined there when he was in office in 1999. The margaritas were great, the chips and salsa excellent and the meal itself was very, very good.

Day two was complete and we were all very tired. Enjoy several photos I took on this day in Tucson.

My new Hawk buddy!

Pensamientos al azar sobre el Three Days in Tucson*

*translation:
Random Thoughts on Three Days in Tucson

We just returned from 3 days vacationing in Tucson, AZ and had a great time. But before I talk about the trip, some commentary. I was a little hesitant about going to Tucson, perhaps the racist capital of the southwest. I decided to just deal with it but it very early reared its ugly head. We were looking for a steak house for supper and found one that was universally touted as being the best of the rest. However, as I researched it there was a comment - This owner is RACIST - which piqued my interest so I looked it up. It seems that the owner, angry old white guy, is a racist and bigot. He has a Karaoke bar and refuses to allow anyone to sing songs in Spanish there. Like that will keep our brown friends from crossing the border, no Karaoke. So I have decided to dedicate this series of blog posts to this big jerk. I figure he will never read it because the title is in Spanish and that just encourages undocumented aliens. And to this bigot I say “Usted señor es un idiota.”

Now for the trip. This is how Day One went.

The early drive over to Tucson was uneventful and maybe the easiest 4 hour drive I have ever made. No traffic, no rush, no problems. We decided that the first stop was to be the east section of The Saguaro (pronounced swar-o, not sa-GOR-o) National Park. I love National Parks and this one met if not exceeded my expectations. We got in on my handicap pass, drove the 8 mile loop and took lots of photos, several of which are here at the end of this post. We stopped to walk the dogs, now veteran vacation travelers and nicknamed Skippy and the desert rat, and had a picnic lunch in the shadow of 20-30 foot tall saguaros.

We checked into the hotel, rested a while, and then went out not to that Racist Restaurant but to a place called “El Correl.” As we walked in, a gentleman leaving said hello to us so I asked him how this place was, and he responded, “it is great, I recommend the prime rib.” No one needed to twist my arm about this. We had a fresh salad, tossed at the table, a pitcher of Sangria (little light on wine and too heavy on ice, fruit and soda but good) and perfectly cooked prime rib. Unfortunately, there was no doggie bag for our boys.

On the way home, we drove around the city a bit and found a Dunkin Donuts! With a Baskin Robbins inside!! Marking the site for the next morning we drove home only to find one right around the corner of the hotel. I was in heaven. More about this in Day Two.

Some pictures from day one.

View from the Saguaro National Park picnic area.

Dead cactus with woody spines that the Native Americans used

Dead vs. alive

Late day sun on a cactus

Rather majestic cactus

First Photowalk

My friend Rob, from the photo club, came up with an idea for a photowalk. He is part of the group teaching the digital photo workshops at the State Park with me and several times in the various classes and in discussions afterwards we have gone on and on about practice. The class students understand the need to go shoot. I have, over the last year and a half, 

greatly increased my time out photographing with an obvious increase in the quality of the photos I have made. As Malcolm Gladwell theorized in “Outliers”, 10,000 hours of dedicated practice in a given field or area of expertise allows a person to become truly “expert”. I have taken that advice to heart. In the last few years I averaged about 500-700 images a year. This last year I shot more than 3000. A lot more practice.

Rob is from southern Texas and he and a group of buddies would just go out and stop at an area of interest and take photos. Afterward they would meet to compare pictures and notes and use this as a way to improve as photographers. When he mentioned this to me, I encouraged him to embrace the idea here and thus the “Photowalks” were born.

The first walk in late February, attended by 6 people ended up in the Mesilla Plaza, a very picturesque part of town. I have posted event pictures from there before, Dios de los muertos, Christmas Eve and the Farmer’s Market there. Below are some of my shots from that day. 

You should have the bad photo before this one. The photo club will.

This pickup just says NM to me.

Blue skies between the branches

Love these street lamps on Mesilla Plaza. 

Again the deep blue skies of New Mexico

Lamp shadow...

More budding trees.