Ferris Wheel

Arizona State Fair

Staging area for the rodeo competition.  Midtown Phoenix highrises can be seen in the background along with Camelback Mountain to the far left.

Good job, Podner!

 

The Beauty Parlor

Girl on a Gray

Today was a day when I really wished I had better equipment.  One of the purchases I intend to make after the sale of my house is a new camera.  Now whether or not that will be soon or after the first of the year I'm not sure, but I'm determined it will happen.

Today I went to the Arizona State Fair.  It was 92 degrees ~ hot!  I had to stand in line for half an hour just to get in.  Of course I got in free because today was free day ~ or else I could have chosen senior day for a $2 admission.  Parking was $10 unless I wanted to walk two more blocks and save $5.  I decided to be the big spender and shelled out 10 bucks to park close so I could stand in line longer!

The creation of the following picture was an absolute fluke.  As I was leaving the fairgrounds I discovered the youth rodeo was in progress so I went to the arena and watched from afar beautiful young cowgirls competing in the barrel racing.  My little point and shoot was no match for these beauties but I zoomed her out and waited for an opportune moment.  Just as this young rider came swooping through my viewfinder I punched the shutter, only to hear the crowd groan with pain and dismay.  When I looked up I saw the aftermath of what I had poorly captured with the camera:  the horse sliding, throwing the rider.  I almost got it, although it is a blur.

I totally missed the next scene ~ the girl being dragged by the horse with her boot caught in the stirrup.  At this point the crowd is standing, yelling "Noooooo!"

But a rodeo hand appeared on the scene and helped the rider to recover and get disentangled from a thousand pounds of horseflesh dragging her in the dirt.

In the flash of two seconds, it was all over and done with, but a cowgirl never leaves her hat on the field.

It's That Time of Year Again

House sale update:  The sale of my house is set to close tomorrow!  Yeehaw!  The buyer's rep did a walkthrough yesterday afternoon and today reported that all requested repairs had been done to satisfaction and also expressing appreciation at how clean the property was left for the new owner.  So today after many months of hot weather when it was just too miserable to travel around and take pictures and then another month of preparing for the house sale and then another month between contract and close of escrow and with the advent of reasonable weather I ventured out the entire afternoon and searched around the city for photos.  After running into a couple of traffic jams I found myself at a nearby nursery where there's always photo subjects.  In the next few days I'll show you some of the color that Phoenix dons in the fall.

This was the scene at a local nursery today midafternoon when most people are at work!  Can you imagine what this place looks like on the weekend?  This is the time of year that Phoenix comes ablaze with color ~ geraniums, petunias, snapdragons, cyclamen, snapdragons, and pansies.

Mums

17/100 Strangers ~ Dave the Garden Guy

Look at who showed up at my yard sale today!  If you're local in Phoenix, no doubt you know Dave the Garden Guy, one of our most popular organic gardeners and also one of the stars of  Channel 3, azfamily.com.  Even though the early morning sun was blinding as I looked east, I thought the tall thin guy with the starched plaid shirt and blue jeans walking into my carport looked familiar.  I hope Dave can count as a stranger since we had never met before.  He was on his way to the station, which is just a mile down the street, and stopped by to look around at all the goodies.  He quickly spotted the antique pecan cracker and decided it was worth the $5 price tag.

15 and 16/100 Strangers ~ Tony and Shay

Today I had huge yard sale in anticipation of selling my house and moving to Texas via Southwest Airlines.  I have friends who say, "Why are you selling this?  It's so neat.  You've had it so long."  My reply is always something like, "If it's not worth paying storage fees for it and if I can't take it on Southwest Airlines, I have to get rid of it."  After all, I'm moving from a three-bedroom house into a 12 by 14 room with little if any closet space at my mom's which will house me, my wardrobe, my computer equipment and supplies for my proofreading job, my toiletries, my files, and my camera.  So the goal today was to sell everything possible. 

Early in the day I watched this pickup truck come cruising into the cul-de-sac thinking that someone had hired a new lawn service.  I loved the name of their business. 

