I woke up all excited to do some hiking this morning. I got out of bed while J was still sleeping and started to work up a blog entry. J started stirring, and I had my normal breakfast. We left at 8:08 in the Jeep.

We went to the Soldier Pass Trailhead and hiked a short way to the Devil's Kitchen sinkhole. It's a feature that J wanted to photograph, and unfortunately it's better to photograph in the afternoon. Then we hiked further to the Seven Sacred Pools, a destination I wanted to see. The pools weren't very good for photography either in the morning, and even in the afternoon finding an interesting composition could be challenging. Fortunately, we were among some nice red rock formations, and we found other things to photograph around there. I liked the agave in the image to the left which provided a nice anchor. The wispy clouds were nice after having boring blue sky for so many days. We hiked back to the Jeep and went ...

To The Laundry Basket at 10:55 to do some laundry. After we started the laundry, J took her MacBook Pro around the corner to get some free WiFi while I kept an eye on our things and then put it in the driers. I left in the Jeep around 11:35 to go look for an interesting birthday card for my mother.

I ended up at the Art Mart coop gallery. There was some interesting photography by two different photographers, but no locally-drawn/painted cards that grabbed me. I ended up with a Celtic-inspired card that was printed in Ireland — so much for something local.

I returned to The Laundry Basket around 10:55. J came back in time to help collect the laundry.

We went to Casa Bonita for lunch at 12:27. I got Chicken Mole and J got Enchiladas Deluxe. The chips and salsa to start with were delicious! The chicken came on a plate that was about 14 inches (36cm) in diameter! The food covered the whole plate — what an impressive sight! Fortunately, it was spread thin so that a mere mortal could eat it at one sitting. The mole sauce was tasty, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. J liked her enchiladas, but said they weren't anything special. We left around 1:20.

We went to the post office and picked up our mail, then ...

Went to a bank to deposit some checks that had just arrived, then ...

Went to Safeway to do some grocery shopping.

We returned to the RV around 2:45. I put away most of my laundry, then downloaded the images I took this morning. I did some computer work, then finished the blog entry. I left at 4:30 by myself in the Jeep.

I went to see if I could get a good view of the Cockscomb formation, a formation that attracted my attention yesterday afternoon. I discovered a Cockscomb Trailhead, and after heading down the trail a bit to round a hill blocking my view, I started bushwhacking to get into a good position to photograph the formation at sunset. The clumps of prickly pear cactus made for some nice anchors, but the 24 Tilt-Shift was a bit wide to have the Cockscomb be large enough (far left). A 45 Tilt-Shift would have been better. :) I considered using my 24-105 and taking two exposures with one focussed on the cactus and one focussed on the formation and then combining them in Photoshop, but that would have been a lot of work. I moved into a different position to photograph the formation right at sunset using my 100-400 to focus on selected pinnacles (above right). The formation didn't light up very much because a thin layer of clouds to the west was blocking the sun. Those clouds lit up nicely, but I couldn't photograph them from where I was.

I returned to the RV around 6:50 and started to download the images I took this afternoon.

I had dinner of lunch stuff, and the Chompie's Original New York Deli Seedless Rye we picked up today at Safeway was awesome for my ham and Swiss sandwich. J had had popcorn for dinner while I was out photographing. I downselected the images from today, then put away the rest of my laundry. I had some Asbach Uralt while doing some computer work. We watched an episode of Desperate Housewives on DVD.