It was already 25 degrees C at 8:30 am, Thursday, September 15th as we waited for our van pickup to go on our tour to Monaco and Monte Carlo. The bus was late getting to us as we where the last stop and apparently there was a lot of traffic. We climbed in to make it a full van with 8 passengers. There was a mother and daughter from New York and Connecticut, a couple from Toronto, a couple from India (relative of the Toronto couple as far as I could tell) and us.
We were soon climbing the hills to the northeast leaving Nice. After a short drive we stopped for a photo opportunity at a familiar looking place – Villefranche-sur-Mer, only from the top looking down at the harbour and not the other way around like yesterday.
After a quick stop we started down the mountain road and traveled to Èze. Our guide had stated that Èze was a magical village. (Looked nice but to me it was mostly shops in old houses.) Still, it had it’s charms and I did like the other lemmings and took photos.
No park at City Hall
We only had about 20 minutes to explore the village so paying the 6 euros to get into Le Jardin Exotique – botanical garden, just wasn’t worth it.
We jumped in the van to get to the Parfumerie Fragonard – L’usine Laboratoire Èze – Fragonard perfume factory and lab for a tour.
The tour itself was interesting but I wasn’t there to shop so I think the tour guide was put off a bit by my indifference to her explanations. Lynda liked some of the scents and did get a couple little hand soaps.
Oh look, it’s Èze up the hill
The factory direct pricing was pretty good but for us travelling with carry-on luggage for the first time, we just didn’t have the space to buy any more.
Tour and shopping done, we all piled back into the van for our trip to Monaco.
Soon we were driving through Monaco on our way to Monte Carlo where we get dropped off near the casino.
We had less than half an hour to explore Monte Carlo before we had to be back at the van to go see the changing of the guards at Le Palais des Princes de Monaco, Monaco.
The other couples were late getting back to the van and our irate driver tried to get us there on time but this is the extent of what I saw.
Nothing to see here, move along.
We had another half and hour or so to explore Monaco. Seemed a bit anti-climatic now but we gave it a shot. We didn’t even venture very far from where we were dropped off to take a photo or 12.
The van pulled up and everyone was on time. (Now that we were heading back to Nice it didn’t matter as much.)
After driving through 2 or 3 of the 7 road tunnels in Monaco, we headed towards the expressway back to Nice.
This place was about 10 blocks from our apartment but I feel the name may be a bit misleading.
It was around 30 degrees C when we got back to the apartment so Lynda changed into her swimsuit and I put on shorts. (Yeah, and for those who know me, that is a rarity indeed.)
We headed out for lunch and for Lynda at least, a swim.
We were between meal times by the time we went for lunch and not all restaurants were still serving lunch. Luckily, we found El Merkado. The food was good and the staff seemed friendlier by the time we were done than when we arrived. Both waitresses did take a break while we were there so I think they were just tired. And, since it was right across the road from Hotel de Ville, Nice…
We got a bubble tea on our way to the beach and it was now about 33 degrees C out so I had it done by the time we walked the 3 blocks there.
The beach has never, ever been a thing for me and I found a spot to sit and wait for Lynda. I had my wide angle lens on and with the wind blowing like it was, I wasn’t about to change lenses to get a better shot of her enjoying herself.
Unlike the day we arrived, the waves were really high and she was a bit nervous about going in. It’s an all rock beach and there is about a 6 foot hill of loose stones before you get to the normal level of the water but the spray was coming well up the incline. Lynda sat on the top of the pile and let the water splash into her.
She’s the far left girl, so far away.
She was enjoying herself until a particularly big wave came in and hit her so hard it rolled her over on the rocks. She realized she still had her hearing aids in so she grabbed them before she even tried to get up. When she got up, she brought them over to me and was more concerned I’d gotten a photo of it than if she had been hurt. (She did get a couple of nasty bruises out of it.)
After laughing it off, she went back to try again. She did say she wasn’t going to try to swim in those waves.
Lynda left her shoes where I could see them but not her
After an hour or so on the rocks, I was starting to have trouble getting comfortable and Lynda said she was cooled off. (But we still got gelato on our way to our apartment.)
Our Airbnb listing stated it faced the sea. This is a true statement but the view of the sea isn’t all that easy to see.
The view from our table
We had noticed that sunset colours don’t last very long and I thought I’d try to at least get a shot or two before it was gone.
Leaning out our window with my “big” lens.
I decided to go out on the steps to see if I could get a better angle to shoot.
The Club Med 2 leaving on a cruise
Lynda even got her camera out to get a few shots.
My bride in the window
Only got 13k steps in today but we saw quite a bit of stuff and had a blast.
Wednesday, September 14th saw us leaving Paris early for a flight to Nice.
Our pilot told us it was a nice day in Nice and it was supposed to be sunny and 24 degrees. It was cloudy the entire flight so we didn’t see much until we broke out of the clouds near the sea. It was also raining quite heavily as we exited the airport looking for a taxi.
We’d arrived at 8:30 am and we couldn’t check into our Airbnb until 3:00 pm so I asked the cab driver to take us to a good place for breakfast.
He dropped up near 2 places and recommended Cafe Du Palais as the better of the two. So we trudged the block or so in the now pouring (but not hypothermia inducing rain like Alberta) rain. We decided on sitting inside as the umbrellas weren’t always winning the battle.
Took this to tease Curtis that we had Nutella come with breakfast (which we didn’t eat)
It was almost done raining when we left to find a place we could drop our small suitcase so we didn’t have to lug it around for a few hours.
