We finally got some decent rain yesterday when a monsoon emptied its thunderstorms in the area. We went all summer without a monsoon and finally, on the first day of autumn, we got a couple of inches of precipitation. In the aftermath today, we had some winds and a few clouds, some of which gathered to our west just as the sun was setting. I took the photo above from the courtyard with our front yard mesquite tree silhouetted against the colorful sky. Click on the image to enlarge.
According to the Anniversary Gemstone List, the gemstone for our 21st anniversary is Iolite, a purplish stone with a medium rarity. I found these earrings which are composed of 4 iolite stones (each) and three (each) Sleeping Beauty Turquoise facets. Stirling silver decorative metalwork holds them together. Very Pretty – Click on the image to enlarge.
Our anniversary is still almost a week away and by then, we should have an iolite, peridot and blue topaz ring to complete the set. More pix to come.
The last sun ray of the afternoon shone through some of the natural desert vegetation on the west side of the house just before the sun went behind the hill over that way. There wasn’t a lot of pastel colors or any brilliant desert sunset, but a nice, mellow sepia-like photo portraying the brief event before fading to dark.
We had a great trip home from our August vacation to Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. It was a lot of fun and we accomplished our objective of setting memorials on the graves of some of our ancestors. We came away with a good feeling.
Our current location is in Albuquerque, NM. We’re in a nice campground west of the main part of town where we have a nice view of the Sandia Mountain Ridge to the east. In camp, there are several rose bushes. I took the above photo of one of the nicer roses open today.
We will be going west from here tomorrow setting up camp at Holbrook, back in our Home State of Arizona. On the next day, we will be back home in Wickenburg.
Click on the image to enlarge.
Our route from Monument Valley to Moab through Utah today, took us past the Mexican Hat rock formation just north of the San Juan River and the town bearing the Mexican Hat name. I snapped this image from the motorhome as we drove past the famous formation along US Hwy 163. Click on the image to enlarge.
After a recent rainfall, several hummingbirds can be seen browsing the Red Bird of Paradise Flowers in the courtyard here. I managed to capture this photo of one of the tiny birds as it was sipping nectar from one of the brightly colored flowers on the Pride of Barbados shrub nearest the Plum Tree by the gate.
Canon T6i camera settings: 1/1600 second, F5.6, ISO 640, Focal Length 135mm.
Click on the image to enlarge.
