Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Today is usually a day when I post my Lens-Artists response for the week. As the Lens-Artists are on hiatus until January, I thought it a great time to review a trip to Winnipeg and our visit to the Human Rights Museum.

We visited there in the summer of 2019, and I told the story of the museum and its mission in January 2020. The museum is the world’s first to focus on human rights. This holiday season, take a look back at my original tour of the museum. You will find the post at this link:

Happy New Year! May 2024 be a better year than 2023 has been for recognizing basic human rights.

John Steiner

Happy Boxing Day to the Commonwealth countries of the British Empire. For those who are not acquainted with Boxing Day, from someone who often wondered why our Canadian neighbors held boxing matches on the day after Christmas, I am ready to admit the error of my ways.

After making friends with Canadian snowbirds in Arizona and taking some trips across our northern border, I learned the truth about Boxing Day. It is a public holiday in the United Kingdom and many other Commonwealth countries, including Australia, Canada, and New Zealand on December 26th. Disclaimer: Being an American Revolutionary, I am a British traitor. I won’t guarantee that the information I gleaned from the web about Boxing Day is accurate. Please correct any errors you find in the comments.

In honor of Boxing Day, I am featuring images captured from various journeys to the few countries of the Commonwealth that I have had the pleasure of visiting. I begin the photo gallery with a visit to Niagara Falls where three major waterfalls on the Niagara River separate Canada from the United States. The image above was captured from the top of Skylon Tower, an observation tower at Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

Ontario and Newfoundland are especially fond of celebrating Boxing Day with an ancient tradition called Mumming. In some places, mumming takes the form of a folk play or farce, a lighthearted performance that brings laughter and joy during the Twelve Days of Christmas. In Canada, however, mumming is characterized by its playful pranks and elaborate costumes. Groups of mummers, their faces hidden behind disguises, roam neighborhoods, engaging in playful antics and surprising unsuspecting residents.

Boxing Day is a day when people traditionally give gifts to those who are less fortunate, such as servants and tradespeople. It’s also a day when people watch or play sports, such as football or rugby, and eat leftovers from Christmas dinner.

Another observation tower is in the nearest major city in Canada to us in North Dakota, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Winnipeg is some 220 miles (356 km) from Fargo. In the last few years, we’ve made a few trips across the border to Winnipeg and to other cities north of the Great Lakes. One of the most impressive places to visit in Winnipeg is the Human Rights Museum. We spent a full afternoon there and finished our museum visit at the top of the tower for some beautiful views of the city.

Near Winnipeg, Lower Fort Garry is now a popular tourist destination. Visitors can explore the fort’s buildings, which have been restored to their 1850s appearance. Several interpretive exhibits tell the story of the fort and its role in Canadian history.

But why is it called “Boxing Day”? Some say it’s because people used to give boxes of food and gifts to their servants on this day. Others say it’s because of the “Christmas box,” which was a box of money or gifts that employers gave to their employees.

Near the Tower of London, Tower Bridge crosses the Thames River. The iconic bridge is often confused with the previous London Bridge which is now in Arizona (long story.) Tower Bridge opened in 1910 with great celebrations.

On Boxing Day, traffic on the bridge often consists of shoppers wishing to take advantage of deep discounts offered by merchants, or maybe they are on their way to one of the many sporting events like horse racing, rugby, or cricket matches. I imagine that the UK embraces this post-Christmas holiday with warmth, cheer, and a touch of British eccentricity.

The arch in the image above allows rail traffic to pass above the city street in this area northwest of the Tower of London. There are many restaurants and pubs in this neighborhood. It was a quiet evening when I took a photo walk along this street.

Boxing Day is celebrated on December 26, the same day as Saint Stephen’s Day, a Western Christian feast day that commemorates the first Christian martyr. Eastern Christianity celebrates the day on December 27. Saint Stephen was one of the seven deacons chosen by the early Christian community in Jerusalem to distribute food and aid to the poor and needy.

Over the years of cruising the Caribbean, we’ve visited two island members of the British Commonwealth. Early in the morning, our ship arrived for our visit to Tortola in the eastern Caribbean. They once said the sun never sets on the British Empire, we’ve yet to visit Australia or New Zealand where the sun was most certainly shining when this image was captured. In Australia, Boxing Day is the second-busiest shopping day of the year, after Black Friday.

