Last Day Before School in a Two-Camera Family

Today was the last day of summer vacation for Sarah: fourth grade starts tomorrow. It was a great, mild, low-humidity day so we went to Great Falls, on the Virginia side of the river this time. But first, we became a two-camera family.

I haven't abandoned the idea of writing more about the Colorado trip, and will at some point, perhaps even later tonight, but let me cover today first.

During the Colorado trip Sarah really began to be avid about taking pictures, so much so that she took a huge number going up Pike's Peak. The nice thing about digital, of course, is that you can take all you want, since you don't have film and don't have to print them, and I always carry large stocks of memory and rechargeable batteries, so you really don't run out of media. The only problem is fighting over the camera.

Well, we had a lot of award points saved up at Best Buy from the last computer purchase, a washer and dryer, etc., and combined with a sale I was able to buy Sarah another camera similar to the one I bought last October at about half its price. Actually the new one is a little more advanced, being a successor model and having more megapixels and some added features, but she didn't like the idea of me taking the new one and giving her the old one as a hand-me-down, even though it's only 10 months old; anyway the outcome is she gets the new one, though agrees to let us use the slightly higher resolution for key family events. I saw no reason to get her a "kid's" camera: she had a Barbie camera a couple of years ago which would take about 10 or 12 pictures. I prefer to give her the real thing now that she's really interested. I put a 4-gigabyte memory card in it which should take about 1200 pictures or a whole bunch of video. It will hold up to 16 gigs.

Hers is red; mine is blue; otherwise they're externally the same. I got her a red camera case matching my blue camera case, too. So we're a two camera family.

Not surprisingly, Sarah, who was absolutely prodigal taking pictures with my camera, is downright cautious about hers. "I'm turning it off; I want to save the power." "But Sarah; I have six extra recharged batteries with us: enough power to run all day, and we'll recharge them tonight." Nothing doing.

Anyway, above, Sarah taking my picture, and me taking hers, and below, photographing the falls. Actually she spent more of her time petting dogs, of which there were many, than enjoying the falls. Two miniature longhaired dachshunds in particular, but many others besides.