Visiting the Desert at Night

This fountain-shaped rainbow appeared up over the mountains as we were on our way to Baylor Canyon. I tried to get a good shot of the fleeting effects, but only got this blurry one. 

Our family has always loved visiting Baylor Canyon Road at dusk. It skirts the base of the Organ Mountains, and is a place where you can see the desert coming to life at night after the blasting heat of the day. Last night we took our visiting granddaughters along on a wild safari. 

We were on the lookout for deer, javelina, bobcats, mountain lions, and rattlesnakes. As we started down the road, the coyotes started to sing up in the canyons. 

The moon was just coming out. 

We stopped by this watering hole, where there are tanks for cattle and an overflow that attracts all kinds of wild things. We could hear crickets, toads, and cicadas. Cottontail rabbits dashed along the road and night-hunting birds and bats swooped overhead. 

Although the big game eluded us, the girls were great at watching and listening. They lasted far longer than I would have expected, until someone's gurgling stomach sounds got us all to giggling, and we slowly drove back down the gravel road toward the lights of town.

Petroglyphs at Three Rivers, New Mexico

Three Rivers Petroglyphs

Click on the photo, then choose "slideshow" to see what we saw on our visit to the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site. Although we found hundreds of amazing petroglyphs, there are apparently thousands more that we missed. . 

Allsaints Spitalfields

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Pretty catchy name for a clothes store, isn't it? Never mind, when we saw this captivating window full of antique sewing machines on Newbury Street in Boston I saw no further than the window display--not the name of the store (Allsaints Spitalfields, a London offshoot), and certainly not the purpose of the store (selling expensive and trendy clothing).

I never buy new clothes. You can call it economy, you can call it social consciousness, you can call it a devotion to recycling. You can even call it Yankee stinginess, if you wish. My clothes--some with pretty fancy labels--come from a charity store that has 10-items-for-$5.00 specials, and all for a good cause. You would never catch me buying even a 50% off item from an expensive shop like this one (see some of their women's clothing here).

But, oh my, I loved those sewing machines.

What We Did On Our Summer Vacation

You'll have to pardon my excitement, but this was our first trip to Europe, so you'll be hearing a bit more about it. I thought it might help if I told you all the places we went.

First, we headed to New York from El Paso, so that we could meet up with our son, who was traveling onward with us. Because we are such country mice and were quickly exhausted by wandering around crowded Manhattan on foot, we made our way to this peaceful sanctuary of a cemetery just across from the World Trade Center site.

St. Paul's Churchyard

The next day, we left New York and headed for Iceland, where we had a very brief layover--just long enough for a beautiful open-faced smoked salmon sandwich. Yep, it's always about the food with us. 

Can you tell that I'm excited about becoming a world traveler?

After our late-night "lunch" in Iceland, we headed off in the summer twilight (it doesn't really get dark this time of year in Iceland) and on to Paris. Pausing just long enough to figure out the controls on the rental car and to program the navigator, we headed south through the Loire Valley to the beautiful blue-shuttered house, Les Volets Bleus, that we had rented for the week. The link below the photo will take you to many more views of the lovely interior. It was a dreamy place to stay, and it was all ours--for the week, anyway.

Les Volets Bleus

After an all-too-short week in the countryside, visiting chateaux and abbeys, street markets and gardens, beautiful villages and the sea, we drove back up to Paris and turned in the rental car. From that point on, we explored Paris as the Parisians do--on foot, by metro (subway), by boat, and by le taxi. But not by bike or Vespa--I drew the line there!

An amazing piece of interactive street art. Look closely (click to enlarge)
and you will see that the sidewalk appears to have heaved upward. The little boy
was using it for a slide. I can still hear his laughter. This is located off of the Boulevard Saint Germain, on the south side, at the intersection of Rue de Rennes and Rue Bonaparte. It's in the Place du Quebec and the sculpture is Charles Daudelin's, l’Embâcle http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_du_Qu%C3%A9bec

In Paris, we visited museums, strolled through parks and gardens, ate at sidewalk cafes, became philosophers for an afternoon, indulged ourselves at the Angelina Tea Room, and took an evening boat ride on the Seine.

Sunset over the Seine

Then we flew back to Iceland, swam in the geothermal waters of the Blue Lagoon, and continued on to Boston. In Boston, we did a bit of shopping and a bit of eating (you're not surprised by now, I'm sure), then drove up to New Hampshire for two days of visiting, partying, and reuniting with old friends. And then we flew once more, back to El Paso.

