A Blog to Make You Smile

 We haven't done a blog about Mexico in a while and I think, at this juncture, we all need something to smile about.  So here goes.  The Lake Chapala Society (LCS) in our pueblo of Ajijic has been running a Children's Art Program for 60 years.  From this program, scores of artists have been developed -- some now have world - wide reputations.  In addition to weekly classes throughout the year, each summer, LCS sponsors a week long arts camp on their campus. This year almost 200 children enjoyed the program.  The teachers are a mix of gringos and Mexicans  and the children range from preschool thru teenagers. There is no charge for the camp and at the end the kids can sell their projects at a sale which is always very popular. The current Board and Board President of LCS along with the Director of Education have worked hard over the last several years to enhance and expand the program to deliver more different classes to more students.  Today classes span from drawing and painting to ceramics and papier mache (cartoniera en Español) to crocheting and embroidery and more.  Take a look at these photos and just enjoy watching kids enjoying their creativity.

These young children were working with water colors.

This group was working on papier mache.

This was the younger group in the photo program, using their cell phones. The taller one in the back is Esteban (who participated in the Programa de Fotografía Juvenil sessions earlier) who is helping with the younger children. The younger one with the cell phone is also Esteban. 

A sketching session in progress.

A close up of the sketch used for instructing.

It was amazing to see the concentration for two hours without pause.

This was a group learning crocheting.

These children were working on textile arts.

These children were working on embroidery.

Alicia, one of the bilingual photo instructors was very creative in keeping the young children engaged. She set up this Bingo photography card with a different type of photograph in each block, which the children had to complete each of the blocks.

Some of the children's art work was displayed during the week and on Saturday the children sold their art work at an art fair and received 100% of the proceeds from the sale of their work.

This young man was very focused on his drawing.

This was one of the linotypes completed in another group of children.

Their were instructors in each specialty to give the children guidance.

The ceramics group had a number of creative children...

and here this young girl is displaying her finished product before firing and painting.

Octavio was the expert in instructing the children in papier mache (cartoniera).

This young boy was admiring some of the completed works which were drying prior to being painted.

This young man created an easel to help him paint more easily.

Depending on their interest, there were so many different types of art which the children could engage in during the week...

including cartoons.

It was great to see a campus, which normally only had a much older population, filled with young children.

Some of the children in the photo program posed for a publicity photo with the instructors, Alicia (on the left) and Sandy (on the right) and Esteban, the assistant next to Sandy.

These two young girls were intently reviewing the bingo card and checking their cell phones to see if they captured all the necessary images.

Here Sandy is giving guidance to one of youths in the program. Sandy instructed the youths from 12 to 18 years old and Alicia instructed the children from 9 to 12 years of age.

Each day LCS provided a lunch for all of the children during the entire week.

An example of one of the finished embroidery pieces.

Some finished cartoniera drying.

One of the young children, Esteban, who was 11 years old did not seem to be very engaged. Esteban is bilingual. To get Esteban engaged I gave him my Nikon Coolpix 900 camera, which has an amazing telephoto capability. The next five photos were all taken by Esteban, who now wants to be part of the next Programa de Fotografía Juvenil session.

These are pictures of the Danza de los Voladores, a ritual that started in Central Mexico among the Nahua, Huastec and Otomi peoples and is still practiced today.

The children and all three assistants posed with some of the voladores for their photo.

Esteban was able to capture these monk parrots with the telephoto capabilities of the camera.

One of the creative figures made by one of the children from cartoniera.

Popping into Polygamy World

 So What's This About Kolob Canyons?

Before leaving on our trip we tried to book a room at or near Zion National Park.  Everything was either booked or hideously (to our minds) expensive so we looked a bit further afield.  We found a B&B in Kolob Canyons and booked it.  While dining with our friends Kate and Greg I mentioned our newfound lodging in Kolob Canyons.  "What?" said Kate who had grown up in a Mormon, " well brace yourself.  That's in the heart of Polygamist country."  She then explained that Kolob in the Mormon religion was either a planet  or an ethereal plane sacred to Mormons and a place/state you went to if you had been a good Mormon.  The whole thing was a little obscure to me so I set out to learn more.  Having Googled it I still remained unclear about the whole Kolob thing.  So, days later, Michael and I were sitting in our dermatologist's waiting room and I was trying to explain Kolob to Michael.  The sole other occupant of the waiting room snaps to attention.  "Did you say Kolob?  Are you Mormons?" she asks. I replied no, where upon she launches into a detailed description of Kolob which, honestly, left me no more enlightened but amazed that I had encountered probably the only Mormon residing in Ajijic.  Odd.