When the sun rises on Tortola’s Boxing Day, many restaurants offer special Boxing Day menus featuring traditional Caribbean dishes. By the time nightlife comes alive, Boxing Day celebrations often feature live music from reggae bands to steel drums.

Another Commonwealth island is Grand Turk in the Caribbean. Apparently, there isn’t a lot to do on the island except go to the beach. The day we were there, two cruise ships disgorged thousands of passengers. From my perspective walking along the pier, we decided we’d go shopping instead. Maybe we could pick up a special gift for Boxing Day. The islands celebrate Boxing Day in typical Caribbean style. In the Bahamas, for example, Junkanoo Carnival is a multi-day celebration held every Boxing Day through New Year’s Day. Junkanoo is a highly anticipated annual celebration.

In Nova Scotia, Boxing Day is much more relaxed than much of the rest of the Commonwealth. The holiday is a time to unwind after the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season. Shopping on Boxing Day is apparently not a “thing” in the province. Both Christmas Day and Boxing Day are designated retail closing days in Nova Scotia, which means you can expect almost every retail outlet to be shut down for the two days. If you must do something to celebrate the holiday, the Boxing Day Dip in the icy cool waters of the province will probably suffice.

Boxing Day, in French-speaking Montreal is known as le lendemain de Noël. The city celebrates Boxing Day with retail sales events, outdoor winter activities, and continuing the festive spirit of the holiday season.

Just a few steps outside our Holiday Inn, a pedestrian mall features shops and stores catering to Chinese residents and tourists alike. Coming off our Transatlantic cruise still missing our lost luggage, we didn’t have nice warm jackets like most of the people we saw. Our outdoor visit was limited by our ability to withstand the cold in only the replacement clothes purchased in warm and sunny Rio de Janeiro. By the way, I don’t know how to translate Boxing Day into Chinese in any dialect. Sorry.

For my friends and readers who live in the Commonwealth, I wish you a Happy Boxing Day, in whatever way you celebrate it. Oh, I almost forgot my Boxing Day gift for our Canadian neighbors. I hope regifting is OK. I am regifting Justin Bieber to Canada. Enjoy.

John Steiner

Saint John, New Brunswick.

A placard near this lamp post notes that the lamp, then a single oil lamp, was placed as a navigation aid in 1842. Vessel captains could line up the light with the Trinity Church spire to navigate safely into the harbor at night. Eventually, the lamp was replaced with three gas-powered lights, red panels facing the sea, and white panels facing the land. Of course, modern navigation tools have long since replaced the need for lamps.

At some point, lost in history, locals started calling the lamps the Three Sisters. Some say the term is a reference to maritime navigation using the constellation Orion whose belt consists of three stars often referred to as the Three Sisters. Some say the reference is more modern, coined by a local radio host, and the term caught on with the locals. Some say it is a reference to folklore, the three sisters waited on that spot for their husbands to return from the sea. Their story is one of tragedy, love, and the enduring spirit of sisterhood.

As fate would have it, tragedy struck when a powerful storm swept across the bay, claiming the lives of many sailors, including the husbands of the three sisters. In their grief, the three sisters sought solace in their shared pain and love for one another. Determined to honor the memory of their lost loves, they decided to dedicate their lives to the sea that had taken their partners away.

As the years passed, the sisters became known as the Three Sisters of Saint John, symbols of strength, resilience, and unwavering love. Their legend grew, inspiring generations of Saint John residents to embrace the virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

About the photo: A couple of weeks ago, I saw a YouTube video about a Photoshop process to create some fine art images. I subscribe to Lightroom and Photoshop, but it’s mostly to get access to Lightroom. Despite my lack of expertise, I decided to try to get Photoshop to do what I wanted, but it was a real challenge, even with the help of the video as recent updates to P/S didn’t quite match the video anymore. I got the job done and learned a bit along the way. That post was published a month or so ago.

