Tag: sightseeing

Cannon Beach, Oregon

9:11 pm

Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, Oregon

Posting has been somewhat mixed this week because Diane and I are out in Oregon at a beach-side hotel in Cannon Beach. We and my oldest friend Lloyd and his family are here to visit and see some sites.

On the right is a picture of the beach and Haystack Rock, which rises more than 230 feet above the sea. We did two hikes to its base, one when the tide was out and you could get very close and see the aquatic life in the tidal pools. Quite beautiful.

This location is where Lewis & Clark first saw the Pacific during their expedition. The local museum, the Cannon Beach History Center & Museum, was fascinating. For one thing I had not known that the town was named after an actual ship cannon from the shipwreck of the American Navy ship the Shark, which foundered here in 1846. The crew was all saved, but the ship and its military equipment were lost.

In October 1846, Lieutenant Howison received information through the Tillamook people that part of the ship’s hull “with guns upon it,” had come ashore south of Tillamook Head. The lieutenant sent Midshipman Simes to visit the location. Simes reported finding the wreckage and succeeded in “getting one cannon above the high-water mark,” while two others were left buried.

Then in December 1863, mail carrier John Hobson reported seeing a cannon at present-day Arch Cape Creek. Soon after, this cannon became lost when tides buried it in sand. In June 1898, however, it was spotted once again-this time by mail carrier George Luce. With the help of his Nehalem neighbors John and Mary Gerritse and their team of horses, Luce succeeded in pulling the cannon out of the sand, after which time it stood in front of the Austin House Post Office in Arch Cape for several years.

Hobson by the way spent the last thirty years of his life, from 1864 to 1894, searching in vain for the cannon. It was only found four years after his death.

The cannon is now in the museum. In addition, the other two cannons were finally found in 2008.

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A visit to the Mexican border

12:32 pm

Last night President Trump gave his first prime-time speech to the nation, focused specifically on the hot-button issue of illegal immigration. You can read the full text, with the Democratic response, here. A fair analysis can be read here, which also includes a thorough critique of the press’s mindless partisan reaction.

I usually don’t watch such speeches. I read the transcript afterward, to see if there is any substance there (usually not). It saves time.

What I did do yesterday however was visit the very location that is the subject and focus of these speeches, the border between the United States and Mexico. Diane and I and Earl, a visiting friend from back east, decided to give Earl a taste of international travel by driving down to Nogales to cross the border for lunch.

We do this periodically, not to go sightseeing but buy many of our prescription drugs, which tend to be about 75% cheaper in Mexico and do not require that prescription for purchase. For example, one of our cats has a fungal disease called valley fever which requires giving her a pill twice a day. In the states that drug costs more than $200 for a ninety day supply. In Mexico I can get that same amount for less than $50. (The cost difference illustrates well the mess our Congress has created of our drug industry, since the high cost is directly related to government regulations imposed in the last two decades and topped off by the passage of Obamacare in 2010.)

Anyway, below are some photos from this trip. They give you a sense of what it is like at one of the major populated border crossing points, which by the way and not surprisingly does not much resemble the impression given by our modern mainstream press.
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“What do we do now?“

12:33 pm

LM ascent engine

One of the advantages one gets from writing books and giving lectures about them is that you get to see some interesting places and meet some interesting people. This is what happened to me last week when I gave two lectures about the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon on consecutive nights to three different Buffalo aerospace organizations at two different venues. My entire visit was as a guest of the Niagara Frontier Section of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, as part of its Distinguished Lecturer program, something I have participated in now for almost a decade.

The first lecture was at the Niagara Aerospace Museum. Prior to my evening talk Don Erwin, a member of the museum’s board of trustees, gave me detailed tour of the museum and its holdings, which include a wealth of artifacts going back to the very beginnings of flight and running through the Apollo lunar missions. Many of aviation’s first innovators came from the western New York area, and the companies they created ended up building important components for the later U.S. effort to get to the Moon.

looking into ascent engine nozzle

Above on the right is one of their more significant artifacts, a lunar module ascent engine. Built mostly by Bell Aerospace, this particular engine was used to test the engine to make sure the design would work. It had to work, by the way, since it had no back-up and if it failed then the astronauts would have been stranded on the Moon.

