Battleship Rock

Whew!   another church group hike   another long,very long day   first as the day began, i didn't pay attention to my camera and where the settings were   i just picked it up and started shooting   well somehow one lever had gotten moved somehow   so the initial photos are a bit dark, but much nicer when it comes to the lighting   this is a good 'accident' for now i'm ready to play with my camera manually   photography is all about Light, well almost    capturing the right lighting is important   i recognize with these photos having it all on Auto is not a good thing  not that i ever thought it was, but these photos definitely demonstrate the difference   so now i'm ready to go play more with my camera   which means i'll be on another road trip soon...lol

anyways, these photos are of our hike at Battleship Rock in the Jemez Mountains   our intent was to find natural hot springs, which we did   we first headed to a waterfall (included in photos)   a new guy to our hike group, Louie, lead us there  he's in the bandana skull cap by the waterfalls   then we headed on up the trail to McCauley Springs   2miles in, all up hill....wait, before either of these adventures, we stopped at Soda Dam just down the road   the photos with rock sculpted and water rushing thru it....anyways, back on the trail, we hiked along a stream or river, whatever you want to call it   i'm used to rivers being as big as the Ohio River   there are a few pics of the stream, rushing water   along the trail, Louie found a rock with seashell fossils in it   those pics are included too   it was a beautiful hike along the red clay dirt   and only the people pictured was on the hike  just 5 of us   a few of the photos i took were just for gee whiz purposes, trying to capture the art in nature   i recognize as we got to the hot springs, i didn't really take photos of them   two of the guys with us are captured dangling their feet in the hot springs   there were 2 hot springs  water beautifully clear   then 2 guys decided to jump in   one in his birthday suit (butt naked) and another left his briefs on   i chose these springs because more popular springs were down the road, but nudity was a certain   one guy didn't want to go there   he didn't stay long   i knew he had to be somewhere at a certain time, but i don't think he really liked the other guy being butt naked in the springs   o well, can't make everyone happy   i personally didn't care   not like i haven't done my own skinny dipping years ago when i was young   we stayed awhile at the springs   more people came and went to the other spring jumping in their birthday suits  what is a hot spring without nude people?   once we got out and hiked back, we stopped at Los Ojos Tavern  basically bar & grill   it is rustic and had a fire going in the fireplace   the fireplace was HUGE   the bikers were in & out of there   reminded me of the the place in the movie Wild Hogs where they found all those bikers   there were other plain folk in our place also   we ate our meal then played pool   we really didn't play a game because the 8 ball and another ball were missing   plus Anne had never played pool before   but we had a blast anyways...then we headed home    the guys who got in the hot springs, slept on the way back...lol   guess all that nature wore them out   it was a great day in nature!!!!

once back, i ran home, changed shirts and headed out to the baseball game   it was a looooooong game    the game started at 7pm   by 9pm, only 4 innings had been played   we scored 10runs in the second inning alone   lots of home runs by both teams last nite   by 10pm, i was ready to go home   we were leading 12-9 when we left with only 2 innings left to be played   fireworks were to kick off afterwards   but i couldn't hang anymore    got home and immediately hit the sack    a really good nite's rest after 2 nights of being up late   just couldn't get to sleep until 2am   i woke early this morn   i should hit the trails more often, which i'm starting for sure tomorrow   nature definitely helps me sleep better   a wonderful way to live....