Mini Challenge # 301: Vacation

pegelli

This mini will feature the theme of Vacation. I know I'll make my judging life difficult because you can imagine a large diversity to picture this subject. However since it's almost July which is vacation time for the northern hemisphere I also think it's timely to do it now. Hopefully I'll be able to pick a worthy winner and if not too bad, I'll pick a winner anyway

The principle is simple, the photo needs to be taken during a vacation, can be long or short, can be city, woods, mountain or seaside or any other place you went on vacation. Season doesn't matter either, all are good. Some people even stay home for vacation, allthough I would call that a staycation and would like to see photo's taken while away from home for a least a couple of days.

Here's a few examples from me to warm you up (or cool you down)

Northern light over the Harstad harbour (Lofoten, Norway)

Overlooking the Sierra de Mijas (near Málaga, Spain)

Ice fishing on a Finnish lake

Good luck, happy shooting and this mini will stay open until Saturday July 11, 2020, midnight, NWE time.

OUR UN-OFFICIAL GENERAL RULES
1. Have fun sharing and seeing what others share!
2. The host supplies a topic and you post 1-3 images. The host judges the winners (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and is not eligible to enter.
The 1st place winner then chooses the next topic, judges the winner and then passes on the baton to the new champion.
3. Any photo you’ve taken is eligible, regardless of when taken or camera used, but for this challenge new photo's are strongly encouraged.
4. Any amount of post-processing is allowed. However, it is helpful if you list your camera and lens along with your photo.
You may comment on other contestant's images. If you want someone to leave you some critique or criticism, just ask within your post.
5. The winner has up to three days (72 hours) to begin a new mini-challenge, or the honor goes to the #2 finisher and so forth.

Guidelines:
1. Enter 1-3 photos and put them in a single post.
2. Either embed your image in the thread or, if you must, supply a link to it. Keep in mind, however, most people don't want to click to open photos hosted elsewhere (i.e. on your website).
3. Also try and resize your photos prior to posting so they're sized appropriately for viewing without having to scroll (~800 pixels on the longest side works best.)
4. Give each image you enter a title.
5. Enjoy discussion with members about their images, don't let this just be an entry thread!
6. When quoting a post change the IMG urls to a 200x200 size picture so it is clear your post is feedback and not another entry. (see here for help)
7. Don't be hesitant, share'em and enter!

Mini-Challenge pointers:
1. Upon winning a mini-challenge round your first step is coming up with a new theme, and start a new thread using the same format as others have used.
2. Make sure to notify the admin of this thread to update the main thread links with your entry thread.
3. Feel free to watch the thread as it grows or wait to the end time and look at all the entries all at once.
4. After the time/date has passed, then officially close the thread with a single post notifying everyone of the fact.
5. After you're finished judging start a new thread (again use the prior formats) and post your Winner and runners-up, it is important to have runners up in case the winner does not show within the 72hr window.
6. PM the winner with this info above and let them know they have 72hrs.
7. After the 72hrs and the winner does not show up, notify the next runner-up and post a message on the Winner thread of the fact.
8. Remember, if you're the Winner, you run the next show.

sarasphotos

Well Pieter, you certainly haven't made this easy on us either! That's a pretty broad subject... I'll have to do some heavy thinking about this one.

JAG

This is difficult to figure out which images to use because 95% of my images are from vacations! I might change these up as time goes on.

1 Arizona, Grand Canyon, my first ever time seeing it, Nov. 2019 (panorama using my cell phone)

2 Tarcoles River, Costa Rica

3 Athens Greece

Cavalier

Ok, I'll start. And I hemmed and hawed over which ones to use for the mini

Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, Arizona. This shot is far enough away that unfortunately it's hard to see the petrified logs strewn on the desert floor.

Arches National Park, Arizona

Canmore, British Columbia - starting up the Icefield Highway on the perfect road trip

pegelli

Thanks for starting Joyce and Jo, great entries.

