tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36587440057515597112024-03-13T02:42:15.605-07:00kensuskinreportsports, travel and human interest articleskensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.comBlogger220125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-71811812578449620852022-12-10T10:04:00.000-08:002022-12-10T10:04:07.813-08:00SEDONA<p> People thought we were crazy to take a road trip when everything was closed down but it was important to see our granddaughter get married in Phoenix. We originally purchased airplane tickets, but anticipating health issues, we decided to drive instead.</p><p>We left Chicago on November 11, 2020, Armistice Day--at least they used to call it that. We spent the first night in a Hampton Inn near St. Louis, the second night in Stroud, Oklahoma, and then Best Westerns in Tucumcari, NM in Winslow, AZ. They may have closed all the restaurants in Blue states but not where we went. We were able to dine in restaurants everywhere, despite reduced capacities. In Oklahome, we had some concerns because nobody wore masks, but we didn't catch anything. On the road, we stopped at the ubiquitous Loves Truck Stops because we both love Loves. </p><p>In Tucumcari, I expected more. It is famously on Route 66. It is in the song, and I expected the locals to promote that more than they did. All the activity in town is by the exit to the Interstate, and, for the most part, everything on 66 is run down or abandoned. The best thing to see is the many murals painted on old buildings in the center of town. But the food was good at a Mexican restaurant well hidden on 66.</p><p>Winslow, of course was made famous in the Eagles' song Take it Easy. " I've been standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona such a fine sight to see it's a girl my lord in a flatbed Ford staring down to have a look at me..." They built a statue of the songwriter Don Henley and permanently parked an old flatbed Ford truck nearby. We've visited Winslow several times before, and nothing has been added.</p><p>The only othr thing to see there is a circa 1930 resort called LaPosada where many well known Hollywood types spent the night back in the Stone Age. We toured it on a past trip annd wanted to stay there, but we couldn't find it. I was driving West on 66 through town when I should have been driving East on the adjacent street to see it. The GPS was no help. I didn't realize they were one-way streets.</p><p>SEDONA</p><p>The highlight of the trip, other than the wedding where we had dinner at Sandra Day O'Connor's house, was Sedona, Arizona. Sedona is an artsy town populated by aging hippies, living in nice condominiums. Restaurants and stores are very expensive. The rock formations surrounding the town are beautiful, and they are said to contain vortexes. More on that later.</p><p>We booked a couple nights at a Hilton resort which was over the top. We have about 300,000 Hilton points which we dipped into to pay for our room, a 2-room suite. </p><p>We signed up for the nightly UFO tour. From what they say, with all the vortexes in town, the illegal aliens from space (undocumented space aliens?) are attracted to the area. According to our guide, Sedona is unique in that respect. The illegal space aliens apparently don't want to go anywhere else, and it's a quick flight from Area 51. </p><p>The tour is owned by a woman named Anita Owens whom we met. She sells UFO type merchandise and pamphlets out of her car trunk. She also writes a blog in which she contends that her first memory as an infant was to see aliens standing beside her crib. Actually, in Arizona, that's not that unusual, and the border wall won't stop them. </p><p>The tour began after dark. The guide led our small group to a remote parking lot just outside of town where light pollution is minimal. The skies were clear, and it was cold. The guide issued us laser pointers and Third Generation military night vision goggles which he said cost $10,000 apiece. Not sure if that is just what the Pentagon pays while the rest of us only pay $500; that was not explained. </p><p>Our guide explained that our objective was to look at the sky and watch for moving objects. If the moving objects were flashing lights they were commercial aircraft, IFO's if you will. The objects that weren't flashing were UFO's at the edge of space. It was pitch dark at the site but the night vision equipment made it clear as day. Looking at the sky we could clearly see the fixed starts and the moving lights which were obviously not meteors. There were many of them, moving this way and that, some slowly and some quickly, sometimes in tandem. By definition, they were UFO's because we don't know what they are. The guide said that some may be our pilots, piloting UFO's, and some may be the other guys. Our government has not been forthcoming with that type of information. </p><p>A bright star like object was a rare conjunction with Jupiter Saturn and Pluto in very close proximity. You can't see Pluto, of course, except with a powerful telescope, but Jupiter and Saturn are very bright. Pluto, which used to be a planet, was first discovered in 1930 at the nearby Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, 30 miles from Sedona. We visited on a previous trip--not Pluto, but the observatory. </p><p>We were able to observe the Pleaides, a group of 7 stars from where the space aliens allegedly came, some of them anyway. Deporting them back there would be a problem, given the state of our technology.