I use a software package called Graphic Converter which allows me to edit images (including rotate functions). https://www.lemkesoft.de/en/image-editing-slideshow-browser-batch-conversion-metadata-and-more-on-your-mac/
There are a bunch of programs out there that you can do this with, I believe. My personal computer is a mac, but I know for PC users that you can rotate photos using Windows Photo Viewer as well. Actually I just checked Preview on the mac (software included in OSX) and it has a rotate function as well.
Take a look at what you have on your computer and I may or may not be able to help. Feel free to ask, though, as I'm sure somebody here will know if I don't.
Another option would be to use one of the free photo hosting sites (I tend to use Imgur quite a bit). After you upload the photo you can edit it online (including rotate), save the changes and download it back to your computer or post it online directly from the site.
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
"Like pulling the guts from an Angel" lol! There's a cafe in Charlottetown that makes Croissants that melt in your mouth. I'm going to borrow that line next time I'm there with Connie!
Not sure why I said that. I guess there is still that 10 year old inside me that like to shock girls. Any way feel free!
Canadian Poncho wrote:
"Like pulling the guts from an Angel" lol! There's a cafe in Charlottetown that makes Croissants that melt in your mouth. I'm going to borrow that line next time I'm there with Connie!
For those who need some diversion from the news of the day... here ya go!
September 14th The walk to La Groano(and well named it was)
It all started very well.After a delightful sleep in the delightful hotel ruined only by my wifes scribbling obsessively in her journal and then saying something nasty about having no pillows, we went down to the former wine cellar basement for a nice paid-for breakfast. I got up the nerve to ask for a couple of huevos (fried eggs) as I was dying for a bit of protein to start the day.
Once we got squared away, we mounted up the packs and asked for a ride back to Los Arcos which was part of the hotel deal.I thought it was a pretty clever business plan so they could benefit from the Camino traffic even though they were a few kilometres off the trail itself. Apparently, it worked well as there was a pretty big pile of packs in the lobby as we got ready.The Terry wife noticed that most of them had tags on so we took a look and discovered that they were all assembled to be forwarded on by a Camino luggage transfer service.According to the tags it cost 5 Euro to have your bag moved to your next stop on the Camino.This assumed, of course, that you know where that was going to be.This was a good bit of food for thought as I was starting to realize just how oversized and heavy my pack actually was for this trek.
However, we were still purist peregrinos at this stage and kind of scoffed to ourselves at the tourists.Little do I know that today would go a long way to draining the purist out of me.
The ride back to Los Arcos was very pleasant but unfortunately with a lady who had no English. My resourceful wife finally made her understand that we wanted to be dropped exactly where she had picked us up at the vending station/ zoo, not at the town centre a km or so further down the trail.The purist thinking again.
Dubiously, she did, and we bid her farewell. While I was trying to get a couple of cold drinks out of the machines my wife was again dumping all her spare change into the donation box for the little zoo and saying hi to the same yellow cat we had met yesterday.
Finally, we started, as usual quite slowly, to work the kinks out. This was going to be a long hot day as we had been unable to book any albergue closer than in the city of Logrono which was 32 kms away.Still, I felt good except for a tiny blister on my left heel with I chose to ignore as I was too tough for that kind of thing to slow me down, right!
A pleasant fairly cool walk this early in the day with only moderate uphills but according to the map we had a couple of real peaky peaks to get through later in the day. It was getting noticeably easier to walk the grades by now so we must be getting in better shape as we go on.
Still, as I strode into the little village called Sansol at about noon it was a welcome sight to see the usual umbrellas and patio chairs that signified a bar/café.
This was also a day when I had decided to strap on the GOPRO I had brought along to record stretches of the walk.The idea being that I would be able to load the walking files into my computer at home and use them in the winter to liven up the treadmill exercises I had promised I would do to stay in shape. (Yeah, Right.)The GOPRO was set up for me by the typical young person who knows about these things to be responsive to voice commands, (Pretty fancy eh?) so fellow pilgrims were periodically treated to an old Canadian talking angrily into his chest (where I had the thing mounted)
It seemed to work most of the time the time unless I swore at it which apparently had the effect of making it do the opposite of what I had commanded.Once I got home, I went through the footage and I was happy to see I got some really good stuff but also quite a lot of footage taken inside the pack or laying on a café table sideways.At least I didnt get any of me coming out of the shower. It was also a real battery hog so I would get about 2 hours a day max and even so always had to pack a spare battery to get that much.
