We arrived to a wonderful cottage in the mountains. You can see some pictures of the cottage here. We drove out to Cades Cove around 5pm yesterday and I was able to capture some wonderful images inside the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. And, unlike the artificial indoor waterfall shots at the Opryland Hotel, these shots are taken in the great outdoors. I’m glad I did not slip into the fast running river!
Today is the last day for the conference. Then it is off to the Smoky Mountains for the week-end. Quite looking forward to the photography opportunities that await in the Great Smoky Mountain Range. The weather forecast is excellent. And unlike the pictures of the Opryland Hotel, I will be outdoor shooting. Below are some more pictures of the hotel.
I have been attending a conference this week at the Opryland Hotel. The conference has been keeping me busy for most of the day so getting out to do photography has been somewhat constrained. I was able to get up a couple of hours before the sessions and take some shots of the various waterfalls and gardens that are located in the huge atriums of the hotel.
I have to be in Nashville on business next week. I decided to make the journey a road trip with my wife and youngest son. We are driving down over the next few days and we left our home this morning.
On our way, we decided to take a quick drive through our old neighborhood in London, Ontario. We lived there for about 18 years. My children were born in London. I did my university studies in London. I taught in London. I developed a fair amount of my professional career in London.
We moved somewhere north of Toronto about 9 years ago. The old neighborhood in London seemed quite unfamiliar to me, almost as though we had never lived there. Our first home, and the house that we built on Whisperwood, were recognizable and yet disconnected. Not really a part of my life.
We also drove by our old church, West Park, and went up to the site where the new church is being built. My goodness, it looks like a large U.S. style megachurch. The new building is huge.
The stroll down memory lane was worthwhile. I found myself thinking that a place is really just a place. When you leave, it becomes a distant memory.
These are some pictures that I took during our one day adventure to Paris last week. The subjects are famous attractions in Paris. See how many of them you can identify. I will give you the flowers in Paris shot. I took that one as we travelled down the Champs Elysees. The rest should be easy.
Some more pictures from our time in England. These ones were taken at the British Museum and the Tower of London.
As promised, here are some pictures from the trip to England last week. I am also posting pictures of the trip to my photoblog as well. In order of display: House of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, a couple of pictures of Westminster Abbey, Somerset House and the Tower Bridge.
We checked in at London Heathrow and we are waiting for our flight in the comfort of the Maple Leaf Club. I quite like the lounge at this airport. Great snacks like Walkers’ shortbread cookies.
Josh and I are beside each other, working the Internet on the lounge computers. Me and my blog. He and his Facebook. Joshua has about 274 friends on Facebook. And his page is very active. Some bloggers have moved to Facebook which I guess makes sense. The access to content is on an invitation basis.
From Wikipedia:
Facebook is a social networking website. It was originally developed for college and university students but has since been made available to anyone with an email address. People can select to join one or more participating networks, such as a high school, place of employment, or geographic region. As of February 2007, the website had the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites with over 19 million members worldwide (also from non-collegiate networks).
Facebook is the number one site for photos, ahead of public sites such as Flickr, with over 6 million photos uploaded daily, and is the sixth most visited site in the United States. The name of the site refers to the paper facebooks that colleges and prepatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff depicting members of the campus community.