Barcelo Maya Palace, the Yucatan Peninsula

In my fantasies, this is where I'll go, come Winter, North Dakota.

Just for Fun. . . From Mexico Xel Ha

This bad boy is fun to mess with with different editing techniques:

One of These Photos is Not Like All the Others

HINT* All the rest are from Valladolid, Mexico in Quintana Roo.

We had the most extraordinary excursion, one day (the spring equinox) in Mexico, visiting a cenote, then stopping in this little city for lunch, and then moving on to Chichen Itza.

Chichen Itza was the "climax", but I wanted to weep for joy in this little city. I could not press my shutter fast enough to capture the color and visual delight all around me!

This was my idea of a perfect day: five of my loved ones and pure photographic bliss!



People seemed to delighted in this little town to let me photograph them. I showed them the LCD screen, and they smiled, called their friends over to look, and seemed pleased to indulge me.



I used my Nikon 16-85mm lens for most of the photos in town.

I like how in one of the filter sections of Bridge, you can see how many photos you shot at each length. By the end of the day, 129 of the 465 photos I took were at the 16mm end of the lens.

Mystery in Valladolid!

Really! What is going on here? What is this?

This looks like a simple case of standing on a street corner in a foreign country and photographing workers driving by:



But look more closely at the driver. Who or what is the driver?



Is Valladolid populated by aliens? And why isn't his or its passenger screaming and fleeing?

Or is that some kind of protective headgear. . . in which case shouldn't we ALL be wearing it?

And you thought photography was dull!

The Shops outside the Cenote

Once you travel someplace, do you ever really come back to where you started from?






Shops outside the cenote in Mexico, on the way to Chitzen Itza.

Over The (Adobe) Bridge and back to Mexico

I'm reading a fascinating book right now, "Buddha's Brain," by Rick Hanson. The book is written by a psychologist who talks about how our brain benefits from contemplative practices, like mindfulness, or meditation, or brushing the dog. . . anything that activates our parasympathetic nervous system brings tremendous rewards in reducing stress and inducing a sense of happiness.

It turns out that mental activity has a greater direct influence over the autonomic nervous system (of which the parasympathetic nervous system is part), than any other system. When you stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which you can do through mental activity, you can have "calming, soothing, healing ripples spread through your body, brain and mind."

And guess what! Most of the brain's mental activity is spent on nonverbal activities, such as processing mental pictures. All this is a fancy way of saying that imagery can be a powerful anchor for well-being. So if you're feeling stressed at work, imagining a peaceful scene. . . like in Mexico. . .can bring you all kinds of physical and emotional benefits!

So, fire up your Bridge program in Photoshop and head back to someplace wonderful, and bask in those neurotransmitters!

And what better way for me to do that than through a photo like this:

In March, while we were in Mexico, we went down into a cool cenote, and is was unbelievably peaceful and tranquil, even with bats flying overhead. And look at these two lovelies, Dianna and her soon-to-be sister-in-law, sweet, wonderful, Elizabeth:

I wasn't as brave as they were to climb down the rock to the water, but watching them splash and the play of light on the water was mesmerizing. . .

Photography in a cenote is a bit challenging. Flash would bounce against the water too much, but thanks to a greatly boosted ISO (6400), and noise reduction in Adobe Camera Raw, a rock to use as a tripod, I could still use an f/5.6 setting, and 1/30 shutter speed.

Oops! Here are the Cuties in Mexico!

Thanks, Maria! I made a reference to these two cuties we spotted from our balcony in Mexico, but my photo didn't post. Here it is:



We could see them from the balcony of our room--the first room, that is. We happened to have the "fortune" to be right across the Teatro in the resort, so each night, between 9:30 pm and 11:30 pm, music blasted through our room and our bones. We could see the stage from our balcony, and under some conditions, this would be a "feature," but especially since we'd all had about 2 hours sleep the night before our 5 am flights, we really wanted to sleep. Their "Michael Jackson" revue (and I wish I could spell phonetically how Me-KELL' YACK'-sen was pronounced, loudly, repetitively) just wasn't conducive sleep.)

But they nicely moved us the next day to another room. And we couldn't spy on our neighbors on the balcony anymore.

But Where Did Angela Go? (and spring equinox at Chichen Itza)

. . . . those of you who are quite bored may have asked.

Well, I went to three places, two of which are not for the faint of heart.