I must say that it really brings the immediate experience of trudging and wheezing up the hills back to you.
Speaking of wheezing, I was starting to feeling kind of cruddy this day. I had had a sore throat for a couple days and now it was developing into a very badly timed Spanish summer cold or flu or something.Luckily it didnt seem to affect the old bowels so I was able to walk without leaving my own personal yellow way markers on the trail. But there was a fair bit of hacking and wheezing starting today and that did sap my energy a bit. As the day heated up I kind of sweated it out of my system temporarily.
However, I digress.In Sansol by the time my wife caught up, I was already sitting under an umbrella having a coffee and a beer at the same time.We had a nice lunch break there overlooking the hill we had climbed to get there until it was time to move again, as the sun was getting high and hot.Almost made it out of town until I met an Irish busker at the local albergue raising a few euros to keep going on the Camino.We talked music for a while and he sang me a song while I dumped my spare change into his guitar case.
My wife was twitching with impatience as the day was now getting quite hot but she knows not to mess with me when Im talking music. I finally got the signals and swung into the pace again.
Now the trail got tough. We hit a lot of up and downs after Sansol up to the highest point of the day.Just before the peak we crossed a major highway over a pedestrian bridge and thence to a rest spot.
Here were many stone cairns erected by pilgrims over the years and a prayer tree which was a small pine festooned with hundreds of ribbons. Very poignant spot. Most of the cairns were tall and skinny and seemed precariously balanced with a few looking as if a stiff breeze would blow them over.
We walked kind of cautiously so as not to jostle any of then and I couldnt help but think that in Canada some drunken yobbos would have kicked a bunch of them over but here they seemed to have been respected.
Nearby were picnic tables, so we stopped and had a cool drink. Our attention was drawn by a really industrious ant pulling back to his hill a piece a blue plastic at least ten times his size.I could just picture the reception when he got there.Him: Hey I got a great deal on this!
Her: I Hate it! What were you thinking! Take it back or Ill bite your head off! Ah, felt like home!
We moved over and rested for a while in the shade of a an ancient covent with a moat and marvelled at all the various stuff floating in it. No pilgrim bodies or dead rats though.
Heaving a sigh, we were off into the hot sun again and kept on sweating it out until we hit a small portable café manned by a very friendly Spaniard. We snagged a shady, recently vacated table for four and were soon joined by a couple of ladies from the USA who we invited to share the space.
Talked about life for a few minutes but they had to make it to Viana to ensure their room booking so we stayed for a few more minutes after they left, to finish our drinks.On leaving, Terry noticed one of them had left their drinking bottle on the table so we tied it to her backpack and set out to catch up with them.It made for a faster pace now that we had a mission and it was about three kms later we caught up to them and returned the bottle.
They had been hoping we would do that as neither of them had the energy to turn back once they had noticed it was gone.Felt good, that but I was noticing the same thing happening to us in that we got really reluctant to spend the energy to go anywhere that was off the trail.Its like I knew I had 800 kms in me, but not 801.
Into Viana at about 1500 in the heat of the day and I must say we were quite wiped out. We arrived there in the year it was celebrating its 800th year as a city. It made me wonder what Edmonton would look like in 800 years, or if it will have any class yet.
Once we had another tortilla snack and a couple of cool drinks we discussed how tired and sunbaked we still were, and decided not to kill ourselves with the last 12 kms but rather to see if we could find a room here and cancel our booking in Logrono.
No such luck!Every hotel we asked at was, as the Spanish put it, Completo. Even the receptionist just shook her head silently at the 4 star hotel we staggered into in desperation,
So what were the options? Taxi into Lagrono or start hiking. After a bit of conferring and psyching ourselves up with our purist crap, we started out again.
