Category Archives: Travel

Fun Photos from Fredericksburg

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Last Saturday morning, October 19th, the Austin Shutterbug Club had an outing to the lovely little town of Fredericksburg in central Texas, near the Hill Country.

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Only 5 people showed up. Not sure why. Don’t really care. Those of us that did make it, had a really fun time!

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All of these photos were taken with my Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera, and the Olympus 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 “kit lens”.  I also had 4 excellent prime lenses in my camera bag, but I never used any of them.

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I did not take any “street photography” photos of people doing interesting things in their environment.

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That morning, I was only interested in taking photos of whatever color, pattern, or object that caught my attention.

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Snapshots? Sure. Why not?

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There are only a couple of photos that the viewer would recognize as someplace in Fredericksburg. The majority of them could have been taken anywhere.

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It is late October, and Halloween is near.

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I believe that these two steeples belong to St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

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That was as far west as we walked. On the way back, I noticed that there seemed to be lots of places for people to sit along the sidewalk.

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Some seating was pretty rustic.

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And some was rather unusual.

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I wonder how comfortable that seat would have been for the framer sitting on his tractor years ago!

Here’s a photo that even says “Fredericksburg” in the photo. This is the 2nd story of the building. I even used Lightroom 5’s new healing brush feature to remove the power line that crossed in front of it.

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The 5 of us had a great German lunch at a place near the west end of town, named Friedhelm’s Bavarian Inn. I had the Jager Schntizel. It was great!

Thank you for stopping by and visiting my blog today.

My Favorite Photos from Our Summer Cruise Vacation

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It’s been a while since I put up my posting showing the hardware build of my new computer. All of that hardware worked just fine, so the only snags that I hit along the way were software related. Getting my HP LaserJet printer networked was pure joy, as was the discovery that some software installed by default from the Epson scanner installation disk (ABBYY Fine Reader) will interfere with Microsoft Office 365 in such a horrific manner that you cannot even open Outlook to read your email.

Anyway, all of those issues are now behind me, and I am very happy with my new computer! In the end, I set it to max out at 4.4 GHz, even though I could get it to run at 4.5 GHz long enough through a torture test of software to put me at #32 on the ASUS ROG RealBench LeaderBoard for the Intel quad-core systems (on October 5th).

After I got my new computer up, I had to get Barb setup on my old computer, and then prepare her old computer to give to Goodwill. All of that “computer cascading” takes time. So it wasn’t really until yesterday that I really had time to sit down and enjoy using my new computer, instead of working on some computer issue.

So yesterday I went back through the photos that I had taken on our cruise vacation in mid-August, and just selected my favorite 20 photos to share with you for this blog post. (I didn’t say my “best”, but rather my “favorite”.) You have already seen one of them.)

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All of these photos were taken with my Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera, and the Olympus 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 “kit lens”.

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Reminder: You can always view any photo at a larger size by just clicking on it. You will then need to use your browser’s “Back Button” to return to my story.

All of these photos are shown in the chronological order that I took them in. I do not have a story to tell that links them all together.

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All of the photo up to this point were taken on the ship, which was the Carnival Magic. The next few photos were taken in Key West, Florida.

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Even though you’ve seen this next photo before, I still wanted to include it in this “favorite 20 photos” blog post.

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This next photo was taken while we were in the middle of our Key West Pub Crawl.

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No, the guy on the ground isn’t real… he’s part of the artwork.

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The next day was spent in Freeport, The Bahamas.

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These were all taken in the tourist marketplace next to where our ship had docked.

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This guy was chopping off the top of coconuts to make alcoholic drinks. It took me several attempts to capture the action the way that I wanted to.

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The shore excursion that we enjoyed that afternoon was a ride on a glass bottomed boat.

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Later that afternoon, I went out on our balcony and watched a couple of tug boats bring in a cargo ship into the harbor.

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The next morning it was raining in Nassau, The Bahamas.

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Fortunately it stopped in time for us to go on our Segway tour of the beach!

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We got back to our ship by mid-afternoon.

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By then the skies had cleared enough that I was able to get a pretty good photo of Atlantis.

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The next two days were spent at sea.

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I love days at sea. I love to read a good book and to enjoy playing around with my camera!

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Here’s a good example of what I mean by “playing around with my camera”.

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No, that’s not a mistake… that was my best of 6 attempts to do that.

