Kartchner Caverns

Yesterday, I visited Kartchner Caverns in Benson, Arizona, with my mom. We went on two tours, the Rotunda/Throne Room tour and the Big Room tour. The second tour was even more special because we were the only two visitors on the tour. Each tour can accommodate 15 to 20 people and reservations are recommended because they are often full. I called ahead to buy the tickets and had no problem arriving and picking them up 15 minutes before the first tour started.

The cave formations are not as large as many of the other famous one, for example, Colossal Cave or Carlsbad Caverns, but Kartchner Caverns are still "alive", growing formations, and the pathways have been designed to give easy access to about two-thirds of the known area while maintaining the caves as pristinely as possible. Eighty-Five percent of the cavern has not been touched by humans. During the summer months the Big Room is closed to human visitors because mother bats use it to give birth and raise their young until they are able to fly. The bats fly in through the original sinkhole opening. For the tours, a series of airlocks and sprinklers have been installed to maintain the 70-72 degrees Fahrenheit and 98 percent humidity in the cave.

Photography is not allowed in the caves, except on special tours, due to safety concerns for both the formations and people on the tours, so I didn't get any photos inside the caverns. However, there is a beautiful, small desert garden at the entrance to the Visitor Center that supports a variety of wildlife. I was able to photograph three species of butterflies in the garden, including Painted Ladies, Mexican Yellows and a gossamer butterfly species. The Mexican Yellow I uploaded to BugGuide.net is the first of it's kind on the site. Camping is also available on site.

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Desert Botanical Garden

Monday, I took advantage of the membership to the Desert Botanical Garden we purchased when we visited the Monarch butterfly exhibit last month by taking my Mom for a visit. We went at the end of the day during the golden hour. Before I managed to mash my left big toe a bit taking pictures of the Boojum tree, I got some good shots. My Mom was very impressed and plans to visit again.

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NaPhoTaMo

Earlier this month I stumbled upon NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). If you join in, the goal is to write 50,000 words in one month. Although I wasn't looking to write a novel this month, I found it interesting and passed it along to a friend who is working on finishing a novel and has found it inspirational. Today, I stumbled upon the NaPhoTaMo group in Flickr. NaPhoTaMo (National Photo Taking Month) is a silly spin off of the NaNoWriMo concept. Since a picture is worth 1,000 words, the goal is to take 50 pictures this month. Although I know some busy people who balk at taking a roll of film a week for a photography class, It's not a big reach to shoot 2 or 3 rolls of film in a month. I've got it beat by a couple of orders of magnitude with the approximately 5,000 pictures I took the first week of November on vacation. I'm more worried about wearing out my new Canon EOS 20D before the end of next year since it's only designed for about 100,000 shutter cycles.

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San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park

We spent most of our week vacation this year at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. Three of the four days we were there we went on photo safaris. I can't speak highly enough of the experience. The guides and drivers were wonderful. The photo safaris aren't very well publicized because they are already booked solid through the summer high season. If you're planning a visit to the Wild Animal Park, it's best to purchase your tickets ahead of time. More information is available on the photo safari web page. I never thought that I would feed a rhinoceros or a giraffe. While you're not allowed to pet the giraffes, they will wrap themselves around you to get to the acacia leaves. We left the park each day that we went on a photo safari smelling like giraffes. There were many other herbivore species to observe on the safaris as well. My favorite was Javan Banteng. They are such beautiful cattle that I could spend a day just watching them. Between the two of us, Jim and I took about 10,000 photographs on our trip. I'm still processing mine and getting the best ones uploaded to my photo set for the trip. I have over 100 photos uploaded already and I'm not quite half way through processing the photos. I'm posting 10 to 20 pictures a day on average, so keep coming back to see the rest of the animals.

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Photo Winners

Recently, two of my photos were winners in photo contests. "Spokes" was a winner in the Discipline category of the Intel Values in Everyday Life Photo Contest. Thirty-six photos of hundreds were chosen to represent the six Intel Values at the Intel Quality Awards. They have been framed and displayed in a gallery. When the event is over the photos will be sent to the photographers. I'm looking forward to being able to display it in my cube at work.

I also finally managed to get a photo, "Butterflies in Tree," voted into The Safe by Delete Me on Flickr. Delete Me is a game. Anyone can join the group and post a photo to the pool. Any member of the group can vote saveme or deleteme by leaving a comment and a tag on any photo in the pool that has not yet been saved or deleted. When a photo has recieved 10 deletemes, it must be removed from the groups pool. If a photo manages to get 10 savemes before 10 deletemes, then it is saved. The photographer may join The Safe and post the photo to its pool. The Delete Me group is known for being hypercritical on technique and artistic merit.

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Master Bedroom Closet Cleaned Out

A couple of weeks ago, we had the master bedroom closet redone by Classy Closets. We had emptied the closet out to the guest bedroom. The bed was piled nearly to the cieling with clothes. This past weekend we sorted through everything. We now only have clothes that I can wear or are heirloom in the closet with plenty of room to spare and the guest room has been cleaned. There is a large pile of donations to give away outside our front door. It was supposed to be picked up by Big Brothers Big Sisters on Monday, but they never came by. The next big closet cleaning project will be the guest bedroom closet, which still has many clothes to be donated. Getting the office and its closet redone will be the last major closet cleaning task.

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