As it turned out, I found I could use the same P/S method to give this image a soft-focus background. The image was shot with an f/1.8 lens opening. [edit: After a comment from Philo, noting the lack of background blur for a typical f/1.8 image, I admitted to the same misgivings. In reviewing my collection of images from my Samsung S20U, it appears the camera always reported f/1.8 in the metadata. So, I can’t say for sure what the true f/stop is for this image.] The background objects, that cruise ship and apartment building were in sharp focus. I tried my usual process in Lightroom and Luminar Neo to de-emphasize the background but I wasn’t happy, so then I got the idea to use the process I’d just learned in Photoshop. After basic edits in Lightroom, I sent the image to Photoshop where I used the Subject mask to put the lamp on a separate layer and hid the layer. I then used Context Aware to remove the lamp from the background image. Finally, I used the Blur>Lens blur tool to defocus the background. When I turned the lamp layer back on, I was done. With the image posted to Flickr and to the top of this post, all I had left to do was tell the story.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Yes, I know, we missed an opportunity. Saint John is surrounded by natural beauty, thanks to its location on the Bay of Fundy. The bay is known for having the highest tides in the world, resulting in dramatic changes in water levels throughout the day. Views of the changing tides are popular at the Bay of Fundy, but the excursion times were long, a couple over seven hours. We tend to limit our excursions to five hours generally and therefore made the decision to walk the part of the city known as “Uptown.” The historic area is a short walk from where we were docked at the Diamond Jubilee Cruise Terminal located at the mouth of the Saint John River. But I am getting ahead of myself in the photo story.

Of course, a lighthouse attracted my attention on this cloudy morning. Coming into the harbor we passed the Courtenay Bay Breakwater Lighthouse at the far end of the breakwater that protects the seaport.

From the balcony of our ship, I saw a Celtic Cross. I learned in my visit to the monument that the cross was erected in 1997 by descendants of the Irish settlers and is a half-scale replica of a cross erected in 1927 that stands on Partridge Island in Saint John Harbor. That cross replaced a wooden cross that stood in the cemetery on the island since 1847.

The text engraved on the cross notes in part, THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED IN MEMORY OF MORE THAN 2000 IRISH IMMIGRANTS WHO DIED OF TYPHUS FEVER CONTRACTED ON SHIPBOARD DURING THE VOYAGE FROM IRELAND IN THE FAMINE YEAR 1847 AND OF WHOM 600 WERE BURIED IN THIS ISLAND.

The text also commemorates the devotion and sacrifice of Dr. James Patrick Collins who emigrated to Saint John in 1837 and soon began an internship with a prominent local physician. At the start of the epidemic, Dr. Collins played a prominent role in combating the disease but in less than a month he contracted the disease and only a week later he died.

A short walk from the Celtic Cross is the Three Sisters Lamp. The story of the lamp and its history in Saint John is featured in the next Cellpic Sunday. Coincidentally, the Norwegian Joy docked just ahead of our ship earlier that morning. It was in the background when I captured the photo of the Three Sisters. I had fun reprocessing this photo to blur the background and I documented the method I used in Sunday’s post.

The Joy was docked directly behind a container village. About forty businesses are housed in shipping containers. I haven’t ever seen one of these before. Two containers stacked one upon the other serve as a single business. Generally, the lower container contains the retail store, tour company, or other vendor. The container above is apparently used as an office or warehouse for the store below, though none were open to view and confirm.

The fronts of the lower container were cut open with supporting doorways in such a way as to act as storefronts for the business. There was even one container stack in a fenced area reserved for crew members on shore break to relax and have a drink or a snack. Admission to the fenced-off area is via a valid crew member ID. The village is open Wednesday through Sunday and whenever a cruise ship is in port.

We headed up Prince William Street toward The City Market, one of the oldest continuously operating farmers’ markets in North America. Only about a 10-minute walk from the docks, the market is popular with visitors and it is home to over 100 vendors selling a wide variety of local produce, meats, seafood, baked goods, crafts, and other goods. Given the fact that we are limited to food products that can be brought back on the ship, be cautious about what food products you might purchase there unless it is for immediate consumption.

The city’s Uptown area features well-preserved Victorian-era architecture, including the colorful row houses of the Trinity Royal Heritage Conservation Area. As we walked up Prince William Street, we passed by several of these beautiful old homes.

