Slippery thimbles

No, he doesn't take a tripod up the hills! Possibly the small shoulder pod (bit like a tripod with a 'knee' in it that you put up against a shoulder like a riffle butt), but the tripod stays with me for taking close shots of the sewing! :D

You're going to be sewing when you visit the Grand Canyon???

I shan't take mine with me when we go to the Arctic!

Mary

*Aaaackkkk* I'll be in the parking lot, clinging to the car. Hoping the brake is set firmly.

I'll join you. Let's have a picnic!

Mary

You're mad.

But there again, you're English ...

:-)

Mary

You mean you cannot visualize me sitting at the edge of the canyon treadling away, or winding a hand crank making a Canyon Quilt?

I always take at least ONE sewing machine on holiday with me, and often a serger as well!

Kate, you sound like me. My sewing machine and/or serger along with a well-equipped sewing basket are in the vehicle usualy before my luggage. As the American Express card ad says, "Never leave home without it."

Now back to the sewing machine to work on Christmas sewing: pajamas & Christmas jumper for DGD, gift card holders for DCs, their spouses and the other 5 DGC; a receiving blanket/crib sheet set, w/his name embroidered on each, for a new great nephew, rice bags for my siblings & their spouses w/their names embroidered on one end and a design on the other. Thankfully, DS will do the embroidering, he enjoys it and is much faster than me. Emily

Right! We'll have a tailgate party!

But then you'd have to climb all the way back up again. Unless, of course, you are expecting those of us sitting at the top, quietly enjoying the view, to haul you up in a basket????

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

Make sure your hair is pinned up firmly and can't get caught in the brake bars.

Joy Beeson

I'll bring the bubbly.

Mary

Not me! Scot, through to the bones! ;)

30 years go I'd be climbing up with the best of them. These days we'll hitch a basket to that treadle...

Break bars? Never used one of those... Rope through a figure 8 thing at best.

Sorry.

Just as mad though, in a different way :-)

After all, you migrated to Albion ...

One of our daughters in law is a Scot, they live in Wiltshire (RAF) and she calls us Motherrrrrrrrrr and Fatherrrrrrr, even writes it on greetings cards and mails. We're very fond of her. Nothing against Scots :-)

Mary

>

Brake bar -- as in "slam on the brakes". It was a bar across the middle of a carabiner; probably the precursor of your figure 8 thing. Does "at best" imply that you are familiar with "hot seat" abseiling?

Back in the sixties, the Indianapolis Star printed a dramatic picture of an abseiler standing on the side of a building. The caption said that he was climbing up by a process called "repelling" -- oh, man, paging Dr. Cavor!

(The reporter had heard "rapelling", the American word for "abseiling".)

Joy Beeson

Engaging nitpick mode: rappel is French, and abseil is German....

A tripod isn't necessary, but will make it easier to stitch the images together. What's more important is to try to get the exposure set to an acceptable level for the whole panorama and then keep it that way - fully auto digital cameras make this much more difficult. Best to set the brightest part of the pano - nearest to the sun - to just saturate the image, as digital post-processing can pull a lot of detail out of shadowed areas.

It can take a long time to stitch together a whole 360-degree panorama. It is best *NOT* to use the wide-angle end of the zoom range, as this has more distortion making it harder to blend the images.

Yerss, werll, that was then and this is now, right? I used to go off for weekends in the wild with 40 pounds on my back, but nowadays I figure scenery is all very fine during the daytime, but come 5:00 p.m. I want hot and cold running water, innerspring mattresses and air conditioning. Not to mention restaurants with decent menus.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.