Traveling at the speed of life...

Happy News

2010-04-11T09:31:00.002-04:00

When I was in Ecuador, I met a fellow traveler, Kathryn from Bristol, at the hotel prior to heading to the Galapagos. We walked around Quito and ended up doing a full tour of the city the following day together. We became fast friends and had a great time on the boat. When we parted, we talked about traveling again in the future.

Well, I have been planning my trip to Antarctica, and now Kathryn is going with me! We are even going to be roommates on that ship and get a room the days before and after the cruise in Buenos Aires! How fun is that! I don't mind traveling alone and meeting people, but traveling with a friend and meeting people is going to be even more fun. Yippee!

The Other Office

2010-03-25T21:49:00.005-04:00

Last night I got in from my whirlwind trip to the Salt Lake City office. First thoughts - what a beautiful place. I never had put much thought into SLC before, but the office has views of mountains out of nearly every window. I can't imagine working there...I doubt I would get much work done. I would be too busy staring out the window. Tuesday night we rented a car and drove to Park City for dinner. There was still quite a bit of snow on the ground there. The meal and view was wonderful.

It snowed a little Tuesday, even in SLC. I decided to go with my Teva sandals for the trip because toes hate being closed in. I actually enjoyed the weather. It was nice dry and cool. I imagine that I'll be going back again for work (now that my boss is in that office) and I hope to have extra time to do more site seeing in the future. There's a lot to see in the area. Maybe some day I'll even try skiing. Maybe not, though.

Photo taken from the SLC office window

Salt Lake Here I come

2010-03-21T21:21:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow I am making my first trip to the Salt Lake City office. I heard it has beautiful views but I am still debating on whether or not to take my camera. It really is a fly in, work for two days, fly out trip. I don't know if there will be any daylight hours to take photos at all. But I do love photographing mountains.

I usually just take my camera backpack when I travel as my carry on, but this trip is so short I am not checking any luggage - just taking my carry on and laptop bag as my personal item. I am thinking about just sticking my camera body and a single lens in my laptop bag - I think there will be room. I would hate to get there and have a beautiful photo op with my camera thousands of miles away.

I'm also excited to use my new North Face luggage. So fun!

graeler.com - the Relaunch

2010-03-21T00:23:00.007-04:00

I've been working on a new look for my website and professional photographer image as well. While my old website and business cards were safe and pretty classy they lacked some of my personality. Playing it safe I picked all black and white, with no real design elements. I decided that, if I was really going to take myself seriously as a photographer, I needed a new look - something that felt more like me. And for me, that of course meant black and hot pink.

My love of that color combination goes way back. In middle school I had hot pink walls with black trim and black furniture. It's still my favorite color combination, and while not conservative, I think it's going to represent me better.

Having said that, my new website is up. I also have designed business cards, envelopes and letterhead for when I am ready to do some business. I posted the front and back view of the cards below - the color is a off and the actual cards will have the edges trimmed quite a bit (this is the printer version which is why there is extra pink around the edges) but it's close enough to get the idea.

The Regret of Kili

2010-03-20T11:12:00.007-04:00

Recently, I have felt the need to re-examine where I am in my life. I guess I had a wake-up call recently that told me: 1) Nothing is certain and 2) It's OK to take a risk and pursue a dream to be happy. I guess I just don't know why my whole life I have been scared to take any chances. In my head I have grand ideas and dreams and goals, but I never really feel like I am good enough or strong enough to accomplish any of them.

Let me break my current thought to go off on a related one. Last night I watched the show Summit on the Summit. It was a big group of celebrities and activists climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to bring awareness to the clean water crisis around the world. We had recorded the show from a while back and never watched it. Josh thought it was something that I would want to watch, but I had been reluctant for personal reasons - the mountain represented failure to me.

Back in 2007, when I was sick with bronchitis, and literally felt like I was near death, I had to turn back on the mountain with 2 of my fellow climbers. At the time, it was the absolute right thing to do. I had the sense to realize that short of being carried, I was not going to make it up and even then I don't know if my lungs would have held out. But after a few days of rest when I was feeling all better, the regret really sank in. It hit most hard when my fellow climbers who we left on the mountain came back with stories and pictures of standing on the summit.

