Road Trips 2011

[Gene]

We are in Green River, Utah. Despite the desert, it has rained a lot here. It is Melon Days which meant the KOA, a CG we have stayed at on many trips, upped their rates. It is only 175 miles from home so it is convenient for first and last trip days. They upped their rates for the melon celebration. Everybody does this, but it feels like taking advantage of people. So they put us in the overflow (no trees area)—just gravel and sand, but to get wifi, they put us in the 50 amp overflow area and charged extra for that too. That's a new one. We are wondering if they have new owners or managers. Maybe, next time, we will try the CG down the street.

I'll try to upload photos in the next post, but here and at the last KOA, the wifi is bad. I keep getting weird messages from the Forum about tokens, or from the computer that I'm not on the internet.

Gene

[Gene]

Every time I tried to upload photos, I got messages that a security token was missing or that I was no longer connected to the internet. I asked the Forum what to do, and I have been told to resize photos to get them to upload. My new camera has better resolution and produces photos that are more megabytes than the Forum can deal with. I have no idea how to make a photo have less MB and can't find out how to do it in iPhoto. I found a very complicated way to turn them into tiff photos, but the Forum doesn't do tiff. Since the Forum can upload much bigger pdf files, I transferred them to a Word document and then turned it into a pdf file, but that doesn't seem to work either.

When I first tried to upload photos several years ago, my old camera had too many MB for the Forum, but shortly after that the capacity was upgraded to 3 MB. My new camera produces jpeg photos from 3.5 to 9 MB so far. Maybe it is time to upgrade again. Until then, unless I find out a simple way to do this MB reduction, no photos.

I guess I could set the camera to take photos of worse resolution. But why would I want to do that? And how could I do that on photos that have already been taken? And why would I want to do that either?

We arrived at home yesterday, picked up food and Chinese take out on the way, came home and unloaded and parked the trailer. Barb is engaged in massive laundry washing, I'm making fruit salad and trying to solve the photo problem. Later, change oil and rotate tires for the 4Runner, unhitch the truck, try to find out if anything is wrong with the furnace, clean up my office, work out and see if the chain saw will start (wood cutting time is here), start figuring out how to sell our property ourselves, and fall down in a heap somewhere. That's just today. We leave for Pueblo and then Albuquerque a week from Tuesday.

Gene

[Goal15]

Gene

if you have any photo software (Photoshop Essentials, if they are still calling the light version of Photoshop that) on your computer you should be able to reduce the size of the photo as well as reducing the resolution for posting to the web. Most web jpgs are all the way to 72 ppi, which greatly reduces the size of the image.

if word is all you have you can right click on the photo and save it as a jpg. you also can reduce it in size when you do this, which should help.

Dana

[SteSpot]

Sorry we didn't cross paths and we will miss the balloon fiesta.....maybe next year.

I have found the forums has been either reducing the size of my photos or they have been accepting the large size....but have had no trouble posting my trip pics.....I used to but not now. My photos are usually 2 mb each.

What I used to do was email them to myself, thereby reducing the size and save in another folder. But that is a long way around.....

Keep us posted on your house adventures. paula

[noreen&sal]

The best thing to do, find an 11 year old to show you the ropes. Ask me how I know this. Sal.

[Gene]

Thanks for the ideas. The Canon EOS came with software, but I haven't wanted to learn another way when I sort of have figured out iPhoto. I have Word, but a MacBook Pro and can't right click, but if I read up on it, there's probably a way to do it. E-mailing to myself may be the easiest. So I'll try that. Looks like it works and I'll try again to make them bigger. Or just transfer them to e-mail, reduce them without sending them, and drag them to desktop and then to Forum. The photos are of Stanley Lake and Sawtooth Range last Tuesday morning as the fog burned off.

Gene

[Gene]

Now I'll try dragging them from iPhoto to e-mail which may reduce size, then dragging them to desktop and then posting. I've also made them larger this time.