These two caves have the appearance of eyes peering from the rock.

This is known as a "tilted layers" as a geologic formation. The Colorado Plateau is famous for horizontal rock layers. The titl of the sandstone layers gives an idea of the folding that occurred before the uplift of the Colorado Plateau.

The geologic forces that created these canyons is evident from these photos.

This area of Utah was also much greener and forested than either Bryce or Arches.

One can only imagine the force that created this cleft in the rock.

Two pictures of Deirdre relaxing at Kolob Canyons.

We arrived in Kolob Canyons and checked into our B&B which was gorgeous.  I was sitting in the living room sipping a wine (procured in Colorado of course) and talking to one of our hosts -- Rob.  Rob was a transplant from Australia and not Mormon so I felt free to ask him what he knew about the polygamy situation thereabouts.  He was taping up some boxes as we chatted and he said, " Odd that you'd mention it but I'm taping up these boxes for some polygamists."  Hmmm.  It turns out that he and his wife have a business servicing the local polygamist community.  And a dandy business it is.  Apparently, this community has devised a construction method of building distribution warehouses which is both cheaper and faster than conventional methods.  They build them all over the country using Hispanic (documented? undocumented,? who knows?) labor.  To reward them, the business gives the workers gift cards to utilize buying merchandise emblazoned with the company's logo.  Our hosts oversee the  imprinting of the logos and shipping of the merchandise.  This has opened up the world of polygamy to them.  We now know a LOT about polygamy.  If you are intrigued you can read more in the book:  Under the Banner of Freedom and assorted other books about the communities in Southern Utah and Colorado.  Well, and Mexico. 

Zion Overcomes my Canyon Ennui 

Zion is beautiful -- really beautiful.  In the other three parks we had been viewing the wonders of nature from canyon rims.  In Zion we were traversing the canyon floor.  Braver, younger, less acrophobic people were hiking to the rims but not these old folks.  One hike -- Angel's Landing, involved climbing using chains mounted in the rock face and ultimately balancing on a rock at the top,  I found it hard to believe that so many people would want to do this that a lottery was required to determine which "lucky" people would make the ascent.  We contented ourselves with a gentle hike (the elevation was less) to The Narrows.  The Narrows is a spectacular hike which, to complete, requires wading through ice cold water prone to flash floods.   We stopped at the river bank and held our breath as we watched numerous people (some in flip flops without hiking poles) negotiate the rapidly moving stream.    We turned around, went to the lodge, sat in rocking chairs viewing the canyon and had a leisurely lunch.  Infinitely more enjoyable than risking hypothermia and a broken hip on the rocks.

We encountered this mule deer buck as we were leaving early to go to Zion.

There were a whole herd of mule deers in the field close to our B&B.

Arriving early at Zion allowed us to see the contrast created by the shadow on the rock walls.

The Virgin River flows through Zion canyon forming the narrow passageway.

In spots the rapids were visible.

There wers also some interesting wildflowers in the narrows.

The light from the sun created interesting colors on the flowing river.

Some younger and braver souls forded the river and continued the hike on the other side.

Being wiser & less brave we decided not to enter the frigid water.

This was a day for spotting numerous animals - this ground squirrel among them.

Deirdre stopped to admire the canyon views.

t

This shows the power of water to carve out the rock.

If you use your imagination, this looks like a face peering down into the canyon.

The rock against the blue sky gives this phot a two dimensional aspect.

This lizard was well camouflaged against the wood.

The folds in this rock make it appear less like stone than some other more flexible material.

We spotted another mule deer buck in Zion.

Justice Alito - FYI this is the proper way to fly the flag.

Outside of the canyon the landscape was more like the Southwest we had seen previously.

