A Potpourri of Geotags

Geo-tagged photos
I was delighted to discover that my iPhone photos were automatically geo-tagged and that all photos could be geo-tagged. When you enter this album, look for the "map" button at the top (lap-top format) or "more info" if you are on an iPad. The former will show you a map with pink icons where your photos are. Click the button and your photo will show up. Click the photo and the icon will blink. Try the map view here.

The Crew

The Crew
Here is the Crew for both boats. Click on the link to see all of the proofs. (This might be the best.)

We picked up our Boat in Castlenaudary October 4th

Our Start and First Locks
This is the Great Basin at Castlenaudary. After a (very) brief tutorial on piloting the boat, both boats headed off to the first set of locks. From Castlenaudary there are about a dozen locks to descend during the first day. That's why Gay, or first night, was so close to our start. Click the image to follow our course that day.

We Did It!

Not everyone has returned from points afar, but the Canal du Midi portion has been completed! We are now in the stage of collecting photos for exchange and a commemorative book. In the next postings, I'll be linking the various stages of the Canal Trip to our growing photo database, now primarily on Flickr.

CLAREMONT SENIOR BIKE GROUP

Canal du Midi trip October 4 through 14, 2014

Mesdames et Messieurs,

Nous sommes un groupe de cyclistes de Californie du Sud faisant un tour le long du Canal du Midi en bateau et vélo. Notre club se compose d’ hommes et de femmes ayant surtout 60 ans et plus*. Nous faisons du vélo 3 ou 4 jours par semaine. La plupart de membres fait entre 100 et 160 kilomètres par semaine en croyant que cela nous garde en forme et plus jeunes.  

Pendant le temps que l’on passe en France du 1er au 15 octobre 2014, on aimerait faire connaissance d’un groupe de cyclistes français d’un certain âge, comme nous, et qui aimerait établir un amitié pour faciliter des échanges et visites.

Voici le site web du club:    http://claremontseniorbikegroup.org/

Voici le site de blog de notre voyage actuel:    http://csbgcanal.blogspot.com/

Si cela vous intéresse de nous rencontrer et de parler d’une collaboration, envoyez-nous un mél, faites un post sur notre blog, ou appelez-nous pour en parler pendant notre séjour en France.

En espérant d’entendre de vous bientôt,

John Sorcinelli Group Leader  (+1 909-576-6575)   jss_access@earthlink.net

CLAREMONT SENIOR BIKE GROUP

Canal du Midi trip October 4 through 14, 2014

Mesdames et Messieurs,

We are a group of bicyclists from Southern California touring along the Canal du Midi by bicycle and canal boat.  We are an active group of mostly seniors (60 plus) and we ride 3 to 4 days a week.  Most of us ride 100 to 160 kilometers per week.  We believe bicycling keeps you fit and young.  We have almost as many women riders and we men. Last year our club rode more than 160,000 cumulative kilometers.

During our time here (October 1 to October 15, 2014) we would like to meet up with a group of French bicyclists that have similar interests and would be interested in establishing a friendship program that would facilitate future exchanges and visits.

Our club web site is:    http://claremontseniorbikegroup.org/

The blog for our current trip to France is:    http://csbgcanal.blogspot.com/

If you have an interest in meeting us to discuss a partnership please send us an e-mail, post to our canal blog, or phone us, and we may be able to get together while we are here in France.

Hoping to hear from you soon,

John Sorcinelli Group Leader  (+1 909-576-6575)   jss_access@earthlink.net

Our Google Earth Placemarks - Where Are They?

Google Earth is where you can find our day-by-day progress on a map. In fact, a continuous map which shows bike excursions, hotels, restaurants, historical points and a lot more. Google Earth shows more than can be shown on this Blog or on Google Maps. But how to get there?

No problem. You can always launch Google Earth and fly to Castlenaudry or Carcassonne or any of the villages we will be visiting. But you won't see our Placemarks unless you have already saved them.

So how do you find them? Click below to download our Google Earth Placemarks.

THE PLACEMARKS

When you click (or double-click) a bundle of these placemarks are downloaded to your computer. Make a note of where they are. If you have a choice, save this file on your desktop. Double-clicking on this file will typically launch Google Earth with our placemarks. Now you can see where we are going and can examine our trip in detail. Before you leave Google Earth make sure to "save" the placemarks (which are located in "Temporary Places") to "My Places".

If you forget to do this, no problem. The next time you launch Google Earth, just "open" that file you saved on your desktop. It will be named something like "CanalNow.kmz".

That's all there is to it. Now you can see what we are doing on our Canal du Midi trip in Google Earth.