Orbs In The Ice House

My camera lense is clean. I never see these spots when I'm taking pictures, but when I veiw them later on the camera or the computer, there those mysterious orbs are! But only in wierd places at night or something. I snapped this one in an ice house at Garnet Ghost Town up in the mountain tops.
Here is the same picture with the brightness adjusted on my computer. I just wanted a picture of the inside of the ice house, because it was part of my adventure in the old mining camp.

Could be back-scatter or near-camera reflection, but just why and how do these things pop up in certain locations only? Ask my daughter about the time we were taking photographs at night in New Mexico. Her husband took a picture out the car window and she saw orbs in it. She took the camera and shot the same scene and there were no orbs. They traded turns taking pictures and his all had orbs and hers didn't. Knowing that she married a skeptic, she blithely suggested, "Hey, let's go back to the motel and take pictures in the dark!" The Cool Man was quick to nix the plan.

You Want To But You Can't ... Touch That, I Mean

Archie Bray Foundation, Helena MT.
http://www.archiebray.org/ (Seriously worth a trip to the website, if you can't make it to Helena.)


I went to the lake first, which was more like a pond and honestly not anywhere as wonderful at Beuss Pond at home, but the ranger was going to charge me $5 as an out of state visitor and the woman with me had a dog he said couldn't get out of the car there, so we got back in the car and drove to this place down the road. By the way, I was not offended because $5 is nothing and other people pay taxes for their state parks.

I know, huh? Penny let a dog get in her car.

WOA...thanks for the rejection, Ranger Man, because this place was more fun than looking at people look at fish. Also got here just in time to hear a live jazz quartet playing out in the yard.








Not pottery, but look at this cute pigeon camper!

Move Over Peggy Lipton

Don't lie. You recognized this right away, didn't you?

And you know those holes are not just so the air can circulate to dry your hair faster while you're sleeping on these suckers, too, huh?

Did you know that you can still buy those hair roller picks? Look anywhere on line. Now you can have that long, straight look again!

I could have had these rollers for a song at the Salvation Army yard sale, but I don't really need them. If I ever let my hair grow out long enough to roll up, I've probably still got some orange juice cans I can use.

And then I will look like this again.


Slumber party, my house Friday night. Bring your 45s.

Misery In The Gem State

Well, there's an hour I'll never get back again!




Boo-hoo, huh?

Had to get off the freeway to get gas in Idaho Falls--actually, the real reason I took the exit is because I saw a sign that read "Historic Downtown." So, where are the pictures of downtown? I don't know--this is better.

Look how big the families grow in Idaho!

Big Sky Ebonics

yeah, you heard me...

A Circle Of Standing Stones

Back in the Golden 70s, I moved to Sugar House in SLC with my best friend. We palled around (how do you spell "pal around" in the past tense?!) We spent time with another of our friends who bought us Utah Symphony season tickets, and we took the bus to the concerts. Busses didn't run late enough for us to get a ride home, so we walked to his place in the Avenues and stopped to load up on banana splits at Snelgrove Ice Cream Parlor which stayed open that late. We roamed around Trolley Square, which was quite different in those days than it is now, spent time downtown in the ZCMI Mall, and discovered the International Peace Museum. They were halcyon days, no disputing.

But, my friends kept a secret from me. I do not like secrets, by the way--they hurt my heart. I know it's childish to feel that way, but imagine if I feel excluded by secrets now at my age, what it felt like then when my BEST FRIEND had a secret with someone else! I understand it now and even understood it a little bit then, but still and all.

The Secret?

GILGAL GARDENS.

My friends were LDS and I wasn't and they thought I might be too weirded out by this quirky little find. They really didn't know quite what to make of it themselves and they never told me what or where "Gilgal" was and they really didn't talk much about it, so I mostly forgot about it. I kind of wondered over the years if I could find it, but I was sure it wasn't still there, where ever there might have been. Until just a few years ago.

If you haven't seen this place, you're really missing something, I think. It may look strange, but the more you see and read of it, the more you understand the sculptor's Thomas Battersby Child) love, faith and committment The website has a slick interactive tour that describes the art and explains how it came to be, how it almost came to not be and how it came to remain right there behind Chuck-A-Rama in Salt Lake City.

http://gilgalgarden.org/