real live cowboys...

......call me old fashioned.... but aren't cowboys just the best in black and white ????

after hanging at the Rodeo for 2 days in Reno Nevada where all the real live cowboys from across America come to compete...
the more of America i see, the more i think they're all bananas ,
and ....obviously, the more i like it
mind you, that doesnt mean they give me a nice extended visa to stay
anyway....
iiii've put together a lil' blaaack and whiiiiiite cow-boy series ....

have to rush off and eat a golden syrup steamed pudding ...
i have got jetlag after all.....
rushing backwards and forewards across the world ....

of surrealism, deserts, giants and bikinis

yesterday i was standing in the garden under a scorching sun, in a bikini and it started to hail heavily on me ....
at this point in the great Nevada desert adventure, i barely raised an eyebrow ...


... having said that a couple of weekends ago we came across some pretty wild stuff deep deep in the heart of the Nevada wastelands ....

on the side of a barren deserted road stands a massive tree
with about a million shoes dangling off it...

the story goes that a pioneer took his wifes shoes and flung them up high in the tree branches so she wouldnt

...escape....

(nice)

since then it has been a permanent momento and now carries so many shoes that some of the branches have broken and fallen into the pit below...
you have to wonder how on earth some of these shoes made it up to the highest branches ... the witchy boots got me ....
would have had to be a broomstick job for accomplished witches only

quite by accident we found "dune" ,......giant white sand dunes standing alone on a basin of salt ...we had to investigate as it looked like the sand mountain had fleas

on closer inspection we found mad max people with cars so tall i couldnt even on tippy toe see into the windows....and dune buggies driven by 7 year old maniacs and 4 seater serious sand machines with folk wearing headsets and glasses...

we continued on our journey and found dinosaurs in hillsides ... roads that arent even on the GPS system ... which was telling us we were in a river ... ghost towns still with kitchens and living quarters all intact



and more scary still..... live towns with no people ....
no one ...
not a living soul ....

more and more bizarre this land...

enchanted forest renaissance faire

deep in the enchanted forest close to lake Tahoe ... there is a Renaissance fair... folk go there pitch tents and live in the mediaeval way .... cloaks and bonfires and masks dances of the dead, jousts .... giant turkey legs to eat, strange old games with prizes being privy nuts on strings...its all here ... tiny wooden rickety stages are built all over the forest for pipers to play at ,pirates to expound the wonders of their parrots ..., and for street players to lurk....people pull tiny wooden carts through the dusty forest pathways and others lurk under trees with tankards of ale...
after half an hour of feeling like i was on a movie set, my vision changed and i could see that these people really are out of time in this century ... many looked so very very right ....
banners and pennants and pipes and pine needles and then..... a wild bear appeared on the archery range ...

and always there is the bubble fairy ....
who blows magical bubbles that pop in childrens hands as tiny moonstones...
where does the bubble fairy go for the rest of the year ????