Bag dropped and off to shop for an umbrella.
When we emerged from our successful quest, the rain seemed to have stopped. Or so we thought.
We walked around the shops and made our way over to Quai des États-Unis to look at the sea.
It still looked like rain would arrive but we strolled along without it happening.
It’s not a big hill at the end of the Promenade des Anglais but even though it was cloudy, it was still warm so we rested at the #ILoveNice sign. Trying to get a shot of just Lynda was a bit challenging.
We stayed at the top of the hill killing time before I had to go get our suitcase out of storage.
Lynda waited for me as she didn’t want to walk down and back up the hill. I was there and back in under half an hour. We strolled in the direction of our Airbnb and we walked right past it to our harbour tour that Lynda had booked for 3:00 pm. I had thought we could check in at 2:00 pm so we had an extra suitcase to bring along.
We got our tickets and sat on a bench in the shade waiting for boarding time.
We moved to line up with others standing, waiting and the rain came back. It was just a light drizzle but only moments ago the sun was beating down on us.
The boat has room for 46 passengers, 22 of which can be outside on the upper deck. Rain or no rain, Lynda and I headed up top. I had razzed Lynda about bringing her jacket along to such a warm place but it was nice to have it to set on the already wet bench as a blanket. The rain picked up in intensity and the wind started blowing before we even left the harbour. Luckily, we had ourselves a couple of umbrellas.
So, we sat in the rain, huddled under the umbrellas as person after person left to go down stairs to huddle inside.
The wind was even stronger after leaving the harbour so I didn’t even try to get my camera out and decided I’d make due with my cell phone.
We exited the harbour and headed north east along the coast and turned into the harbour at Villefranche-sur-Mer. There are plenty of impressive houses to look at along the way. The rain had started to slow down so some of the chickens came out to stand in the way of our view. I was inspired by my friend Canada Slim aka Adam Kerr and his lazy faire attitude when it comes to level horizons and I snapped a few shots willy-nilly. (It still feels weird)
The tour was almost over when the rain stopped but we were heading into some bigger waves and we were starting to accelerate on our way back to Nice so even the cell phone camera was put away.
The tour is an hour long and not terribly expensive so I think it was worth it. The rain put less of a damper on it than the 20 something year old girls that couldn’t sit their asses down once they ventured out on to our level. We weren’t too wet when we were done and we only had a 5 minute walk to our apartment.
More stairs were climbed and it took us a while to get our keys as the directions weren’t 100% clear. (It is said that things are lost in translation and in this case, it was true.) But finally we were in and dropped off our stuff so we could head back down to town for supper. We picked Mamma Mia and shared a Pizza Margherita. I tried an actual Marguarita (It seemed weird not having any ice in it but it would be the best one I had in Nice.) while Lynda had Sex on the Beach. (The drink. Not… What are you people thinking? Lol)
After a leisurely meal, we decided we were tired enough to just head back to the apartment instead of exploring the town. So we again walked along the Promenade.
Seemed a bit early to crash but it had been a long day getting up at 4:00 am and all and I’d gotten over 17k in steps. Tomorrow we have a morning tour and pickup is 8:30 am.
Woke up at 5 am and didn’t get back to sleep. Laid around in bed waiting for Curtis and Lucille to go to work/school so not to be in their way.
After breakfast we threw a load of laundry into the washer/dryer combo. I didn’t set it properly so it wasn’t drying.
We were going to venture out on our own but it kept raining on and off so it was already after noon when we got out the door all by ourselves.
We walked through the tail end of a sidewalk market. (Might have to look for them next week.)
We checked out a few Pâtisseries and Boulangeries as Lynda was looking for pastries and I was looking for real food. We settled on Entre Potes Cafe. We had the Plat du Jour which today was a salmon quiche with a side salad and a bit of baguette. It was really good.
I’m trying stuff outside my comfort zone while on holidays. I’ve had weird meat, cranberry juice and seafood (I do actually like salmon though).
We walked up the street some more and wandered through a small park. I liked the look of the building in behind it.
We walked back the way we came so Lynda could stop for pastries. (They were really good.)
We headed back to the apartment to wait till it was time to go out and get supper.
Lucille and Curtis were getting their hot water heater replaced so we were all waiting around for the new one to arrive. Even though someone had come and measured what they had, the crew showed up (3 hours later than scheduled) with one a foot too tall to fit the space. So, down to the truck for a smaller one. Of course, it’s smaller than what was there so new piping needs to be installed. By now it’s well past time to go out and get supper so we ordered tacos in on delivery. They were huge. We finished eating before the hot water tank was installed. Still didn’t have 10k in steps so we went to the store for some Ginger Ale. That was only about 400 steps there and back so still not there.
Not many photos today obviously. Hopefully I’ll get my steps yet tonight and maybe I’ll get more photos tomorrow.
Woke up at 5 am. Fell back asleep at 6 am. Woke up again at 9:30 am and promptly fell back asleep until 11:00 am. Now my back was sore so I had to get up.
Lynda and I got showers and breakfast out of the way before Lucille got back from school. She says French classes are going slowly but she’s still got a whole lot more of a vocabulary than I do.
We headed out for a light lunch while we waited for Curtis to get off work.
We walked a few blocks to Le Bobillot Cafe.