After our short walk about the city, we were back on the ship before noon and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon on the deck, cold drinks in hand, and played a game of Mexican Train using the domino set we brought along. Eventually, we noticed we were under power as the ship sidestepped away from the dock.

As we got far enough away from the dock, using the side thrusters, the captain and port pilot executed a 180-degree rotation of the ship so we could head forward out of the harbor. That maneuver gave me a full view of the Joy still sitting next to the dock.

As we exited the harbor, we passed Partridge Point and the Partridge Island Lighthouse. There was still plenty of daylight, but the lighthouse was operating. Now operated by the Canadian Coast Guard, the navigation aid is no longer used to guide ships, but it is a popular tourist destination. Visitors can take a ferry to the island and climb the lighthouse for stunning views of the harbor. We’ll save that ferry ride for our next visit to Saint John.

I captured a few images of the light’s flare when it rotated so the light pointed directly at me. Of course, I couldn’t just leave the image alone, I used Luminar Neo’s radial mask and Sunray tools to emphasize the light beams. Then I created a low-key image by simply lowering the exposure in Lightroom. For this image, the lens was set to 52 mm. On my Flickr site, I also provide this image with the correct exposure for you if you are interested in seeing the “true” amount of daylight as we exited the harbor.

I also captured a view of the lighthouse with my zoom lens set to 185 mm. I decided to use DxO’s Silver Efex 2 to process it into black-and-white. You can view the entire gallery of images in 2K HD on my Flickr site in the album here.

As we sailed away, I came to two conclusions, first that Saint John offers a combination of historical charm, natural beauty, and a thriving urban center. Secondly, I came to regret our original decision to bypass the Bay of Fundy, but that gives us an excuse to plan a future visit.

John Steiner

Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.

We stopped at Saint John on our Canadian cruise out of New York in September 2022. Our goal for our one-day visit was simply to walk around the city near the dock where the Carnival Magic tied down for the day.

The Saint John Cruise Port is one of the primary ports of call for cruise ships visiting the Bay of Fundy region. The port can accommodate large vessels and offers a range of facilities and services for cruise passengers. For cruisers who do not even wish to walk uptown, there is a container village featuring souvenir shops and other typical vendors of cruise products, tour companies, and even a lounge only open to cruise ship employees who want to spend some of their free time off the ship.

About the photo: Upon leaving the ship, we walked over to Water Street and I saw an opportunity to capture the Carnival Magic in a two-image panoramic photograph. The ship is home to about 1400 crew members who service the needs of around 3700 passengers, typically.

I brought the two images, bow and stern each 12,000 by 9,000 pixels, into Adobe Lightroom’s panoramic stitcher and then reduced the panorama’s size to 4096 pixels wide before I shipped the combined image off to Luminar Neo. Loading super large images into Neo for processing can take a very long time to do basic processing tasks that would be wasted on the resolution of a typical blog post.

The weather was mostly overcast and the sky really didn’t complement the image so I experimented with sky replacement. As we arrived early in the morning, I found a sky from Luminar’s collection that reflected the appropriate time of day for us to leave the ship. The dock is oriented mostly north and south so with the ship pointed in a northwesterly direction, the clouds would be lit from the left rear of the ship with the light stronger at the stern. The angle of the sun in the sky I chose didn’t match the orientation of the ship so I used the “flip” option in the sky replacement tool. That moved the angle of the sun toward the rear of the ship.

If you look at the original version, you can see that the eastern side of the taller section of the cruise terminal appears to be properly lit by the sun but the upper level of the tallest section appears to be a bit in the shade of a cloud. In the modified image, I used the brush mask to first raise the exposure to the upper section of that tall eastern wall to match the lower part of the wall. Then I masked the entire wall of that section and raised the exposure a bit more to emphasize the sunlit wall. Taking care of small details with shadows and sunlight angles when using sky replacement makes the final image realistic and believable. I used Neo’s Golden Hour slider to give the plants in the foreground a bit of early morning color. Were you able to tell immediately that something wasn’t quite right in the sky or the lighting? Which version of the image do you prefer? Let me know what you think in the comments. For a closer look at the images, click on either one above to view them on my Flickr site in 2K HD.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

St. Margaret’s Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada.

