What a beautiful setting! Yummy I love Mexican food. I could sit around there snacking on chips and salsa for hours.

ravencajun, as the New Mexicans will tell you, it's not "Mexican" food but "New Mexican". While they do offer the burritos and tacos and enchiladas, the chile sauces -- green and red -- they make are unique to them and they have a willingness to put it on almost everything...

El Pinto Chile Sauces

this is a French family that stayed with me Sunday night, through the cyclists hospitality site I belong to

Wow, OklaMoni...that's quite the set up...what did the solar panels charge? Were the bikes electric?

Cyclists hospitality--what a great idea, Moni!

Yesterday I tried out the manual focus on my new camera, and I'm happy with the result. Autofocus would have sharpened the branches between the squirrel and me, ignoring him. He was high in the Golden Delicious tree, and I was crouched in my kitchen, shooting through a window. Awkward stance! If anyone remembers how laden with apples that tree was, the apples remained small, fell early, and have been feasted on by animals.

I need to do the same with mine...I miss a lot of shots because it focuses on something not what I want.

Here for example at the zoo...focus on the animal vs. focus on the cage...

Ali, what is your new camera?

Yes, I'd like to know too. Great shot!

Mine is a visitor to the farmers market showing off his "face painting". So cute.

Sorry to be late - we had no internet connection this morning. Courtyard in old town Albuquerque, NM:

The solar panels are to make the bikes E assist. It was an awesome visit, but short, just overnight.

The hospitality site is called Warm Showers dot org. If you are on the list as host, you can then request a stay with another host, for FREE. Great for the free, but even greater to meet new people, from other countries.

Looking for fall.

Thanks! The camera is a Panasonic Lumix FZ300 superzoom--the fourth in the FZ line that I've owned. I love it! I have other cameras, but the superzooms tend to be my go-to cameras most of the time because I like to avoid the hassle of changing lenses.

Enjoy it, Ali!