So of course we had a nurse-themed party to celebrate.
You rock, Mollie!
All those years of schooling, and now, well, she just got her first job, and she is going to be working as an emergency room nurse. And yes, those are chocolate candies in a bedpan.
Talk about going right into the deep end of the pool.
My daughters, being who they are, threw a party with individually-wrapped, medically-themed cookies that Mollie made herself.
We had specimen cups full of lemonade, and so many other weird things.
And a table covered with things that nurses need to know about.
And we had a marguerita machine.
It was a good party. People came in from all over.
Also there was a festive assortment of bandages, including little backpacks filled with bandades. How do you spell bandades?
To finish up this long adventure, that had me driving from California to New Mexico to see Mollie graduate, I leave you with these last 3 photos. I am trying to learn Chinese painting techniques. I practiced some when I was in Albuquerque. It is harder than I thought it would be.
Not to put too fine of a point on it, but so far, I kinda suck at it.
And one last look at those sandstone formations full of little caves, worn by time and wind, that you can find way out in the desert in Arizona. Okay, back to my usual weird stuff.
The drive between San Diego and New Mexico, or, in this case, back from New Mexico to San Diego, is not all desert.
You get into lovely forests around Flagstaff, Arizona.
There are fields sprinkled with wildflowers.
That being said, it is mostly desert. A lot of desert.
And in a small town surrounded by desert… I won’t say exactly where… lies this little… uh… anachronism?
It is, sadly, very old-school Route 66 Americana.
I mean, there was a time, when I was a kid, that I would have begged my parents to stop at this place. So it is probably good that we never passed by it.
And are those wigwams, or are they teepees??? We should get our stereotypes sorted out.
I talk about deserts as if all desert is the same, which is far from being true. High desert is way different than sand dunes or chaparral or those cool giant saguaro cacti parts.
Those cliffs in the distance surround Sedona, Arizona. It is remarkably cute town in a very amazing valley of towering mountains.
My younger daughter, Mollie, and her boyfriend, Ben, by the Rio Grande River, on one of their last days in New Mexico. That is because Mollie has graduated nursing college. In fact, she is interviewing for a job in ten minutes.
But to get to this greenery amidst the scenery, I had to pass through a whole lot of desert.
And trust me, it is hotter than it looks like it might be in these river photos.
Duckies!
But getting there was a two-day drive from San Diego.
Those cliffs are huge… and smooth.
I stopped at the same rest area you have seen before, the one with the weird little caves in the cool sandstone boulder.
I spent some time on the old Route 66.
The desert can be amazing… if you like being hot.
No, that isn’t one of the little sandstone caves, it is a huge sandstone cave in a sandstone mountain.
I like dogs more than people. I don’t go to people parks to meet people. I go to dog parks to meet their dogs.
In the Bay Area, people take their dogs… and their dog parks… very seriously.
And because I stayed at my friend’s house for his retirement party, I got to hang out with his dogs for a while.
But I also went to New Mexico, for my daughter’s graduation from nursing college… with two bachelor degrees, just so you know. And I met this half-wild dog on a Native American reservation.
That is a reservation dog. It is not an easy life.
Life is easier for house dogs.
A lot easier.
I did take this photo at my favorite dog park, right down beside the San Francisco Bay shore. Pick up after your dog… but who cleans up after the seagulls??? Did they crap on the sign to support picking up dog poo?
Pouring My Art Out by Arthur H. Browne is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Based on a work at https://pouringmyartout.wordpress.com/. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Pouring My Art Out 