We sat in the shade and ordered a meat and cheese charcuterie. I wanted coffee but it was pretty late for that so I went with a double décaféiné, Lynda ordered a glass of champagne and Lucille had vin chaud. The waitress confirmed she wanted hot mulled wine in the heat. (She did)
We sat and watched the people while looking.
Église Sainte-Anne de la Butte aux Cailles
We walked up towards a mall while we were waiting for Curtis to catch up to us. We ended up waiting at Place d’Italie across from the Town hall of the 13th arrondissement of Paris.
The important looking building that we have no idea what it is
We crossed the street(s) to Café Jules.
Lucille and Curtis ordered Crepes for supper with a Porn Star to drink while I shared a crispy chicken cesar salad with Lynda and I had Sexual Healing for a drink.
It was a pretty good meal and the drink had a bite.
We stopped at the grocery store for some ice cream for dessert to save some money and the vanilla bean Lynda picked was very good.
We again got our 10k steps in.
We visited for a while and were up well after Lucille and Curtis went to bed. It was after 11:00 pm before we got to bed. (Lynda was half asleep by the time I was a little bit tired.)
But first, a stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
When I booked our trip way back in November of last year, I booked a direct Calgary, Alberta to Paris, France flight with WestJet on their 787 Dreamliner.
In May of this year, WestJet cancelled our outbound flight and offered us a short 2 hour stopover in Halifax if we flew on the 737 Max-8. We would be leaving Calgary earlier in the day and arriving in Paris before lunch time instead of mid afternoon like originally planned. As much as I wanted to avoid flying on a 737 these days, I really didn’t want to fly another day and I figured Halifax would be a lot easier to navigate than if we had to land in Toronto so I agreed to the change.
It was a full flight out of Calgary under blueish skies on Saturday, September 10th at 1:20 pm. There was a lot of forest fire smoke in the air so even at altitude, the sky wasn’t it’s usual shades of blue.
Somewhere east of CalgarySteerage Class
It was dark when we got to Halifax at 9:00 pm local time and were glad to survive the really hard landing we had. With only a 2 hour layover I didn’t try to get any photos of anything.
11:00 pm had us back in the air winging east towards the Atlantic Ocean on our way to Europe.
We tried, and failed to get any real sleep on the flight. Between the air traffic and fog, we were almost an hour later than our scheduled 10 am local time arrival on Sunday, September 11th.
Getting through Customs and getting our luggage took over an hour ( I think the 3 mile walk to get there took the longest) and the cab ride to my sister’s place was over half and hour so we “arrived” around 1:00 pm.
My sister, Lucille and her husband, Curtis were waiting with bated breath, not so much to see us, but to be able to go have lunch.
We jumped right into it by walking over to the #21 bus and heading towards Notre Dame.
We had lunch at Galway Pub; an Irish Pub near the right bank of the Seine. The waiter we had, Matt, had an Irish accent, but is actually French American. It’s a weird combo but he was a nice guy.
After lunch we trekked along the river and crossed over to see Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. Well, what we could see of it as it’s still closed since the fire in 2019.
Notre Dame rebuild progress.View opposite Notre Dame.Notre Dame rebuild progress side view from across the river.
We meandered along the river taking in the sites.
Wow, a bike lane in the city. Who would of thought it was possible?
A small musical group was finishing up their set as we walked by.
We made our way over to Hôtel de Ville. It’s a whole lot bigger and nicer City Hall than what I’m used to seeing in little ole Red Deer.
It was too big to fit in 1 photograph.The Bubble Man was quite a popular guy.
We started heading towards the subway to got back to the Moffat’s apartment.
Apparently the Saint Jacques Gothic tower is the last remnants of a big church that got demolished during the French Revolution.
I took a few photos of the building along the way. (Surprising, I know. Or, as the locals would say; “Quelle surprise.”)
I liked the orangeCool little Pharmacy in an old looking buildingA lot of the graffiti is on the rolling shutters so not to get erased
We were back at the apartment for a few hours before heading out for supper at an Italian restaurant; Le San Giovanni. I didn’t take a photo of my spaghetti bolognaise but I can tell you it was a whole lot better than the spaghetti I ordered on my first night in Beijing back in 2015.
I did get a photo of my drink though.
Ange Bleu
It was only a short walk to and from the restaurant but Lynda and I managed to get our 10k steps in. (Unlike our flying day)
We crashed hard for the night around 10:00 pm and sleep came quickly.
Three years ago I did a lens a week challenge where I could only use 1 lens on my camera for a whole week. I did it over 4 weeks as I only had 3 lenses at the time but coveted the 4th. (Which I did buy after my test.)
I realized I’ve doubled my lens count and decided to revisit my challenge over 8 weeks this time.
So, July 1st came and I put my only zoom (Sony 200-600mm) on my camera and headed out to the Ellis Bird Farm to meet a few friends for a photo walk. Being the first day they opened at 8 am we were the first ones there and I really enjoyed the peace and quiet as we walked around.
July 2nd came and I got COVID-19. I didn’t know this for sure until very late in the day on July 3rd but I was sick and not interested in getting out to take photos.
It would be July 7th before I’d get out with my camera when I went for a morning walk at the dog park with a couple of friends and Noodle.
So my first week wasn’t all that successful at getting images but at least the start and end were pretty good because the middle was pretty sucky.
For week 2 I switched from my biggest telephoto lens to my widest angle lens; the Sony FE 14mm f/1.8 G Master.
I did visit familiar places as I went to City Hall Park and the dog park over the course of the week.
I got out over 3 different days but my subject matter didn’t vary much from previous weeks.
