Red Hatters Engage in Adult Coloring at Queen's Home

Saturday, June 24, 2017

Members of the New Mexico Roadrunner Chapter of the Red Hat Society in Alamogordo, New Mexico gathered at Queen Ladybird's home (aka Carla Kerr) to engage in adult coloring and to enjoy a lunch of pot luck salads, ice tea and coffee. The play DVD of "The Haunted Garden" was a surprise bonus.

The weather is too hot here to try to do anything outside so we are thinking of things to do where it is air conditioned. As I write this it is 100 degrees outside!

One member, Jean Courtier, brought two huge boxes of Red Hat regalia donated by a lady whose mother had passed and she wanted Red Hatters to use them. With the loot divided up, we than enjoyed watching a DVD of a play that Carla was in at the Rohovec Theatre at NMSU-A.

Still watching the DVD

L to R: Lu Mattson, Gail Swineford, VQ Donna Williams, Trudy Reese, Queen Carla and Jean choosing which pictures to color

Doug finally got our attention. Lu, Gail, Donna, Trudy, Carla and Jean

As you can see, we are all seriously coloring

And the beat goes on

We are enjoying coffee and grapes

I am making progress with my "Believe in Yourself" poster

Donna moving right along with her coloring

It looks like we are closing in on our objectives

Lu was the first to finish and isn't this lovely? By the way, Lu is a very accomplished oil painter.

Time for our salad luncheon and it was delicious and quite varied

Lively conversation ensued while we dined

Jan Jennings came running in from the Alamogordo Quilt Show

Here we are with the finished product, each quite unique and lovely.

Donna, showing off one of the donated hats that she chose

The first time we indulged in adult coloring, Donna was not enthusiastic at all. Now, she asks,"When are we going to color again?" This is really a pleasant way to chat among ourselves and be creative at the same time. Also it keeps us inside out of that awful heat. We will be doing this again somewhere along the way. I finished mine (I'm slow) after everyone left and placed it on my refrigerator along with Lu's who forgot hers.

Thanks to Douglas A. Kerr, Photography for the great pictures.

This is all I have to say for now.

Carla and Doug Kerr in Abiquiu, New Mexico Visiting Georgia O'Keefe's Home and Studio

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

We enjoyed another excellent breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express in Los Alamos before heading out to Abiquiu, New Mexico for a professionally led tour of Georgia O'Keefe's home and studio. What a beautiful setting for an artist and I can see why she fell in love with this area. The mountains are intensely colorful and inspiring. The curator was quite knowledgeable and began his running commentary after we watched a short film. We then all went to a shuttle bus which took us to the home and studio.

The Georgia O'Keefe Tour Office next door to the Abiquiu Inn

The gentleman in the reddish shirt is a our tour guide and we are standing in front of Georgia O'Keefe's 7000 square foot adobe home.

Georgia loved the plants and rocks of the desert

This is the main courtyard

These are tamarisk trees, in the courtyard, giant water drinkers so not necessarily great in New Mexico with our droughts, but they are beautiful in their green with pink flowers. They are extremely invasive trees which is another drawback.

We've been through most of the interior of the house where no photography is allowed and are now outside in the garden and orchard area.

I am intently looking at her rock collection. There were hundreds of them outside and inside the home. The curator said, "If you wanted to make Georgia happy when you visited, just bring her a rock, a bone or flowers."

He is telling us about the orchard and garden

Another door to some room

This is the garden which is maintained every year and tended by some of the High School students in the area

They only water the garden and orchard once a month for two hours and the water feeds in from an acequia (a water system adopted here in New Mexico).

This is the Elk Antlers Georgia O'Keefe posed under for one of her portraits

Sculptures by Georgia O'Keefe in yet another courtyard

These are the iconic doors that she painted numerous times from different perspectives

There was very little of her art in the home. It is all mostly in the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe. She was a complete minimalist and everything in her home had a definite purpose or it didn't stay long. There were several sculptures. The decor was, like herself, mostly earth tones and white. She had a pantry to die for with floor to ceiling shelves filled with items necessary to maintain the kitchen part of the household. While we were in the garden area the curator revealed to us that Georgia hated pesticides of any description. At one time, they were visited by hordes of grasshoppers eating up her garden. She went into town and bought a flock of baby turkeys to take care of the grasshoppers and at Thanksgiving, she gave turkeys away to everyone. Brilliant!

During her later years she suffered from macular degeneration, but she managed to arrange herself and her artwork so that she could see out of the outside of each eye and still paint. She did have caretakers as she grew older. She lived to 98-1/2 years of age, was married from 1924 to 1946 to Alfred Steiglitz, also an artist and gallery owner, until his death. There were no children. Her estate is worth 70 million dollars today. There is also the Ghost Ranch not far from Abiquiu that she owned. Unfortunately, the house was unknowingly built over two rattlesnake dens so she always had to be aware of snakes when there. The curator says there are still many snakes there.

This was just the best way to end our trip to northern New Mexico. We traveled back to Los Alamos, packed up and drove home to Alamogordo, New Mexico. What wonderful way to celebrate our 18th Wedding Anniversary and Father's Day for Doug!

This is all I have to say for now.

Carla and Doug Kerr at Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico

Monday, June 19, 2017

We had a lovely breakfast in their dining room and decided to go to Bandelier National Monument. What an amazing place this is with so much ancient history protected.

Here we are at the Ranger's post. We were able to drive in due to having a disabled tag and a Golden Pass which helped us get in at no charge

Doug shot this as we drove along

I was up on the mountain when I shot this photo of a Kiva

This young man, Daniel, is a Navajo Indian working to restore the walls of this ancient village

This is Robert, also helping to restore the walls and he is a direct descendant of the ancient ones who lived here. He is one of the Cochiti Indians and lives in the Cochiti Pueblo located just south and east of this area along the Rio Grande

This is a shot of the ancient village taken from up the mountain

This is the inside of a cave that the Anasazi (ancient ones) lived in

A stone used as a ladder to climb up to a cave

This is known as the Talus House, a mud brick home built into the rock mountain where the leader lived and it had a lookout room on the top.

One could climb up to and enter the cave, but I was not up to this.

This is a shot of visitors getting info at the Bandelier Visitors Center

Another rock formation Doug was fascinated with

And yet another

This the Holiday Inn Express we stayed in at Los Alamos

This is a reconstruction of the original Main Gate at Los Alamos, now a small park and site of restrooms for the visiting public.

We had just settled in for a much needed nap when the fire alarms went off in the hotel. We were fairly certain it was a false alarm so we got dressed and walked downstairs from the second floor and out to the parking lot where Doug took pictures of all the fire apparatus.

Engine #6

We are given the all clear. It seems that a child at the swimming pool decided to pull the handle on the fire alarm to see what would happen!

We decided to treat ourselves to a truly decadent dinner to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary and Father's Day for Doug. We finally found the Blue Window Bistro.

The waitress was kind enough to take this picture. We each had filet mignon, mashed potatoes, salads, carrots and asparagus and creme brulee for dessert. I also enjoyed a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon with my steak (which I rarely eat). The food was prepared to perfection. If you ever visit Los Alamos, be sure to dine at Blue Window Bistro. It is fabulous in every way.

This is all I have to say for now.