Luckily it had clouded over, so the heat wasnt so bad, but it was a very quiet walk with a minimum of picture taking.
We finally crossed out of our first province of Navarre and into Rioja which was a very big wine producing region. We had to cross a heavily graffitied underpass under the N11 and saw a very cheerful piece of graffiti that stated we had only 616 kms left to go!This was actually kind of heartening and almost made up for my blistered feet and my wifes aching tootsies.
As usual the trail seemed to circle around the city before we got into Lagrono. Eventually we staggered through a park and up a couple of flights of steep stone stairs and wobbled across a long busy bridge into what looked like a very busy, slightly down-at-the-heels kind of town. 2.75 hours for 12 kms was not a bad pace considering how little gas we had left in our tanks.
We had a private room with bathroom booked at one of the main albergues, which luckily was only a couple of hundred metres from the end of the bridge.Both of us were done in with fatigue and dehydration but we managed to sign in and pull our bags up to the second level even though they now weighed about a ton each.
The spartan single bunk bedroom was very small, very hot and had a window that opened not to the fresh air but to an open atrium in the albergue where about a hundred really noisy pilgrims were yacking it up like crazy.
My wife was too tired to really care so after I dragged down the mattress from the upper bunk so she would not have to climb she collapsed onto it and really didnt move much until morning.The bathroom was the tiniest I have even seen, with a shower stall that was so tight you almost had to step outside to lather up.The toilet was jammed between a wall and the shower so tightly that I figured Id rather use the common toilets so as not to get my butt permanently wedged in there.
Once we had mustered up the strength to shower we did feel better, although going out to findsome supper was out of the question. I volunteered to go and try and scrounge us something which was an offer accepted gratefully. Put on some relatively clean clothes and went looking for an open store.I managed to find a greengrocers not too far away and bought some fruits, nuts, cheese and a couple of big bottles of Aquarius to try and get Terry rehydrated.
Kind of a rough looking area but I managed to get back ok and she was very happy with my treasures.
We were down for the count by nine and didnt move a muscle until the next morning. A tough day!
-- Edited by 66 Grande guy on Wednesday 11th of March 2020 09:49:31 AM
"Our attention was drawn by a really industrious ant pulling back to his hill a piece a blue plastic at least ten times his size.I could just picture the reception when he got there.
Him: Hey I got a great deal on this!
Her: I Hate it! What were you thinking! Take it back or Ill bite our head off! Ah, felt like home!"
Sounds familiar. Good read!
__________________
Prince Edward Island
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
"Our attention was drawn by a really industrious ant pulling back to his hill a piece a blue plastic at least ten times his size.I could just picture the reception when he got there.
Him: Hey I got a great deal on this!
Her: I Hate it! What were you thinking! Take it back or Ill bite our head off! Ah, felt like home!"
Sounds familiar. Good read!
Had to laugh!, Something I am sure we all can relate to.......
I'm glad to see you guys read past the typo where it said "our head off." You know that it really meant to say "your head off" Fixed it.
I find that I read through mistakes easier than I used to. I've got so used to looking at garbled, shorthand, bastardized texts, and I don't even own a cell phone!
__________________
Prince Edward Island
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
Thanks Jerel, You have to remember there are still 600 klicks to go so we'll see how much character I have by the end. I appreciate the feedback. It encourages me to keep telling this saga even though it seems tedious at times, but then it was kind of tedious at times.
I still can't believe you did this Ken. I know what a great story teller you are and I'm convinced it's the most cleverly crafted story you've ever told.
__________________
1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
OK, as it happens I'm feeling kind of loquacious, and thinking that you guys are kind of a captive audience, here is another segment of the walk. Enjoy and I hope it gives you a lift.
Logrono To Navarette, Crabbily.
After a hot, sweaty night in Logrono (and not in a good way) we got out of the Albergue after most of the stampede had left even though for us it was pretty early.I know this because we had to walk through a dorm type room on the way out and there were only a couple of exhausted pilgrims still in their sacks. Like most Albergues you had be but out by about 0830 sotheir rest was not going to last much longer.