Week 3 saw me using my Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA.
For week 4 I picked my Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2. I only got out once during the entire week and again ended up in City Hall Park and at the new Justice Centre. Going for a walk on my lunch break to take photographs is fun but it is a bit challenging to find new things to photograph in my limited time.
For week 5 I switched to my Zeiss Batis 85mm f/1.8. I again got to City Hall Park but at least I made it to the dog park for a couple photos of @mz_noodle on one of her morning walks.
Week 6 put me 3/4s of the way through my test and I switched to my Zeiss Batis 18 mm f/2.8. I again ended up in City Hall Park more often than not. Using a wide angle lens for multi frame panoramas isn’t optimal but that never stops me from doing it and I did a couple of them on the new Justice Centre.
I switched to my biggest prime lens; Zeiss Batis 135 mm f/2.8. I did start my photo week in and around City Hall Park but I did manage to get further afield this time.
It was a bit challenging to use a 135 mm lens on my walk at the dog park but it seemed to be a good wildlife lens that day. (A lot more so than taking the moose picture with my 14 mm lens in week 2.)
My planned dog park walk didn’t pan out on August 15th so I did a short road trip to Joffre to walk in a place I haven’t been to in about a year. It was a nice calm day and I enjoyed the Nature Trail all by myself.
My new shoes survived the 4 plus kilometers of gravel trail and board walk without causing me any issues so it appears to be a good purchase.
As I was heading home I spotted a hot air balloon floating in my general direction so I decided to chase it a bit.
I saw something shiny on as I got near home and decided to get a shot of it.
I finished my week in City Hall Park but I went with something a little different with a shot of my other new pair of shoes.
My Zeiss Batis 40 mm f/2.0 CF was my final lens to shoot with for week 8.
I was still short of my 10 thousand steps for the day so I went for an afternoon walk at Heritage Ranch.
My walking partner never showed up for our August 22nd walk so I motored around the dog park all alone. Even taking some photos, I was only walking for about a third of the time we take when we walk @mz_noodle.
Like I said, my lap was pretty quick and I still wanted to do some walking so I crossed the river to The Kerry Wood Nature Centre to walk around Gaetz Lakes.
The fog was still visible but it was thinning rapidly as I walked along the lake.
I ended my week in City Hall Park (big surprise).
Technically, I ended the week near City Hall Park.
So, that concludes my 8 week project. I know it seems like it’s a bit underwhelming to have blown the dust off my blog for, but I’m hoping it gets me posting more often with some more interesting subjects.
It’s been just over 3 weeks since I took my bride to Jasper National Park for her birthday and I still miss being there. I don’t really know why I miss it so much. The sound of a tripped out crack head meandering along the bike path is just like a bugling elk outside your window after all.
It was a cool and cloudy day when we headed out towards Edmonton to do a bit of shopping before heading off for our holiday. It’s a good thing I had planned it that way as I totally forgot my tripod at home and was able to stop by our head office to borrow one. (I also borrowed a lens to try and now it appears that I need a new lens in my life.)
We checked into the Pine Bungalows Resort not long before supper time so we unloaded the car and headed off in search of food.
I had told Lynda that she could eat wherever she wanted to for her birthday supper and she picked (well, had me pick as she is a bit limited on the kind of food she can have) O’Shea’s Restaurant in the Athabasca Hotel. It was a good meal and our waitress was excellent. We got dessert to take back to our room. (Really good carrot cake.)
Once we discovered there was no regular TV (internet TV seemed like a lot of work to find stuff) in our room, we made some tea and enjoyed our dessert with our respective books. It was still cloudy outside so there was no point in trying to go take some night sky photos so it wasn’t too late getting to bed.
Tuesday morning’s plan for Lynda included breakfast at Wicked Cup and it was a good as it had been when we discovered it back in August.
After breakfast, Lynda wanted to check out some of the local shops to see about doing some shopping for herself. It was nice and sunny but the breeze that was blowing was cool as we wandered around town. After a few stops I liked the look of the VIA Rail train with the mountains in the background so I headed over to the train yard.
He moved the truck after I was done taking photos
Apparently it was my turn to pick an activity as Lynda had already picked 2 things to do. I really had no plan of what to do with our time as I was just happy to get away with her so in a bit of a panic I picked heading up to Pyramid Lake. I took a little heat on picking such an “easy” destination but we went anyway.
Once we got to the lake there really was no evidence of the wind we had in town as the lake was very glassy. The only disturbances on the water were the grebes and loons swimming on it.
Some Parks staff were getting work done before the snow flew.
The lake was still very calm looking across at Pyramid Mountain so I took a few photos. I thought I’d try a few different lenses from the same spot to show the difference in focal length perspectives.
135 mm (the borrowed lens) 85mm (my biggest lens) 40 mm 25 mm
I took a couple more photos from the island and we sat down and soaked up the sun for a while.
Still quite a bit of haze showing considering it was the middle of October but the sun felt nice.
We headed back to town to look for some lunch as our big breakfast was starting to wear off.
Saw our first grizzly bear ever in Jasper on our way back to town. He was happily munching away along side the road so we stopped for a few photos. Lynda learned she can stand on her seat and shoot through the sun roof. I just stuck with taking photos out my window.
I’ve cropped the image a bit as 135 mm was the biggest lens I had along. Bigger would of been better but I don’t go out looking for wildlife all that often so having a bigger lens I would hardly ever use just doesn’t make sense for me to have for the most part. (I did miss it here though. Lol)
Seems seeing a bear on the way to lunch didn’t count as me selecting 2 things as I had to pick where our lunch spot.