Since it really only had to work reliably once, however, the nozzle was made of ablative material rather than a heavier metal. The second image on the right looks into that nozzle, where you can see the result of the various test firings done to prove out the engine. There is obvious wear to the interior of the nozzle.

What made this museum especially fun was how accessible everything was.
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Off to Israel — and Buffalo

8:01 am

I am leaving early this morning for a two week trip to Israel. On my way back I will be stopping in Buffalo, New York for two nights to give lectures at the Niagara Aerospace Museum on Wednesday, December 12 at 7 pm, and then again to the Niagara Frontier Section of AIAA on Thursday, December 13. The first is definitely open to the public.

I will be posting from Israel, but my schedule will be somewhat confused, considering the travel times and all. This is especially frustrating because the next two weeks will be jam-packed with interesting space events, from OSIRIS-REx’s arrival at Bennu to numerous rocket launches. Nonetheless, I will be posting, regardless, even if those posts will happen at odd hours.

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Coron Island Hopping, Palawan, Philippines

6:01 pm

An evening pause: There are so many wonderful places in this universe to see. We just don’t have time. From the youtube website:

Coron is one of the famous beautiful spots of the Philippines, located in the north of Palawan. Palawan is considered one of the best islands in the World, and Coron and the surrounding islands offer spectacular views and beautiful beaches. In this video: view on the way to Kayangan Lake (0:28), Kayangan Lake (0:32), Barracuda Lake (1:33), Twin Lagoon (2:18), Atwayan Beach (3:11), Coron town (3:54), Malcapuya Beach (4:20), Banana Island (5:26), Bulog Dos Island (5:48), view from the top of Mt Tapyas (6:15).

Hat tip Danae.

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Off to the Grand Canyon

7:00 am

I am heading to the Grand Canyon today for another four day cave expedition. I will return late Tuesday. There is a chance I will be able to post later today, on the way there, as well as on Tuesday on the way back. If not, I will resume posting Tuesday evening.

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Sightseeing

8:48 am

Biosphere-2

Posting has been light the past few days, and will be today, because we have a friend visiting from back east. This of course provides an excuse to do some sightseeing. Yesterday we visited Biosphere-2, the first time I have ever been there, as shown in the picture above. Today we are heading down to Bisbee, Arizona.

I plan to write up my impressions of Biosphere-2 tomorrow. Stay tuned!

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Tiny crowded Israel

10:00 am

Journeying through northern Israel

Much of the world’s political troubles are centered on the question of Israel in the middle of the Middle East. In both the Arab world as well as in some western intellectual circles, there are whole campaigns to make it go away (some peaceful, some genocidal). Politicians, pundits, and intellectuals argue incessantly about the rights of the Palestinians and the Jews, the best solution of achieving peace, and even the question of whether the Jews who have immigrated there have a right to stay.

I have just returned from spending two weeks in Israel, a trip I do somewhat regularly to see family. Each of these visits has given me an on-the-ground close-up look at the situation there, something that is difficult to get from the typically shallow media coverage of the region. And from each of these visits comes at least one essay, something I think is required because of Israel’s significance in much of the world’s political turmoil.

This year, we took a three day sightseeing trip to northern Israel, to visit some Roman ruins, the Sea of Galilee, and an incredible nature preserve that is the springtime home for thousands upon thousands of migrating birds. This excursion thus made this particular Israel visit far different from my half dozen or so previous trips, in that it was the first time I spent a considerable time in Israel proper. All my previous trips visiting family had me spend almost all my time going from one West Bank settlement to another. (That experience resulted in a series of essays on what those settlements are really like, which not surprisingly has no resemblance to their portrayal in the western press. My previous essay, A look at some Israeli West Bank settlements, provides a good summary, but it also provides links to all the previous essays, which are definitely worth the time to read if you want to find out what it is really like in the West Bank. I will give you one clue that might shock you: Hitchhiking is one of the most popular ways to get around.)

