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Another big day. We are touring with the Whitmore's, showing them as much as possible while they are here. We stopped at White Rock Overlook, just outside of Los Alamos. A beautiful valley. Then we went north and west, outside of the city. Our destination is a giant caldera and it is a gorgeous drive around winding roads to get there. If you are like me, I was not sure what a caldera is. It is the crater of a giant volcano and this is one of three in the US. The elevation, we know thanks to Marty's new watch, varied 2000 feet in a matter of a couple of miles, reaching 9100 feet. There was a huge fire here a few years ago and we see remanants of it for miles. Los Alamos was evacuated. There are parts of the forest that are untouched and then we saw giant stands of dead trees, with a bit of green emerging underneath.
The final point of interest is the rock formations we saw on our drive. Chat referred to them as the Swiss Cheese range, because that is exactly what they look like. The Anasazi lived in caves nearby, at Bandelier, and they were probably taking advantage of the soft rock to carve out a home.
We spent the evening at the opera, the Duchess of Gerolstein. More of an operetta, very light and funny. The dialogue was English, which is always helpful and then musical portions were in French. You cannot take pictures during the performance but you can get an idea of what the theater looks like, open to the outside with views of the mountains.
Two final notes. I did find the picture of Liz I was trying to think of and it is included so you can compare it to the picture of the Poland chicken. Someone asked if I bought anything at the market. I always look for indigo dyed items because they are hard to find. I am attaching a couple of photos of the piece I did buy. Unusual for this market, it is an older piece, resist dyed. The pattern comes from the stitching on the undyed fabric and the thread serves as a resist, absorbing the dye and making the pattern. I have dyed with indigo before and respect the process because it requires immersing the fabric over and over again to get the blue black color. Urine was the original mordant but, thankfully, there is now a chemical to set the dye. I also like indigo because of its link to SC. The industry was started there, almost 200 years ago, by a young woman who was trying to make a go of her late father's plantation.
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Elise Detterbeck Julie--I can't get over how different your summer is to ours on one level, and how similar on another! Beautiful pictures, and beautiful scenery, and such interesting places. Loved the dye info and appreciate the Pinckney tie-in.