In 1930, Fred Harvey commissioned Mary Colter to design and build a gift shop and rest area at the Grand Canyon’s Desert View scenic overlook. The Watchtower resulted from Colter’s efforts and was opened to the public in 1933.

The Desert View lookout and the Watchtower make for a climactic final stop if you are driving Desert View Drive from Grand Canyon Village, or a dramatic beginning if you enter the park through the East Entrance. From the top of the 70-foot stone-and-mortar Watchtower even the muted hues of the distant Painted Desert to the east and the 3,000-foot-high Vermilion Cliffs rising from a high plateau near the Utah border are visible. In the chasm below, angling to the north toward Marble Canyon, you can see an imposing stretch of the Colorado River. The Watchtower houses a glass-enclosed observatory with powerful telescopes.

I made the image at the left using a panoramic technique; first, I took three images of the tower in portrait mode, one above the other with slight overlap. Then, I ’stitched’ them together using a software tool. The camera was my little Canon A710 IS and the photo stitch software was part of Canon’s Zoom Browser package which came with the camera. Click on the thumbnail to see a larger view of this unique tower.

During our visit to San Diego, I took this panoramic view of the USS Midway docked at Navy Pier. The Midway is now permanently moored as a floating museum. Continue reading too see the moving panorama.

Continue reading » USS Midway Naval Aviation Museum

As promised, I am posting this shot of the bromeliad in bloom. Pink and blue pods make this flower look like a candy confection. Don’t get too close, though, you might get stuck by the spiny petals.

What a wonderful vacation week this has been! Just to prolong it a bit, we returned from San Diego to the Los Angeles area via Historic Route 101 along the Southern California coastline.

We’re still in San Diego, and spent quite a day here today and last evening; we’ve seen some interesting things since we blew into town: a concert, museums, art galleries and, of course, San Diego’s great military heritage.

Our first order of business last night was to attend Sean Hannity’s Freedom Festival concert - what a patriotic rush that was; we saw Sean, Ollie North, Fred Thompson, Lee Greenwood, Michael W. Smith, John Voight, Montgomery Gentry and many others. Lots of military was there including the ‘WOLFPACK” Helicopter Squadron fly-over and the “Leap Frogs” Navy SEALS Parachute Team.

Photo right: Sean Hannity giving opening remarks at the concert.

Today, we drove to Balboa Park and went through the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Natural History Museum. After that, we visited other Balboa Park attractions, like the Arboretum and art galleries.

Next, we went to the Embarcadero where we saw the Star of India and a couple of other tall ships. We finished the waterfront by visiting the USS Midway, which is on permanent exhibition at San Diego Navy Pier. Below is a photo of a huge sculpture of a WWII sailor smooching a nurse from the famous photo taken after VJ-Day, which is across from where the ship is docked. In perspective, the people to the right are only a few meters away from the sculpture, which had to be nearly 30 feet (9 meters) in height. Photo credit - Damsel.

We awoke this morning with a long trip ahead of us - we’re going all the way to San Diego to see the Hannity Freedom Festival concert. More on that tomorrow. Meanwhile, enjoy this wonderful Arizona Sunrise!

Built by the Ancient Pueblo (Anasizi) peoples, this ruin is one of the highlights of our visit to Canyon de Chelly today. It was built in the sheer cliffside of this magnificent canyon before the fourteenth century, at which time, the ancients left. Anthropologists are still wondering why they left.

We didn’t get to Monument Valley on this trip since we’re going to visit Canyon de Chelly tomorrow. However, there are monuments everywhere in this part of Arizona. This nice one is located just south of the Navajo town of Many Farms near US 191.

Today, we were in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. At the same time.

Damsel taking pictures of the four state seals at the Four Corners Monument on the Diné (Navajo) Reservation.

Today, we drove along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. After the cloudburst subsided, we got this beautiful view of the canyon through the mist. Breathtaking!