Between Niagara and Colorado

One of the first things that I pocketed after entering Bhanu’s house in Canton MI was the digital camera. We had a somewhat bulky and battered camera with a broken battery compartment back home and I had not carried it with me. I had no intention of taking chances with the security in unknown airports carrying something from which batteries and wires were sticking out even though my name was not Khan. I had heard enough from my wife for not carrying a camera on our ‘once in a life time trip’ and was very glad to find this one lying unclaimed.

Vishwa had just then bought a new Canon which had many more megapixels, two additional lenses and whatnot, and hence did not notice that his old camera had a new owner. Since everything that I saw was new and different, and since the camera had the capacity to store thousands of images I went on clicking pictures of anything and everything – streets, houses, shops, post boxes, cars, garbage, garbage trucks, sign boards - in short, everything that did not object to my clicking, and in fifteen days, had more than six hundred images.







The camera had plenty of space and it did not have any objection to store the pictures. But even if I wanted to see or use one or two of them I had to connect the camera to the computer, wait till all the pictures were loaded and select what I wanted. The computer took its own time and it was a pain to sit waiting for the pictures to appear. Then I remembered the ‘Picasa’ software on which I could store all the pictures and use them as and when I wanted but I did not know how to shift the pictures from the camera to ‘Picasa’. After trying many times and failing, I caught my nephew Sheshera in Pune on the phone one day and with his guidance, managed to load all the pictures to ‘Picasa’. This 'Picasa' gave rise to other troubles but it is another story.

We had three free days between our return from Niagara and our trip to Colorado. One day was spent with ‘Picasa’.

The next day I learnt to use the battery operated plant trimmer. I do not know what it is called. It has a long shaft on which there are many blade like things and one end of the shaft has a motor and a handle. When switched on, the blades vibrate and cut anything that they come in contact with. Looks like a sword with an unusually heavy and bulky handle. I managed to trim some plants around the house without trimming my fingers and limbs.

The third day was spent in following up with the cleaning of the pool. the pool, which had been closed for winter had been opened and was being made fit for use. The fellow who had come to replace the filter pump and check the water quality had suggested manual vacuuming of the pool floor and I had volunteered to do it. I had thought that it would be easy. It would have been. If both the ends of the hose were well secured and I knew where and how the floor was. The water was not clear, and I could not see the floor. I was expecting it to be flat but it felt like a bowl. I had to stand by the side of the pool and push the vacuuming brush back and forth using the long handle, keeping it in close contact with the floor. I wanted it to go in a certain direction assuming that the floor was flat and it kept going in all other directions because the floor was curved. it confused me. With this confusion and with the pipe getting detached every now and then, it took a whole day to clean about ten percent of the pool. I left the remaining of the cleaning to the small ‘Polaris’ cleaner which moved on its own around the pool floor and went in to pack. We were to leave by the early morning flight next day, 17th of June, to Denver, Colorado.