Keith's Odyssey to Planet Fitness: Me and the wine survived the trip

Friday, October 17, 2025

Me and the wine survived the trip

We are home. So is the wine. Intact. Wednesday was the big travel day. It took forever for the luggage to be delivered in Calgary, so we didn't get home till 11pm. Yes, Celina was cranky at us. I don't think she had forgotten who we were, but there were complaints that we weren't the good human that had taken such good care of her. Which is ironic, because she had barely talked to that good human the first couple days.

Yesterday was a blizzard of activity, getting a lab test requisition printed, and going to the lab. Lunch with our councillor's communication person who is moving on to new pastures. We wanted to thank him for all he has done for Woodcreek. Linda had a facial, and a massage, but not at the same time. Plus shopping to start restocking the fridge. Watching a mayoral debate so I can start thinking about who I should vote for.

Today I was looking over photos with the person who is the closest to an art patron that I have. She is looking at buying some prints that meet a certain criteria, so I showed her those on the big screen. Of course we drank coffee and chatted.

So far there's about 750 edited photos, and I don't think I'm quite done yet. Some of the night photos need special treatment. There are several sequences where there are a bunch of really similar photos, and I want to pick out the best one. Don't even ask about keywording. With the best will in the world, I can only work on photos for so long before I can't see the differences anymore, or I realize that I essentially haven't moved in a while, and I'm freezing.

I'm still thinking about how to blog about the trip. One thought is going through the photos topically. Beaches. Rocks. Waterfalls. Fall colours. Reflections. Photos of Linda or with Linda. (Hint, there are many.) Covered bridges and one uncovered. Astro. Landscapes. Waterscapes. Driftwood, although I didn't actually see all that much of it. Long exposures. Lighthouses, (lighthomes?) Flowers, yes even in October there were still some flowers hanging in. Models (ships and locomotives and whimsical, but not people except for Linda.) A giant lobster. Then there are lots of combinations, which makes it hard.

Or I could go through them sequentially in date order. There are 25 days, which is an average of 30 a day. Generally I try not to put more than 20 photos into a blog. And really, even though I edited the photo, is it really worthy of being blogged? There's lots of examples where I got a better photo of that several days later. Some of them are purely documentary to remind me where we were for that set of photos.

Or I could do a New Brunswick Of the Day feature. Hmmmm. Decisions, decisions. More than a year later and I'm still working through Newfoundland.

There are still inchoate thoughts about a book from the trip, and that was driving some of my thinking during the trip. I've no real idea of what should go in it. For some reason it seems less obvious than the Newfoundland trip book was. Maybe I should make myself a nice cup of mint tea and review my previous travel books. After all, it's cold and raining just now. Or was that a snowflake that just went past?

One of the potential book titles that amused me during the trip was "Linda forging ahead or surveying her domains."

But you were asking about the wine. (Glad to see you have your priorities in the right place.) We stopped in at the Magnetic Hill winery, and tried their samplers. One of them we didn't care for, the red was perfectly good although Linda says mine is better, the white was fine if a bit spritzy and sweet for our taste. Then there was their Maple Swish. OMG. It's a maple flavoured dessert wine that is like music on your tongue. We bought a case of it. They are happy to ship, except at the time Canada Post. We checked with Porter to see if we could check a case of wine, and they said it would be fine. We packed several beach towels around the box and put it in the freezer bag with some fragile stickers on it. I never know if that just encourages the ramp crews or if they actually treat it differently. It came out with the rest of the luggage, and was just fine when I opened it at home.

We flew Porter for the first time, and quite liked the experience. Their routes are limited, but if they fly where you want to go, I suggest you check them out. Which leads to a digressionary rant. They do lots of announcements, with quite a bit of repetition. It's like they think they have a plane full of passengers who have never flown before. Does anyone need to be told, again and again, that you aren't allowed to smoke on an airplane? Does anyone really need to be told how to fasten or unfasten a seatbelt? Is there anyone in the world who could breathe normally after they've clutched at the oxygen mask that just appeared in front of them because of an emergency? Does anyone not know that except for the smallest of commercial airliners, there are two exits at the front, at least two over the wing, and two at the rear? Does anyone listen to the announcements or watch the flight attendants do their safety briefing mime performance?

Back to the photos, after some rumination. And no, I haven't forgotten the September IotM. In the running is a long exposure harbour, 6 long exposure photos of a pair of waterfalls, and one of the path (such as it was) of the path to get to one of the waterfalls, which you will have seen if you've been following along.

As I'm scrolling through my photo folder I realize there are still lots of flower photos. It's Friday today, and some sunny flowers might cheer up the day. Maybe next week. Or maybe not at all; you guys have seen lots of flowers from me.

Rocks are sort of the opposite of flowers, but they still have interesting patterns. I found these on the beach below Cape Enrage, after we found the main site closed.