Thank you for stopping by and visiting my blog today!

Cruise Ship Folded Towel Art

It has taken me a lot longer to get into the mood to put up this post than I originally thought that it would. I finished going through the 805 photos that I took on our Bahamas Cruise vacation, and cut it down to the 475 that I decided were keepers. But then I got all tied up in researching everything and anything that an engineer “needs to know” before ordering his next computer. I finally ordered everything this afternoon, so now I can finally turn my attention back to getting this blog post up!

Here is one of the first photos that I took on that vacation. This is our cabin on the Carnival Magic – our home for the next 7 days.

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Reminder: You can always view any photo at a larger size by just clicking on it. You will then need to use your browser’s “Back Button” to return to my story.

I took that photo right after we unpacked our luggage and neatly put everything away into the storage areas that they provided within our cabin. Barb had some time to relax with her Sudoku puzzles, and I got to play with my Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera.

I only show that photo above to show the setting for the rest of the photos in this post. The rest of the photos were taken on the bed. Now get your mind out of the gutter!  This is a “family oriented” blog (or at least G-Rated)…

Living on a cruise ship is very much like living in a hotel or motel. While you are out and about during the day, people come into your room and clean the place up. They make the bed, change your towels, empty the trash, and in the evening, they always leave a folded towel on your bed.

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Now they do not fold the towels that they leave on your bed the same way that you or I fold our towels. No sirree…

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When I went on my first cruise, which was our honeymoon in 2000, the room steward did this same thing. I really thought that we had a really special room steward! But now that we have been on our 10th cruise in 13 years, I can only say that EVERY room steward on a cruise ship does this. It must be a mandatory requirement for their job.

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I brought my Gitzo GT1542T Traveller tripod with me on this vacation, but it never left our cabin. I only used it for the photos that I took of these folded towel works of art. All of these photos required a shutter speed of between 1/4 of a second up to 1.6 seconds in duration, so the tripod was a must.

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This next photo was the only one (besides the opening photo showing our cabin) that was taken during daylight hours, where diffused sunlight was coming in from the windows, backlighting my subject.

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The room steward left this one for us in the afternoon, while we were Segway riding along the beach in Nassau, Bahamas. Later that evening, he left this one for us.

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The main consideration to be taken into account when photographing white towels is to remember to override the camera’s light meter, and overexpose from what it suggests. I added +2/3 to +1 stop of exposure. When I used Aperture Priority mode, I just added some Exposure Compensation. When I used Manual mode, I just “overexposed” from what the meter indicated.

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If I didn’t add the extra exposure, the towels would have turned out gray in the photos. If I had added too much exposure, the entire white towel would have turned completely white, and you would not be able to see the texture in the towel.

I wanted to share these photos with you, but didn’t want to spend the hours to write up a big story to go along with them. So, I’m keeping this short and sweet!

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Now when will that UPS delivery guy get here with my new computer?

Key West Pub Crawl

Last week, Barb and I were on vacation. To escape the August heat in Texas, we took a 1 week cruise from Galveston, TX to the Bahamas and back. We got on the ship in Galveston about noon on Sunday, August 11th, spent that afternoon and the entire day on Monday at sea. On Tuesday morning, we docked in Key West, Florida. We got off of the ship about 10:25 AM.

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This was our 3rd time to be on a cruise ship that docked in Key West. The previous two times, we took a romantic sailboat ride out to enjoy the sunset, and the other time to take the Conch Train and do the typical touristy sightseeing stuff. This time, we signed up for something rather silly for a couple of old folks our age…

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Even though I had already walked 4 miles earlier that morning on the walking path aboard the ship, we were going to be vigilant and get our physical exercise in…. 😉

Our excursion was supposed to start at 11:00 AM, but we stood around on the stark concrete dock until 11:20 (50 minutes) waiting for everyone to show up.

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Our tour guide led us across the pier to land, where we had a pretty nice view looking back at our ship, the Carnival Magic. Here’s a photo of the front half of our ship.

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About a block later our tour guide, Robert, stopped the group of about 25 people (we had split into 3 groups), and told us what we needed to know to have a fun time on this shore excursion.

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That’s not his real hair. He’s as bald as Kojack was, but he’s wearing this very funny Guy Fieri visor & wig thingy. (Guy has a show called “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” on The Food Network). Robert said it would make it easier for us “pub crawlers” to not lose him after we had been to a few bars…

I had my Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera with my “usual” Olympus 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 lens mounted onto it.