Phew. It's no wonder that some mornings I wake up wondering which hotel I'm in, and which language I'm expected to understand for the day!

Angelina: "A Genuine Romantic Poem," and Quite the Tea Room!

Here is a quote for you from the Angelina website:

...the Angelina tearoom has established itself as a high point of Parisian gourmet pleasures, Angelina became a must-not-miss venue for the Parisian aristocracy. There, Proust, Coco Chanel and the greatest French fashion designers were to be found… The decor designed by the famous Belle Epoque architect, Edouard-Jean Niermans, combines elegance, charm and refinement. Angelina is a genuine romantic poem, a quiet and voluptuous venue, between serenity and gourmet pleasure.

And here is the recipe for a lovely day: Stroll through the Tuileries Garden in the first arrondissement of Paris. Have a leisurely luncheon at a sidewalk cafe. Work off just a few of those calories in a stroll down the street, then join the line at Angelina. Don't worry, the wait will be worth it. 

Because of the line, I was not able to photograph the elegant entrance, but you may see it here. Once we got up to the doorway, the delicious anticipation began with our first glimpse of the teas, chocolates, jams, and of course, the lovely macarons that were offered for sale. 

As the line inched its way forward, we could see into the seating area upstairs:

We were soothed, we chers clients, with this gracious sign asking for our patience. By this point in our vacation, I have to tell you that after our total immersion in the language out in the countryside, we simply read the words en français, and ignored the English translation:  

One more tantalizing glimpse of the glories ahead, of the glittering room dripping with crystal and gold and mirrors, and then we were escorted to our table.

A sandwich at Angelina will run you 21€ (about $26 US), but we were there for the signature chocolat chaud à l’ancienne dit “l’Africain--Old Fashioned Hot Chocolate L'Africain--with a little sampling of mini-macarons in framboise, pistache,  caramel beurre salé , and mont-blanc. 

The macarons were ambrosial. The chocolate was delicious, fragrant, and impossibly thick. Served in little pitchers, with mounds of cream on the side, it was beyond elegant. And for 7.9 € per cup, we bought ourselves the whole lovely experience.* 

And we were worth it.

*I don't mean to be crass with all this discussion of money, but I would want to know these details if you were writing about your once-in-a-lifetime trip to Paris! You can peruse the entire menu here.

Best Layover Ever: The Blue Lagoon

The whole landscape is made of lichen-encrusted lava

I just came across a CNN Travel article, 14 Airport Amenities That Will Make You Long for a Layover. CNN lists airports that provide museum, music, golf and yoga experiences; and machines that pump out ice cream treats or downloadable movies to order. However, in my opinion, they missed the best and most amazing layover experience ever: The Blue Lagoon, located in a lava field in Grindavik, Iceland. You'll find it listed in the book, Unforgettable Things to Do Before You Die, by Steve Watkins. It is, indeed, one of the coolest and most unforgettable things I've ever done!

The airport and the tourist people in Iceland carefully coordinate bus rides from the airport in Keflavik; you have a short, 13 km. ride through a stark and stunningly different landscape to the geothermal spa; you are guaranteed a space on the bus to get back to your connecting flight on time. We left Paris early in the morning, and had plenty of time to play in the lagoon before continuing on to Boston later in the afternoon. The bus ride back to the airport from the lagoon was very silent, as we all had been soaking in nice hot mineral-laden water, and were too relaxed to even talk.

This was our first glimpse of the spa building, which houses changing rooms, showers, lockers, and a restaurant overlooking the lagoon

From the Wikipedia article on the lagoon:


The warm waters are rich in minerals like silica and sulphur and bathing in the Blue Lagoon is reputed to help some people suffering from skin diseases such as psoriasis.^[1] The water temperature in the bathing and swimming area of the lagoon averages 37–39 °C (98–102 °F). The Blue Lagoon also operates a Research and Development facility to help find cures for other skin ailments using the mineral-rich water.


The lagoon is fed by the water output of the nearby geothermal power plant Svartsengi and is renewed every 2 days. Superheated water is vented from the ground near a lava flow and used to run turbines that generate electricity. After going through the turbines, the steam and hot water passes through a heat exchanger to provide heat for a municipal hot water heating system. Then the water is fed into the lagoon for recreational and medicinal users to bathe in.

