Sunday 9 October 2011

Live From Killarney... Finally!

Good evening everyone!  I hope everyone is enjoying their Thanksgiving long weekend.  I'm happy to say that we're all having a wonderful time up here in Killarney.  Unfortunately I haven't managed to get a blog post in because of some unexpected technical changes.  I attempted to post Friday night to let everyone know that I was here safe and sound, but apparently they've changed up their WiFi policies here at KML and you now need to obtain a username and password from the front desk which will only function for a limited time.  I guess they had a lot of people abusing the free internet around here.  It was too late on Friday to get a pass for the internet, so I tried to post using my mobile upload e-mail address... and I got a bounced e-mail.  Blogger has undergone a lot of changes recently, and it's been a long time since I've attempted a mobile upload, and I guess some of the changes must have invalidated my secret e-mail address for mobile posting.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to re-enable that at some point because it's always been a good contingency plan in the past.  Yesterday I ran into the same problem where I ended up getting into blogging mode after the front desk had closed and it was too late to get online.  Same story tonight... just having too much fun during the day and not thinking about getting online.  Tonight I decided to tether my laptop to my cell phone to get internet access that way.  I'm a bit concerned about data usage when I'm doing that so I'm not going to upload any pictures until I get back, but at least I'm able to blog by doing this.

Okay, tech problems/excuses are out of the way, time to catch up.

Friday was mostly a travel day, so not much to report there other than that we had a very nice ride up.  Unfortunately Gray and Susan had to work on Friday so they weren't coming up until much later and they hit some BAD traffic on the way up.  Even after getting off work very early they still didn't arrive until 9:30.  Fortunately we were able to save them some dinner because they'd had a pretty brutal trip up here.

Saturday morning we set out immediately after breakfast to make a run at The Crack.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the sunlight made the Fall colours stunning.  It was everything I'd hoped for in my previous Fall trips, and it made for an amazing hike.  The second half of the Crack hike is very strenuous and it proved a bit too much for Euphy, who isn't an experienced hiker.  In hindsight I shouldn't have started her off on such an arduous hike, but she was a trouper and we made it most of the way up.  Dad, Gray, and Susan made it to the top and Euphy and I chilled out on a ridge below them.  We were still way up in the air and got some fantastic pictures from up there which I look forward to posting when we get home.  It was a tiring hike for everyone involved and we mostly just chilled out for the rest of the afternoon.  Just before dinner I got Euphemia out for her first ever kayak paddle though.  We just did a brief paddle around in the channel outside of the lodge, but she was really getting the hang of things by the end, and we had fun out there.

Today Dad, Gray, and Susan headed out for some fishing while I went shopping for souvenirs with Mom and Euphy.  We followed that up with a visit to George Lake, a bit of lunch, and then a nice, easy hike along the Lighthouse Trail.  That hike was much more to Euphy's taste and we really enjoyed the scenery.  During the times we spent at the Lodge Euphy was entertaining herself by feeding peanuts to the local chipmunk population.  I think I'm going to have a very difficult time convincing her to come home on Tuesday without smuggling one out in her coat pocket.  She's very much in love with her new pet Chippy.

We've been hanging out in the Carousel lounge this evening looking over all the pictures everyone's taken over the last few days.  I'm not sure what tomorrow holds, but this cellphone tethering thing seems to be working out fairly well, so I think I'm safe to say that I should be able to check in again tomorrow night to tell you all about it.  Until then, keep enjoying your long weekend!

Sunday 2 October 2011

Some Changes, But Still Lots of Excitement

Howdy everyone!  I hope this week has been good to all of you.  I've got some good news for this week: Euphemia has got a job at BMO!  That's really exciting for her and should be a great opportunity for her to start building a career.  On the travel side of things though it has a real potential to derail our plans for a trip to China next year.  Obviously the start of any new job is a time of uncertainty, and we can't really say right now that she'll be able to just take off for 3 weeks in the Spring.  A career is more important than a vacation right now though, so we're basically assuming that China is off the books for the time being and we'll be playing 2012 by ear.  I just wanted to get that out there since I've already been talking-up this proposed trip.  There's no question that we'll get there eventually, but the timing is uncertain for now.  I'm not terribly worried... I'm sure China will still be there when we get our vacation schedule sorted out.

The remained of 2011 still has some great opportunities for travelling fun though, starting with our adventure to Killarney this coming weekend.  I don't have much to say this week outside of the job news, but starting on Friday I should be back in Travel Blogging Mode.  Friday will just be a transit day, and I'm not expecting that I'll have any wild stories to tell, but check-in sometime in the evening and I should have a post up just to kick the vacation off.  From that point on I'll try to get regular daily posts out for the duration of the weekend.  With any luck I'll get lots of pictures uploaded too, but the Internet connection up there can be a bit spotty, so picture quantity will be entirely dependent on my ability to quickly upload them.

On that note, I've actually got a new camera that will be coming with me on this trip.  I decided a few weeks back that it was time to retire the old Olympus point-and-shoot and upgrade it.  I opted for a Fujifilm offering that's similar in specs to what I was using before; it's waterproof and shock proof, and is a compact point-and-shoot.  The big upgrades are that I've gone from 3x optical zoom to 5x, and 7.1 megapixels to 14.  So far I've only had the opportunity to take a few photos with it, so I haven't really put it through it's paces yet, but I'm finding that the old warning of "more megapixels does not equal more better" is holding true.  (Yes, the appalling grammar was intentional.)  Despite having double the megapixels I'm not thrilled with any of the pictures I've taken yet.  I'm really hoping that it's just a question of less-than-ideal lighting conditions and that I'll still get some decent pics while I'm up in Killarney.  The weather forecast is VERY promising for the time that we'll be up there, and there could be an unprecedented opportunity to get some truly fantastic pictures of the Fall foliage.  If they turn out sub-standard because of my camera I'll be greatly disappointed.  We'll just have to wait and see.

To demonstrate why I'm making a fuss about the new camera here's a shot I took yesterday of Euphemia on my back deck, trying to get a bit of Fall colour in the background:


That photo has been shrunk to 25% of its original size for easy blogification (now I'm making up words) but if you view even this smaller offering at it's full size you'll see a lot of graininess.  Look around the inner edge of her glasses frames and it's pretty rough.  Like I said, I'm hoping that it's just that I was shooting into the sun, but my initial impression is that I'm not getting as good an image as I would have on the old Olympus.  Time will tell.

Well folks, that's all for now.  I hope you all have an excellent week, and I'll touch base again on Friday!