dustytrail9

A superb hike. The Chinese, apparently, don’t believe in switchbacks. (Note—there is also a cable car!)

Will worth the visit—spend a few extra $$ and head out to a less crowded part of the wall (elbow-to-elbow is not the way to do the great wall!).

Very neat place—still much reconstruction to be done.

This place is amazing! I was able to visit a few weeks ago, and it as well worth it… ‘Maid of the Mist’ (in picture) is clearly the biggest attraction, and a must see for all Niagara Falls goers. The boat ride that takes you right up to the American and more impressive Canadian falls… If you do go on this, RESIST the URGE to pull your camera out and take a picture during the VERY SHORT quiescent moments (most of the time it feels like its raining horizontally). I almost ruined my camera, and there were a couple on board who did.

I’ve also heard that one-half of the water is now diverted to hydroelectric power, providing enough power for NYC and Toronto… Does this seem right?!

Greenland: land of ice and no trees. I never imagined that the memory that would be the most vivid would be the kind and welcoming nature of the people. I have no idea why this is.

For example, A buddy and I were walking out of the post office discussing how we were going to make it to the internet café, which was a few mile away. A mother and her daughter overheard our discussion, and offered to take us! We were taken aback by the kindness, and didn’t really know what to do! After some coaxing, we finally, accepted the ride.

As another example, I was talking with a guy who worked at the hotel we were staying at, after not more than a few moments, he welcomed me into his home, (he lived near the hotel). He taught me about the Inuit culture, generally aided by the use of artifacts from his home. He also drove me into town on a few occasions expecting nothing in return!

The pict is a ‘color-inverted’ iceberg image I took while touring the surrounding area of Nuuk (the capital of G-land). To see what it REALLY looks like, simply copy the image, and invert the color in e.g. photoshop.

I have defended my thesis, and I now off to the east coast – I leave tomorrow morning at 6AM…. After living in Colorado my whole life I’m sad about leaving, but looking forward to ‘east coast culture shock.’

This pic was taken last November (I think), on the terrace next to my office – off in the background are the flatirons, covered by a thin veneer of snow. I will miss Boulder very much!!

I spent the 4th of July climbing one of the 53(?) 14,000+ ft (~4300 m) peaks in Colorado… ‘Quandary’ was the peak, which is supposedly one of the easier ones, but more strenuous than I had anticipated (!!) for a couple reasons… First, the directions were poor, so we ended up starting much lower in elevation, following an old trail up to the new one (our 7 mile round trip turned into a 10 mile). Second, I’m out of shape (note the latest goal addition on 43 things.… I hate being out of shape, but with the thesis deadline, working out sort of fell by the wayside)

Nonetheless, we were lucky that the weather held, although I had my doubts as we were pelted with hail for a few minutes.

I’ve now finished off a good number of the ‘14ers’ in the Front Range:
Bierstadt 14,060
Grays 14,270
Torreys 14,267
Bross 14,172
Lincoln 14,286
Democrat 14,148
Cameron 14,238
Longs Peak 14,255
Quandary 14,265

Montana is really a beautiful state: the last (and only time) I was here was just a ‘passing though’ trip and I only spent one night.

This time we spent about a week camping in the Rocky Mountains in southeast Montana. The picture is taken about 2 miles from the Montana-Wyoming Border on Hwy 212, (below the road can be seen winding up the Beartooth mountains, and straight ahead, (I think!) is the ‘Hellroaring Plateau’). I was surprised to see this road heavily frequented by “Baby Boomer” motorcyclists(!)...

There is a good deal of (pay-per-night) camping in the valley below, which makes firewood (a camping necessity for me!) sparse, but there is plenty of national forest around.

I’m anxious to see the northern part of the state; in particular,I’d love to check out Glacier National Park!

Norway: a country with remarkable scenery! This picture was taken just outside of Bergen (and has kind of a funny story behind it)... But sometimes a picture is a poor representation of how beautiful it was in real-life…. This is one of those cases.

We rented a car in Oslo, drove across Norway, and ended on the west coast in Bergen. On our way out of Bergen, we took a wrong turn, delaying us by about 15 minutes..

We were `rewarded´ with this sunset: had we taken the correct way initially, we would have been in the mountains, completely missing the sunset - the best `wrong turn´ I´ve taken. :)

This was the first beach I had been to where the sand actually squeaked under my feet! Perhaps this `phenomenon´ is somewhat normal, but for someone who doesn´t make it to the beach more that a couple times a year, it was pretty neat.

Ko Samet was just amazing—turquoise waters white sand, bungalow right next to the water, etc. etc. The only down-side is it´s often crowded because a lot of Thais (especially on the weekend) head over from Bangkok for vacation (I remember it being just a two hour bus ride). Nonetheless, if you just have just few days to `hit the beach´ in Thailand; i.e. not enough time to head down the ´elephant’s trunk,´ Ko Samet is a nice alternative.

This pic, was taken in the summer of 2002 where I was definitely the tannest (and laziest!) I have ever been - many, many hours were spent on the beach. :)