Sorry, I got distracted

This mega-storm Sandy had me distracted for the last couple of days. My word what a mess she's left behind.  I'm glad all my friends in the NYC, and East Coast area are safe and relatively unharmed.

Now, let's get back to our regularly scheduled vacation recap. Today's story...Corner Brook Newfoundland.

As you may know my boss, TOJ, has a Newfy - River.  Sweetest, most manipulative dog (at least to me) ever. So naturally my main goal in Corner Brook Newfoundland was to get a photo of a Newfoundland in Newfoundland. 

I was the first person to exit the boat for excursions (I can't help myself. I like to be in the front of lines. I position myself so I can bolt the moment they called our excursion.). Upon exiting the boat, there sitting waiting for us passengers were Flossie and Shawna. Local Newfoundland's in Newfoundland.  

Flossie is the one standing and Shawna is the one laying down. Such sweet girls.

I did not run over screaming "PUPPIES!!!" - okay maybe I did.  I took a quick shot of these two adorable pups. I swear I thought they were males because of how big the were. The human owner said she feeds them well. 

I ran into Shawna and her owner later in the day during my excursion. I introduced Shawna to P-Dot. She sniffed him then took a lick.

According to TOJ this is the famound Newfoundland Turtle pose.

About Corner Brook - not an overly exciting destination. In fact, I couldn't figure out why a cruise ship would even bother stopping there.  There's a paper mill, and that's about it. Sure, Captain Cook was there, but where wasn't he? Surely there were more interesting destinations in Newfoundland? 

Regardless of how boring Corner Brook was, it was by far one of my favorite excursions. I took the Corner Brook In Focus excursion. Designed for photographers and the tour guide was a local, experienced photographer.  The best part of this tour was her giving us direction about composition, lighting, etc.  I just loved it. 

There were about 4 "serious" photographers on this trip. On guy, I'll call him Gus, was determined to make it a competition between he and I.  All he wanted to do was ask me how many photos I had taken, and thought maybe we should post them online and compete over who got the best photo.  Whatever Gus. Step away. 

Side note: Gus also ended up on my excursion in Sydney.  He had a tri-pod and ALL his lens for that trip. He felt he had to share his knowledge with me by showing me his multiple lenses.

I did decide, however, to test a friends photographer theory.  His theory is that if a respected photographer takes a picture of dirt with other photographers around, the other photographers will then too take a photo of said dirt.  I have a photo of dirt and Gus now has a photo of dirt.  

The excursion took us to an old train. Which by itself wasn't that interesting.  Turns out Newfoundland, years ago, adopted an odd scale for their trains. So when they tried to connect the trains to the rest of the world, they wouldn't work. So there are no trains that go into Newfoundland.

After the train excursion, we stopped to visit their old friend the "Old Man in the Mountain."  It took me a bit to actually see the old man, but mostly because I wasn't looking for a small man, I was trying to make the entire mountain an "old man". Do you see it?

After visiting with the old man, we took off to see their "Heritage Pole". Which turns out is nothing more than a Canadian totem pole. The photos depicted are of historical people and stories.  Interesting? Not really, but I still found some good shots.  This particular stop was COLD!! The wind was whipping through this little valley and the rain started pouring down shortly after we got there.  Not the best circumstances for photography.

The next stop was a BEAUTIFUL, fully fall colored park.  We had about 30 minutes to wonder around this park and take photos of the beautiful fall folliage.  IT was magnificent.  It was reported that there were swans of Corner Brook on the pond on the other end of the park. I hoofed it all the way out there and only found seagulls.  The swans were most likely taking a nap somewhere warm.

The last stop before heading back to our ship was at the Captain Cook statue.  My knowledge of Captain Cook is fairly limited, and revolves around Hawaii, not Canada. Apparently he was quite the traveler.  According to our tour guide, his drawings of the area was so well done that many local fishermen still rely on the maps he drew.  I called Urban Legend on that, but maybe. I didn't see any fishermen to actually ask, so who knows.

That's our ship down there.

At the end of the day, Corner Brook was cold, wet and not overly interesting. I don't see it as a destination city anytime soon.