Le Sigh

Shortly after I posted "clunky panorama" (ie within about 20 minutes) the hard drive in my Dell Inspiron 1000 decided to throw a rod. After much effort and cash I have a "phat" new laptop (Dell Lattitude 820) and an empty hard drive.

Yes, my last file backup (thanks to a CD burner on the fritz and my own laziness) was in March of 2006. All in all, I lost a bunch of D&D related work, a bunch of images from the interweb and my own digi-cam, all prior incarnations of my card game except the prototype deck and the outline and first chapter of my sci-fi book.

Yes. It sucks. But, life goes on and I shall rise to the occasion.

In other news, my "phat" new laptop allows me to play Civ 4, City of Heroes/Villains and I start my "intensive" week long writing course at Hugo House tonight.

Clunky Panorama

Each individual picture I took from the Indian Watchtower really didn't do the view justice. It was just radically different from anything else I'd seen at the Canyon. In an attempt to "do it justice" I tried to piece together several photos to generate a panoram. Unfortunately, it didn't work quite as well as I had wanted. Next time I go to the Grand Canyon I'm bringing along a camera with larger field lenses.

Indian Watchtower

The last South Rim viewpoint before leaving the park is the "Indian Watchtower" or "Desert View" point. It's pretty interesting because you can see a large swath of the Painted Desert, as well as up the canyon rather than across.

Moran Point

After leaving the South Rim Village, we drove along the rim towards the eastern gate of the park. Originally we weren't going to stop, but I just couldn't help myself and shrilly demanded that Scottland stop at Moran Point.

Condors?

After walking the rim trail we collected our booty from the Bright Angel giftshop and indulged in official Grand Canyon ice-cream cones. It was around this time that I took some pictures of what I think are California Condors in flight.