The water is a milky, glacial-looking blue

You can see a live web-cam view of the lagoon: http://www.bluelagoon.com/Geothermal-spa/live-webcam/.

A million thanks to my son, Ben, for encouraging us to schedule the layover in Iceland, and for treating us to this amazing, life-changing experience.

A Philosopher in Paris

Our Beez is a lover of all things philosophical. Here he is in Paris at the famous Les Deux Magots cafe in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood near our tiny little hotel. Les Deux Magots, now a tourist destination, was once the hangout for such intellectual and artistic luminaries as Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, Albert Camus, and Ernest Hemingway. 


Beez was doing a little philosophizing and pontificating himself over some lovely wine and an assiette de fromages. In the background you can see my second-favorite Parisian waiter, and the two Chinese figures that give the place its name.

Last Night in Boston

There's a moment of silence on Boylston Street that blows in through the window on the breeze from the Charles River. It arrives around 4AM, just after the last of the night time people has left for home in the last taxi. The traffic lights are blinking yellow and the streets are almost empty.

After a night of lively sounds, the silence wakes me up. I listen to the quiet, then the day starts to flow. First I hear the rubber thump of the early morning runners, then the homeless guy arrives and starts yelling about eggs again, and the trucks pull in with their beeping and clanking to deliver another load of fresh shellfish to the cafes across from the hotel. 

Last night we ate ambrosial crab cakes and sweet oysters and drank California wines at the Atlantic Fish Co. We didn't order the Loire Valley wines because the price for a single glass was three times the price for an entire bottle in France. We laughed, and we thought about how really, really good we got at drinking that amazing local wine from the little Vival store in Monts-sur-Guesnes. 

We laughed, and we thought about how cheaply we will be eating very soon, back on our patio under the shady trees, looking across the hot dusty valley up to our beloved cowboy mountains. It'll be pinto beans for us for a long time, after the big splurge of this once-in-a-lifetime vacation. 

What We've Been Doing Lately

We are far from our southern New Mexico desert in every way. Under the cloudy and temperate skies of France, we are wandering through chateaux,

Villandry, the chateau

looking at gardens recreated in the 16th century manner, 

Villandry, the gardens

seeing how people lived long ago, 

Villandry, one of the bedrooms

and loving the old stone walls and wild poppies everywhere in the French countryside. 

In the countryside, near Monts-sur-Guesnes

We are peeking into the remains of the moats around walled cities to see the gardens that people make,

In the town of Richelieu

going to markets where the French buy boxes of live chickens to keep them supplied with fresh meals until the market comes around again in a month,

Market day in Lencloitre

and putting together our own beautiful table in the Poitou-Charentes.

Local bounty from the market and the patisserie

Railroad Museum

Our Las Cruces Railroad Museum is located in an historic Santa Fe Railroad Depot in the Alameda-Depot Historic District of the city. It is staffed by knowledgeable and enthusiastic volunteers. 

When we visited during the 5th Annual Railroad Days a couple of months ago, we talked with model railroad enthusiasts, Harvey Girl reenactors from El Paso's Railroad and Transportation Museum, and lots and lots of train fans. 

Our little museum hosts other events, as well. We recently attended a talk about the Orphan Trains, which I'll tell you about in a later post. I see that the Museum's upcoming activities include brown bag lunches with talks about local history; a monthly toddler story time; and the Rail Readers Book Club, which discusses a different train-related novel every month.

Vintage railroad posters line the walls of the old railroad depot waiting room

Upstairs in the model railroad room you can operate parts of this exhibit yourself. It was built by students during summer programs held at the museum. From the exhibits page: This HO layout depicts railroading in the southwest in the 1940s and 1950s. It includes a switching yard, a vibrant downtown area featuring a few buildings from Las Cruces’ past, and outlying farms and mountains. You can find out about this summer's modeling classes here.

Admission to the museum is free. There is always something new to see, although it might just be the look on the face of a little boy (some of them quite grown-up), fascinated with the world of model trains.

Eclipse Party

Although Las Cruces wasn't along the path for the best viewing of the May 20, 2012 annular eclipse, we still had plenty of fun gathering with a big crowd up above the city to watch the show. Local organizations sold eclipse-viewing glasses but soon ran out, so we used pairs of paper plates with a pinhole in one to do our looking. You can read about making such a pinhole camera here.

To tell you the truth, I enjoyed the people watching almost as much as the eclipse watching.