I picked O’Shea’s again as I figured we could have some pub food for a late lunch and still be able to catch supper somewhere later. (The nachos we ordered were very tasty but huge so I was wrong.) We even got the same waitress and booth as the night before. We were starting to wonder if she was the only one working. But she was a good waitress so we didn’t care.
We decided to head back to the hotel to check out the grounds to scout out possible night photography places. It was a short walk to the Athabasca River from our room.
Looking towards the Jasper Park Lodge The look I often get from my bride Still a lot of haze towards the SkyTram
Looked like it could be a promising location for night sky shot but we checked out the rest of the grounds while we had some time and daylight.
Fire remnants in the firepit behind the lobby A bigger lens would of meant less cropping One of the cow elk behind the lobby He was looking for a fight and or females right outside the lobby but he didn’t seem to get either Frustrated elk 1; poor defenseless tree 0
Not being hungry yet, we hung out at the hotel until it was time to go see the new James Bond movie at the Chaba Theatre. It is a nice little 2 screen movie theatre with tickets only costing $10 each. Theatre popcorn proved to be a late supper for us as we enjoyed the show. (Not your usual James Bond movie, but I enjoyed it none the less)
It was a beautiful clear night when we came out of the theatre but unfortunately, the big bright full moon was up and making it next to impossible to see any night sky. (The moon was up all night and checking the sky at 6 am looked no different except for the position of the moon itself.)
Wednesday morning’s breakfast was back at Wicked Cup but my bride must of thought her birthday was over as she bought breakfast. It was excellent as always but I told her I wanted to try some other places before we left Jasper.
After breakfast we decided to head up the Maligne Lake road as we had heard there were lots of moose to be seen along the way. (Spoiler alert: we saw 0 moose and all the people we asked that day had seen 0 moose.) We did see a few nice big horn sheep rams on the road by Medicine Lake. Lynda used here sunroof trick again to get some photos and I made sure we didn’t hit any of them.
It was a similar day to when we travelled up to the lake back in August with a mix of sun and cloud but a whole lot cooler. There was snow in the higher elevations this time and a whole lot less traffic. I had hoped the boat tours were still running at Maligne Lake but it was all shut down for the season. We decided to take a walk along the shore as we weren’t getting rained on this time.
I wasn’t kidding about that look
It’s about 7/10s of a kilometer to the lookout on an easy walking path.
From here we could either go back the way we came or do a moderate hike of just over a kilometer back to the car. I was happy Lynda chose the longer, new way back.
Snow and ice. Apparently we are at a higher elevation.
Short hike in the books and no moose to be seen means it must be time to go find us some lunch. So back to town we went. I did stop at the place we had a picnic at in August to see the difference 2 months makes.
August 2021 October 2021
I know the angle is different as I really hadn’t thought it out when I stopped but what am I going to do?
We were getting frustrated looking for a lunch spot that was open and it led us to The Other Paw Bakery Cafe. It was the most disappointing meal we had on our trip but it wasn’t all their fault. There was nothing wrong with the food other than it wasn’t what we really wanted. Lynda had the soup which she said was good but it was so thick it was hard for her to eat. I wanted a clubhouse sandwich but they were out of bread so I got it as a wrap. I like wraps but a clubhouse really does need to go on bread. Also, I don’t particularly like whole wheat wraps and that’s what they had. Again, nothing wrong with the actual food but just not an experience we enjoyed as a whole.
We checked out a few more places while we were killing time before supper.
We decided on Something Else Restaurant for supper. It is Greek, among other things. The food was awesome and the service was very good.
We got dessert to go and decided we’d it with tea at the hotel. Well, we had the dessert and went for tea at the Kumama Bistro and Canteen but somehow my tea became a really, really good margarita. I guess I’ll have to come back for tea.
Thursday, October 21st was a nice clear sky day and after trying the breakfast at O’Shea’s, (different waitress and table than our previous visits) we headed off towards Mt. Robson as I was hoping the clear blue sky was there too.
Our luck held and the mountain was in display in all it’s glory.
I even took a couple of photos of the 1967 Volkswagen Beetle model that John H Read had given me to photograph for our Instagram account – spookie_bugz. I haven’t been posting to it much lately so I thought I should shoot something. (Still haven’t posted as of this writing.)
I took a couple more shots before we headed down the highway.
I thought it might be nice to check out Valemount as we were pretty close by. We’d seen a few signs along the highway advertising the Swedish Bakery so we thought we’d try to get lunch or something there. And if we were there from Friday till Monday we would have but they aren’t open Tuesdays-Thursdays.
While I’m sure there are other things to check out in Valemount, we decided to start heading back to Jasper.
We saw the sign and decided to stopped and check out Rearguard Falls Provincial Park.
Seemed like a good place to play with different shutter speeds.
1/320 of a second 1/15th of a second
I thought I could try something a bit artsy for my friend John.
I was enjoying the sound of the water and lack of people so I shot a few more angles.
1/1600 sec 1/30th sec
It’s a nice easy path to walk down to the falls but it’s bigger than it looks coming back up.
It was a short drive to the Mt. Terry Fox Reststop for another stop.
Our road trip put us well past lunch time when we got back to Jasper. A few places we tried were closed for the season so we ended up visiting 2 different candy stores and Tim Hortons. (I know, I know, but I didn’t care.)