Aside from the blister on my left foot getting quite large, I did feel generally better than I thought I would judging from the hunger pangs I was feeling, so as soon as I decently (or indecently) could, I bolted into an open bar/café with Terry following.A classy looking place but it still had the usual one guy moving like lightning serving all the hungry pilgrims and the occasional bemused local.
As Terry had to visit the aseyos (bathroom) I took the liberty of ordering hot chocolate for her as that is usually what got her through the morning. Along with the other stuff it showed up and it was exactly that. A bowl of melted chocolate. She looked at me askance (Thats the nicest word I can think of) and started dunking her croissant quite viciously.
Apparently Colo Cao is quite a bit different than hot chocolate as she stated to me. Anyway, she stuffed as much of that down as she could and after we finished, we started the walk again.
As usual, after every stop, I went though my short verbal checklist to make sure I had all the stuff I needed. I usually went in order of importance to me so the arrangement did vary from day to day.Today it was sombrero, walking sticks, wallet, cell phone, crabby wife.
The walk and the nourishment did, as usual, put her a better mood by the time we passed a huge duck pond in a park.But there was still a chill in the old team spirit, so I walked a bit ahead of her. There were pictures that had to be taken as well.
It was along that long stretch out of Logrono that I had my first glimpse of an alternate future for me which I kind of needed right then.In the distance I spotted a lady pilgrim walking alone. From the crest on her pack as I got nearer I could see she was Canadian as she had the crest like my wifesthat said Canadian Company of Pilgrims.As I approached not bad at all. Long auburn hair, and nice sway to her walk. Hmmmm,maybe a chance to dump the crabby one.
So, I sidled up, matched her pace and opened a conversation. However, it was the old story. Once I got even I could see she was looking a bit rough around the edges and even though her eyes were friendly, they were pretty bleary.
She was Canadian alright , from New Brunswick, and was quite friendly, although severely hung over which explained the swaying.She said she had had way too much beer last night and I could affirm that was right from the smell that wafted from her.She said she had been told by one of the Spanish carousers that the cure for too much beer was either even more beer today or none at all.She told me that after a mile or two of misery, she had sent her husband back for a beer supply for the walk.I could see a fellow hustling up from behind and sure enough a rather disgruntled man carrying a large bag of cans came up to her and handed her one.
So much for perfection from a distance. I decided to stick with what I had and rejoined Terry to tell her the tale. By this time, we had worked off any residual bad mood and made pretty good time out of the city and around a large reservoir that had hundreds of people out for the Saturday morning fishing. I guess the pond was stocked with carp as when we crossed a small bridge there must have beenhundredofs rather creepy looking fish in the murky water milling around with their mouths wide open. We had to throw a bit of bread to them like every one else and it was like watching pigs at a trough.I would not have wanted to fall in there, thats for sure.
By this time we passed a nice lakeside café and spotted a couple we had met before from Kansas city so I talked a still balky wife into stopping to visit. My pack was also really starting to weigh extra heavily on me this day, so a break felt good.
The New Brunswick lady and her husband also stopped by for a beer, so I waved as we were leaving.Didnt see them again but we wish them well.This was fairly typical of the Camino in the sense that most social encounters were a series of short but quite intense relationships that ended because different paces and plans. Great for a guy with a short attention span.
Shortly after the cafe we stopped again for a minute at a professional pilgrims roadside stand.
This was an older heavily bearded dude who was dressed in the traditional pilgrim robe and floppy hat.He sold cellos a and postcards of himself and a bit of fruit. My wife was a big supporter of this kind of thing as, in her view, we were here to help the local entrepreneurs to stay in business, plus its adds a bit of colour to the trail. There were places where the tacky tourist stuff got really thick and we did try to avoid them, but these obviously local guys kind of appealed to her.