That didn't work, you have to actually send them to yourself. Apple's Mail program allows me to send them as large, medium or small. Sending them large doesn't make any difference—they post the same size, so I'll send them small and they will send faster.

This seems to be the easiest way, though not all that easy. More later, I'm not getting anything else done.

1. Our campsite at Lake Como, Montana, where the rarely used awning was deployed.

2. The Stanley Baking Co. in Stanley, a very popular restaurant.

3. A look down the main street in Stanley.

4. Barb at Redfish Lake.

Gene

Gene

[pmclemore]

Those of us that don't have cable or big broadband have a hard time with big pictures being posted. It is helpful to me when the forums resizes them down. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take high-res pix - just that you don't need to send hirez for us to enjoy them.

Thanks for all the pix and trip reports.

Pat

[SteSpot]

Enjoying your pictures......thanks for taking the effort to post.

[Gene]

I just changed oil and filter, greased 4Runner and rotated tires, checked fluids, had my staff clean the windshield and get me things, unhitched the truck and unloaded it. I made fruit salad earlier and I figured out how to do this thanks to Paula. So I have done something today! No 11 year old around here to help.

More photos:

1. You can see the 2 track FS road downhill if you blow up the photo.

2. Collapsing 2 room building at the mine.

3. The cloth hanging down may have been wallpaper backing or just some cloth tacked to the ceiling to keep the wind out.

4. The pipeline from the reservoir to the mine site.

Gene

[Aage]

Gene,

If you happen to have the book for your camera with you, it should tell you how to actually take photos that aren't so big. I'm guessing that if you can adjust it to output photos of around 300-500 meg, you might get rid of your problems and still be able to show a nice big fat photo. The number is a guess though, I think it's more to do with size in pixels, which isn't always so obvious.

Another option is to use one of the image warehousing sites, like Photobucket. It's free, and allows you to upload your standard huge file for photos, and then you only have a link to paste into wherever you are wanting to show the pictures.

This photo was posted in that fashion. Using one of those sites gets completely around the restrictions for size.

Hope one of these ideas helps.

Aage

[SteSpot]

with one of your killer photos so you want to take them all in the higher resolution like make a book or calendar or holiday card.....just in case.....you can then use something like picassa for free if you want to reduce the resolution for emailing......

I googled how to reduce resolution size and the picassa site came up with an anwer....but I am using a PC not a mac so it may be different for you. paula

[Gene]

Thanks for more tips. Now that I figured out one way (e-mail to me) I'll stick with that for a while.

Photos:

1. Mine portal across road from collapsing buildings. Road must have been graded higher than when the mine hole was dug.

2. Broad meadow north of Lake Stanley with Sawtooths in background. Haze from forest fires persists. I couldn't see it as clearly as the camera piked it up.

3. Herd of antelope (pronghorn) which ran from us, stopped when it got from the grass to the sage, posed, than ran off. They blend well with the background—that and being able to run faster than predators that died out thousands of years ago—have helped them survive.

Gene

[Steelegood]

Hey Gene: Glad you got your photo problems worked out. Labor Day weekend we got 13+ inches of rain, and had 6 trees fall, funny how it works out. On 4.75 acres, three of those trees that fell were on the property line on the left side. Almost took out the neighbors 50+ rose bush garden. Got that cleaned up. Also had three on the right side of the property line fall. One was an oak, I imagine 2 or 3 people holding hands probably couldn't get their collective arms around it. Pack your chain saw in the AS and come on out and visit! You could check out the Blue Ridge Mts. while here. Wait, too close to the 4CU Balloon Fiesta, after that, then you can follow us home and help take down those last 3? Dang, hard to get chores done when there is so much AS'in to do!

Hope to see you soon.

Regards, Terry

[Gene]

Thanks to waltb who sent me a PM explaining some things about iPhoto and right clicking. Using the File popdown menu option, "export" appears. I looked at that and thought (not much thought involved really) "export where?" If I had clicked on it, I would have found I could make the photos small, medium or large, change quality and export to desktop or other places. A lesson in what frustration does to the "thinking" process. Most of what I've learned about computers has come from experimenting and using intuition, but I failed at that this time. Once again the Forum solves a problem. Of course, I could have read the book I got when I bought this laptop.

