NEVER S10P HONORING

I participated in the 10^th annual Pat’s Run yesterday along with about 29,999 other runners! What a sea of humanity. It’s a very popular local race because it supports the Pat Tillman Foundation that honors a local hero. The race is 4.2 miles, winds its way through Tempe and ends with runners entering Sun Devil Stadium on the Arizona State University campus. Pat wore #42 (hence the race distance) when he played football for ASU (he also played for the Arizona Cardinals). You can learn more about the race and the foundation here: The Pat Tillman Foundation

Just a few members of our running team

Waiting to get the race underway (I was in corral #5)

Runners everywhere

We had our own paparazzi!

A sea of yellow.

Campus construction showing off an image of Pat's AZ Cardinals jersey

Yay! The finish in Sun Devil Stadium.

My post race electrolyte replacement.

(all photos were taken with my iPhone)

This wraps up my race season for the summer. It just gets too dang hot here for me to train in the summer. My next scheduled race is the Disneyland Half Marathon in November. Our training for that race starts in August. 

Next week we are off for a two week vacation. We will be starting in Rome and cruising to Barcelona. I will try to blog while I am gone (I've never done that before) but it you don't hear from me I'll be back soon with plenty of photos!!

Until then...

And that's a wrap...

The fourth year of the Liberate Your Art postcard swap has come to an end. Once again it was an awesome experience!  There is just something about the anticipation of a new card arriving in the mail along with a personal note from the sender that makes this so special. I visited the sender’s blogs and websites to enjoy more of their fantastic art. I feel like I made five new friends even though we may never meet face to face.

My thanks to Kat who is willing to host this swap year after year. I know it’s a lot of work and I’m grateful for her commitment. I am also thankful for the many talented swappers whose participation makes this such a unique event.

Postcard #1 from Marjorie

Postcard #2 from Siobhon

Postcard #3 from Shirina

Postcard #4 from Kelly

Postcard #5 from Suzanne

The image I used for my postcards

Kat's postcard in my Palo Verde tree

An InLinkz Link-up

Breaking the rules... again

Recently my daughter and I had a wonderful girls’ night out at the Phoenix Botanical Garden. We went to a Chihuly After Dark event. We had seen his exhibit the last time it was at the PBG but we went during the day. This was our first experience seeing the glass light. It was very cool! I think his work is amazing.

We both brought our cameras and had fun snapping away. Shooting after dark is tricky and I still need tons of practice. I opted to leave my tripod at home even though I know its “required” for nighttime shooting so the photos are soft and a bit noisy but I’m ok with that. If I have an opportunity to go again I’ll bring my tripod and make it more of a “photo shoot”. I just didn’t want to get so wrapped up in the photo taking that I missed enjoying the art.

My favorite

"Glass cactus"

Squint and you can see the moon.

These ladies were demonstrating some awesome hula-hoop moves. I tried to grab some shots but like I mentioned, I didn’t bring a tripod….

So tell me, do you take your tripod with you for night shoots? Please tell me I'm not the only one who doesn't!

#iamconfused in Beverly Hills, day 2

  #iamsorry

So did you check out the link from my previous post? You may be a bit confused, as was I but my daughter attempted to explain.

Bottom line Shia LaBeouf sits silently with a bag over his head. It’s referred to as performance art. Forgive me if I do not understand the “performance” part. Sunday was the final day of his “performance” and I was curious so we swung by to check it out. My daughter was thinking if the line were short she’d wait to take her turn. Not so much! The photo below shows just a fraction of the line. It snaked to the left along the side of the building.  We struck up a conversation with four twenty-something girls sitting in folding chairs. They had been in line since 4am, it was 1:30pm when we were there! They felt the odds of making it in were slim to none but they were going to wait it out because they had tried the day before and failed. Nuts I tell you, nuts!! But TMZ and BuzzFeed (its headquarters are across the street from the gallery) were all over this story so it was big news that weekend. Needless to say my daughter settled for a photo out front (and yes, that is a real Les Miz tattoo on her thigh).

#iamconfused

Then it was off to get up close and personal with the “Hollywood” sign, something else I had never done. My goodness that is some road up the hill to the sign, narrow, winding and houses on each side. You cannot park along the road, which I totally understand. You have to make your way to a very crowded, very narrow parking lot for a dog park. My husband dropped us off because the lot was full.  My daughter and I hiked up the street to get a better photo angle of the sign. I wonder how many selfies were taken with that sign that day, there were tourists everywhere but I am glad we did it, something to check off the bucket list. After our sign visit we hit the road and headed back to Phoenix.

Shot by my daughter

Smog over the city. Taken from the Hollywood Hills