We have arrived

After spending most of the day flying, we have arrived in San Francisco.  The temperature is a moderate 61F.   It's time to go exploring and find a nice place for dinner.

Can you see the waterfall?  I'm not sure if this is Yosemite but it's not that far (by air) from San Francisco

Lots of snow in the mountains

Happy travellers

Beautiful cloud formation

Only 1 more sleep

Wooo hooo.  The time has finally come and we're about to embark on a nice lengthy vacation.  Our bags are packed, the camera's are all charged up and the cards have been formatted and are ready to be used.  Hopefully we haven't forgotten anything.

The biggest challenge was knowing what to pack

Camera bags are almost as big as our suitcases

Hmmm I hope I can golf with only 1 of 7 clubs to choose from

We had fun planning this vacation over the last 6 months. From mountains to deserts to waterfalls and giant Redwoods.   The sights will be amazing.  Hopefully we'll see a lot of wildlife along the way and enjoy the cacti as they start coming into bloom.

Here is a look at our "high level" schedule.  Nothing is really set in stone except for the golf and whale watching tours.  We can move things around if the weather doesn't look good.

April 5 -  San Francisco

April 8 - Yosemite National Park

April 11 - Pacific Grove/Monterey

April 14 - Ventura

April 15 - San Diego

April 18 - Palm Springs.

April 21 - We'll be dropping Lawrence and Teresa off at the airport and then Ralph and I will be driving to Los Angeles.

April 22 - Kauai

May 7 - Hilo

It's going to be an adventure of a lifetime.

The end has come

Sadly, a week ago, Ralph experienced his last day working in the office at Sears.  .  In June Ralph will have worked for Sears for 40 years.    God blessed him richly by giving him plenty of different opportunities during the time that he worked there.  When we were first married, he worked in the Warehouse.  This offered him the opportunity to work evenings and allowed him the time needed to put a new addition on our house.  He worked long days then, tearing down the old house, building up new walls with his brother Ed and making a new home for us.  During the evening, he faithfully went into work and spent 8 hours driving a fork lift machine "picking" orders off the shelves and getting them ready for delivery.  From there he went downtown as a manager at Head Office.  He changed jobs a few times where he eventually landed in the Finance Department.  While it was frustrating to see him work 6 days a week and on vacation, he never complained and was happy to help whenever he was asked.  His experience in the Wharehouse made him an invaluable resource to Sears.

 Little did we know that this job would be his last although Ralph had predicted that this would happen almost 8 years ago.

At the end it was only a small group of people still working.  Seeing a company close their doors for the final time is a sad thing to experience.  I'm thankful that Ralph was able to stay till the end and we both look forward to a new beginning.  We're excited to see what God has planned for us.

This picture was taken on February 8, 2018.  This is the total sum of employees that were still working at Sears.  It's hard to imagine that they used to employ 11,240 employee's in 2017.  If you look closely, you will see Ralph at the very back of the group.

He went downtown this week and met up with a few of his colleagues for lunch and used it as a opportunity to reminisce about the good times that they had.  Ralph is still connected to Sears in the event that they require some data for reporting.  He went home with a computer and all his accesses to the network are still connected.  We commented today that it's been a week already and he hasn't had a call.  It's amazing how fast the time goes although he has managed to keep himself busy working in the house.

We try to get our walks in each day.  In 3 days I had already walked almost 70,000 steps.  I say walk but it's almost a run for me keeping up with him.  He has such a long stride.  Today we reactivated our membership at the gym and plan to visit there on a regular basis as well.  I really enjoy having him home.  I'm amazed at how much we are enjoying our time together.

Milky Way - Niagara

This past summer Ralph and I were in Niagara and decided to try to take some Milky Way shots. This was a big challenge as we were surrounded by "light pollution".  When we got home we had a look at our pictures and were pretty disappointed with the results. I tucked them away in Lightroom and promptly forgot about them.

While cleaning up some of my camera cards this afternoon I came across these pictures again and decided to try to improve the picture in Lightroom.  I watched a few video's to get some ideas and set about trying to draw the Milky Way out in the sky.  Below is my first attempt at cleaning it up.

 It really is amazing because to the naked eye - we couldn't see the Milky Way.  We were fully dependant on an APP that we had on our phone pointing us to the direction to take the picture.  With so much light pollution (city lights) , it's just not possible to clearly see it.  

Winter Storm

It's been snowing alot this past week.  On and off leaving lots of fine snow around us.  I'm feeling a little housebound not able to get outside to practice what I've been learning on my course.  I am really enjoying the "A year with my Camera" course.  Emma Davies takes each concept and explains them very clearly.  It's really been beneficial for me.  Sadly though, the weather doesn't make it much fun to go outside and practice.  As a result, I put off some of my homework because my preference is to take "Landscape" pictures.  This week I pushed myself to get out (on Saturday) in the middle of a snowstorm.  I thought I might try to get another one of my pictures for my "Make 30 photos" assignment.  I had passed a grouping of tree's that I thought would work so I bundled myself up.  I had mitts, gloves, scarf, hat, vest and a coat on to keep me warm.  It was snowing so hard that I thought I should take my rain cover for the camera but after fiddling with it, I decided not to take me. I know I have to practice more on my patience, but this time, I figured I'd just cover the camera with my scarf.

So off I went and drove to Thistletown Collegiate where I had seen the 3 tree's.  I double parked (oops) and stuffed my camera into my jacket and then walked around trying to find the best picture.  I really should have taken my wide angle lens with me, but thought I wouldn't need it.  Mistake #1 - always be prepared.  So I made due with the lens I had and set up my tripod.  Of course the first thing I noticed was that there were tree's behind the 3 sets of tree's that I was planning on photographing.  It was so dark because of all the snow that I wasn't able to blur out the background tree's.  I'll have to figure out how to do that the next time I go out and the weather is nicer.  I thought if shooting from the opposite side, but there was a Bell Canada truck parked right behind me so that wouldn't work either.  I took a few shots and decided to head back in.

In the end, I decided to crop in the picture and only keep it to one tree.  It was a great opportunity practicing with my Histogram.  It's amazing how much of a difference that makes when taking a picture.  I had learned though, that practice is the key.  You can't expect to get a great shot without practicing as much as you can.  I still have lots of time to practice before we go away, so I'll plan to try to get out at least 3 days each week.

The family that plays together.....stays together

One of my favourite pictures.  I only wish my Dad was in it as well.  If I remember correctly, he had just purchased his first SLR camera and set us up for this photograph.

This always reminds me of the special bond our family has with each other. I am so thankful for the time we spend together. most weeks at my Mom's.    This currently hangs on a wall in her apartment.  I smile every time I see it.

Frosted Window Panes

This past week I noticed frost building up on my bathroom window (south facing).  It was quite pretty and I kept thinking to myself that I should set up my camera and try to photograph it.  Ideally I needed a black background to mask out the noise behind the frost but I wasn't too keen on taking the window and screens out with this cold weather not to mention that I might not be able to get them back in properly and then I'd be in big trouble with Ralph.  He usually is pretty good with my escapades but he draws the line when it means making the house cold.

On Saturday morning I was up early so I decided to give it a try. It's really difficult to get the colours right and I'm hoping my photography course will help me with that but I'm still pretty happy with how some if the pictures turned out.

I'm glad I took them yesterday as this morning all the frost was gone.