Kite Festival

This past weekend was the kick-off of the infamous Cherry Blossom Festival. I went down to the mall with a friend to check out the Smithsonian Kite Festival. It was a great day to fly a kite, so there were tons of people out:
Kites over EPA:
Some of my favorite kites we saw:
This one is hard to see...but there's a long green snake in front of the trees:
We also went to the opening ceremonies at the National Building Museum:
Outside, we caught a drum performance by Nen Daiko:

Part 7 - NM Capitol

Before heading home on Tuesday, we swung by the capitol building in Sante Fe. I know I had driven by before, but didn't have any pictures for my collection:
Senate:
The 'dome':
Remnants of a water related display, probably for World Water Day which was the day before:

Part 6 - Tent Rocks Nat'l Monument, NM

On Monday, my legs were feeling mostly better. We went for a hike at Tent Rocks National Monument...New Mexico's newest national monument.Sneak preview of the 'tents' to come:
We hiked to the top of this plateau (see the people up there?):
I will never get tired of taking pictures of cacti:
Approaching the canyon:
Very cool lines in the rock:
We went through some very narrow sections of canyon:
The quintessential tent rocks photo:
Moon pic...with weird rough rock layers:
Looking back down where we came from:
Walking out to the point:
See the car?
Looking back to where we just were:

Part 5 - Kip Winger's House - Sante Fe, NM

We stayed with my Dad's friends outside of Sante Fe...and they just happened to have bought the house from Kip Winger (the lead singer of heavy metal band Winger). It was a cool house in a beautiful setting, but that driveway was a killer!
Robert Redford's house (their new neighbor):
Mama plant for my cactus I inherited from my Dad...it was as tall as me:

Part 4 - Natural Bridges Nat'l Monument, UT

The next day, on our way to Sante Fe, we stopped at Natural Bridges National Monument...this park was actually the first designated National Park Service site (sorry Yellowstone - you can still have the title of first National Park though). This is the Sinpapu Bridge, 2nd largest in the U.S. (to Rainbow Bridge only about 50 miles away, as the crow flies):
View of canyon, around the corner from Sinpapu Bridge:
Good thing there wasn't a cloud in the sky:Horsecollar Ruins (lowest half circles in the canyon):
Here's a closeup of one (I love the zoom on my new camera!)
Kachina Bridge (they think this is the 'newest' bridge since it's so thick still):
Owachomo Bridge...we actually hiked down to this one:
Find Dad - now you can see the scale of it...it was huge!
Down in the canyon next to Owachomo Bridge...there was still quite a bit of snow here:
Cool rock formation (the start of flaky biscuits, Kam?)