This is the easiest way and means I should not have to e-mail to me, although I like to get mail.

Next, I have discovered that the photos I e-mailed as "small" cannot be blown up on the Forum, but the ones I sent to me as "medium" can. So, now having exported the antelope photo via the way suggested by Walt in medium format, I will post that photo again and see if it can be blown up by clicking on it. They were about a football field away and I used a 250 mm. lens, but I was told that a 250 mm. lens on a digital camera equals a 500 mm. lens on a film camera. I don't understand it unless the electronics double the optics.

I also tried "large" size, but that would not post. Medium does and will blow up.

Gene

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, the main thing I want with my pictures is the highest quality possible from my camera and to be able to resize some of them for posting without losing the original. My system allows me to change pixels or percentage. I reduce mine to 50% for posting and to 25% when using a weak campground WIFI. I also rename each picture that I change as [example photo number] 4556 = original, 4556RS = resized to 50%, 4556-25 = resized to 25%, and 4556crop = pictures that I cropped. For me, it's an easier way to find these pictures for posting.

[Gene]

Bob, now that I used the export function, I can resize and also change picture quality. The default for export quality is medium rather than a higher quality, so I should try to change that and see what it does, but the photos are good enough for this purpose. Of course, like most people, the photos just collect on the computer and never get printed. I bought a Canon printer that just prints photos, but haven't figured put how to use that yet.

Now that I figured out what size to use so that the photos could be blown up, I see they don't get as big as when I used the old camera. The problem with the new camera is that it exceeds what I really need for snapshots.

Gene

[slowmover]

Thanks for all the trouble on the photo's. As always, wish I was there!

[Gene]

Now we are getting ready for the next trip, to Pueblo for my father-in-law's 86th birthday and then to the Balloon Fiesta. We washed and waxed the Safari yesterday so we won't be embarrassed amongst 100 Airstreams. The truck gets washed today. Every time I wash the trailer, I find more scratches—there were some on the top of the end caps, probably some low branches at some campground.

I fixed the furnace yesterday. I found if the registers under the dinette and in the hallway are open, the furnace works a lot better. I replaced the OEM ones about a year ago with ones that open and close so I could close off the one in the bedroom. They also match the decor better since they are brown, not white. Somehow they were closed and both of us deny doing it. Of course, I know I didn't do it, so it is either space aliens or Barb who did it.

Be prepared for more balloon photos than you believed could be taken.

And last night this thing about the size of a bus fell out of the sky and landed here. Missed the trailer, house, truck, but sure dug a big hole. I'll have to take photos, but it is too hot to get close to. Maybe the space aliens that close heat registers are involved.

Gene

[masseyfarm]

How much are you charging to view the hole????
To heck with the balloon thing, we are going to your yard.
Dave

Originally Posted by CrawfordGene

Now we are getting ready for the next trip, to Pueblo for my father-in-law's 86th birthday and then to the Balloon Fiesta. We washed and waxed the Safari yesterday so we won't be embarrassed amongst 100 Airstreams. The truck gets washed today. Every time I wash the trailer, I find more scratches—there were some on the top of the end caps, probably some low branches at some campground.

I fixed the furnace yesterday. I found if the registers under the dinette and in the hallway are open, the furnace works a lot better. I replaced the OEM ones about a year ago with ones that open and close so I could close off the one in the bedroom. They also match the decor better since they are brown, not white. Somehow they were closed and both of us deny doing it. Of course, I know I didn't do it, so it is either space aliens or Barb who did it.

Be prepared for more balloon photos than you believed could be taken.

And last night this thing about the size of a bus fell out of the sky and landed here. Missed the trailer, house, truck, but sure dug a big hole. I'll have to take photos, but it is too hot to get close to. Maybe the space aliens that close heat registers are involved.

Gene