First, I went to the Puppy Dimension. As the astute reader may recall, I embarked on a campaign to soften Doug's heart to the idea of getting a new dog, after we lost The Beautiful Ms. Bonnie last July. Doug said, "No more dogs." I co-opted the Netflix que and ordered doggie tearjerkers , movie after movie, until the poor man was absolutely red-eyed and chafed nosed. Then I would occasionally whistfully comment on how when he would do something that would raise the hackles of one's spouse, I would chant my mantra, "but he picks up dog-poop, so deserves a lot of grace," . . . and those good times were over.

So Ruby Baby, aka Ruby Beast, aka Ruby the Rascal has come to live with us and keep us on our toes.



And the 2nd place for the not-faint-of-heart was Cyber Hell. My hard drive crashed. The new hard drive also crashed because of the crazy Acronis back-up program (don't buy it!). The computer then had "heat sink issues" (whatever that means!), and my wonderful husband said that (not only could I have a puppy!!!!!!!) but I could get a new computer.

Since I had no back-ups of all of my software and settings, I've had to start from scratch with Photoshop settings, and then monitor calibration, preferred sharpening, sizing, color workspaces for web, for printing, for everything, etc. Sheer torture.

And then Ruby (the Beast) chewed up the data cord to my external hard drive. Just enough to make it inconsistent. So I replaced the external hard drive, transferred everything over. . . . to a new external hard drive that failed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And bought a new one, which now works, and was able to finally, get all my old photos onto it.

(Do you hear the important lesson in all this? Back up, back up, back up. Many ways, on many media.)

And we went some place else! Doug and I went to Mexico, with all three of my children and the wonderful Elizabeth, Scott's fiance.

There is no more perfect place to go in March, when your departure point is the horrific Winter of North Dakota!



This is a photo at Chichen Itza, a Mayan Ruin on the Yucatan peninsula. We had the extraordinary good fortune to get to be there during the spring equinox. (I'll write more about this later.)

If you look closely at the photograph, you'll see a snake head at the base of the ruin on the left side. Between 4:30 and 5:30 pm, during the spring equinox, if the sun is shining, it strikes one corner of the structure, creating a shadow on the other corner, creating the illusion of a snake body slithering down the side of the building.

Day 300: A Cemetery in Mexico

Thought I'd be on theme tonight by posting a few photos from a cemetery in Mexico.








Brian, Dianna and I saw these last May when we were there. They don't seem to have the "scariness" (or the gloom) of a US cemetery.

Day 255: Who Moved My Cheese? Moving on and Turtles.

Remember the book from a few years ago, "Who Moved My Cheese?" I never actually read the whole book, other than to read about 80% of it while standing in a Best Buy while waiting for a CD player to be installed in my son's car. The book was about change in our life, and that the "goodies" in our life can get moved at any time. Things can happen beyond our control.

There's any number of ways we can respond . . . . the usual snits, depression, defeatism. Or we can find other cheese.

When I look at these photos from Mexico, I can't help but think whistfully about my kids and miss them. My kids moved away; my "cheese" grew up!


But I seem to be acquiring new cheese! I'm finding all these new interests--and old--in my life. I'm really enjoying learning about photography. Digiscrapping and traditional scrapping are calling my name, sometimes more loudly than other times. In case you haven't noticed, I'm having a great time here on this blog, getting to write, posting photos, commenting on others', and our general conversational banter going back-and-forth through the comments. And then there's that persistent scuba diving siren luring me to water. . . It gets confusing at times, though, in figuring out how to balance it out with the other parts of my life--with family, work, church.

Oh, and about the turtles! I just like these photos I took in Mexico. And no, they're not really vehicles, but they sure are cute!

Day 254: Type + Writer

Technically, this is not a picture of a vehicle. Unless you count the float. And there ARE four photos. . .

Papers:Trish Jones Radientessence ;MRose Beat The Heat; K Pertiet Serentity; Fonts: Pea Lacy, Pea Marlin, Santana, Georgia; Jessica Sprague Final Tally Template

This is the first of my digiscrapped pages from the Type + Writer Jessica Sprague class. Much more challenging and fun than I expected! And I've been wanting to digiscrap my photos from Mexico.

Day 165: One of my Favorite Men

Even though my head is blocking Brian's face, this is one way I get to post a photo of him. This is my 2nd son, one of my most favorite guys on the planet. He's the one who just graduated this year from U. of Missouri. It's so amazing when these little boys that you raise turn into grown up men, with some real wisdom about the world, a sense of responsibility, compassion, all stirred in, of course, with a bit of the reckless and creative, and a fantastic sense of humor. Dianna took this picture at Xcaret in Mexico.


