travel | matching tracksuits

Las Vegas

Saturday 19 January 2008 | 0 Comments

It's been some time since I posted any videos. That's because it's been a long time since I had access to the computer on which I edit them. It's in the guest room, which is now Dziadek's room, making the computer Dziadek's computer.

I'm so far behind, it's not even vaguely amusing. Still, I had some time today while the Girl slept and K and Dziadek were out, so I went through the footage I had and put together a little something from Las Vegas.

On the way: Grand Canyon, Sedona, eating with a spoon, and more...

Stalin’s Gifts

Wednesday 16 January 2008 | 1 Comment

One of the great things about Stalin was his gift-giving sense. Take Warsaw, for example: he supposedly gave Poles a choice between a subway and this:

The Palace of Culture and Science (photo by koelk_h).

Apparently, Stalin liked to recycle his gifts...

Riga Daily Photo: Academy of Sciences

Grand Canyon

Thursday 10 January 2008 | 2 Comments

All photos are links to more pictures at Flickr.

The main goal of our trip West was to see the Grand Canyon. Dziadek, having been a geography teacher, had wanted to see it for as long as he could remember; K and I, not having had a vacation for years (literally), were eager to take him; L really didn't care.

I first went to the Grand Canyon when I was eleven. During the intervening twenty-some years, I never forgot about how awe-struck I was when I first saw the canyon.

"I knew it was big, but that big?!"

K and Dziadek had similar reactions.

The GC in winter with a baby is a hectic schedule -- into the car, out of the car, into the car, out of the car, into the car, out of the car, into the car, out of the car, into the car, out of the car. Coats on, coats off, coats on, coats off, coats on, coats off, coats on, coats off, coats on.

It soon became clear to K and me that this was just a reconnaissance trip, for we must go back and hike the canyon.

A note to photographers: the rocks reflect a lot of light. We found quickly enough that it was necessary to underexpose most shots by 0.7 steps.

The cliche is that a picture is worth some ridiculous amount of words. That really depends on the author, I'd say, but all that notwithstanding, even pictures don't do the GC any justice. It's just enormous on a scale that is incomprehensible.

Two hundred and seventy-seven miles long. An average of ten miles wide, with the shortest trail from rim to rim being twenty-four miles long. Five thousand feet deep.

Six million years old, with the oldest layers of rock being well over a billion years old.

It's like staring into infinity.

Lunar Landscape

Monday 07 January 2008 | 0 Comments

Outside of Boulder City, on the way to the Grand Canyon, we encountered some truly other-worldly views.

Hoover Dam

Saturday 05 January 2008 | 3 Comments

The first stop on our week-long trip was Hoover Dam.

To say it's awe-inspiring is an understatement. Things of that scale are almost frightening, both its size and its implications.

The enormity of the structure is almost as breathtaking as that of the Grand Canyon. Approaching it, you know it's going to be big, but once you see it, you think, "I didn't think it would be quite that big." And it's not just the dam that's huge -- everything connected to it is enormous: Lake Mead is the largest man-made lake in America; the overflow tunnels, with a diameter of 50 feet, are big enough to drive a truck through.

But it's the implications that are frightening. Built from 1931 to 1935, Hoover Dam was completed two years ahead of schedule and under budget! Six companies, from Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and California, pooled their resources to create a structure so complicated that procedures and tools had to be invented to complete it.

For instance, the heat created by the chemical reactions of concrete drying would have stretched the process of the concrete setting and drying to 125 years. To combat this, engineers designed a system whereby tubes were run through the concrete and cool water pumped throughout the whole structure. But a refrigeration unit that had such a cooling capacity? It didn't exist. Yet.

So here's all this innovation and creation and genius going into one of the most complicated structures in history at a time when a significant part of our population was treated like animals and a psychopath in Europe was laying plans to slaughter six million people because of their religious/ethnic heritage.

Humans can't be manipulated as easily as concrete, I suppose. Well, I take that back. Humans can be manipulated just as easily as anything else, but most of the time, it's manipulation towards evil.

More implications: Can anyone imagine an enormous project like Boston's "The Big Dig" project going under budget and well within the projected time frame? Can anyone imagine Haliburton delivering its services on budget, let alone under?

Still, all these thoughts passed quickly through my mind: we spent most of the time in gaping-mouth awe.

Christmas Travel

Thursday 03 January 2008 | 0 Comments

We woke up at some ridiculously early hour -- 3:00 a.m., I think -- on Christmas morning to pack ourselves into our little TDI and head to the airport to begin a week-long trip to the southwest.

We arrived in Las Vegas some eight to ten hours later: the beginning of a trip to include Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, and Sedona.

But first, a trip to a casino for one of those world-famous buffets. Over-price, generally poor-quality food. Really shouldn't have expected more.

Then, a stroll through the casino.

Odd -- everyone seems to be so bored while playing slot machines.

Still, K, L, and Dziadek were amused.

Georgia Aquarium

Tuesday 11 December 2007 | 0 Comments

With the Girl down with a head cold all week (including last weekend), we didn't have much of a chance to take Dziadek on many field trips. Rather, any field trips.

Sunday, with the Girl still sniffing, we decided that I'd take him to the Georgia Aquarium.

As impressed as he was with the inhabitants of the aquarium, he was just impressed with the engineering of the thing. "Can you imagine the pressure this pane must hold!?" he exclaimed several times.

Rose Hill Plantation

Monday 19 November 2007 | 0 Comments

Yesterday we went to Rose Hill Plantation, an antebellum estate outside of Spartanburg.

More pictures at Flickr.

Countries Visited

Sunday 11 November 2007 | 1 Comment

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Caesars Head

Wednesday 07 November 2007 | 0 Comments

There's a state park about thirty miles northwest of Greenville that promises miles of hiking, spectacular views, and an amazing waterfall.

In reality, with the lack of rain this year, Caesars Head (there's no apostrophe in the official spelling; as such, I'm not sure how to interpret that) managed only two of the three.