With the coming of spring, cruise ships are beginning their northern treks to the colder climates. Alaska on the Pacific Ocean and Canadian seaports on the Atlantic Ocean. Both are worthy cruise destinations. Last September we ventured from New York City to several cities in the eastern Canadian provinces. Our excursion to Peggy’s Cove was probably my favorite tour despite the approximate one-hour bus ride to the village on St. Margaret’s Bay from the cruise dock in Halifax. The fishing village begged for at least one color to black-and-white image conversion. But let’s start at the beginning of today’s Travel Tuesday post.

As we sailed into the harbor at Halifax, a small island attracted my attention. I would later find out it is known as Georges Island, named for King George II of Great Britain. The Island is the location of Fort Charlotte – named after King George’s wife. According to Wikipedia, as of August 6, 2020, the island is open to the public on the weekends from June until Thanksgiving weekend. A ferry is the means of transportation to the island.

The large harbor can accommodate multiple cruise ships. These two smaller ships were already in port as we pulled into our berth on the Carnival Magic. Halifax is home to almost 500,000 residents. The city’s large natural port has attracted seafarers since the early 1700s. There were several excursions that featured stops in the city, but we opted to focus on a trip to Peggy’s Cove.

We boarded the excursion bus and left the capital city of Nova Scotia and headed on a major highway to the southwest. The views out of the bus window begged to be captured. I don’t always have good luck shooting from bus windows, but the photos I captured turned out better than expected. I believe the image above is a view of the homes on the northwest end of White’s Lake.

I didn’t have GPS tracking available to tell me exactly the location of these images along our route, but I believe the images above and below to be Second Chain Lake just west of Halifax.

All along the route, the countryside was beautiful, with late summer greens punctuated by blue water.

Once we left the city, the drive to Peggy’s Cove was an enjoyable 45 minutes or so of natural beauty interspersed with small clusters of residences and lakeside businesses.

Peggy’s Cove is a small rural community located on the eastern shore of St. Margaret’s Bay in Nova Scotia, Canada. The community is known for its picturesque lighthouse, stunning natural scenery, and its historic fishing village. A large parking lot was full of private vehicles and tour buses. We were given the option of following the tour guide on a guided walk or exploring on our own.

The Peggy’s Point Lighthouse, which was built in 1915, is the most iconic feature of the community. It is perched on a granite outcropping at the tip of the peninsula and has become a symbol of Nova Scotia. The lighthouse is still active today and serves as a navigational aid for sailors in the area. It was clearly the biggest draw for visitors that day. We stayed with the tour guide for a short time, then struck out on our own to explore the community.

Aside from the lighthouse, Peggy’s Cove is also known for its rugged coastline and granite rocks that have been sculpted by the powerful waves of the Atlantic Ocean. We explored the rocky shoreline and tidal pools and checked out the views of the ocean and surrounding landscape.

The community of Peggy’s Cove has a rich history dating back to the early 1800s when it was settled by fishermen and their families. Today, the fishing industry still plays an important role in the local economy, and visitors can watch the fishermen at work and sample some of the freshest seafood in the region.

In the harbor area only one boat, the Harbour Mist, appeared to be occupied. Someone was working on the boat, maybe finishing the cleanup from the morning’s fishing. In the background, we spotted a bright orange steeple. Earlier, our tour guide mentioned that the only church in the village is a tourist attraction of its own.

The Peggy’s Cove Saint John’s Anglican Church is the only church in the village. The small wooden building was built in 1893 and features a simple design with a sloped roof and a steeple. The church holds regular services every Sunday and volunteer docents are available daily to chat about the church and its history. Though the church is open, it’s a bit of a walk from where we were and we were running short on time before we reboarded our bus. If we had seen it a bit sooner, we’d have probably taken that walk.

It’s no wonder that most of the excursions for cruisers visiting Nova Scotia feature a stop at Peggy’s Cove. Its stunning natural beauty, rich history, and vibrant fishing culture make it a unique and unforgettable place to visit. All of the images in this post are available for pixel peeping in 2K HD at my Flickr gallery here.

John Steiner

Montreal, Canada.