Although it was hard to tear myself away from the crowd and some mighty interesting eclipse-viewing outfits, I tried taking a couple of not-very-successful shots of the eclipse, once it was well underway. 

The National Geographic photos are much more impressive.

La Mesa en la Noche

Anton doing "puppy eyes"

In the middle of the night, I was feeling as though something was not quite right. I got up to take a look around and heard a voice from the kitchen: "Ooo-hoo," it called to me. "Ooo-hoo, Señora. Psst... yo soy aqui, sobre la mesa." 

Little Anton Chico had snuck out in the night to have an expensive special prescription kitty food snack up on the kitchen table. However, things had been rearranged in the ongoing kitchen renovation project and little Anton couldn't find his way down from la mesa in the dark. He had to make a tiny bed up there on my purse, and when that wasn't comfy, on my sun hat. 


When I rescued him, he was muy avergonzado (according to my Google translator) and, stopping only for a quick drink of agua, ran off to bed and burrowed back under the covers where all good little chihuahuas belong. 

Here is Anton checking out the runaway vegetation in the front yard after his rescue from la mesa.
(You were right, Christine, those hollyhocks will take over--see the comment from Quiet Paths on the
5/4/11 post called "My First Hollyhocks")

Dialing Back the Calories: Ten Ways to Lose Weight With Your iPhone

Zits, May 5, 2012

I was slow to embrace cell phones, but I'm catching up. I've had my iPhone for a while now and am just starting to tap into some of the amazing apps that are changing my life. Yes, changing my life. Today, I'll tell you about some that are helping me get healthier.

10 Ways to Lose Weight With Your iPhone

1. Use free apps like myfitnesspal, a calorie burn calculator, and a pedometer to keep you on task and measure your progress

2. In myfitnesspal, enter your height, weight, activity level, and goal weight to get the number of calories you should be eating daily

3. Keep a food diary by entering the name of the food you are eating; the app will provide choices and let you adjust serving sizes. Once you've entered some favorite foods, you can easily add them from a personalized list

4. Use the built-in barcode reader for a quick calorie total of grocery products

5. Watch your vitamin and nutrient intake throughout the day just by checking your iPhone, and make sure you're getting enough healthy foods. I always have to be careful that I'm getting enough calcium and potassium, and the ongoing daily summary helps with that. I can even enter my brand of daily vitamin by scanning the barcode, and those additional vitamins and minerals are tallied

6. Keep an eye on your accrued calorie total and check your numbers before eating a meal, so you can adjust serving sizes accordingly

7. Log your exercise activities

8. Using the calorie burn calculator, check the number of calories you are burning throughout the day. Although myfitnesspal gives calorie totals for plenty of exercise activities to choose from, I like to have a more extensive list of activities. The calculator I use has all kinds of workouts, plus things like yard work, housework, and even reading!

9. Using the pedometer, go for lots of walks, measuring your speed and distance so you can log your benefits

10. Enjoy instant feedback, non-judgmental reminders, and graphs showing your progress

I'm finding that being mindful of what I am eating really helps me to make good choices and lose weight. I hope that you will leave a comment to let me know if you've tried any of these apps or if you've found others that are helpful. 

Results of the Mason Jar Dye Experiment

This part of the white wool took on a nice teal shade

As you might recall from my recent post, Dye Experiment, I had mixed up three separate batches of acid dyes in blue, teal, and turquoise so that I could dye some wool, mohair, and silk in a range of colors. The idea had been stored away in a corner of my mind since I saw a pot containing mason jars simmering away on a wood-fired cookstove, many years ago during a New Hampshire wool arts tour. The tour is still held every year on Columbus Day weekend, just when the autumn leaves are at their most beautiful. Check out the information from last year's tour here.

Mohair, with a touch of straw

Now that I think about it, I never did see the results of that long-ago simmering dye bath, and now that I have completed my experiment, I wish I could talk with those people to see if the might have had the same problems as I did. Because the fibers were packed so tightly into the jars, and because I forgot to add salt to the mixed dyes, I wasn't able to "exhaust" the dye--which you know you have done correctly when the liquid becomes clear, since all the dye has gone into the fiber. 

This portion of the silk hankies shows all three colors

After hours of simmering, I pulled all the fibers out of the jars, turning my hands a nice combination of blue, teal, and turquoise. It was obvious that the dye wasn't set, so I plopped all the fibers into my big pot (no jars this time), and brought them up to a simmer in a solution of water, vinegar, and salt. This time the dyes exhausted themselves properly, but of course, I ended up with most one shade of blue that resulted from the three dyes mixed together, with a few patches of pure blue, teal, and turquoise. 

