154 HOTEL REST DAY

Well, it had to come.  I needed to take a rest day.  I don’t know why I’m so driven to be out there, working hard at taking photos.  As someone pointed out, vacations are for relaxing too.  I guess because I don’t really consider it a vacation per se.  Each trip so far has been a mission to take photos.  I can sit around and do nothing at home, quite easily.  But, even when I was hitting the gym and playing hockey, I always made a point of taking one day to rest.

Anyway, I was pretty much forced into doing it this time.  I was still hurting big time from the huge walk that was the USS Midway exploration and then the very next day doing the SeaWorld mission.  Then I was pretty much forced to use a cart to get around.  My body was still hurting, and walking was more difficult than usual.

Unfortunately, the SeaWorld tour turned into the hottest day of the trip so far.  I’m not complaining about the good weather; I just don’t tolerate heat too well.  What happened is that, I had not put on sunscreen since I’ve been here, I haven’t need to.  But even though the cart had a sunshade, all it protected basically was my head.  With my legs and arms sitting in the same position all day, it was just like lying on the beach.

So, here I am today, with a nasty and painful burn on my legs and arms.  All things combined and discretion being the better part of valour, I decided to take a day off and catch up on the editing which was starting to fall behind.  I also wanted to stay out of the sun and give the burn a chance to settle down.  So, I just stayed in, sort of.  Between applying cold compresses and liberal applications of Solarcaine, I just rested.

OK, not totally rested.  I worked hard on editing a couple of thousand photos.  I did find time to take a snooze, even though I had no idea when housekeeping would show up.  In addition to the intermittent internet, so is the housekeeping.  I absolutely do not mean that the service was poor, just that I couldn’t predict when they would come.  Early on, they were here at 9:00 AM each day.  Lately it’s been closer to 4:00 PM.

Normally I am out until that time each day so not a big deal.  Not a big deal overall, as I just grab my camera and iPad and sit on the bench outside.  It’s well shaded, I’m out of the way and I get to watch the ongoing airshow.

So, even on a rest day, I managed to take over 500 photos.  Some of the planes, mostly F-18’s, but I also wandered around the grounds taking macro photos of the unusual flowers around here.  There is one flower that looks distinctly like a bird when viewed from a distance, but I can’t get a photo which really does it justice.

There are also a variety of birds around the hotel including a dove, which sings its mournful song.  But all of the birds are very skittish and elusive.  I guess because of the fighter jets going by all the time.  I still have not managed to get photos of any of them.  I’m having more success with the big metal birds.

As I sit here, I’m planning out my next missions.  Although, I had set 7 things to do before getting here and I have sort of accomplished all seven.  I’ve only seen half of the zoo and half of the safari park.  The secondary part of those missions though was a list of animals I wanted photos of.  I have most of them, but not all and some of the animals I only have pics of them sleeping, so it doesn’t quite count.

Anyway, day of rest accomplished and by evening the burn has sort of settled down.  It’s a new experience really as I can’t recall the last time, I have gotten a sunburn.  I’m usually pretty good about either staying out of the sun, or in liberally applying sunscreen.  But I don’t usually sit in one position either.