Back at the hotel, we saw a massive bull elk trying to hustle the ladies. They still didn’t want any part of him but he was rather impressive to photograph.
We sat and photographed him until it was getting too dark to take photos so off to search for supper we went.
We ended up at Evil Dave’s Grill for supper. They have a small but fabulous menu in a nice modern atmosphere inside. We beat the rush and enjoyed a nice dinner and very reasonably priced desserts.
Actually got some tea at Kumama before bed time. Took our time getting to bed as it was our last night in Japer and we didn’t want it to end.
Was a cold and cloudy day when we got up on Friday, October 22nd.
Kumama for a really nice breakfast before we checked out of the Pine Bungalows.
It was a nice relaxing stay and I am so glad we decided to stay there. I know where I’ll be looking to book the next time I am back in Jasper.
Lynda wanted some tea for the road so a stop at Wicked Cup on the way out of town was in order.
We headed back on the Icefield Parkway because I wanted to stop at Sunwapta Falls. In all the times I’ve been to Jasper National Park, I have never, ever stopped to see Sunwapta Falls.
It was still cold and trying to rain when we stopped but it is a nice little area and not nearly as far off the highway as I had it in my head it would be.
Sunwapta Falls was our last stop until we got back to Red Deer and went to Sobeys for a few groceries. I had plenty of candy to snack on (which may have been a bit of a mistake as I was a bit light headed wandering around the grocery store) so no need to stop for lunch.
And that was our Jasper getaway. It didn’t seem all that exciting but just getting away together was excitement enough for me at least. I think I saw Lynda actually relax so it seemed to be a good thing for her too.
Our 25th wedding anniversary is coming up in May of 2022 and as much as I’d like to be able to take her somewhere a bit more exotic, I can see a return trip to Jasper in our future for some R & R then. Of course, if I happen to win the lottery by then it might be somewhere more exotic, if that’s what she wants.
A few months ago we took a Nikon F-601 film camera in on trade at my work. The strap was in good shape and I asked to have it as it reminded me of the time I customized one for a long time customer.
I had dealt with James Lakaparampil for many, many years and seeing the strap took me back to when he bought his first Nikon F-6 film camera from me. He was living in Lethbridge and called me up one day to order a camera. Unknow to James, Nikon in it’s infinite wisdom, put no accessories in it’s high end camera boxes. If you bought an entry level camera it came with batteries and a strap, but the top model came with just a body cap.
In those days it wasn’t unusual to find a Nikon F-601 strap laying around and when I found one, I took a black marker and filled in the 01 parts of the strap and put it in the box to send James.
He used that camera for a few years and after spending a long vacation back in India and area had come back to Lethbridge.
He was home a week when someone kicked in his apartment door and stole all his camera gear and laptop.
So he called me up to order a new camera while they were still available.
I told him I could get him the camera but I wouldn’t be able to provide him with another strap like that.
I told him what I had done to the strap I had sent him.
He told me he had never noticed and assumed it was an actual F-6 strap.
We laughed pretty hard over that.
Three years ago I was somewhere between Thunder Bay, Ontario and Regina, Saksatchewan when James passed away. I had known he was sick and had planned to call him once I was back from my holiday. I should of called him earlier but I just didn’t know what I was going to say to him so I kept putting it off.
Hindsight.
I customized the new strap in James’s honour. I know he won’t see it, but it will make me smile a bit when I do.
Journalism is my training, more specifically, photojournalism is my training.
I did the training more to prove to myself that I could do it than to actually get a job in my field of study. I did do a bit of freelance work for a newspaper not long out of school but it was never my job. These days I take photos for myself for the most part unless I’m helping someone out with photographs for a specific project/job.
That said, today I saw the perfect opportunity to put my skills to use and I chose not to.
A pedestrian was killed on the street out in front of my work. It would appear that they were struck and killed by a vehicle.
I don’t know if it was a male or female that was stuck.
I don’t know if they were young or old.
I never saw it happen.
I never heard it happen.
I never heard the sirens of emergency vehicles on route to the scene.
I looked out the front window of work and saw a crowd of Police Officers, EMTs and Fire Medics milling around. There was a firetruck and ambulance blocking the intersection along with many police vehicles and a crowd of onlookers as CPR was being preformed on an inert individual on the ground.
I knew CPR was being administered but I couldn’t actually see the person receiving it. Between the folks doing the work and all their gear, all that was visible to me was a foot in a running shoe.
I saw CPR being administered.
I saw an EMT holding an IV bag.
I saw the ambulance back a bit closer for easier loading.
I saw CPR being administered again.
I saw the look on the faces of the EMTs when they stopped CPR about half an hour after they started.
I saw them un-hook the IV bag and place it in a bucket.
I saw them place a yellow blanket over the body.
I watched them clean up the scene and put all their garbage in the same bucket as the IV.
I watched the accident reconstruction team taking photos and measurements for the start of their investigation.
As I watched the scene unfold, I could see the photos that I would of taken if it were my job to record the scene.
I could see the low angle shot of the first responder’s helmet on the road with them working in the background doing CPR.
I could see the shot of the running shoe showing clearly amongst the tangle of bodies and gear.
I could these and so much more.
And yet, I chose to not take any photos of any of it.
If it was my job I would of recorded what was happening because it would be required of me.
The images will stay in my brain long enough without me having to record them for posterity.
Even though none of my co-workers or myself saw the actual event happen, the powers that be decided to close the store and send us home early today.
