Why We Hang the Camera Strap Around our Neck, and Other Tidbits from the Road

Jim has always enjoyed photographing old buildings, like shacks and barns; the more "rustic", the better. He also likes to experiment with filters and different camera settings. Yesterday evening as I was working on the blog, he went out to see about taking some pictures of a barn next to our campground. He had his camera and several filters with him when he left.

After a while, he came back and proceeded to download his pictures. Very calmly and nonchalantly, he invited me over to his computer to see why we always hang the camera strap around our neck (he's always telling me to do this anyway) as we take pictures.

Mildly curious, I went over to see what he was talking about, as I have seen hundreds of his barn and rustic building pictures, and I couldn't imagine what that would have to do with the camera strap. But what I saw on his computer screen was not what I expected. As I looked, he showed me the various pictures of the barn with all the different camera settings and filters.



He was explaining that he was looking through his viewfinder and messing with the settings and the filter, getting ready to snap another picture. All of a sudden, the reason for having the camera strap around the neck became, well, perfectly obvious. This is the image that appeared in the viewfinder just as he prepared to press the shutter.


What the heck????? He stumbled a bit and looked to see what strange creature was standing in front of him. Then he looked around to see if anybody else was witnessing this strange guy stumbling and fumbling around. Oh, good, no one around. Time for another, intentional, picture.

When he looked it up on the internet, he determined that this is an emu. I found out this morning on my walk that it is, indeed, a curious emu. When I walked by his yard, he (she?) came right over to greet me and followed along the fence for a good while until losing interest and wandering off.

We got underway a little later this morning around 10:30. Here's yet another image of our view from I-10 West, approaching El Paso, Texas.

Coming into the south end of El Paso.

Traffic in El Paso

A New State!

For the first time in almost four months, we are in a state other than Texas. Well, they say Texas is a whole other country, and I'd have to agree. Our time there was important to us on a number of levels. I've learned a lot about my new home state. It holds a great variety of beautiful places like Rockport, the Hill Country, Arlington, Lake Texoma, and much more. I'm likely to miss being in Texas, but when the weather starts cooling off next fall, we'll be back there, I'm sure.

Now, on to New Mexico! Here's our first Roadrunner, big, isn't he?

We arrived at the Escapees Dream Catcher park in Deming, New Mexico around 1:30. Oh, and we're in a new time zone. We'll get used to it in a few days, about the time we change time zones again.

When we checked in, we got hugs and an invitation to attend the social hour at 4:00.

Here's a shot of our row, our car is on the left but you can't see the motor home.

We showed up for the social hour just in time to participate in introductions. Once those were over, we socialized. Got lots of hugs and met some great new friends. Gee, I like this! Instant friends. I'm sure we'll meet some of these folks again, down the road.

Once again, we're settled in for the night. We probably won't do much more traveling where we only stay one night somewhere, but since we're doing it this time, I'm at least glad we are only traveling around 200 miles a day. That makes the driving day fairly easy.

Tomorrow we'll arrive in Tucson and will spend four nights at Doc Justin's Diamond J RV Park. I learned about this park from Sandra of Nightly News, and the RV Dreams Chat Room. While we're there, we hope to get together with Sandra and her husband, Gordon. We're also planning to meet up with Fred and Jo Wishnie, whose blog, Wandering Wishnies, I've been following for quite a while.