Cellpic Sunday – 14 February 2021

Buckeye, Arizona.

Regular readers know of my love of Arizona sunsets and my regular trips to the desert a couple miles from our house to photograph them. Well, I missed the trip to the desert for one spectacular sunset. You see last week was Superbowl Sunday. Of course, I had to watch it. By half-time, the game was all but decided and though it was no longer interesting, I sat and watched like some robot.

Cellpic Sunday – 24 January 2021

Buckeye, Arizona.

The boy is back. On our first Arizona winter stay in 2011-2012, we saw a large cutout of a boy in front of a tractor, playing with another tractor. That piece of art disappeared when the Arizona Department of Highways started construction of a stack that would become the interchange for I-10 and the newly constructed AZ-303 loop that services the extreme western edge of the Phoenix metro. It seems the boy and his two tractors were in the way of the interchange construction. When the boy disappeared, there were rumors of a promised return.

But I Digress – LAPC on Hiatus

Buckeye, Arizona.

Happy New Year. Here’s hoping for a safer and saner 2021. Since the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is on a holiday break, I decided that for my Thursday post I would share some golden hour images captured over the years in our winter hideaway in Arizona. Though it looks like I misaimed the camera for picking up the sunset in the opening panoramic photo, I was most interested in capturing the skies over the White Tank Mountains. This location is my favorite sunset location as it’s at the southern edge of the range and the sun doesn’t disappear behind the nearest mountains from this location.

Cellpic Sunday – 20 December 2020

Buckeye, Arizona.

My wish for you this year is Merry Christmas and good riddance to 2020, er, ah, I mean Happy New Year 2021!!

About the photo: Captured in 2019, this photo features the holiday lighting in the park on Main Street at Verrado, a planned community near our neighborhood in Buckeye, Arizona. Captured with a Samsung S7, the image was downloaded into Lightroom for some final tweaks.

John Steiner

 

Lens-Artist Photo Challenge – Communication

 

This week is unusual in that we got our photo challenge instructions from Biasini. What’s unusual is that Biasini is a horse. Though unable to talk, a horse’s conversation with the rider is part and parcel of horsemanship. The challenge this week is to share our thoughts on communication.

Today we think of writing on objects such as buildings as graffiti unless they are legitimately authorized, then they are murals. In earlier times, though, painting on rocks was quite common in the desert southwest. These images, hundreds, if not thousands of years old, have survived for archeologists to wonder and speculate as to their meanings. The opening photo, as in all the photos in my response are from petroglyph sites near Phoenix, Arizona.

Merci Train – Forty and Eights

Scottsdale, Arizona.

After World War II, it was no secret that Europe had a long road to recovery and in 1947, more than 700 American box cars containing about $40 million dollars in relief goods provided by principally individual Americans were delivered to France and Italy to help the formerly occupied nations recover. Two years later, in February 1949, forty-nine French railroad box cars filled with thousands of gifts of gratitude were shipped to the United States. There was one boxcar for each of the 48 states and a boxcar to be shared by Washington D.C. and the territory of Hawaii. The rail cars were French box cars, military transport freight cars dubbed Forty-and-Eights because they were rated to carry 40 troops or 8 horses.

Ocean to Ocean Bridge – Connecting a Cross-Country Highway

Yuma, Arizona.

A truss bridge that spans the Colorado River at Yuma is the final highway bridge to connect a road between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Construction completed in 1915, and in 1926, the highway became part of U.S. Route 80, the primary east-west transcontinental highway in the depression era. For a time, the bridge’s deteriorated state resulted in it becoming a pedestrian and bicycle bridge, but after a reconstruction project in 2002, it was restored to vehicle use.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Under the Sun

The Arizona Deserts, Arizona.

This week, Amy’s challenge for us is to focus on life under the sun. Actually, that’s a broad category considering that all earthbound things are under the sun. She writes that her inspiration came from the title of a book, “Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

I’ve decided that my response to the challenge will feature images from my adopted state, Arizona. Though most of the images here come from the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona, the opening photo is from Monument Valley, part of the Colorado Plateau, a desert environment with hot summers and cold winters. Wild horses inhabit the desert that is part of the Navajo Nation. As you can see by the photo, life for them is hard.

McCormick Stillman Model Railroads – Trains Too Small To Ride

Scottsdale, Arizona.

In early May, I wrote about the miniature trains and the railroad museum at McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park (here) and promised that I’d feature a post on the model train displays housed in a separate 10,000 square foot (929 sq m) building.  Hosted by four clubs, there are three displays and several other railroad oriented exhibits. The opening photo features a sculpture of a train engine breaking through the building wall. Some of these images may look familiar as I featured a sampling of theme for the May 21, 2020, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge here. This post features more facts about the museum, and photos not previously published as well.

Yuma Territorial Prison State Park – 3:10 to Yuma

Yuma, Arizona.

Notice: This post is being written during the COVID-19 pandemic and at this time, the park is closed to visitors. Please stay safe and follow your state or country’s guidelines for travel in your region. More information on the park’s current status can be found here.

Looks like they finally caught up with me. They put me on that train featured in the movie “3:10 to Yuma” and I must serve my time in the Yuma Territorial Prison. My “sentence” would only last a few hours visiting the once-notorious prison that is now a state park. That “mug shot” of me features a mirror that allowed prison officials to take a front and side view mug shot on a single exposure. The mirror is set up for guests to don a quick-change striped jacket, grab one of the prison numbers, and get someone to snap your photo. The Yuma prison is one of the first to use a mirror in creating prison record photographs.