As I left I wanted to thank the first responders for all their efforts but I didn’t want to intrude in their space.
My wife had really, really wanted to go to Jasper National Park for our anniversary back in May. Since I didn’t have my Covid-19 vaccine shots yet I was much more hesitant about it. So our anniversary came and went with little fanfare, much like last year when the pandemic was getting started.
We tried to book one of the Otentnik camping sites in Jasper when camping reservations opened up as I really didn’t want to camp in a tent but sadly, those sites never seemed to open for reservations. So I booked us in for 3 nights at the Tonquin Inn on the northern edge of town.
With all the forest fires in British Columbia this summer, we’ve had a lot of smoke in the air and when we left on August 6th it was no exception. Everything off in the distance had a slightly hazy look to it as we drove west but about 1/2 way between the Siffleur Falls parking lot and the Banff National Park East Gate we approached a thick wall of smoke that was like a curtain across the road. Soon you could taste the smoke in the car. Not nearly as much as you could when we stopped for lunch at The Crossing Resort at Saskatchewan River Crossing though. Mountain air wasn’t what I remembered it being. Lunch was pretty good and a lot less money than I had envisioned when we stopped.
With lunch over we headed north west on highway 93 and arrived at our hotel just before supper time.
Lynda was game to walk downtown to go find some food so off we set. After a kilometer or so we were having trouble making up our minds as what to try so we headed into Earls. It wasn’t exactly eating only at local restaurants like I had planned before we left but I’ve always had good food at Earls and I can start the local thing tomorrow for breakfast. The food was great and the service as well as the Caesar I had were fantastic.
The skies had cleared up a bit while we were eating but there was still a lot of cloud cover as we walked back to our room. The sun did hit the mountain top nicely across the valley from the hotel.
We could see mountains out our window too but it was a bit trickier with the trees growing out in front of the window.
View out our hotel window with a normalish lensView out our hotel window with an ultra wide lens
With all the clouds I wasn’t holding out any hope of getting out to photograph the night sky so we settled down to watch some television and to think of tomorrow’s adventure.
Saturday morning dawned with a lot of clouds in the sky but we set off in search of breakfast before looking for adventure.
We tried the Bright Spot Family Restaurant and it was pretty good with decent service.
We decided to head up to Pyramid Lake and have a look around.
It was a bit breezy but it made it comfortable to wear a light jacket as we made the short walk to Pyramid Island.
Looking west from the islandMy bride never likes her photo taken so I was very happy when she was willing to pose for me.
We walked all the way across the island, all 150 meters for so to the north side to take in the view of Pyramid Mountain.
It looks really far away with a wide angle lens
I had taken a photo for a couple of young ladies on a big bunch of tree roots as we got on the island and Lynda wanted to get a couple photos of her on them too. She rarely likes me taking photos of her so getting permission was a nice change and I readily agreed to her request.
I myself climbed many a tree in my youth (and only fell out of 1) so I declined to participate.
I had wanted to take a few images of the toy jeep that I had brought along so I set off to do a few of those. I didn’t realize at the time that I wasn’t happy with them and I would have to go back and try again. But I did take a self portrait showing my best side after I was done.
Lynda wanted to get a photo of the two of us so I had to reposition myself to make it happen.
We headed off to check out the Jasper Park Lodge grounds. Lynda wanted to show me where she had stayed the last time she was there and we checked out the shopping area. The art gallery had some really nice stuff in it but I don’t have a house to mortgage to be able to buy stuff there. We did have gelato while we were there though and it was really good.
We decided we would head up towards Maligne Lake in search of a picnic lunch spot. It rained on and off on our way and we saw a spot not long after we cleared on of the rain showers so we pulled over to barbecue our burgers. There was only 1 other car there when we arrived but soon the small parking area was full and the other picnic tables were in use. We either beat the rush or caused a rush.
Was a nice spot for lunch
With lunch over we made our way up to Maligne Lake. The skies still looked a bit threatening but it was nice enough walking by the lake.
Tour boat coming in
We didn’t walk all that far when it started spitting a bit and since we are both made of sugar, we headed back to the car.
As we were driving back Lynda saw something along the side of the road as we whizzed past. When we turned around to go have a look we as a marmot standing all by himself on the side of the road. Lynda grabbed a few photos of him with her cell phone camera as that was all she brought for a camera on this trip. I turned around to head back into town and he was still there so I got a shot of him with my cell phone as my camera was in the back and I wasn’t going to try pulling it out. As you can see by the lack of photo of said marmot, I am less than impressed with the quality of my phone’s camera and it isn’t being posted here. You’ll just have to trust that I got a shot.
A little further along the road we crossed a small bridge over a deep chasm and decided to stop and grab a few photos.
By the time we got back to our hotel it was getting to be supper time so we walked a couple of blocks to The Inn Grill at The Jasper Inn & Suites. We just ordered a pizza and a Caesar for me. The pizza was really good and while the drink was good, I think the one I had at Earls the night before was better.
Sunday morning saw us wake up to a mix of sun and cloud but it didn’t look like it was going to rain. We headed out to find breakfast and saw the line up at Bear’s Paw Bakery was out the door and down the sidewalk so we kept looking. We found WickedCup near the south side of town and decided to try it. It was lined up inside but the line moved along pretty good and we went and found an outdoor table after we placed our order. Breakfast was fantastic. It was a little bigger than I really needed but oh so good.