On our brisk walk through Montreal’s Chinatown one chilly Friday afternoon, we saw this interesting building and three people meditating. I snapped the photo with my Samsung S23U and quickly moved on. When we got home and I started processing the photo, I could read at least part of the signage I’d captured describing the reason for what I discovered to be a protest.

The headings, in French and English, on the sign closest to the camera read, “Global Peaceful Resistance to the Persecution of Falun Gong.” A little Internet research told me of something that was totally new to me. Falun Gong is not an ancient Chinese religion as I might have guessed. It’s not a religion at all. According to Wikipedia, “It’s a spiritual practice that combines meditation and qigong exercises with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.”

Established in 1992, the practice of Falun Gong soon came to the attention of the Chinese government. Originally the discipline was supported by the Chinese authorities but by 1999, the practice fell out of favor with the government. Practitioners have been tortured and killed in China and around the world for their practice.

About the photo: Captured with my Samsung S23U, the composition was interesting to me because of the design of the building, the bust of an unknown (to us) Chinese person, and the act of meditation that was going on. As cold as it was, we didn’t take the time then to read the signs or I might have paused to capture some additional images.

Processing the image in Adobe Lightroom was interesting as while we were on our journey, an update to Adobe Lightroom brought more powerful processing tools to the program. As it turned out, I didn’t specifically need the AI noise reduction feature for this image. I played a bit with the masking features but eventually didn’t use them. I sent it off to Luminar Neo for final tweaks and called it done.

Side note: For an experiment, instead of using my usual tools, Firefox browser and Duck Duck Go search engine, for my background search about Falun Gong, I tried Bing’s Chat AI tool to do this research. I was impressed with the quick responses and quoting of sources for my basic questions about Falun Gong. I found it interesting what happened, though, when I asked the specific question, “Why are practitioners of Falun Gong being persecuted?”

The Chat AI program actually generated a lengthy response that I started to read, but then that text disappeared, replaced with, “Sorry! That’s on me, I can’t give a response to that right now. What else can I help you with?”

In learning about Bing Chat’s AI tool, before trying this experiment, I found that since the program is in Beta, there are issues with getting results. I re-asked the question. The same lengthy response was generated, but before I could finish reading the first sentence, the text again disappeared and the same “Sorry…” message reappeared. I waited about 10 minutes and tried the question again. The lengthy response reappeared and disappeared as quickly as before. This time, the message changed. “Hmm…let’s try a different topic. Sorry about that. What else is on your mind?” If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d say something is up here. >grin<

Later that day, I decided to try ChatGPT’s online site rather than Bing’s Chat interface. As it turned out, ChatGPT generated a five-paragraph answer that didn’t disappear. I don’t know if it was basically the same response as Bing’s chat rejected, but it seemed accurate as far as I could guess, anyway. The first paragraph reads, “The Chinese government banned the spiritual practice of Falun Gong in 1999 and has since launched a campaign to suppress and persecute its practitioners. The reasons behind this persecution are complex and controversial…” The chat function in Bing still generates a response that disappears before I could read it.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Last week, we introduced our journey to Barcelona and ended the post with a cliffhanger about our return home. It was only to be a short layover at Montreal and a short flight to Minneapolis to a waiting hotel. After all, it would have been twenty hours of awake time. Weeks ago, we reserved a room near the Minneapolis airport to start fresh for the 3 1/2-hour drive home to Fargo the next morning.

I knew something was up when the folks sitting ahead of us on our way to Montreal discovered during the flight that their next flight was canceled and they were rebooked on another flight for Saturday. Saturday?!?! It was only Wednesday. I checked my own boarding pass online via the aircraft WiFi and discovered our plane was rescheduled for 11:30 PM. Then my niece, who was sitting several rows ahead of us, strolled back with the news that their flight was rescheduled as well. We were on the same plane, but their flight was rebooked. Uh oh…

When we got on the ground, we discovered that Montreal was in the midst of a major ice storm and that our flight to Minneapolis was canceled before it left Atlanta for Montreal. Lynn and I would be flying out on Saturday morning, and my niece and her husband a day earlier. At first Air Canada told us we were on our own for a hotel, but after much confusion, we were walking away from the service desk when the lady who assisted us came running to catch us. She asked where we departed from, and when told “Barcelona”, she offered us one night’s stay and meal vouchers at the airport.

