Fruitcake and Fake Fish / NPR

two good stories from the Salt blog on NPR.

Holiday season stories about fruitcake always make me think of my grandma. Every christmas we'd get a box of cookies, fruitcake, banana bread or zucchini bread. she was a wonderful, and prolific, baker!

There was also another story about restaurants using mis-labeled cheaper fish in place of the real thing. Wild salmon is a jillion times tastier, better for you, better for the environment than farmed salmon! I wish the farmed crap would go away, no one wants to eat it!

Thanksgiving in the Mojave Preserve - Nikon D200 - Days 0,1

 We went out to he Mojave National Preserve for Thanksgiving. Wednesday night we cooked up a half chicken and also two mini chickens from Dey Dey's farm. Also made mashed sweet potatoes, massaged kale salad, bran muffins, and Sara made an apple pie and a pumpkin pie. So we had a Thanksgiving-like meal that night, but also took the mini chickens and other leftovers out with us for Thanksgiving.  We were up late wednesday, so got a late start, and with the 5.5 hour drive arrived at the south end of Kelbaker road pretty much near sunset. We camped right up against the Granite Mountains. Friday we hiked in the Quail Springs area, then around Kelso Dunes, then drove up to Mid-hills to camp. There had been a fire through there in 2005 so lots of cool standing snags. Saturday we took a short drive to the trailhead to Eagle Rocks (we could also see them from the campsite) and found an AMAZING future campsite. Just a stunning view out into the plain. We tooled around there for a while, then went to the Kelso visitors center and then camped right up against the Granite Mountains again. Sunday we visited the lava beds on the way out of the north entrance to the preserve, which were great, only to find that I-15 from Vegas was a parking lot. So we drove back through the preserve and went out I-40. This all set us back a tad and led to a late return Sunday evening. Here's the full album of photos from the Olympus 1030SW point and shoot. And here's the full album from the Nikon D200.

 sunset, granite mountains

view north (above) and south (below) from our campsite

 

from Quail Springs, looking towards Kelso Dunes

The biggest dune. I shot alot of B&W at the dunes, those came out more interesting to me, there is a separate B&W post.

racing the train to the crossing on the way to Mid-hills campground

day2
day3
B&W
Olympus1030
 

Thanksgiving in the Mojave Preserve - D200 - day2

 from the hill above our campsite at Mid-hills, pretty darn awesome

Eagle Rocks

the Bee was inspired to watercolor

looking away from the view, towards the small patch of unburned pinyon-juniper woodland in the campground

our campsite down in the trees

one more shadow 'n' snag

bulgarian yogurt (our new yogurt culture is awesome), apricot preserves, new spork

from the overlook at the Eagle Rocks trailhead area

lots more B&W in separate posts... B&W in the desert seems very natural

there's a Bee in here somewhere

Thanksgiving in the Mojave Preserve - D200 - day3

 Granite Mountains morning shadows

nice little boulder-y campsite

backlit plants and Bee

 Sara knows the name of this plant, beautiful seed pods when backlit...

 lava bed area

 gotta love barrel cactus

mini lava tubes

Thanksgiving in the Mojave Preserve - D200 - B&W

 Kelso dunes shapes

true Pinyon-Juniper woodland

 there was a fire in the Mid-hills area in 2005...

 these are from the 2nd overlook, I shot alot of B&W here. veg growing out of cracks in the Eagle rocks

 snags

 super shallow depth of field, super weird shapes, strange/cool images

 this one was taken right after the previous 2, classic framing, that snag was awesome

gorgeous, eh?