We decided to go to Athabasca Falls and as we headed out of town we saw a bunch of elk along the side of the road. (Would be the only elk we’d see.) Lynda wanted a picture so I stopped for her to grab a shot or two. We had barely stopped when I saw the park rangers driving along to keep people moving. As we were leaving I heard them yelling at someone to get back in their vehicle. I know it’s a safety thing but they do seem like such kill joys doing that. Lol.
We took the old highway – 93A down to the falls. It used to be such a rough road but it was nice and smooth and there was hardly anyone on it. It was nice to cruise along looking at the scenery.
Lynda was scanning the ditches for wildlife but we saw nothing at all. We were going to check out the Whirlpool group campground but the gate was closed. As we were leaving I saw movement in the rear view mirror and saw a brown coloured black bear cross the road between us and the vehicle going the other way. He didn’t have any issues with the locked gate and continued on his way without us catching a good look at him.
The parking lot was pretty full at the falls but not as jammed as I’ve seen it in the past. We walked to all the usual tourist spots to take some photos.
We crossed the bridge and continued the tourist thing.
We decided to head down to the river below the falls as we’d never done that before.
It was proving to be a popular destination so there was a bit of a wait for traffic climbing back up.
We decided it was time to head out and we made our way back to Pyramid Lake so I could re-shoot the photos I wasn’t happy with yesterday.
I was a lot happier with the results so I took a few different setups.
It was a bit of a drive for a 15 minute photo shoot but it was fun so totally worth it. It was getting to be late afternoon so we figured we should go find some lunch.
We went back towards the Jasper Park Lodge and decided that Edith Lake looked good so we found a picnic table there and had our left over pizza and the Greek salad Lynda had made. After our late lunch we walked down to the shore of Edith Lake and watched the world not go by.
We watched a young man learning to do the stand up paddle board while his mother was learning to snorkel. After a while another lady was going to use on of the paddle boards so the young lady renting them gave her a lesson on how to use it. As we listened, Lynda thought maybe trying one of those out at some point might be fun. (I don’t know what’s gotten into her but having her relax a bit seems like a good thing.)
We sat and enjoyed the tranquility for about an hour before we went to check out Annette Lake on our way back to the hotel.
Our late lunch meant it was around 7 o’clock before we went in search of supper. It was sunny and hot as we walked along and I knew where I wanted to go but I guessed wrong on which road to turn at and we went farther than we had to. (Lynda is convinced it was on purpose to make her get her 10k steps in but it was an honest mistake.) She did get her steps in though. Eventually we made our destinations, L&W Restaurant. I’d eaten there a couple of times in the past but only for lunch and had always enjoyed it.
It was good for supper too and my Caesar was pretty good but still not as good as the one at Earls.
We strolled back towards our hotel along the main street checking out a few shops along the way.
With the sky clearing up there was hope we could get out to see the night sky.
We checked the sky at 11 pm and it was clear so we headed back up to Pyramid Lake once again. There were a few cars there already and we headed over to Pyramid Island to get Pyramid Mountain as my background.
I had put my widest angle lens on to get the most sky in the shots so we decided to go to the south side of the island to get more lake and sky in the frame.
When we got there we found about a dozen people just laying on the benches and watching the sky. I had forgotten it was near the peak of the Perseid meteor shower but the “oohs and ahs” coming from the crowd reminded me. I wasn’t seeing many meteors and none where I had the camera pointed but apparently it picked up a few.
By this time a bunch of the crowd had left but an Australian fellow and his girlfriend had come along and set up near my tripod so we chatted a bit as we took photos. Lynda was starting to get cold so we decided to shoot a few photos from the bridge on our way out.
As the first one came up on my screen she stared out at the black sky and wondered why she couldn’t see the northern lights with her naked eye? (I couldn’t see them either but the camera sure picked them up.
I went back to the island to show the Australian fellow what I was getting and he was pretty excited to try to get some of those. We headed back to the hotel and got to bed at 2 am. It had been a long day but it had been a great day of just relaxing and taking our time to do things.
Monday morning seemed to arrive awfully early. We were in no hurry to leave but still managed to get out of the hotel just after 10am and went off in search for breakfast. It really wasn’t much of a search though as Lynda had like breakfast the day before so much she said we’d go back to WickedCup and I wasn’t about to argue with her about that.
The line up was a lot shorter being a week day and soon we had our pick of outdoor tables to enjoy our breakfast at.
Leaving Jasper after breakfast we decided to head down highway 93A again as it’s a bit of a relaxing drive before getting into the heavier traffic.
We stopped at an unusual site these days.
A wild telephone is a rarity.
We crossed the road to watch and listen to the Athabasca River flowing past. Our moment of Zen done, we got back in the car and started our journey home.
We drove until we got to the Stutfield Glacier Viewpoint near the Columbia Icefield Skywalk. Wasn’t much glacier to see but that seems to be with most glaciers these days.
We drove all the way to the Kootenay Plains before we’d have another photo stop.
With what turned out to be our last photo stop behind us we made it all the way to Rocky Mountain House for a quick pit stop on our way home.
We made it home in time for supper. I really don’t remember what we had for food though. Obviously it wasn’t as good as the rest of the food on the trip.
Even with a full day’s driving, it was a very nice relaxing trip. And for as much as I’ve given Lynda a hard time over the years of turning date night into family night, it was really weird being in Jasper without Adam being along. Maybe I’ll feel differently in October when we go back for her birthday. If not, I have a month and a half to get used to the idea.
Hank's Blog - Musings of a Wandering Mind 