How Art Ruined His Birthday Camera

Art turned 60 in 2004 and the kids wanted to do something special for him. We flew to Washington D.C. where our son, Jon was living at the time. Tif and Ed joined us there. They took us out to a luxurious dinner at a fancy restaurant and presented Art with a bright, shiny, super duper new digital camera.

The following spring my wonderful pilot cousin offered us a voucher for a reduced flight to Australia. Art decided to have us spend most of our time in New Zealand since Australia is so huge.

New Zealand is glorious. We sailed through a fjord in Milford Sound on a boat.

I remember discovering sand flies. They are not fun. We neared a waterfall.


We got closer and closer and it got rather wet.


I covered my camera with my jacket to protect it and warned Art.


However, he was so captivated by this gorgeous pattern at the bottom of the falls that he just couldn't resist taking a whole bunch of photos.


He was a bit sheepish knowing he risked damaging his camera which he did. For the rest of the trip all his photos had a water mark in the corners. We could Photoshop some of them out, but not all. Still, he loves this photo and I have a feeling he's not entirely regretful.

I guess he thought the picture was worth it.