Our first stop was Rick’s Tree Bar, where I had a drink called Caribbean Breeze.

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I rarely drink fruity, sweet alcoholic drinks, but this was very yummy. Besides, did I mention that I was on vacation? 🙂

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We had about 20 minutes to spend at Rick’s Tree Bar, so I walked out to the street and took several photos of all sorts of goofy stuff. Here’s a photos of our bartender hamming it up for me.

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Pretty soon, it’s time to leave. Robert gathers us all up and leads us into an alley, where he was giving us some information about the next place that we were headed.

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Our next stop was Fogarty’s Flying Monkeys Saloon.

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I don’t remember what I ordered there, but it was what Robert recommended and it was delicious!

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Here are about 1/3 of the frozen drink dispensers that this bar had.

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I guess if you tried one of each flavor, that you certainly could see flying monkeys!

While we spent our 20 minutes here, I popped my little Olympus FL-600R flash onto my camera and played around with using the flash in daylight, including this photo of our tour guide.

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Head ’em up and move ’em out! We made our way to the end of William Street, which is at the water.

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It was a very short walk to the Schooner Wharf Bar, where the bartender was ready with jugs of pre-made rum-based drinks.

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The cup didn’t have the establishment’s name on it, so I just propped this coaster up to it for my photo.

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We were in an outdoor patio area, and there was a musician playing in a shelter at one edge of the patio. I walked over, put $5 in his tip jar, pointed to my camera, and he gave me a friendly, positive nod. I took 4 photos of this guy. I wish I knew his name, as he was very entertaining.

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Shortly after this, Robert gathered us all up and herded us over to the Lazy Gecko, back on Duval Street.

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This was the only bar that would serve a Margarita, so that’s what I had.

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After about 15 minutes, Robert had us all go into an air conditioned room in the back, where we had a conch blowing contest! I blew it for a pretty long time, but never really got it to resonate in a melodic tone.

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Now that photo was severely underexposed as I took it. I tried bouncing my flash off of the ceiling, but it was just too far away for my little FL-600R flash. I was amazed at how much detail came back by adding +2.75 stops of exposure using Lightroom 5 (and I didn’t do anything for “noise reduction”).

Our next, and last, stop was right across the street. Rick’s Bar.

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While I was waiting for the bartender to serve everyone else, I wandered over and tipped the musician, and he hammed it up long enough for me to get 3 pretty decent photos of him.

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Although I had already had 4 drinks in the previous 2 hours, I certainly wanted to say that I had survived the Key West Pub Crawl… I wasn’t going to be the sissy who couldn’t go the entire distance!

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If that cup looks familiar, it should! Remember our first stop? That was Rick’s Tree Bar. This was Rick’s Bar, which was right next door. Rick seems to have 8 bars in Key West…. (I thought Austin had a lot of bars… but Key West must have more bars per capita than any place on earth.)

OK, that concluded our official Key West Pub Crawl shore excursion. Barb needed a safety pin for a broken strap on one of her dresses, and I needed some AAA batteries for our alarm clock. Robert told us where the nearest CVS drugstore was, and we headed over there to get the items that we needed.

After purchasing our needed items, we had to walk about 5 or 6 blocks to get back to our ship. Just a couple of blocks into our walk, we came upon the “Smallest Bar in Key West”.

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Here’s a photo of the entire interior of this “saloon”.

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All of their drinks are served in your choice of either a coconut or a pineapple. Barb just had to have one. What the hey? Didn’t you just have 4 drinks already? OK… just let me take a photo of it. Besides, we weren’t driving anywhere, and did I mention that we were on vacation?

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You can walk down the streets of Key West with a drink in your hand, but we thought it best that we take a few sips first… we really didn’t want to spill any of it. 🙂

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We took at least 45 minutes to make it those 5 blocks back to the ship. Not because we were incapacitated, but I kept stopping to take photos. When you are on vacation, everything is new and interesting, and must be photographed!

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Thanks for stopping by and visiting my blog!

Austin Shutterbug Club Picnic at Emma Long Park

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Last Saturday, July 13, 2013, the Austin Shutterbug Club had a picnic at the Emma Long Park in west Austin.

