Yes, who knows for sure what it is. I posted the pics out of general interest for comparison, but it probably over-shadowed my main point :blushing:, which was supposed to be ... if that pic WAS taken in California, then she had her glasses with her on the trip.
I am easily distracted by things like gas masks.
And people in meat dresses etc.
Focusing...When it comes to the glasses thing, I find it hard to believe that a near sighted person would leave corrective lenses behind. It isn't like leaving your wallet behind. I am near sighted (-3.5 in both eyes). There is no way I would go to the mailbox without my glasses or contacts. I literally cannot function without them.
I've heard many times from far sighted people, "I should be using my glasses but I don't." But I've never heard that from a near sighted person. Not a real near sighted person. Actually, never heard it from any kind of near sighted person. If you are near sighted, usually, the entire world is a blur to you. Like you can't see the expression on somebody's face if they are only a few feet away. You lose some of your sense of depth perception so going down stairs is dangerous. You can't read street signs. You can't watch television without sitting about 2 feet from the screen. You just cannot function without the correction and it is not like you can forget you don't have them on because you can't see!
It just isn't credible to me that she could leave her glasses behind unless it was on purpose because she was using contact lenses unless her near sightedness was so mild as to be a nonfactor in her life as in, "Well, I see better with my glasses but I don't really need them."
The only credible scenario to me would be that she had decided to use contacts instead and broke/damaged one (depends hard or soft) or lost one while on her trip and didn't bring back ups with her. But vision is such a serious problem for most near sighted people that I even think on a trip that they would tend to bring back ups with them unless they are really careless. She could be careless being young and all. But there is no way that she LEFT on her vacation not wearing either glasses or contacts unless her near sightedness is so mild as to be nearly inconsequential.
If you want to feel what it is like to be near sighted, borrow a friend's glasses (a friend who really needs them not somebody who is like, "I should use them but I drive fine without them so I don't) and put them on and try to go about your life. You won't make it as far as a grocery store or anything. I doubt you'll be able to keep them on for five minutes. Now tell me that if that is how the world looked to you without glasses, that you could "forget" to bring your corrective lenses. You can forget to turn the oven off. You can't forget that the world around you is a complete blur.
It would be like saying, "I forgot to bring any shoes with me when I went on vacation. I spent two weeks in Paris barefoot."
If she left her glasses in Vancouver, it would be because she was using contacts. In which case, the whole glasses thing is only relevant to help people identify her as a missing person.
The style of glasses she was wearing is common for people who need fairly strong correction as well. That is because the more correction you need, the thicker the lenses have to be as you increase diameter. So if the glasses are the big round style, your glasses will be like coke bottle glasses at the edges and they will be very heavy sitting on your nose. At the edge of the picture of her in glasses (the one in the flannel) you see a hint that her glasses are probably on the thicker rather than thinner side. That choice of glasses could also be a fashion choice. But an eye doctor will steer you to those if you need a lot of correction.
Wire frames also look not so good if you need heavy correction because even if you choose a small frame, the edges of the lenses will project past the wire frame holding the lens. So often, plastic frames will be chosen instead as they have thicker edges and if you use a high quality lens, you can completely enclose the thickness of the lense inside the frame, which looks less tacky.
