Category Archive

Buster Posey of the San Francisco Giants during Spring Training, Scottsdale, Arizona.

Some dear friends generously provided us with tickets to the San Francisco Giants Spring Training games – they are sure fun!  I love the relaxed, casual atmosphere where before the game the players work their way down the sidelines posing for photos and signing autographs.  We had such good seats to yesterday’s game that I decided to bring my camera and try to capture the action – that was a  blast as well!  I gotta admit, catching that moment the ball leaves the bat is much harder then it looks!

A wide throw lead to a successful stolen base in yesterday's Giants game against the Milwaukee Brewers.

McDowell Mountain Regional Park, Arizona.

We just moved to Arizona to a place just outside of Fountain Hills, which is just outside of Scottsdale, which is just outside of Phoenix – you get the idea.  🙂

As you can see, things are really green out here right now and look very promising!  With temperatures predicted into the 80’s next week, I’m hopeful that things will really start blooming very soon – it should be a great year.  As we made our way across Arizona I10, the hills throughout the state were very green, but only the edge of the roadbed is blooming right now.  The road edges always look the best.

This area has received over 6 inches of rain since the beginning of this year, and signs of the wet year are everywhere.  We are camped on the edge of the Verde River and I can’t believe how much water is flowing in it right now – substantially more then our past two visits.  Many of the normally dry riverbeds around Phoenix are flowing right now, it is fun to see the transformation.

Here are some photos of the wildflowers of McDowell Regional Park from 2008 during our last visit to this area.

The Phoenician, Scottsdale Arizona.

We (Janine) are about done with our website updates from our winter / spring travels.  We now have a separate section just for Scottsdale Arizona.  This popular tourist destination certainly warrants it’s own section. 

In addition, we also have a separate section for Fountain Hills, Arizona.  Fountain Hills isn’t nearly as famous as the neighboring Scottsdale, but if you are like me and prefer to avoid the crowds, Fountain Hills is a good alternative.

McDowell Mountain Regional Park, near Phoenix, Arizona.

We had enough coverage of this little gem to warrant its own section on our website here:  McDowell Mountain Regional Park Photos.  I don’t think too many people have heard of this regional park, I bet most people living in Phoenix haven’t visited it, but they should!  This place has a lot of diversity – it is surprising to find such a place so close to a city like Phoenix.  And, it has some killer mountain biking trails!

These fireworks at the end of an Arizona Diamondback’s game in Phoenix this spring is about the closest thing I have to a 4th of July photo! 

Back-lit ocotillo against a shadowed hillside.   These guys were really getting bright red!

Owl’s Clover.

This Owl’s Clover really has nothing to do with our web server – we were adjusting a few photos from earlier in the trip for a customer, and I thought it was kinda purdy, so I went with it.

Our main photo website seems to grow in spurts, and lately it has really been spurting.  According to Webalizer, we had over 336,000 visitors last month!  This month is even busier.  I believe Webalizer counts spiders and repeat visitors, so that number is probably a bit overstated , but even if you reduce it by a third, it is still a lot of great activity.

That’s the good news, now the bad.  Read More