You can see the luster of this silk piece

All of these photos make the colors look way more uniform than they actually are. We'll see how the yarns turn out when I get them spun up. No promises about when that might happen, but I'll be sure to let you know when I reach that particular mañana.


The next time I try this experiment, I will use three completely different colors - maybe red, blue, and yellow - so that the colors will be a little more distinct. Perhaps I'll pack the fibers into the jars more loosely, and I might even remember to add the necessary salt. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. 


If you should try any dyeing, I would love to hear about the results and see some photos. 

Dying in Mason Jars, Sharp Objects, Severed Heads, and Other Crime Subjects

My friend, Kate, who lives in Washington state for some parts of the year and down here in the desert for the other parts, sent me an email that said, "I've been hanging all week to hear the results of how-I-died-in-a-mason-jar. What happened?" [See the previous post called Dye Experiment]. Since I seem to have trouble lately posting to this blog, I thought that I might as well share my reply with you...

Now you've got me laughing. Died-in-a-mason-jar reminds me of the book I'm reading, Crazy in Alabama, where the heroine (?) is off on a cross-country crime spree, carrying her murdered husband's head in a tupperware container inside a hatbox (the patented tupperware press and seal keeps leftovers fresher and longer, but not forever, as some feisty chihuahuas just found out). The goings-on back in Alabama with the rest of her family are a bit more serious, just so you don't think I'm a completely frivolous reader. 

Your title, "How-I-Died-in-a-Mason-Jar," would have been a far better one for the post, although I had considered calling it "I Dye Lots."

I've had a little trouble with that blog lately. Not for lack of things to write about, just partly lack of confidence that anyone cares now that we all do Pinterest, and partly lack of get-up-and-go, and partly lack of time due to that never-ending kitchen paint project; not to mention the time I spend reading crime books. The dye experiment was much more interesting as a process than anything that resulted from it. However, I will soldier on and reveal the less than exciting results. Soon. 

I read your last email to the knitting ladies today. Not many were there, but all expressed a sense of loss at your empty seat. Page is packing to leave for Tacoma next Monday, so she is done with us. Joanne has been sick with a chest business, but will return soon. Marie is looking more beautiful than any 75-year-old has any business looking. Anita just had a stent put in, which we hope will stop her from fainting in the Walgreen's and scaring the staff and gives the rest of us reason to hope that she won't faint behind the wheel while driving in circles with her poor sense of direction, looking for the church so she can visit the knitting group, since the doctor didn't specifically tell her not to drive. 

Our Hobby Lobby store was the scene of a box-cutter incident, where a man and a woman were stopped for shoplifting the other day. The woman disappeared inside McDonald's across the parking lot, the hobby staff gave chase and caught up to the man nearby, the man pulled a box cutter and slightly stabbed one of the HL employees, but the others jumped him and held him down until the police arrived. Anita wondered if they were stealing money or yarn (and why, I suppose, since there is so much of the latter). Page is pretty sure that Joanne was the mystery woman, out attending to her life of crime while pretending to be home sick. Joanne wonders why she would be accused of stealing yarn, given the contents of her guest room closet. Although none of the last three knitters were present, we surveyed their opinions by cell. 

Dye Experiment

I had a bag of lovely mohair from a little Angora goat I raised back in New Hampshire. I've been saving it for years and decided it was time to dye and spin it. Remembering a dye project that I saw on a wool tour years ago in New Hampshire, I tightly stuffed the mohair, 

some soft, clean, creamy wool,

 and some silk hankies (which are "are piles of individual lighter-than-air silk cocoons, spread on a form to dry" - read more here)

into mason jars.

Then I carefully trickled three shades of acid dye down inside each jar. I used blue, teal, and turquoise. Here is an article about acid dyeing, if you are interested. I hoped that each color would stay a little separate and overlap a little with the other colors for even more shades. Because the fibers were packed in tightly, some parts would receive more dye than other parts. 

I love chance and random happenings. At least inside my dye jars, I mean. 

I added some water and vinegar to each jar, and placed them all in a water bath on the stove to simmer. Although you can't tell from this photo, each jar contains all three fibers and all three colors. 

In the next post, I'll show you the results of my dye experiment.