Honeymoon Photos

Sequoia National Park, Jan 3-6

A note: these thumbnails lead to full resolution pictures (700k to 2M, depending). A better system will be devised with time.

Our adventure began with massive rains and flooding, shutting down I-5. We took an alternate route, but with getting everything together, and getting out of there, it was cold and late (and snowing) by the time we were on the highway. Thankfully, Barb's 4WD, snowtire-equipped SUV saw us safely up the mountain trails, and we made it to the lodge safely and in relative comfort (though the thankyou cardstock was dropped in the snow for a short bit)

Pwah and Puffer, two of Amy's favorite stuffed animals (or "stuffties") spent most of their time reclining on the couch in the room, or sitting on the bed watching movies with us. Hopefully they managed to get some rest when we went off for food.

The snow was heavy on the trees, and quite beautiful. It caught our attention many a time, especially as the moment occasionally came that the boughs were asked to bear more than they could, and they dropped a flurry of their former load. I (Kaolin) am curious as to how much particle simulation has been done for such an effect, but have not yet gone to the oracle to ask.

Amy, of course, was beautiful, staring out of the window or trouncing me three games of Sorry. I was astounded how close each of those games wound up being, given how much random luck is involved. I suppose it all boils down to statistics, and the game is averaged over expected values, or something to that effect. Amy told me to stop trying to use math in conversation when I started talking second derivatives to explain that a specific jump in a word game we were jiving (if she were over my shoulder right now, she'd probably tell me not to use that word either) was permissible and expected.

We brought materials to work on thankyou cards. It was an interesting experiment, and worked out quite well. Our first time working with stencils and stencil-paints in a creative manner, and it worked out quite well (if we do say so ourselves).

Pwah and Puffer opened up a bottle of fire while sitting on the bed.

Not really. I was out trying to take pictures of stars, and forgot I'd left the 15 second manual exposure on. Thank goodness for digital film. :) The next picture is more what I was going for.

The next day, Amy and I went skiing, though she wasn't quite in the mood, and it took us most of the day just to get started. We spent most of our ski trip trying to find the beginning of the trail (quite a bit of skiing, that), and the fog was rolling in thick by the time we did finally find it. I skied down a few turns just to feel some sense of accomplishment, then skied back.

There were many beautiful things, but I only managed to capture a few of them (besides Amy) with the camera (and Amy is a tough subject to capture--she hates having her picture taken, and it tends to show; you have to catch her by surprise, and then, well... yes). One of the funniest things on the trip, though, was the handicapped parking--fully accessible the day we arrived. Shortly thereafter, though, it was all but completely lost--all but a small walkway that was plowed in front of it. Our own (borrowed) vehicle was fairly well snowed-in and abandoned by then, and that _with_ constant snowplow attention.

A bear in the lodge caught Amy's attention, and I requested a formal portrait. I took a few while she got irritated with the attention, but I managed one that I felt really captured something. Unfortunately, the bear came out a bit dark, but as you can see it is a rather large "stufftie".

I spent some time numbing my index finger in the snow, and finally managed one "Amy + Kaolin" that was rather picturesque. Then we drove off into the ... sun, as it was about eleven in the morning; we stopped for two pictures in front of some random sequoias, and I captured a man walking--frozen. We arrived home to the pleasant (and very sweet and thoughtful) surprise of "Just Married" balloons taped around our livingroom by Julie.