My Beautiful Michigan

These landscape photos came out looking really beautiful, the colors are great. I used the 16-50mm lens on this trip which was a good choice but the 140mm lens would have been a bit better. Blondie is so chilled out, enjoying the beautiful day! How has your Wednesday been going?

New Chili, New Crockpot

A few days ago, I tossed the six-year-old crockpot and replaced it with this new, larger unit. Works great, and it’s actually too big for the normal-size pot I make so no more overflowing when the chili is cooking.

For this pot, I left out the usual spicy package of powder I use and replaced it with a super hot can of sauce with habanero peppers and other spices. Yum! It is super hot and burns your tongue nicely too.

I also added as an experiment, dashes of Oregano, Thyme, garlic powder, and onion powder even though there are two whole small yellow onions in there already. Delicious! Call me Chef John, right?

The Red Rod

These photos were taken recently at the Dream Cruise on Woodward Avenue several miles north of Detroit. Woodward Avenue was the first paved road in the United States and begins in Downtown Detroit and terminates in Downtown Pontiac which happens to be a favorite old haunt for me in the 1980s and 1990s. Both of my children were also born in a hospital in this old city. Like Detroit, Pontiac isn’t what it once was.

Green Beauty

So much green, a beautiful overload of green is what I see back home in Michigan. We just don’t see this much green in Las Vegas, you need to drive high into the mountains to get somewhat close to this kind of green. Yet, I stay here in the Mojave Desert for its own unique beauty, so different yet always very beautiful.

Lake Las Vegas

Lake Las Vegas is a very high-dollar place to live, simply put and that’s just one guy’s opinion but I have been there a few times just to drive through the place. Wow, very impressive! And, well outside of my budget too! This link will tell you much more about this man-made lake which is fed by the Las Vegas Wash and is connected to Lake Mead via large buried pipes that are used for flood control. Photo via iPhone.

The Ugly Willow Tree

I have no idea how old this tree actually is, but I will guess that it’s the better part of one hundred years old. And, certainly on its way back to the earth from whence it came too. There once were three Willows on this piece of land that was once an island, but it was backfilled on one side since the channel was filling itself in any way. That was done back in the 1990s. I know this land very well after several years of working here.