Thursday, March 30, 2006

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Here is a cemetery fence from Santa Fe.



And then there is the fertilizer photo. There is a lot that should probably remain unsaid about this. Heh, heh.

Santa Fe Depot

We went to the depot, of course.
I needed a new Santa Fe train shirt.

We wandered around among the train cars.

And were impressed with Katie's chameleon-like abilities.

I followed the tracks of the elusive
Swamp Thing.

Then we played on the caboose for a while.
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I really don't know if we were allowed to climb around on the trains like we did.
One of the engines was still running!
But no one tried to stop us, so we had a good time.
As for the depot itself - not all that impressive.
Fake Cow City has a more interesting version of the Santa Fe Depot.
I'll post pictures of it another time.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Saint Francis Cathedral

The first church I go to in Santa Fe is usually the St. Francis Cathedral. It is right on the edge of the plaza and is a very opulent, beautiful place. After making the rounds of the booths in the courtyard and picking up a t-shirt in the gift shop, Jackson kept looking over his shoulder, half expecting some Jewish guy to come along and drive the merchants out of the temple.

This is a picture of the main entrance doors. A lot of right-handed people attend services here.





This is the top of a confessional, silhouetted in a stained glass window.



(To be perfectly accurate, I just realized this is actually from the church with the mysterious staircase. I am too tired to remember the name of it and don't feel like googling. Somebody help me out - which church is this?)


The next photo is from the inside of the St. Francis. There are stunning bits of mural all over the walls and columns. They are doing some fantastic restoration work on this art. You can see the artist in the pool of light on the bottom left of the photo.





I seem to have a thing for Catholic candles. One of my all-time favorite photos, which you can see in the sidebar, is a shot of some of them lit behind glass by an altar. This is also from the interior of the St. Francis.





I think it may become a favorite as well.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Spring is Broke

Looks like March has been a slow month for this blog. Life is busy.

Sometimes too busy. Busy is for the birds.
Its the slacker life for me!

We took a couple of days off last week and made our foray to Santa Fe. When it comes to road trips, I like to leave as early as possible. That way, by the time the sun comes up, I will be seeing something new.

We made it about an hour down the road and had to stop for breakfast. Its the most important meal of the day, you know! Jackson has a thing for the Waffle House. (I can't really complain because I have a similar thing for powdered eggs. With lots and lots of black pepper. Especially as used in Taco Villa breakfast burritos.) He was driving so guess where we pulled off the highway? Breakfast was good and the smoke was surprisingly thin. As we finished up, a familiar vehicle, known in the family as Mama's Gween Van, pulled into the parking lot. Opie Capone and his family evidently had the same idea on their way out of town as well. What are the chances?

We had a good trip. Had to stop at Cline's Corners of course and pay homage to the gods of the tourist trap. While there Katie had a giggling good time trying on the sombreros. When we got to Santa Fe we hung out at the plaza, visited tons of churches and explored the countryside. We actually decided, at the last minute, not to stay at Glorieta and picked a hotel in town. We did sneak out there on our last day however, to go hiking. There was a sign at the gate, visible as we snuck back out. It said "Your service begins now." I was a bit puzzled and asked Jackson if he thought it had something to do with cell phones. He sighed and explained about how the conference attendee had been educated, uplifted and otherwise motivated and now had the responbility of performing their Christian service for others when they left the facility.

Oh. Well. My cell phone still didn't have a signal. Maybe it wasn't the only thing missing a signal. Ha!

I got to make my once-a-decade trip to the Santa Fe Depot. I love Santa Fe trains and the Santa Fe depot in Santa Fe sells really great train t-shirts. I'd worn my last one to an absolute nub and this time I scored a way cool Santa Fe-Southern sweatshirt. (Am I the only one who was really upset over the Santa Fe/Burlington Northern merger? I don't know nuthin' bout the railroad bidness, but I know an ugly-ass train engine when I see 'em. Burlington Norhtern's engines look like pumpkin sausages - not nearly as cool as Santa Fe engines. I miss plain old Santa Fe.)

Tomorrow I will mail off my film from the trip for developing. The only place left in town that does film developing is Wal-Mart. Ugh. They don't do a really great job, so I fight my impatience and use a snail mail service. One of these days I will have an extra thousand bucks and buy a new digital camera. Until then, I'll rely on the US postal service to get me my photos.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Have Trunk - Will Travel


If you've been reading comments on various blogs that are linked here, you will have heard of the Texas Towncar of Justice. Now we have a logo! Helps to have a public relations whore in the family - although he prefers the title Ass. Director of Communications or something like that. Opie Capone has designed us a kickin' logo for the Texas Towncar O' Justice. T-Shirts and bumper stickers available at the store. Click on the link in the sidebar.







Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Gashlycrumb Tinies: My Favorite!

Don't Trip
You will be smothered under a rug. You're a little
anti-social, and may want to start gaining
new social skills by making prank phone
calls.

What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
brought to you by

Thursday, March 02, 2006

If you killed the rabbit, is it still good luck?

Jackson sent me an email this afternoon:

Tonight I thought we might just go out and grab something for dinner. I had set out some meat to cook but Omar decided he liked to smell of it. By the time I heard something fall off the counter in the kitchen, it was too late. He had already chowed on a big part of it so I threw it and him out. Then, of course, he comes back in with a rabbit's foot. (Note: NOT THE KIND YOU BUY IN STORES.) He would not let go of it so I threw him out again with the foot in his mouth. He turns around and does the same thing all over again three times in a row, so the third time I threw him out and locked the cat door so he could not get back in with that thing. So he may be pissed off and be gone for a few days.

I guess we'll be eating Mexican food in celebration of Texas Independence Day tonight.