If you look closely you will see this stone arch, which was in Zion not Arches.

We so not see many robins in Mexico and this was stopped to pose for its photo.

This statue was a tribute to the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) formed during the Great Depression. I am not sure why people are drawn to rubbing the statues nose and nipples.

These photos were taken on the road from Zion to Bryce.

There was a one way tunnel on the road and we turned around after a few miles.

(For some unknown reason, blogspot decided to underline all the captions in this section. No matter what I tried, it refused to eliminate the underlining.)

Almost The Last Lap

Back to Vegas.  Our first hotel in Vegas was elegant, no casino, no shows-- our cup of tea.  On the return trip we booked into the Mirage.  This was the Vegas we remembered and hated.  Stand in a herd to check in.  Walk a mile or two through the casino, through the shopping arcade to banks of elevators filled with people intent on losing their money. We had sharpened our dislike of Las Vegas through multiple trade shows, conferences etc. that we had endured there during our years in business. But the room was nice.  

We stayed there because we had tickets to the Cirque du Soleil show Beatles Love which takes place in a theatre at the Mirage and we didn't feel like hassling transport in the roasting city.  The show was really outstanding.  We'd heard complaints that it lacked the amount of high wire acrobatics of other Cirque shows -- which it did.  But it had the most amazing trampoline work either of us had ever seen.  And, of course, the music.  All in all, worth every penny and even worth staying at the Mirage.  We couldn't take photos for fear of  a flash wrecking an acrobats timing resulting in manslaughter. 

On the Road Back to LA

Ever eager to leave Vegas, we hit the road early the day after the show.  We decided to make a couple of stops along the way just to break up the drive.  Both stops were a delight.  The first was the Seven Magic Mountains.  In the middle of nowhere, it is a huge art installation.  It features seven columns of  boulders balanced one upon another with each painted a vibrant color.  How they balanced them (and what happened when the balance was off) was fascinating to contemplate.

Ugo Rondinone was the artist who create Seven Magic Mountains.

Locally source limestone boulders were used to create the "mountains".

The boulders were stacked vertically and balance one on top of the other.

Each boulder was painted a different fluorescent color.

There were three to six boulders in each stack.

Each of the stack was anywhere from 30 feet to 35 feet high.

Ugo was inspired by the hoodoos that dot the Southwest.

A little further down the road we stopped for breakfast at The Pioneer Saloon in Goodsprings Nevada..  This stop was suggested by Justin and James who stop there when they go to Vegas.  I was expecting something semi-lame like one of those fake ghost towns but this was the real deal.  The saloon was built in 1913 and in those days that area was really the frontier -- or the wilderness.  I don't know where you draw the line between those two.  While I'd seen stamped tin ceilings before I'd never seen walls completely covered in stamped tin.  Three bullet holes remain in the wall as the result of a card game gone wrong in the early days.  We ate in The Clark Gable Memorial Room. In 1942 Clark Gable's wife, Carole Lombard, had just completed a War Bonds tour and was flying from Indiana back to Los Angeles.  The plane had refueled in Las Vegas and, soon after takeoff, crashed into a mountain in or near Goodsprings.  Gable rushed to be near the site to learn her fate and spent 3 days in the Pioneer Saloon awaiting what was to be very bad news.  His cigar burns are still on the counter of the bar.  If the photos Michael took look familiar it's because so many movies and TV westerns have been filmed in the Saloon and adjacent Ghost Town buildings.  Definitely a great stop and the food was amazing.  Thanks Justin and Janes. 

There aren't many small businesses (or large ones either) that have been a going concern for 111 years.

Some of the items on display in the restaurant were a little eclectic.

The bar at the Pioneer Saloon.

The Goodsprings General Store also had an old tin ceiling.

A giant prospector statue was to the right of the saloon.

And So It Ends

A few more hours on the road and we were back in Los Angeles visiting with our sons once more. And then it was time to say goodby to them and to the trusty Subaru.  We were back to our life in Ajijic and to the hottest spell we can ever remember in our idyllic (at least it WAS) climate.  We're staying put in Ajijic with a quick trip to Playa del Carmen for a wedding until late August so this may be it for a month or two.  Have a great summer and try to stay cool.