And Sara, I'm sure you'll find some very good entries for here as well, just take your time

dlscott56

Yosemite National Park

Great memories

Beautiful places

grandmaR

I decided that in order to illustrate a topic like Vacation, the photo would have to show people on vacation. I made this decision because I didn't want to have to decide which photo of amazing scenery to use - narrowing the topic. When I went looking for photos, I decided on an even narrower selection of possibilities. After my father died my mother started taking trips with her grandchildren. She took my oldest one to Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti, my second daughter to Europe, the third daughter to China and Japan and she took my niece to Italy and my son to Kenya. She even took a trip with me to Spain. So after she died, I decided to use her money to take my grandchildren on trips. The selections I have made are three of the trips I have taken with my grandchildren. All of the grandchildren were 12 at the time.

1- Ride in an Indonesian pony cart and visit to a craft village (she made an ashtray which she explained was not really an ashtray as ashtrays are not something one wants to have anymore)

2. Visit to a Masai village in Tanzania - she's talking to one of the women
   

3. Photographing thermal features in Yellowstone
   

[In case you were wondering - I had eleven grandchildren. Only 8 of them were an appropriate age to go on a trip with me - two of them were too old (that is they were 27 and 25 years old at the time), one of them had died and one of them his mother wouldn't let him go with me. The other 7 all went on trips -
2007 a bus tour of Ireland with a few days in London
2008 a Med cruise starting with a few days in Barcelona and ending with a few days in Venice
2009 a Baltic cruise (a few days in Copenhagen first and a few days in Amsterdam after)
2010 - Yellowstone and Hawaii (photo 3)
2012 - An Australian cruise (a couple days in Sydney first) which had a stop in Indonesia (photo 1)
2013 - Caribbean cruise on Disney
2018 - Safari in Tanzania (photo 2) with a few days in Amsterdam first

sapphire73

This theme really resonates with me. Thank you. I also loved the Sacred Places theme, and I had hoped to contribute some photos but life intervened. (Derecho, downed power line, clogged sewer line, you name it.) And then there is all that is happening in the USA at this time. But I have been thinking of sharing some photos from our travels on facebook - as a way to refresh our spirits - and then I saw your theme for this challenge. So thank you again, and I will try to share some photos in the near future.

Lab_Tested

Oh, to be able to travel again. It's been a tough few months for so many of us, so I decided to choose 3 photos that make me smile.

1) Auckland, New Zealand boat trip, 2003.

2) On a glacier in Denali National Park, Alaska, 2019. (same child as in #1, just 16 years later)

3) Fun with glass, Denali, 2019.

Side note to @grandmaR Awesome stories and photos!

DavidRGillespie

All shots from 2020. We were really fortunate to travel to Patagonia for a kayak adventure in February, returning home just as the world became weird. We managed to make two short camping trips in early and late June.

1. Paddling on the Patagonia coast, Chile

2. Thompson River canyon near Lytton, BC

3. Full flood at the Canim Falls, BC

sarasphotos

It was a tough decision but I finally made some choices. Since we are both retired, every day is "staycation" and although we make quite a few day outings near home, in 2019 we really traveled a lot, from long weekends away to a month in the western USA. I chose pictures that are somewhat symbolic of the type of trip we took / experience we had.

1) In June 2019 we took part in the Dolomites Bike day where the local authorities close a 51km stretch of beautiful mountain roads ( that include 3 passes) to auto traffic for 6 hours - a paradise for cyclists and a few hearty walkers. This picture was taken about 2 km from the first pass, Campolongo, which at 1,875 m (6,152 ft) was the shortest pass of the day. Needless to say, I took LOTS of breaks to take pictures (and regain my breath...).

2) A week in Madrid, November 2019. There were many highpoints in our trip to this fascinating city - architecture, museums, markets, street life. One place that kept drawing us back was the Royal Palace - and the horse change of the guard gave us a taste of the royal splendor of Spain.

3) January 2020, Paris. My brother spent a month in Paris improving his French, so I invited myself to join him for a long weekend. This narrow pedestrian street was near his left-bank apartment.

pegelli

This mini is now closed. Thanks to everybody who entered.

I'll try to get the comments and results up in one of the coming days, today is too busy with other "stuff".