Watching the show last night brought all that back. Memories of terrain, cold, sickness, pure exhaustion. But I never had the payoff to that. I never reached the top, finished what I started. It is something that lingers with me and I'm afraid it always will.

Which brings me to my original point. As much as my heart wants me to some day try Kili again, my head is so afraid of failure it doesn't let me believe that I ever could. But it's not just Kilimanjaro. It's a lot of things.

When I was younger, I always said the best job in the world was photographer for National Geographic. I never actually considered this a legitimate profession that I could obtain. It was something a select few of elitists get to do, and the rest of us watch in awe from our cubicles. I literally never considered photography a possible profession, and didn't even consider it a hobby I could do until a few short years ago.

But why? Why am I so afraid of what people will say? So afraid I won't be good or I might fail or it might be hard. For the most part, I have played life very safe. I never moved far from my family, never made my home anywhere but Florida. I rarely tried anything that I didn't already know I could accomplish. Except Kili.

Wake up, Stephanie. Life is short and at the end of the day, true regrets will be the adventures not attempted.

Tripit, Tripit Good...

2010-03-03T23:15:00.002-05:00

I was turned onto tripit.com by some co-workers and now I am hooked. It's great that you can email itineraries from major travel sites and it will combine them into one efficient, single itinerary that can be synced with calendars to include flight, hotel, car, whatever. But it also allows you to enter in additional activities. It allows to attach details, locations, websites, directions, even attach photos. So to plan for my summer trip to Denver, I started researching day trips, visiting websites, even attaching photos of each place.

I think it's fantastic...I have a feeling that Josh is going to get annoyed at my premature micro-managing of our vacation. For instance, on a single day I have us going to the Red Rocks Amphitheater for a morning tour, then on to Dino Ridge for lunch and another tour or hike around the area. Then off to Central City and Black Hawk for casino time. Now, Josh did want casino time, but he hasn't approved that or any of the other days I have jam packed. At least I am making a list of things I want to do as a negotiation point. And hey, he is getting two Red Sox games while we are there.

Anyway, I like Tripit and think it's fun to use to thoroughly plan trips. I'm not a relax on vacation type of person. I try to do as much as I can and then catch up on rest during my first week back at work. Just kidding, Jordan.

Early Issues

2010-02-28T21:46:00.004-05:00

So I guess one of the problems with having to book a trip way in advance is that a lot can change before then. I got the unpleasant email from my travel company for my Antarctica trip saying that they had canceled the entire season for the ship I had reservations on and that I would have to rebook on another ship. There were many concerns. Not all the ships offer the camping options I had signed up for. The trips leaving around when I was leaving were gone during Thanksgiving...something I didn't want. Also, they all were more expensive.

A call to the company and I worked with a really nice woman. She managed to find me a room on a boat with the camping option. The $1000 extra the room cost was waived for me. It is leaving 3 weeks later then my previously booked trip, and instead of leaving getting back the week of Thanksgiving, I will be leaving the weekend after.

All things said, it worked out, though flights are more expensive, probably because I will be traveling during the holiday season now. Could be worse...I may have missed out entirely. I was disappointed at the idea of not going this year, but it looks like everything will work out ok.

Encounters at the End of the World

2010-02-01T23:13:00.004-05:00

It's been quite a while since a post. Once I got to Ecuador I had limited access to email and once I was in the Galapagos that limited went to none. The trip was unbelievable. It was the kind of trip that I couldn't believe I was on while I was there. Quito was beautiful. The Galapagos and the animals there were amazing.

Swimming with sea lions was a highlight, but there wasn't anything we did that I didn't find wonderful. We visited Post Office Bay where you drop off post cards with no postage in hopes that someone from another boat will deliver them. I went snorkeling in an underwater volcano crater and climbed down into a lava tube to find a small underground lagoon. The best way to share my trip is to see some of the photos, posted here: http://www.graeler.com/galapagos

Even though the Galapagos was an adventure, I am already moving on from it. It is with great pleasure that I am announcing my next great adventure, this time to the end of the world. That's right, continent #5. Antarctica. I have reserved a space on a ship in November 2010. I am super excited and hope the time flies very quickly.

