Friday, January 05, 2007

I Think I'm Gonna Cry....

Yesterday, I was digging around through "stuff" in the bedroom and found a pamphlet from the New York State Power Authority. It was something I had picked up somewhere, and it gave info on a power plant located near the American Falls. I told Mark we ought to take a field trip there today, and he agreed.

I packed a picnic lunch and we were off for a day of fun! We stopped along the Thruway and had subs (I actually made them right there in the Explorer!!) and chips. We had to eat inside the car as it was raining. We folded one of the backseats down and I was able to sit back there and make the subs to order! hehehe I even remembered to bring along a sheet of freezer paper to use as a work surface on top of the cooler!

We got to the power plant at about 3. It has lots of interactive and informative "gizmos" and we really enjoyed playing! There was also a short movie (about 12 minutes) that showed the actual construction of the power facility. It was built in only 3 years, and when one considers the amount of WORK that needed to be done, it was nothing short of a miracle! The plant began operation in January, 1961, 2 weeks ahead of schedule!

So, you might be wondering....*WHY* do I want to CRY??? Well, I was careening about, merrily taking pictures when my Olympus camera just quit working. I had charged 2 sets of batteries for it last night. I wanted to be able to take a lot of pictures. When we got there, Mark asked me why the camera was acting "funny".....I tried it out and it was OK, then it just starting doing weird things. The LCD screen kept turning off, then the lens refused to open all the way. Then, it refused to close. I am not sure what is wrong with the camera, but it is 4 years old and I would hate to think that I HAVE to replace it. Mark will take a look at it tomorrow, and perhaps he will see what is causing the flaky behavior.

So, there you have it. We enjoyed ourselves today, but I have no pictures. Michelle has some on her camera, so perhaps tomorrow I can see if there are some good ones.

Oh, as an aside....one of the coolest things at the power facility is a camera that is postioned on the Niagara River. The people that work at this facility are so amazing...they were so friendly. One of the guys told us that yesterday there were fishermen down on the river catching Atlantic Salmon that weighed in between 30 and 40 pounds!!! They watched them from the cameras! Mark was able to hone in on some fishermen in a boat....the camera can zoom right in....we were able to see the fishermen up pretty close. Sometimes (when it WORKS) technology is SO cool!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

That camera takes such great photos, I've wanted to know what brand it was. I'm sorry it has died, it did such a good job. DS2 wore out his cell phone last week and he would join you in a good cry, his cell was such a little trooper.
That trip sounded really interesting.

Frances said...

Sound like a cool place to explore. Do you have any real snow yet?

Katya said...

Jackie, my camera is an Olympus C-5050 Zoom. I HAD to buy it right after we got Angus, as I needed better pictures than our OLD Kodak 1 Megapixel camera was giving me! I really like the weight and feel of this camera, as it is fairly compact, and yet not real featherweight like some of the newer all plastic models I have felt. Gosh, how can they charge hundreds of dollars for ALL plastic????

Frances, STILL no snow. They are skiing over at the mountain on one trail, and it really looks precarious!!! The weather is SUPPOSED to begin to take a turn to more "winterlike". We shall see. We must have gotten 3 or 4 inches of RAIN yesterday....I remember our weatherman said that 1 inch of rain is equal to about 12 inches of snow. Now, THAT would have been SOME snow. But, the temps were flirting right at about 60!!!