Anyway, this three-day trip allowed me to get my first look at Israel itself. The map above shows our route, as indicated by the dotted red line. The numbered Xs were our stops, of which I will discuss below.
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30 day timelapse at sea

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Quite hypnotic, and captures the feel for what a modern ship freighter is like, which is nothing like the romantic past. And somehow, this feels fitting to show on the anniversary of the day Columbus first touched shore in the New World in 1492. He pushed the envelope possibly more than any human has ever done, and changed human history in doing so.

Hat tip Steven Golson.

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Timelapse photography of Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas National Park

6:01 pm

An evening pause: From the youtube webpage: “On a remote island hours away from Key West lies the largest masonry structure in the Americas: Fort Jefferson. Built with 16 million bricks, but never finished, the fort served as a prison during Civil War. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon visiting the island, named it a National Monument, and in 1992 it became part of Dry Tortugas National Park.”

Hat tip Wayne DeVette.

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Glacier: Why I am not posting this week

7:12 pm

The picture below will help explain why I am not posting much this week. My wife Diane and I are in Glacier National Park, and today we did a 12 mile hike on the Highline Trail, considered by many to be one of the best trails in the U.S. I’ve done a lot of hiking in my life, and I have to agree.

I hope good internet access will return next week, and I will be able to post regularly again. Until then, make sure you look real close at the picture. On the right, at the end of the trail line, is a person. This will give you a sense of the scale here.

Highline Trail

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At Zion on the way to the eclipse

8:32 pm

At Zion

As I have mentioned several times on my radio appearances with John Batchelor, Diane and I today began a two week trip to Glacier National Park followed by several days at Capital
Reef. The trip’s date however was pinned to Monday’s eclipse, with the plan being that we are stopping in Idaho Falls on the way up to Glacier to see it.

Today Diane and I drove from Tucson to a hotel right outside Zion National Park. This was not in my original plans, but when I realized the drive to Idaho from Tucson would be more than 15 hours, I looked to see if there was a nice place midway that we could also do some sightseeing. To my delight I discovered that Zion was perfectly positioned, and that there was a La Quinta hotel at its entrance that I could book practically free by using the points I had accumulated by staying at this chain previously. We had been to Zion previously, but it had been a number of years, and this would give us a chance to do a quick extra sightseeing trip.

After we checked in around 4:30 pm, we ate dinner, then took the shuttle bus into the park. The picture on the right above was taken from a short trail at the Court of the Patriarchs bus stop, up to a look out. When I saw the sun eclipsed in this manner by one of Zion’s many pinnacles, I thought this to be a very appropriate picture for the trip. The picture below is the main view from the lookout of the three pinnacles dubbed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from left to right. We didn’t see much as we didn’t have much time, but still, the place remains as beautiful as ever.

Tomorrow we head up to Idaho Falls.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob peaks in ZionA

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At the rim

8:00 pm

at the rim

On a lark, last week I called Xanterra, the vendor that runs the hotels on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, to see if they had any rooms available anytime during the summer. Diane and I wanted to do a day hike down the Hermit Trail, and to do it we needed to stay at a hotel the night before and the night after.

To my surprise, they had a rim view room available in Bright Angel Lodge, for tonight and tomorrow. The picture on the right is taken from our room, right after we arrived earlier today. I am right now sitting at that window, watching the sun set on the canyon buttes even as I type. Yowza!

I will post more tonight, and some tomorrow night as well. I will also do my podcast with John Batchelor tomorrow, live, from this room. Most cool, I must say.

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Mucking about off-hours in San Francisco, California

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen, who writes, “A brief tour of the Jeremiah O’Brien engine room (an operational Liberty Ship) and other San Francisco sights. The narrator mentions the degaussing coils that they started to use on ships during WWII to prevent magnetic mines from sinking them. The slight of hand is especially good; I think I figured it out. There was a time, before the 1980s, when the passengers helped to turn the cable cars.”

I like these comments by the videographer at his youtube website: “This WW2 Liberty ship only took 50 days to build! Vid includes random shots between getting pissed on by a homeless dude and avoiding that guy wearing nothing but a gold sequined sock.” Well, no one should be surprised. This is in fascist California.

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