Friday, October 25th dawned as a nice sunny day in the 13th arrondissement.
We got off to a later than expected start to the day so we stopped at Boulangerie Brun on Rue de Tolbiac for some treats for breakfast.
We kept heading east and discussed what we should do for lunch.
Lucille pointed out that we were near Chinatown and we could probably find some bubble tea there. We thought that was a great idea, so we turned south in search of said bubble tea.
We found some bubble tea, but not only did I not take any pictures of it, I honestly don’t know which place we got it from. I know I liked it, but just not sure how to find it again. (Like I’m rushing right back there and all.)
We started heading back to the apartment to meet Curtis before we headed off to Palais Garnier.
Not long after we booked our trip over to Paris, Lucille asked me if we had been to Palais Garnier, and I told her we had not been there yet.
So, she had Curtis book the 4 of us an after hours tour.
We were on the bus heading back from our castle tour yesterday when Curtis got the notification that, due to a mix up, we didn’t actually have any tickets to do the tour. They apologized and refunded his money, and offered us free, general admission tickets.
We were disappointed as it would be a lot quieter after hours, we were happy about free tickets, so we headed out to be there by 2:30 pm.
The building is undergoing an exterior renovation so, typical of Paris, it’s all covered up. It’s basically a giant billboard as the front showing what it will look like. Which, as a photographer, was very disappointing.
It was pretty obvious that Palais Garnier is a very popular destination with the amount of people there. It was also obvious that it’s a fairly dark building with really ugly lighting, but I upped my ISO and took photos never the less.
There were plenty of tours going on along with the general public.
The staircase is a pretty popular spot.
It seems like every ceiling panel is painted and there were plenty of patterns and textures everywhere you looked.
The brightest spot in the whole place seemed to be by the windows upstairs that looked out to a very cloudy sky.
We saw what we believed was everything we could in just over an hour, so we headed off to find something for an early supper.
We didn’t have to go very far to find La Brigade – Opéra. It was trying to rain but we sat outside under an umbrella and enjoyed a nice meal. I don’t know what everyone else had, but I had a really nice steak and fries.
It was done spitting when we started heading to the subway to go back to the apartment.
Looks just like a regular movie theatre to me.
We caught the subway back to near the apartment and were in bed fairly early as we have an early start coming up in the morning.
Seemed to walk a lot today but had slightly less steps than yesterday. I ended up with 15,727.
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.
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.
Hank's Blog - Musings of a Wandering Mind 