ET, phone home!

Mark wouldn't go on any of the vortex tours or let me have my "aura" photo taken because he thinks that's a bunch of hooey, but he did agree to stop here for just a minute because he (kind of) believes (in the way he truly believes I'm a little nuts) my story about seeing an actual UFO in 1978!


The aliens are everywhere in this part of the country .... don't you see the one right here?!?!?

The Wright Stuff

I'm a huge Frank Lloyd Wright fan so I was bummed that we didn't have time to visit Taliesin West while we were in Phoenix, but at least I got to see this beautiful chapel that was designed by one of his students.


The Chapel of the Holy Cross is just south of Sedona on East Chapel Road.


In these last two photos you can see the circular walkway that winds up from the parking area and the entrance to the chapel itself at the top. It is absolutely beautiful inside and out.

Hotwire Scores Another Hot One

This was the view from our balcony at The Ridge in Sedona, where we ended up staying by taking a chance on the hotwire.com website.


Sedona has become a real touristy (read expensive) area, with rooms at old Route 66-era roadside motels going for $70-80 per night, so when I got an offer for a studio condo at a 3-star resort for only $76 per night for two nights I decided to go for it.


I've had pretty good luck using priceline and hotwire for flights and hotels (which can give you great deals if you're not really picky about hotel brands and not really stuck to a strict schedule for flights) and this was no exception. It was a really nice place and our studio was pretty cool.


Of course this place IS part of a timeshare group so you have to fend off the pitch to attend their "open house" when you check in, but once you get past that they pretty much leave you alone.


It wasn't quite nice enough to use the pools, but I thought this was a very clever pool towel arrangement!

Javelinas On Parade

I'm always fascinated by the various "street creatures" you find when you visit different cities, and in Sedona right now they have Javelinas. This one is sponsored by the Pink Jeep Tours company and is located right in front of their main office.


The one above is sponsored by the local Rotary Club, and the colorful one below by the Oaxaca Restaurant. Aren't they just too cute?

Panoramania

Please humor me here as I play around with the "photomerge" feature of my brand new Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended software package! To get the full panorama view you have to click on the image to open it up, then use the "back" button on your browser to return to the original blog post.


This is the inside of the new University of Phoenix Stadium, obviously. This was made using three separate shots that I tried to keep as level as I could as I panned the stadium from my seat in the upper corner.


This Grand Canyon shot is stitched together with three shots taken from behind the Bright Angel Lodge. Ideally they should be taken with a tripod, but since I'm all about traveling light I think I did pretty well without one.


This is the view from the far east end of the park by the Desert View Lookout Tower. In this case I tried using five separate shots, so you can see the end effect is a little distorted. It almost looks like you can see the curve of the earth!


Another three-shot composite, taken from behind the Chapel of the Holy Cross just outside the city of Sedona.


A scene from the back country outside Sedona that we explored on our Jeep tour. This one is made from four images that I intentionally shot with a lot more overlap, and I think overall I'm most happy with the end result of this one. I'm still learning though!