Finally, we put Logrono in the background as we steadily climbed a hill for a couple of klicks. It was just as hot as yesterday and my wheezing was back periodically. Bikers also kept whizzing by us as if we were standing still, which was kind of disconcerting.I guess the Camino is a very popular biking trail too so we had to expect to share the trail, sometimes rather suddenly. Most of these bikers were young, spandexed, and looked incredibly fit, and some even had trail etiquette like ringing their bells or otherwise making noise, but there were many who viewed us walkers as more or less stationary objects to whizz around.
My closest call with a biker happened right about here on a narrow and overgrown part of the trail. Terry was some ways behind me when she let out the cry, Ken, bike!I turned sideways to see what was coming up, which stuck my pack out into the centre of the trail just at the moment he zoomed by. How he missed me I dont know but it couldnt have been by much.It would have been ugly and painful and it certainly caused her to curse the biker for quite a while.I was rather calm about the whole thing but then I really didnt see it as well as she did.
I kept stopping at fountains to re-soak my buff and I took every break I could, in any piece of shade.Luckily, this was to be a fairly short day as we had booked in the village of Naverette which was about a 13 klick distance.
As we walked next to a divided highway, separated only by a chain link fence, we started to encounter a sort of extended shrine where it had become the custom to find a couple of pieces of rough wood, splinters,twigs or what-have-you and jam them into the chain links in the shape of a rough cross.
Kind of inspiring and creepy at the same time as this went on for a least a couple of kilometres. I wondered who had started the symbolism and how it had spread. We tried not to disturbthese sincere types of displays, some of which were simply in the form of rocks arranged in the middle of the trail whenever we encountered them, but we didnt really want to add to them either.
It got to the point that some of the attempts at immortalizing your personal pilgrim experience verged on vandalism, in my view, especially since pretty much every sign post was covered with names, initials or political slogans of the hippie sort. It got kind of nauseating eventually and if I had been a Spanish native, I would be getting tired of this.Its roughly the same kind of mentality that leads morons to spray paint their stupid names along the TransCanada. Sorry if I sound like a crabby old man here.
We were definitely in wine country now with the trail going through vineyard after vineyard until we finally spotted what I hoped was our hotel on the outskirts of Naverette. As we got closer I could se it was actually a huge winery with some major storage tanks and the town was still some ways ahead. (as usual)
It was almost worth the extra walk once we got into the town because for once the towns cathedral was open and bulging with life.Its courtyard was full of townsfolk who had just been let out after a wedding ceremony and they pretty much filled up the whole courtyard with happy relatives.We had to sidle our way through and Im pretty sure we ended up on a few videos of happy family shots. Id like to think we added some colour but really there was already plenty with the people in their finery, which was a combination of very attractive dresses on the very attractive ladies and very sombre dark suits on the men.
It was really nice to see a church that wasnt just a showpiecebut was part of the community life. Once we checked into our quiet, cool, hotel, about an hour later we could see another type of gathering in the courtyard.This time it was a christening and the people were dressed quite a bit more casually.
After the people left, we ambled back to the cathedral and I must say it was spectacular inside. The only off-putting part was that you had to insert a Euro to light up the main altar for a few minutes. While my wife was lighting candles for her parents and mine, I was marvelling at the richness for as long as the light lasted.
Supper was at the small restaurant just down the street. We had the pilgrims menu with the couple from Kansas city and a single Brazilian guy we invited over to our table. Nice conversation and some really tasty wine.
I thought we would get some good rest after that but I we hadnt reckoned on just how lively this town was, especially at night.There was a festival of some sort (we never really found out for what saint) in the main town courtyard just across the street from our third floor window. It was loud and happy and got more so as the night went on.It was kind of annoying in terms of trying to get some sleep but you really had admire the party spirit down there especially since it seemed to be quite a family oriented affair with kids running around and jumping their bikes madly.
The Policia did show up but they appeared to just be there to take it in themselves rather thanto discourage any one from having a good time.
I couldn't imagine being hungover and then drinking more beer during this daily trek.
I'm with you on graffiti ... and I don't consider myself a crabby old man.
__________________
Prince Edward Island
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
Your wife is really a psychiatrist.