And this is a photo as we floated on a river through a cave. . .

Day 159 Sun Dancers

Another post about Mexico. This is so typical of me; when I take a trip, it takes me quite a while to be "back." I find lots of ways to extend the trip, and will probably spend a lot of time in the coming months reading about Mexico. You can bet that come the 20-30 degree below zero weather next winter in ND I'll be thinking a lot about Mexico again!!!!

This is a series of photos about the Sun Dancing ritual that was demonstrated at Xcaret in Mexico. This took during the blazing heat of the noon sun.




If you click on this next photo, you can read about the sun dancers:
This last words of this should have read "and this concludes the rite."

Day 158: Iguana, Hammocks and Tortuga

Todays posts will focus on a few of the more relaxing, and magical, moments of our Mexico trip. While we were there, everywhere we looked, there were iguanas. And they seemed quite relaxed, unlike the pet iguana, Jack, we had about 10 years ago who basically held our family hostage for a year. Ugly, but entertaining. Wouldn't this look good with a macro lens?

Every once in a while, we were way too tired to do much other than snooze a few minutes in a hammock. This set were along the ocean. Hammocks are surprisingly comfortable.

And one of the most magical moments of the trip actually occurred during those sad moments when we were checking out of the hotel, at 4:30 in the morning! All of a sudden, in the hotel lobby, all of the workers of the resort. . . . the bell boys, and maintenance people, the managers, and cleaning folk, started running and shouting "come, come!!!!!" They raced around the lobby of the hotel, down a stair well, past a fountain, and toward a beach. We had no clue why they were running. . . . but ran along with them. We could tell they were happy and excited--it didn't sound like the hotel was on fire or anything--but we reallyl didn't know what it was about. We ran out to the ocean, and other workers were also running and gathering, one with a spotlight, and shined it on a huge turtle that had come ashore. They were shouting something about first, or "primera", and we understood eventually that this was either the first turtle of the season, or the first they'd ever seen at this new resort.

Apparently turtles have come to be endangered in Mexico, hunted for their meat, shells, eggs (supposedly good for male sexual functioning), and nearly became extinct. Mexico is one of the countries that really worked to protect them, and reverse this trend. The turtles come ashore and lay some 200 eggs, back on the shore where they themselves were born! They might stick around for a week or two, and then it's adios muchachos, the little turtles are on their own.

The hotel personnel acted like they had just seen Santa Claus, they were so excited and happy! This is a couple of turtle photos from Xcaret. My son also managed to photograph a few photos of the actual turtle on the beach, but I'll have to harass him a bit into sending me his photos.

Day 157: More Water Adventures: Dolphins, Stingrays and Scuba

This part of the trip was a dream come true for Dianna. Ever since she was a little girl, she has wanted to swim with the dolphins. She and I did this together, and Brian scoffed at it; (being a manly guy, he most likely would prefer to swim with the sharks!) He got some pictures of us together with the dolphins which he promises to send me, and we really didn't want to spend $200 for the photos taken by the park personnel!


I took this photo of a stingray at Xcaret. At Xcaret at a nice, safe distance. Unlike at Xel-Ha, the other eco-park we went to. Xel-Ha (shell-ha) is a lagoon along-side the ocean, with tropical fish, and you can either float the length of the lagoon in floats, or snorkel through it, exploring cenotes and caves in the water. I was quite excited coming upon a sting ray, and hovered above it, thinking romanticized thoughts about its cuteness and softness, like the ones at Mall of America that you can pet. It wasn't until later that my smarter children informed me that their under-water hand motions to me weren't "glee" but "What the heck is wrong with you, mom? Get away from that thing, don't you remember how Jeff Corwin died from a stingray?????!!!!!"
oops. At least I didn't touch it.

I don't have a photo for this next part of our trip, and if you don't want to read on, bail out now! I don't want to bore you, but this is also a way for me to preserve some of my memories of this trip. And for me, this was an especially exciting part of the trip. We went scuba diving! Me! Down into the ocean, 40 feet!

Dianna is dive certified, but Brian and I have never done this before. The excursion involved about 1 hour of classroom stuff watching a video, filling out forms. Being the Old One of the group, because I checked "over 45 and family hx of heart problems" (my father), I had to talk to an md on the phone to get permitted to do the dive. This made me extremely nervous. . . . ! Then we practiced in the pool, learned how to signal things under water, like the very important, "I have no air."