As for the name of this post, it's not just related to my next trip. This evening I watched Herzog's movie Encounters at the End of the World. What a strange documentary that was. Instead of focusing solely on wildlife, he focused on the people that congregate to work at the research stations there. It portrayed a unique group of wanders and dreamers with all different backgrounds and motivations. They all had some things in common, though. Certain types of people want to be cut loose from society, and once loose they naturally all fall to the bottom of the planet. It definitely left some unresolved questions, some due to including odd items and set ups in the film itself and some due to the mystery of nature and people. It's definitely worth checking out for a different type of documentary.

I will post more about my Antarctica adventure soon. I just got my packet in the mail with details on the trip and a reader going over the treaty and rules for travel there.

Hola from Quito!

2009-12-15T18:21:00.002-05:00

I am sitting in an internet cafe in Quito. I met a woman this morning from England that will be in my Galapagos group and we walked around the city today taking photos (a fellow Canon DSLR user) and eating Equadorian food at cafes. We booked a tour tomorrow to see old town and the monument at the Equator. All in all it was a good day. The altitude here hasn´t bothered me too much (Quito is over 9000 feet), although I do notice a difference when climbing stairs. The hotel is simple but seems to be in a good location though we are told not to wander around alone at night, which is good advice almost anywhere. Tomorrow night I meet with the rest of the Galapagos group and we go over the details of the cruise. I´m excited and happy to be here. The weather has been very hot but the skies were clear today.

MIA

2009-12-14T12:56:00.002-05:00

I am sitting in the Miami International Airport waiting for my flight to Quito. My flight down here was uneventful. I spent more time boarding and unboarding than I spent in the air. A woman sitting behind me had some liquid drip out of her stowed bag and all over two passengers so most of the flight was the attendent helping clean up the mess and apologizing. The owner of the bag was very unapologetic which was surprising to me.

I don't know when the next time I will have internet access so I thought I would do one quick update before my next flight at 3:20. Fingers crossed I'll have more internet in the future!

The Final Countdown

2009-12-13T09:59:00.004-05:00

I'm sitting on my couch surrounded by tiny travel gadgets, bags of new clothes and travel money belts. I have started charging the batteries to the many items I am taking. What started out as some simple photography gear has turned into a mini computing center - A Dell Mini Netbook, external DVD burner with DVDs, a 5 way card reader, my Kindle, my DSLR and lenses, my small waterproof Canon and a power strip to plug them into. I have been told there is an American power outlet in each of the rooms on the boat and I am packing a full bag of nothing but power cables and batteries. It's definitely more than I had planned on taking but I shouldn't have the memory issues I was worried about with my camera. Now I can be free to snap as many photos as I want. Ad long as I don't go over the 160GB of my netbook I should be fine.

I haven't really packed anything else. All my stuff is more or less laying about the house. I have gotten my duffel out of the dreaded closet, but there's a bunch of small items that will probably take me the entire day to find in there like my binoculars and my steripen. I'm hoping they are in my pack but I really have no idea. Poor Josh compared me to a wound up toy - I can't sit still. I've been searching around for things on my packing list, reorganizing my carry on which is actually my camera bag and even when I sitting on the couch I am checking my charging items every minute to see if they are done.

I am excited, nervous, happy, stresed. I will be happy when I am sitting on the plane because at that point I have to let everything go. There's nothing I can do for work, there's nothing else I can pack. I don't particularly like flying and while I am not looking forward to the actual flying part, I am happy about the trip finally beginning.

For anyone that doesn't know, I am spending a week in Ecuador, most of which will be on a small boat in the Galapagos. I've never been to South America and I am really looking forward to going. I am hoping to have internat access at some points to make updates and mabe post a few photos, but I am not sure how coverage will be.