The problem was that much of the city was without power due to the ice storm that had come through just before we arrived. We later learned that power was out for almost a million residents of Montreal, about half the city.

We were eventually provided a room in a downtown high-end hotel for the night, the Vogue Montreal. We had no complaints about the hotel… except for the $350 USD or so per night rate. Grateful that the airline was picking up the tab for the first night, we considered staying on given that we plan to put in a travel delay claim with our travel insurance company. We decided that we would pick something less expensive for our additional two nights in case our travel insurance balked at the costs incurred. After all, we also have a delayed luggage claim to submit as well.

As the first hotel we tried near the airport was still without power and not taking guests, we opted for another downtown hotel, the Holiday Inn Downtown. As it turned out, the hotel is across from the convention center, and adjacent to Montreal’s Chinatown area. At about $165 USD a night, we hoped the insurance company would be happy we saved them some money, and we had a decent place to stay in an interesting part of the city. The opening image features the koi pond in the lobby area of the hotel.

We pretty much stayed in the hotel for lunch and dinner given the cold weather and lack of knowledge of places to eat. We hadn’t thought there might be a large food court in the nearby mall for lunch. Meal service was made a little more interesting by the robot in the image above. I kept hearing something rolling behind me while sitting at our lunch table. Of course, I assumed it was someone pushing a food cart. Eventually, I happened to look around to see the robot pictured above roll out of the kitchen area.

The robot is programmed with a stopping point in the kitchen so that the unit stops adjacent to the table where the customer is sitting. The waiter then unloads the food and serves it. Being the techie that I am, I looked up the company on the web to learn about its products. Pudu Robotics designs are widely varied, but their main function is food and drink delivery. According to photos on their website, some units serve customers directly, while others, like the one in this Holiday Inn, deliver to the waiter for service. One could wax on about how technology is yet again displacing a worker, yet in our travels, one of the biggest problems we’ve seen in restaurants is a lack of staff. Pudu is addressing the problem with what appears to be a practical solution.

At breakfast on Friday morning, I got a phone call. It was a Delta Airlines baggage agent at our home airport in Fargo. They had our luggage and wanted to know where to deliver it. I let them know we were still in transit, but we would pick it up from the airport on Saturday or Monday when we returned home.

My niece and her husband were flying out early Friday, and we had the entire day to explore. Unfortunately, we were dressed for Barcelona, not Montreal when it came to outerwear. We had only light jackets, and as you can see in the photo above, folks were dressed much more warmly. Still, we decided to brave the chill and take a walk down the pedestrian mall and around the block.

We headed down the pedestrian walkway until we got to one of the ornate Paifang gates marking the entrance on the opposite side. Montreal’s Chinatown is small, only about a square block according to the online history I am referencing as I write this. I must say, it seems larger than that description.

We were getting quite chilly in the cold Canadian breeze so we didn’t tarry as we walked through the neighborhood. Our final destination was an indoor mall only about a half-block from the hotel if we had gone direct, instead, we walked about two and a half blocks. On the way, we passed a peaceful demonstration. In a couple of weeks, I will feature a Cellpic Sunday story regarding what I learned about Falun Gong and the reason for this small demonstration.

As we hustled around the block, we found ourselves less protected from the wind on the busy Montreal street on our way to the indoor mall. Upon entering, we quickly found the items we were looking for and headed back to the hotel. Our flight’s boarding time was 5:30 AM and we were flying courtesy of Delta, the airline that Air Canada reserved for us on Wednesday.

A call to Delta on Friday afternoon turned out to be helpful. Their counter opens at 3:30 AM, and the agent let us know that if we arrived by 3:45 AM, we’d have enough time to go through customs and International Security. As it turned out, Air Canada had one more surprise for us.

We arrived at the airport on Saturday morning just after 3:30 AM after a 25-minute taxi ride. There was no line at the Delta check-in counter, so we stepped right up to discover an issue. After checking our passports, the agent pointed out that though we have seats on the scheduled aircraft, Air Canada had only provided one e-ticket, Lynn’s. There was no e-ticket, therefore no payment was received by Delta, for the flight for me.

