Dominica

Today is a real, legitimate, actual day of rain. It's been raining for the last three hours. We have decided to stay in the cottage overlooking the sea and just read today. We could go out driving, but that's what we've been doing for the past three days. We've seen an incredible amount of the island. It is truly a "nature island" as advertised. The tropical trees and flowers are incredibly beautiful. There are rivers and waterfalls everywhere. While we've had rain and clouds the first few days here, we've also had plenty of intermittant sunshine. If it clears up later today we'll do a little hiking on some "farmer paths" near here.

Butterfly Festival at the Desert Museum

On Saturday afternoon we visited the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. This is the time of year for several species of butterflies to be "out and about". These are all native butterflies and are attracted to various plants throughout the Museum grounds. I'm most happy that my camera takes the picture immediately when I press the shutter button--otherwise I'd never had gotten these photos. Butterflies aren't in the habit of posing for pokey photographers!

Run Down Crime

Jenni participated on Saturday in a 5K run/walk for the Tucson Police Foundation. A collegue from work is a volunteer with the foundation, so she wanted to support his efforts. I tagged along and took pictures. If you want to see a bunch more photos, email me and I'll send a link to a website where I've posted a 3.5 minute slide show of the whole race.

Madera Canyon Picnic (not)

I had invited several couples to go up to Madera Canyon for a hamburger cookout this evening. But rains blew up from Mexico and we had to change our plans. Thirteen of us crammed into my house. It was impromptu, but it worked. From an "enjoy your friends" standpoint it was very successful.

These people all are full-time residents of Green Valley, and have Dutch, or Michigan connections (with the exception of Otto & Marilyn DeBruyn who were here checking on their property before winter arrives). They are a subset of a larger group that meets frequently for noon picnics at Madera Canyon during the winter months. But they don't get together as a group during the summer.

New Camera

I bought a new Nikon D40 camera. It's a step up for me from my Canon A510. The greatest benefit, in addition to increased resolution, is that the shutter release is instantaneous with when I press the shutter. My old camera was driving me nuts--I was getting lots of tails of dogs. "It was a whole dog when I pressed the button!" But the dog moved and all I was getting was the tail end.

I took the camera to work yesterday and here are a couple of shots from during the day.



Oliver is my brother's cat. Cute, huh?

Madera Canyon Picnic

We decided to take a late afternoon ride up to Madera Canyon and cook hamburgers. They have a number of picnic sites with charcoal grills. This is a dog-friendly park, so we took Mica (she did have to stay on the leash, which dampened her enthusiasm. We were there till just before sunset. I took some nice pictures of Mt. Wrightson. I've never been to the top, although Jenni has twice. It's a 12-16 mile hike depending on which sets of trails you take. Too much for me. My brother, Tom, has climbed to the top, also. I like looking at it from a distance.




This was the sunrise this morning from our backyard. Because of the moisture in the atmosphere the sunrises and sunsets for the next month or two should be "Arizona's Best."


Mica, the dog, and Panda, the cat, really enjoy each other's company. Yesterday I took Mica to the office with me. Here was 1.5 minutes after we got home--Panda came to greet us and wanted to play with his friend.