I went on about my business of helping my helpers.  I had realized about 9 a.m. after the hordes of yard salers descended on my driveway that I still had lots of garden tools and equipment out in back.  I was trying to get back there but kept getting stopped by questions of "Kathy, will you take a dollar for this,"
Kathy, do you have a toilet lid for sale," "Kathy, do you know when this baby blanket that is priced 25 cents was crocheted?"  I had taken out one rake and was returning with a shovel when someone yelled, "Stop those guys!  They were looking for more garden equipment."  They had purchased the rake and were leaving for greener pastures because they had been told there was no more garden stuff.  I quickly escorted them into the back yard, where they proceeded to buy all the rakes, shovels, hoes, a pick axe, a wheelbarrow, fertilizer, loppers, and drip irrigation supplies.  They evidently had been driving through the neighborhood looking for trees to trim since Shay had a new saw that he wanted to try out and just happened on my yard sale.

Tony and Shay were good guys to pose for me by their trailer.  I never even noticed Tony's shirt until I started editing and cropping the photo.

Something Old/Something New

The morning temperatures have dropped here making it easy to go driving around (especially if your car has no air conditioning).  I left home a little after 8 and scooted down to the Roosevelt district and reintroduced myself to this property I've been keeping an eye on for some time.  I took several shots, and due to the extreme intensity of the sun none of them were to my liking.  This is as good as it gets.  I was actually able to walk around inside the new wrought iron gate.  I saw the new windows but that was it as far as new.  The rest of it screamed OLD, it screamed HELP ME, REJUVENATE ME, DON'T LEAVE ME HERE TO DIE ALONE!  We bonded, this property and I, but I refused to let myself linger.  So off I went.  However, I seriously contemplated going home, getting the ladder, and returning to rip that TV antenna off the roof of this building.  Of all the nerve ~ a TV antenna on a building like this!

Downtown.  Too much light, too many shadows because there was too much light.  I wandered around with my map of historic properties, many of which seem to have disappeared.  Others were on the wrong side of the light rail tracks and I just couldn't seem to get there from here.

So I headed for west of the state capitol building in search of some old homes but I ran into the aftermath of the Komen Run for the Cure, with thousands (about 30 of them, in fact) of runners, walkers, moms pushing strollers, all trying to cross the street in front of me to return to their cars, which were parked on either side of all streets, making the pathway a one-lane trip to a head-on collision.  I managed to emulate a movie escape route and get out of the neighborhood and decided to go up Grand Avenue, a street in our town that goes against the grain of our perfect north/south/east/west symmetry, along the old railroad tracks, with junkyards, with building materials, and car carriers on either side.  Did I find anything?  Nope.

I got off Grand in Glendale, wandered around there for a bit, back to the neighborhood where I've photo'd good junk and peeling paint.  No longer.  They anticipated my arrival.  They went into neighborhood rehab!

So two hours later I found my way back home, a quarter of a tank of gas later, three lousy pictures of the same building, none of which make my heart go zing, so I'm back to packing!

Hiatus

This blog will be on a hiatus until the end of the year.  There may be an occasional post but it will be sporadic.  For a full explanation, link here to my photo-a-day site.

How Many Pink Roses Can You Fall in Love With?

Just as many as you can find!

The Fanciest Building in Center, Texas

... is the Farmers State Bank constructed in 1904.  The building sits across the square from the front of the Shelby County Courthouse, one of the most distinctive in the US.  (See the courthouse here.)  From what I can discern, the bank is still privately owned, not having been gobbled up by one of the banking giants, and still appears to be financially healthy.  I haven't been inside the bank since I was a child, but soon I'll be able to go back and see if the interior is as beautiful as the exterior.  The gold leaf lettering is amazing and the locals winds have deposited just enough dirt and soot and gunk around the carvings to give the facade a great depth.  Naturally when I originally took the picture I didn't see the spectacular reflection of the clouds in the upper windows.  That was a real bonus when I looked at it on screen.

Looking East at Sunset

We had some pretty dramatic skies late in the day here in the Southwestern desert.  When we think of sunsets, we always think of looking west.  I found this beautiful backdrop showing the magnificence of our planet by looking east, instead of west.  To see the sky I saw when I looked west toward the sunset, CLICK HERE.  (There was very little manipulation done to this photo.  I edited it in Picasa, chose I'm Feeling Lucky, then auto contrast, and then added about 10 percent highlights.)