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Back at Grand Pond with family, including my brother Mike just arrived yesterday from Calgary. A beautiful afternoon, weather-wise.
Laurel and grandma relax in the tube.
Laurel, Jack and Jacob contemplate the joys of ice cream.
An amazingly warm and wind-less evening. We sat around the fire, made s'mores and talked until 2 a.m.
At my niece Anne Marie's place. Typical RDF weather today (rain, drizzle and fog). Walked over to the university bookstore, and got some interesting foggy photos.
Dead tree
Kents Pond
Meanwhile, on the home front, Jack helps with the dishes
while Daddy Brad makes a chocolate cake to die for.
Wandered around downtown St. John's today and bought music and other stuff. I could write volumes about how the city has changed since I last lived there (c. 1969), but it's late, so just a few photos – by no means representative of the area, just things that caught my interest.
Part of a historical mural on Duckworth Street. I took this one from across the street, and a few cars actually slowed down to avoid ruining the shot. Where else but in St. John's ...
A row of houses showing typical old St. John's architecture.
Detail of a bronze at the end of George Street.. "The design ... for this sculpture was meant to show the many different aspects of artistic expression that exists within the province and tie all of them together with some sort of meaning." (the artist).
Some graffiti.
And a photo of the "narrows" (the entrance of St. John's harbour), with the usual hovering bank of fog threatening to descend on the city.
Day 11: beautiful weather again. Started the day with kite fly from the barge.
The kite looked fine up there, but then pulled a Charlie Brown and entangled itself in an unclimbable 30 foot tree in the middle of a thickly forested island. Rescue plans, to be carried out at some later date, have mentioned the use of a chainsaw to lop said malevolent tree into firewood. We shall see.
Swam and vegetated in the afternoon, then went to a 25th anniversary party, with great food and a live band. No photos, but I do have one of the "morning-after" barge cruise.
My nephews Scott and Joe arrived with families and dogs, on their way back from a camping trip.
I'm now encamped at Joe's house in Paradise, with - yay! - high-speed internet.
We went to Northern Bay Sands park for a picnic. Lots of people there, but not many brave enough to swim in the cold water (we waded).
A few interesting sand castles
I concentrated mostly on scenic shots.
And on interesting weeds.
And sand patterns.
Not many photos today; here's one from near Carbonear.
Lovely weather today. I spent much of the day napping and otherwise vegetating.
We went for a swim. "Bathing beauties of 192?"
Sunset over Grand Pond
and some fire-watching.
This one's here just because I like the interesting arrangement of rocks and grass:
Beautiful day, weather-wise. We went for a tramp around the Salmonier Nature Park and I practiced with my new telephoto converter. It doesn't appear to work very well in sunny conditions, certainly not as well as would a proper telephoto lens (which replaces a regular camera lens instead of just fitting over it). Got a few good photos.
Snowy owl
Perigrine falcon
Otter
Arctic fox
Mama moose and baby moose
We saw lots of other animals – lynx, marmot, other owls. And a procession of Canada geese.
... and lots of it. Big gale-like gusts of wind, hard to capture in a still image – imagine the spiral tree thingy in the photo blown horizontal.
A good day to stay inside, visit neighbours and play crib and board games.
My nephew Joe, all geared up for hiking.
Great-nephew Jack, blowing bubbles.
Cruising on Grand Pond on the barge Jalaja with my sister Sharon and brother-in-law Paul
and the crab's legs we ate.