From Sea to Shining Sea

female Anna's Hummingbird - Palm Springs

hummer in flight

hummer hovering

Greater Roadrunner

Common Yellowthroat

Western Fence Lizard?

Granite Spiny Lizard?

Joshua Tree National Park, California

Joshua Tree and RV

Joshua Tree in habitat in Joshua Tree National Park

White-tailed Antelope Squirrel

White-tailed Antelope Squirrel showing white under tail

Cactus Wrren

Views from Joshua Tree NP towards the infamous San Andreas Fault

Viva Las Vegas

My lovely smiling Megan

and the feral herd that is her family

Matthew's birthday - iced coffee blasts outside a pirate ship

flying in an inside amusement park at the Circus Circus Casino



Indoor Roller Coaster at Circus Circus



Megan - still smiling in Los Vegas

The boys meet Teller post the Penn and Teller show

Penn in the middle

THE Canyon and beyond.........

THE

GRAND

CANYON

or as Millie put it,"that's one big crack!". Quite.

In my experience it is only the very spcial places that are immortalised as beer..

Beautiful days ended with chilly nights [minus 15 or so] but thankfully no snow fell while we were there.

It's easy to take too many pictures...

Tom adding essential scale - you can see it's wider than his outstreched arms.

Beautiful Western Bluebird

male Western Bluebird - one of my favourites

Snow highlighting the sedimentary layers

down towards the Colorado river  a mile below

Juniper Titmouse

Juniper Titmouse in profile

Megan and myself - [I'm on the right]

Cliff Chipmunk - the name of the species, not this particular individual

dawn views near the village

The canyon under a rising sun

Cassin's Finch

Cassins Finch

AFTER THE CANYON .........
 

East of th eGrand Canyon...



Cloud Streets criss crossing above a largely deserted Navajo handicraft centre

a smaller but still grand [but not Grand] canyon east of the GRand Canyon on Navajo land

Wood Duck drake



Wood Duck drake




Red Rock state Park, Arizona - the variety continues

This would be a little more beautiful in spring or summer with a bit  more green added

Matthew continues climbing with Millie as an apprentice

The fam

A posing portrait in a state park - Red Rock

Tom and Matt near Sedona

Red rock crossing the river near Sedona

An expression of the power of peer group pressure - hundreds of hundreds of little stone towers - it took us ages to knock them all down,

A small lake in Dead Horse Ranch State Park where we stayed a night enjoying great generosity and friendship of some Arizona locals

Canvasback

Ring-necked Duck drake - I still insist on calling it ring billed [which is a better name]