The Flaming Family Blog: Travel 2011

Showing posts with label Travel 2011. Show all posts

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge Cabin

Thought this was so cool in iMovie I made another video...this one I set to auto play in HD.

Grand Canyon - North Rim Lodge

I thought this was cool and I had to share.

I took this video on my camera (a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7) of when Mom, Dad, Terrie and I went to the Grand Canyon back in September of this year. I had uploaded the video and pictures to my iPad but here is where it gets cool. I took the video and imported it into an app called iMovie for the iPad. With that app, I was able to modify the video as you see and then upload it to a couple of movie sites such as YouTube and Vimeo. By the way, if you have a Google account, you have a YouTube account and a Picasa account so you can upload both your pictures and your videos and post them here from your smartphone (iPhone, Droid, etc.) or tablet (iPad, Android tablet, etc.).

Here is the video on YouTube...

Here is the video on Vimeo...

The Grand Canyon - North Rim from Dean Flaming on Vimeo.

A view of the Grand Canyon from the North Rim

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Additional Sonora Resort Pictures

I thought I'd post some of the other pictures we took while at the resort over our anniversary weekend.

Here's a shot from the helo while coming in for a landing.

Below is a shot of the passage from our room.

Speaking of our room, Terrie had to get shots of our fridge. All goodies inside are part of the room rate and no additional charge...along with calls to anywhere in the world.

Can't forget what's in the door...

Here's another shot of our view and room.

Terrie took me "for a drag" (i.e. Translates to "hike [with intent]") the next day (we took the BLUE trail as Terrie thought that'd be the easiest - what part of that was the "easiest", I'm not quite sure)...

...and the views (once we made it to the top of the world) were beautiful.

At one point while taking the above picture, Terrie was gesturing and couldn't tell if this meant we were at the "location of intent" or if she was holding something.... ;-)

Turns out she was just holding up the bear bell. Whew!! ;-) Let's just hope she's not "calling" a bear in. :-o

After recovering from the above "near death" experience (wink wink), we went on a boat cruise (You see what I mean by the word "intent"? For those of you who are not aware, water is another potential peril of mine.). It was just the two of us, our captain, and hostess (thank goodness there were witnesses this time). ;-)

Our Captain... He works for the resort and takes many parties out on the water throughout the day doing such things as fishing trips, eco-cruises (dolphins & whales, etc.) and more romantic cruises such as what we did.

Our hostess... She was sitting in the back as we were preparing for a somewhat fast run down to another area.

The boat cruise was really cool (and no, I didn't fall in or get wet).

We were able to see all sorts of wildlife...

Note the many heads sticking out of water in the above picture.

...some neat scenery...

Thank goodness it was really calm.

...and some uber-rich person's cool toys on one of the nearby islands.

And let's not forget Hers and His boats below....

After the boat ride, we came back and had dinner. I must say, they have the most wonderfully prepared meals. For dinner this night, I had the pasta and Terrie had the crab.

For lunch both days, I had the Sonora Burger....which was absolutely, hands down, the best burger I have ever had! It's their own mix of meat and spices - a combination of ground steaks. Even the homemade fries were great!

For a lunch side on the last day, I requested a plate full of their fresh grown tomatoes. They are absolutely wonderfully fresh tomatoes! You can see them in the background of the above picture.

On the day we left, it was rainy (to be expected in the Pacific NW - especially within the Inside Passage). Therefore, the helo flight back was mostly around the 300ft elevation level until it started clearing up. Fun!

Terrie and I on the flight back...

Coming in for a landing was really fun...

Taxiing up to the terminal where we took off, we noticed it was next to the air ambulance terminal. As you can imaging, Terrie had some flashbacks to her previous occupation. :-)

All-in-all it was a fantastic and wonderful weekend.

We both agree, Sonora Resort is a very cool place!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Sonora Resort, Surge Narrows, British Columbia, Canada

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Sunrise at the Resort

How can you beat waking up to this?

Here's a better shot of just the sunrise.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Sonora Resort, Surge Narrows, British Columbia, Canada

Friday, August 19, 2011

Surprise Anniversary Trip!

So, I'm sure some of you knew this already, but Terrie surprised me for our 18th anniversary by taking me to the famous Sonora Resort in British Columbia, CA.

In case you're wondering where it's at, it's a 45 minute helicopter flight up the Inside Passage, North West of Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

NOTE: For all images, click them to see larger versions.

In the below map of the Inside Passage and Vancouver Island, see the blue dot in the upper left corner - this is where the Sonora Resort is located.

As I said, we took a helicopter flight up to the resort. The flight was out of Vancouver right next to the International Airport. This was my 1st time ever on a helicopter! For you aviation types, it was an Agusta Westland AW-139 helo. Here we are (below) watching our fellow passengers board.