Back to the Air Canada counter… but they weren’t open yet. We waited patiently while one person set up the area for the day’s passengers. Finally ready to open, the ticket agent called us over and we explained the issue showing the agent documentation provided by Delta that noted the issue. It took 45 minutes and telephone support for her to work out the problem and we went back to the Delta counter with proper documentation in hand.

By now, the airport was bustling and the line through security was very long. The good news is that we arrived in the boarding area with about 10 minutes to spare and our flight to Minneapolis and drive home went without further issues.

As I noted in last week’s post, please don’t think we are complaining. Traveling the airlines these days is challenging. One needs to be flexible and not get upset over things over which one has no control. We rolled with the punches and now we’ll see how good our annual travel policy is.

It looks like our luggage made many more air miles than we did. Unfortunately, the cases don’t have frequent flyer mileage accounts or they would have probably earned a free flight after just one trip. >grin<

We are a little “burned out” from traveling for now, but you know we will soon be planning another cruise for later this year. I’ve noticed that we generally do about two cruises a year, one in the Spring and one in the fall, usually about our wedding anniversary time. We haven’t got anything booked for October yet, but we’ll start looking and dreaming soon. I suspect our next cruise won’t be quite as ambitious as this one.

All of the images above can be viewed on my Flickr site in 2K HD here.

John Steiner

Sydney, Nova Scotia.

I am writing this in early December as our plans are to head to Florida for the month of January. This post is scheduled to publish on New Year’s Day, so I will start by wishing you and yours a safe and prosperous 2023.

I always find it interesting to see the docking operation of giant cruise ships in progress. Those ports with a long cruise ship pier are the easiest. The captain uses the ship’s side jets to snuggle up to the dock, lines are dropped over the side, and pier employees tie the vessel to those large mooring points at the edge of the dock.

The dock at Sydney held a couple of cruise ships that day, so the dock wasn’t quite long enough for the Carnival Magic. The stern end was tied to the dock as usual, and the gangway at midship reached down to the dock. The bow tie-downs, however, needed to reach the shore so a pilot boat transported the shore end of the lines across a short section of water to be tied down on the mooring posts at the land’s edge. Normally I’ve seen smaller boats used to transit the ship’s lines. In fact, it’s often been a rowboat without the benefit of an outboard motor in many cases.

About the photo: This image was captured while I was standing on the balcony of our cabin on deck 11 using my Samsung S20U. After downloading it to my laptop, I imported the image into Lightroom, then to Luminar Neo for final processing. Click on either image above to view it in 2K HD on my Flickr site.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Terrace Bay, Ontario, Canada.

On our September 2022 #RoadTrip, we made a few stops in Canada. On our route up the north shore of Lake Superior, we entered Canada and stopped at Thunder Bay for the night. From there we headed toward Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. Along the way, we spotted a pull-off and decided to take a break. What we thought was just a small picnic area wayside rest, turned out to be much more than that.

A boardwalk led me a short distance to a large overlook and viewing area. Below me lay a waterfall and a steep gorge. Looking directly south, I could just see Lake Superior in the distance. I didn’t have either of my “good” cameras with me, and I wasn’t going to hike back to the car to grab one. “This short rest stop would be a good Cellpic Sunday image,” I thought.

I captured a sign at the entrance to the boardwalk that provided the name of the falls and gorge. I was glad it was there as it would have been hard for me to remember how to spell Aguasabon. Looking on the Internet while creating this post, I saw many images of the falls, most with far more water falling than I saw that day. I’m sure most of the photos with large flows in the river were captured in the spring when the snow melt is heavy. This photo, taken on September 3 showed a much lower river flow.

About the photo: This photo was a bit of a challenge to process. It was a clear day, but there was a haze and mist that especially made the background hard to see, especially with the strong backlight from the morning sun on the lake. The S20U made the lake and islands in the background look almost cartoonish, especially after using the haze filter in Luminar Neo. This image is the first I created without using Lightroom for the usual opening tweaks. The only thing I used Lightroom for is exporting to publication size and adding the watermark. Click on the image above to view it in HD on my Flickr site.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment.

John Steiner