City of Rocks

After DC, I had to stop in El Paso for another meeting. I always like going to El Paso, not so much for the city itself but because it is so close to New Mexico. Fortunately, I had a spare day before my flight back to Europe. I looked at the map and tried to figure out where I wanted to go. My criteria was someplace to get me out in the desert (easy) and someplace pretty close (2.5hrs tops). Since most of the close places like Roswell and Alamogordo are 3 or more hours away from El Paso, I had to do some searching. I found a state park called City of Rocks halfway between Demming and Silver City, perfect, and off I went. Even if I did nothing, it was still worth it just for the drive. Being out in the desert, in the sun, seeing the mountains and the clouds building on the plain is just rejuvenating. The park is a small park on the edge of the foothills. What makes it interesting is all of the massive rocks strewed around randomly. It seems like it would be a good place for a picnic because it has lots of picnic tables in among the rocks. But, it was also good for spending a couple hours just sitting and looking.

From City of Rocks

From City of Rocks

From City of Rocks

Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens

With a spare day in DC before my meeting, I met up with a friend and went out for a day of picture taking. It's really good to go out with another photographer for the sole purpose of taking pictures. You don't have to worry about whether you're going to have time to see everything, and you can watch each others' technique and maybe learn something. This time the venue was the Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. For those of you familiar with DC, this park is located in South East. For those of you familiar with South East, it is located in Anacostia. For those of you familiar with Anacostia, it is approximately at Kenilworth Ave and Eastern Ave. For those of familiar with none of this, it is in a bad, bad part of town where most people don't go without good reason. My friend and I set off with a set of memorized directions and no map. Quite to our surprise, we took a wrong turn and proceeded to drive for half an hour through one of the worst parts of the city before realizing our mistake. We saw at most, probably only one drug deal openly taking place on the sidewalk next to us.

The park itself is made up of a bunch of lily ponds and tidal pools. Tt was pretty disappointing as most everything was brown and unattractive. But, I think that was mostly because of bad timing during the year. I bet in the spring with everything in bloom, it would be nice to see. With some effort, you could still find a few nice things to take pictures of.

From National Aquatic Gardens

We liked to think that the police helicopter circling overhead the whole time was just there for our safety.

Hiking to Raven Rocks

While I was back in the US, I took advantage of a beautiful fall weekend to do some hiking with friends, this time the Raven Rocks trail section of the Appalachian Trail, near Bluemont. We set off with our fearless navigator and her trusty cell phone for the 3.5mi out and back hike, and managed to complete the hike without getting lost. The trail was not too difficult, there were some climbs, but no really steep sections. It was pretty much a typical East Coast/Appalachians hike where you see trees, trees, trees, some more trees, then a scenic overlook of trees, before turning around and heading back. More than anything else, it was just good to be out in nature strolling around on a nice day.

From Raven Rocks