Web, photos and assorted geekery
Lots of pretty pictures on the way to Kamloops!
The muddy Fraser
Elvis Rocks the Canyon
Dry Interior landscape
I took a picture of this church before, and now it has a name: St. Michael and All Angels Anglican Church, near Spences Bridge
A family(?) of mountain goats by the side of the road, climbing the cliff like it ain’t no thing.
Let’s show a close up of one of the goats, just because.
Out of the mountains (sort of)
A little farm, on the way back
As is my wont, I flew back to Ottawa to visit withe the family over the holidays. As is becoming my wont I took photos of the landscape from the plane, both coming and going. On the way over, the weather was completely overcast from Calgary to around Sudbury, but what I got was top-notch; Little towns like Temagami, Lumsden’s Mill, Fort-Coulonge, and Ste-Cécile-de-Masham, towns that I’d never heard of but suddenly became amazingly interesting places I might like to visit someday; islands and lakes like Lac La Pêche and Rapides-des-Joachims; and completely random places like some farm out near Russel, ON.
As is my wont, I flew back to Ottawa to visit withe the family over the holidays. As is becoming my wont I took photos of the landscape from the plane, both coming and going. On the way over, the weather was completely overcast from Calgary to around Sudbury, but what I got was top-notch; Little towns like Temagami, Lumsden’s Mill, Fort-Coulonge, and Ste-Cécile-de-Masham, towns that I’d never heard of but suddenly became amazingly interesting places I might like to visit someday; islands and lakes like Lac La Pêche and Rapides-des-Joachims; and completely random places like some farm out near Russel, ON.
Shooting all these remote locations was great fun. I felt like a pioneer, exploring the Ottawa River… except going backward.
A couple days after landing, I took a walk up Rideau Canal from Hog’s Back Falls. I hadn’t planned on keeping up the “exploring waterways” theme, it sort of happened. Plus, I know the Rideau Canal like the back of my hand, though it was a long time since I’d gone as far as Hog’s Back. They’re small, but really really nice-looking falls.
Then, a day trip to Montreal with my parents, specifically tooling around Vieux-Montréal. That was great; I don’t think I ever visited that particular bit before; plus I got to see the inside of Notre-Dame-de-Montréal, which was phenomenal. Well worth the $5 tourists had to pay (yes, even to look around and take pictures. They must really be hard up for money).
The flight back was just as interesting. The cloud cover came and went over the prairies (sadly, Ontario was completely out), and I managed to get some good shots of Lake Manitoba (frozen), various rivers, and any number of tiny-ass towns in the middle of nowhere. Plus the Drumheller Badlands, famous for their dinosaurs.
I enjoyed the by-now familiar chore of going over Google Maps and an online atlas of Canada to identify these places; post-processing to remove atmospheric haze, that was less fun. It took me several tries per photos until I got something I was satisfied with. But even then, sometimes I had my doubts. For instance, are the Badlands that yellow? (Google Images says that yeah, they pretty much are). Or some photos were too red, or too yellow… It didn’t help that the Ottawa River pictures took place around sundown, which made everything yellower. Well, I did my best, no use worrying too much about it now.
Sometimes things have a way of working out. Not for the “best” (this isn’t Candide, after all) but for the pretty good.
Sometimes things have a way of working out. Not for the “best” (this isn’t Candide, after all) but for the pretty good.
My flight home from Ottawa was supposed to take place Sunday night, connecting in Calgary. Nothing too special, I’d done it before. Except, what with the Christmas Day terrorist attempt, all airlines were in complete and utter chaos. I was warned that my flight to Calgary would be 2 hours late, so I could (a) stay in Ottawa and fly in the morning, or (b) … hey, there’s another flight going through Toronto, leaving right now.
That’s when the fun began. Long story short, my original flight was canceled, I was put on another flight (also to Toronto) which left a little later. Not a problem, I should still make it in plenty of time. Except I ended up leaving Ottawa over three hours late. Everybody on board missed their connecting flight, and had to be put up in a hotel.
I reached the Westin Bristol Place at about 11:30PM, one of over a hundred cranky fliers. Over two hours later, I was checked into my really quite awesome room. Too bad I had to get up in three hours to catch my rescheduled flight.
And that’s where you could say things worked out. Because my flight from Toronto was pretty smooth. Checkin was easy, security seemed a little more alert but not that paranoid. It even left on time! How about that! Even better: apparently to avoid the jet stream, our plane took a southerly route, heading straight across the Great Lakes as far as South Dakota, then angling up more or less in a straight line to Vancouver. That meant I got to see some scenery I’d never seen before, except in photos and that gay cowboy movie. Too bad there was too much cloud cover for most of the flight except over Montana and part of South Dakota.
A week ago I came back from a trip back east to visit family. It was tons of fun—flitting back and forth between Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City—and I got to see some relatives I hadn’t seen in years. Plus, I hadn’t been back east in the summertime in ages. As much as I enjoy a white Christmas, going outside without freezing my tail off is nice too.
Our mountains are very pointy
Our prairies are not
The rest is kinda bumpy
But man do we have a lot!
—The Arrogant Worms, Canada’s Really Big
A week ago I came back from a trip back east to visit family. It was tons of fun—flitting back and forth between Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City—and I got to see some relatives I hadn’t seen in years. Plus, I hadn’t been back east in the summertime in ages. As much as I enjoy a white Christmas, going outside without freezing my tail off is nice too.
The best part about my flight? I had a window seat, and since the weather was excellent for the most part I got to take pictures of this fair land of mine, from the Rockies all the way to Toronto. After that the weather got too bad, with too much turbulence. And I’ve got to admit: it’s not nearly as boring as I used to think. Sure, the Prairies are flat as anything, but they contain some interesting lakes, rivers and towns. Towns I’d never heard of and probably will never visit, but that’s what makes them interesting. Manitoba and Western Ontario, for their part, are a chaotic maze of lakes and rivers that, well, got a bit boring after a while though I never stopped taking pictures.
I felt like I was exploring Canada with Google Earth, except I couldn’t control where I was going. On the bright side, there was no server lag and the landscape was clear as a bell. The real fun came later, when I looked up my photos on Google Maps. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you spent hours desperately hunting for weird lake formations in western Ontario.
Doing the tourist thing in Quebec City was awesome. I hadn’t been there since that trip I took shortly after coming out almost seventeen years ago (gawd, time flies), and I’d forgotten how beautiful the city was, from the ancient stone buildings of Vieux-Québec to the bucolic Île-d’Orléans… and Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré. Which will be the subject of another blog post soon.