11.30.2007...Goodbye D70

Hello everyone. A happy, belated Thanksgiving to all. Monica and I were lucky enough this year to have Monica's family visit us. In short, we had a great time! I'm not going to show you the obligatory pigging out pictures at our house. However, if any of you would like to see us pig out and see what our house looks like (at least from the decidedly off camber perspective of one Brett Spigelman) please use this link to "you-tube" for a seven minute video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAhT3fcdvw0 And don't forget, I warned you!

So, what did we do for the Thanksgiving weekend? Well, among a thousand things (don't worry, you'll be spared 996 of those things) we drove down to Patagonia. I've mentioned this place before (no tests this time, but you'd better pay attention.). Monica said they were having their holiday craft fare and we thought it would be interesting. A lovely time. Ann Marie and Monica met Santa, who turned out to be a Santa with a sense of humor. Lots of one liners from this gift giving old fellow. He also proved to be a fine tourist guide as he pointed out certain galleries that we were looking for. Below, the sisters meet Santa in the town coffee house. I think they look maaaarvelous (my apologies to Billy Crystal.)



And in one of those galleries, a number of which were in the artist's home, I came across a certain mirror that had a lovely group of people reflected from it. OK,OK, so I told everyone to pose. It still didn't come out the way that I envisioned it, but at least I got all of us in (barely.)



And in another place, another mirror. Good looking Brett on the left. You should try this. The subject (at least the one on the right) never makes a false move and always does what you want without being told. (Must be mental telepathy!)



Still in Patagonia, we met a very nice artist displaying his art outside of the first mirrored gallery. He was from California and was very glad to be living in Patagonia . Something about a slightly less stressful life. ANYWAY, he spies us posing on and around the swinging chair and noticed (unlike yours truly) that we had no spare family member to operate the camera. Well, before I could say anything, he took both my camera and Jim's camera and volunteers to take our picture. He did a good job too. Now if we could only get Jim's camera back...........



That evening we took a splendid ride back to Tucson through the Patagonia Mountains. Lots of photo ops (nearly lost Jim a couple of times as he yelled stop the car and ripped his door open, followed closely by Brett, both clutching their cameras.). You'll notice I didn't include any such shots. Yes, my camera was locked away in the trunk. That's me, ever ready's twin brother, never ready. Welllll, not really.

SO, we went to a very nice Italian restaurant in Tubac. Almost the entire rear wall of the restaurant was glass. Off in the distance was the Santa Rita mountain range. A really beautiful view to accompany a nice meal. And then...BOOM, the full moon bursts from behind the Santa Ritas. Brett and I ran to the car and I grabbed my camera and long lens and stood in the garden firing away. The below picture was one of the few that came out. AND, if you look carefully to the right of the moon, at the mountain range's highest peak, you can just make out a small almost translucent dome. That's the Whipple Observatory located on top of Mount Hopkins. This observatory is operated by the Smithsonian Institute and contains one of the largest mirrored telescopes in the world. (Hey, what's going on here with all these mirror shots - wait a minute! Spigelman in German means...........wait for it...........MIRROR MAN!!!!....really.)



Then, off to Tohono Chul Park's Holiday Lights Festival. Monica worked here for the first year and a half after we moved here and she was really relieved this time to be a spectator rather than a member of the staff. Another very good time and Brett got to chug apple cider with Frosty (turned out to be Mrs Frosty.)



So, what else did we do? The day after Thanksgiving we got some exercise in (but not as much as Steve who took his unbelievable Merlin framed bike, http://www.sandsmachine.com/bp_merln.htm, on a 35 mile jaunt to the NW of Tucson instead of going with us) by visiting the Sonoran Desert Museum which is just west of the Tucson Mountains. It's a great place to see native animals in their natural habitat, including birds of prey. They put on a very good educational show using these hawks. At times, these birds were soaring just inches over our heads. Just had to show you a couple of pictures of them.




All right, I'd like to say this picture shows Ann Marie's EXTREME reluctance to leave her favorite relatives in Tucson. So, if I left it at that you'd buy it, right? No? All right then. It was taken as we searched for our car in the parking lot. We were a little pooped after all that walking and Jim is giving her a helping hand.



So, that's how we spent our Thanksgiving weekend. Hope all or your Thanksgiving weekends were as nice as ours!

PS. Not that you'll notice in the future, but this is the last picto-gram featuring images taken by my old faithful Nikon D70 DSLR camera. My new Nikon D300 arrived yesterday and picto-gram shots will be coming from that camera for the foreseeable future.
Well...at least I'm excited about it!


The below photos were added by Brett in memory of the fallen D70 and his loving, talented, and handsome pop.