You get to the Emma Long Park by going west on RM 2222, for about a 1/2 of a mile west of Loop 360, and then turning south on City Park Road. Stay on this windy, scenic road for about 7 miles to get to the park, which is on the north shores of Lake Austin. Now Lake Austin isn’t really a lake, it’s really the Colorado River immediately downstream of Mansfield Dam (which creates Lake Travis) and the Tom Miller Dam in west Austin (West Lake Hills) near the Hula Hut restaurant.

This was not an actual club “photography outing”, but rather an actual, old-fashioned picnic, as seen in the opening photo. (Only half of the members even brought a camera with them.)

I got there right at 9:00 AM, and after spending about 45 minutes socializing with the other club members who had also arrived, I grabbed my Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera, with my “usual” Olympus 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 lens, headed across the street and over to the water.

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Reminder: You can always view any photo at a larger size by just clicking on it. You will then need to use your browser’s “Back Button” to return to my story.

The photo above is the root of a bald cypress tree. They grow right along the shores of the rivers here in central Texas, and extend their roots right into the water at the shore. Here’s a photo of the leaves and branch structure of this tree.

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Here’s a photo looking across Lake Austin to the south shore.

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With drought-stricken Lake Travis so low, there are no longer any public boat ramps still open (they don’t go down low enough to get to the current water level), many weekend boat owners have taken to using Lake Austin instead.

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As this is a dammed-up river, there really aren’t any waves, except for the ones created by the ski boats!

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While standing around talking to a few other club members who had brought their cameras and had come down to join me at the water, this tree seemed to catch my attention.

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A couple of the ladies in had even waded into the water, looking for interesting and different photographic opportunities.

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Linda, the lady on the left, had a Canon 5D Mark II, with the EF 70 – 200mm f/2.8 L II lens on it. She was not happy with the focusing of her camera, even after Canon had examined it.

After less than 10 minutes at the water’s edge, I decided to head back up to the rest of the group under the large oak shade tree. On the way, I passed this unused cooking grill.

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It will remain unused for the time being; due to the severe drought, there is a burn ban, even in the parks.

Even at 10:00 AM, in mid-July, the cloudless Texas sky is very hard and contrasty. There isn’t much you can do about it, other than just not take any photos for about 10 hours of the day….

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Or you can just try to make the best of it.

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Here’s a photo taken from the position of that rusty grill, looking back toward the water, and the other club members under the tree on the left.

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Looking for pretty much anything interesting to take a picture of, I spent a minute playing around with the colorful balloons that Brian had tied to the light stand that he had set up to let the arriving members that this was our spot.

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Not wanting to immediately sit down, I wandered around the picnic site for a few minutes, while listening in on the various conversations taking place around me. While doing that, I noticed this unusual axe head (someone had brought it to drive the stakes into the ground for the horseshoe game).

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And now to the point of being silly, here is the webbing on the back of the lawn chair that I had brought. 🙂

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About 10:15 AM, I headed off to the restroom, which was a clean, but steaming hot outhouse. The temperature was certainly close to 90 degrees (32 C) by now. On the way back, I noticed this tiny little flower, so even though it was in direct, mid-day Texas summer sun, I put my lens into macro mode, flipped out my rear LCD panel, held my camera about a foot (30 cm) off the ground, and snapped this photo.

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Since we weren’t going to eat until about noon, I still had plenty of time to wander around and take some more photos before it really got hot.

I headed back down to the water’s edge and just waited for some “interesting” waves to roll in.

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Even in the summer sun, you can still slow down the shutter to 1/80th of a second (f/7.1 and ISO 200) to get some motion blur to make these tiny waves appear to be much more active than they really are….

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Even though my “kit lens” only zooms out to 100mm equivalent (on a full frame camera), it still had enough of a reach to get a few photos of the passing boats. This next photo was cropped to show about 2/3 of the original image’s length and height.

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It was now close to 10:30 AM, and the temperature was certainly above 90 degrees, so I decided to head back to the picnic area (again) and put away my little camera and be more social than I had been.

And I’ll let this photo be my closing photo (as the boat goes away into the distance).

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We had a very, very nice picnic lunch, and I enjoyed the conversations that flowed around the group. There was a gentle breeze blowing under our large shade tree, which made it surprisingly pleasant – as long as you didn’t move around too much. When we packed up the cars to leave at 1:00 PM, the temperature had already risen to 104 degrees (40 C).

Thank you for stopping by and visiting my blog today.