Today is the nineteenth anniversary of our wedding day. We were married in the City of Avalon on Catalina Island. Dozens of friends and family were in attendance.
In addition to the 19th anniversary gemstone aquamarine bracelet shown above, Verna has another turquoise and silver rope bracelet. The latter two were purchased locally while the AQ came in the mail from an on-line vendor. Next year is the Emerald anniversary.
We briefly stopped at Petrified Forest National Park this morning on our way to view the All American Solar Eclipse. Our route takes us by several interesting and beautiful places. This panoramic image was made from five 1.333 aspect images combined into the wide-angle view.
Click on the image to enlarge for the full sized panorama. Use the scroll bars to view.
Verna took this photo today of some cumulus clouds building up east of us with the big saguaro and ocotillo in the foreground. We have been getting storms since Thursday of this week and expect them to continue until Monday according to the National Weather Service.
This evening, we are surrounded by thunder cells with lightning very frequent. We were out in the courtyard a few minutes ago when the International Space Station passed overhead and visible to us through the gaps in the clouds. Very entertaining!
Our first post on VERNABOB.COM was on July 17, 2006. We put up a couple of photos of us taken in our leisure time since we were still reporting to work in those days.
We don’t blog as much or regularly these days, well, because retirement finds so many ways to use your time and efforts otherwise. Today, I took off a major upright limb from the mesquite tree by the RV driveway. I pruned off the remaining low-hanging branches that were almost reaching the ground. Click on the image to enlarge.
Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is an image rendered in stereo taken by a Martian satellite. The depth of this image when using the red/cyan glasses is pretty amazing.
From APOD:
This stereo anaglyph was created by combining two images recorded by the HiRISE camera onboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The multi-level falls were created as flowing lava breached sections of the northern rim of a 30-kilometer diameter martian crater, located in the western part of the Red Planet’s volcanic Tharsis region. As the molten lava cascaded down the crater wall and terraces to reach the crater floor it left the distinctly rough, fan-shaped flows on the steeper slopes. North is up and the breathtaking 3D view is 5 kilometers wide.
We enjoy raising cactus in the wild, in the rock and cactus garden and in the courtyard. When there are flowers on them, we both like to take photos of the beautiful blooms.
Above are a couple of images of today’s Astrophytum (Star Cactus) flowers open and I took a picture of Verna doing the picture taking of the flowers.
Click on the image to enlarge.