Dianna did a dive with another group while we get a crash course in the pool, then Dianna joined us for our ocean dive. Five of us got into the boat with the instructor, put on our equipment, sat on the edge of the boat (backs to the water) and were told that on the count of 3, we all had to fall backwards into the water. If you didn't fall backwards, you had to wait until the boat captain gave you permission to go so you didn't fall on anyone or into the propellers. It all happened so fast and the peer pressure part got me unbelievably moving along with the rest!

But then my mind basically went blank, and thankfully, Dianna coached me on to the next step, which was suppose to be grabbing a rope in the water and literally pulling yourself down the rope to the ocean floor with the rest of the group. I was the last to go. You have to go slow, constantly equalizing the pressure in your ears, and if it hurts too much, you go up slightly to equalize further. But if any of the 5 of us did not continue down, all had to come back up and the dive was over.

So I kept going down, but problem child that I was, I had to keep slightly going up for my ears, and the whole bouyancy thing had me very confused. The life vest has 2 buttons; one button fills it with air, sending you up; one button expels the air, letting the lead weights on your belt help pull you down. But if I didn't use my flipper feet to grab the rope, I'd start floating up, and then my lead weight belt managed to slip down past my hips toward me knees. . . . oh god, oh god!. . threatening to fall on peoples' heads below me. I signaled to the instructor, who tended to problem student here, embarassingly helping me tug the belt back up and tightening it down more firmly. But I still kept floating upward and was struggling to descend, so he added lead weights to my vest.

We were down near the ocean floor for about 20 minutes seeing tropical fish, and swimming among brightly colored schools of fish. But I kept hearing this hissing noise. All of a sudden the instructor was rapidly rounding us up, linking us together in a ring to hold onto each others' vests, and rapidly bringing us up to the surface (but slow enough to keep from endangering us). It turns out that another member of our group had a tank that was rapidly losing all its air! Fortunately, he was wisely checking his gauges frequently; I hadn't even started checking mine yet!

At the surface, we had to climb up a ladder to the boat, and Problem Child here managed to fall off the ladder, bruising my arm from elbow to shoulder. One of those very strong, short, Mexican men, again gave me a hand and helped me get above and over the top rung of the ladder into the boat. I was never so happy to have my feet on something solid as that moment.

I'm really glad I did this, but truthfully, I think it would be much wiser to REALLY get dive certified before doing something like this on a vacation. Too much can go wrong. I felt our instructor was thorough, efficient, serious, and watchful, but I'm thinking that there could easily be situations where a vacation excursion DIDN'T have a completely competent instructor.

Day 156: Xcaret, Tulum and a Spider Monkey

Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments on my "active" vacation. From the photos, you might not realize how cowardly I really do tend to be about scary things. Brian wants got me to watch a video on "When Good Times Go Bad," and this really unnerved me re: risks. I'm actually the kind of person that hates roller coasters, and even ferris wheels.

But up until about 1 1/2 years ago, I had lots of trouble walking. At all. I kept getting diagnosed as having stress fractures, being put in walking casts, told I had plantar fasciitis (heel spurs.) But it was finally diagnosed correctly as an inflammatory arthritis. It's made a world of difference, using an anti-inflammatory! But I don't take mobility for granted, and there's a part of me that now looks at things with the perspective (especially on this vacation) with "If not now, then when? Do I really think I'll be MORE able in another 5 years? Probably not." And so I want to try things now.


But less you think it was ALL a work-out, these 2 photos show Dianna and Brian back in Tulum, the 1/2 way point between Coba and our resort in Puerto Adventuras. We had a little "celebration" with our group of 11 people involving shouting something in Spanish and drinking shots of Tequilla.


And here you see a not particularly. . . modest. . . spider monkey.


No, Becky, this was not a member of the Blue Man Group! This was one of the characters that performed in the evening show of ancient Mayan ceremonies at Xcaret, an eco-park.


Xcaret (shkar-et) was another phenomenal excursion we got to do on this trip. We went snorkeling in an underground river, and saw all kinds of huge tropical fish. I've never snorkeled before and have decided it's one of my all time favorite things to do. It's incredibly relaxing, and you float along with a life jacket, flippers on your feet, breathing through an air tube, and seeing all kinds of exotic coral and sea life.