</p><p>The following morning in Sedona, we signed up for the vortex tour, run by the same company. There are 15 vortex sites in the Sedona area. We had the guide all to ourselves, and he took us to a couple of these vortexes. </p><p>Our guide explained that a vortex is a giant magnet of energy that is either positively (yin) or negatively charged (yang). The yin has feminine attributes while the yang has masculine attributes. If you live in Sedona, you decide which on you want on a given day. If you want nurturing you choose the yin. If you want empowering and energizing you choose the yang. This knowledge was imparted to us by Native American shamans over a period of thousands of years. They would come to pry and seek guidance for their people. They would hold ceremonies and perform rituals, but they didn't live at the vortex or stay for long periods. It was considered sacred ground. </p><p>There may be something to all of this. At the vortex Dianne experienced nausea and headaches and had to leave the area. Then she was OK.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-58180702858641467592021-09-01T11:28:00.002-07:002021-09-01T11:33:27.223-07:00SIEGFRIED MARCUS AND THE INVENTION OF THE AUTOMOBILE<p> Most people have no idea who invented the gasoline powered automobile. Popular thinking is that Gottfried Daimler and Karl Benz in Germany were the first persons to create the automobile, but that was the result of a propaganda blitz by the Nazis. Daimler and Benz were the first to build a car commercially, but they didn't invent it.</p><p>Americans think that the Duryea brothers invented it. Henry Ford perfected the assembly line, after observing the meat packing industry, but he didn't invent it. While his name was lost in history for many years, Siegfried Marcus (1831-1898), born in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in Germany before there was a Germany, and living in Vienna, is now being credited with the invention. </p><p>Marcus's car, which he built around 1870, can be seen today in the Vienna Technical Museum. In about 1875, he drove the vehicle from Vienna to Klosterneuberg, a distance of 7.5 miles. He had built an earlier gasoline powered vehicle in 1864, according to <i>Brittanica</i>. The car wasn't very comfortable or safe--it had no brakes, steering or seats, but it did have an internal combustion engine, a carburetor and 4 wheels.</p><p>The internal combustion engine is the key. Essentially, it uses the explosive combustion of fuel to push a piston within a cylinder which turns a crankshaft that turns the wheels. The fuel would be gasoline, diesel or kerosene. </p><p>Marcus was a prolific inventor who held 131 patents in 16 countries. These included an 1872 device for mixing fuel with air, an 1883 improved gas engine, and an 1884 electrical igniting device for gas engines. To Marcus, the motor car was a hobby and he never obtained a patent. Karl Benz got the first patent for a gas fueled car in 1886.</p><p>Marcus's first automobile was a simple handcart with an internal combustion motor attached which ran on liquid combustibles (petrol/gas). To start the vehicle, he needed a strong man to lift the drive wheels off the ground and spin them. Marcus recognized that was not a practical solution, so he later dismantled the original vehicle.</p><p>His 1883 design for an ignition with a "rotating brush carburettor" was a major step forward. That engine was innovative and successful, and in fact was used by the German Navy in its torpedo boats.</p><p>By the time of his death, Marcus was hailed worldwide as the inventor of the automobile. However, 40 years later, in the late 1930's, the Hitler regime came to power and made a concerted effort to remove Marcus's name from the history books. They removed his memorial statue from the Vienna Technical University and directed German encyclopedias to remove his name and replace it with Daimler and Benz as the inventors. Not surprisingly, Marcus's religion was the issue. Although he was of Jewish descent, he was originally buried at the Protestant Cemetery in Vienna. After the war, his remains were later moved to an "Honorary Tomb" in Vienna's Central Cemetery. </p><p>When the Germans took over Austria in 1938, one of the first things they did was go to the Vienna Technical Museum to get Marcus's car. The museum curator anticipated that, and in a heroic gesture, he spirited the car into a far corner of the museum and constructed a brick wall, thus hiding the car from the Nazis. The Nazis did obtain and destroy every document, patent and blueprint relating to Marcus's inventions, largely erasing him from history. Because of that, the above dates cited are not certain. In the 1960's the car was rediscovered when the museum was remodeled. </p><p>Other early inventors created significant inventions to further the development of the modern automobile. For example, in 1876, Nicholas Otto invented an effective gas motor engine. It was a four stroke engine that was the prototype for all later automobiles. He built his engine into a motorcycle.</p><p>Two Springfield, Massachusetts bicycle manufactures, Charles and Frank Duryea built their first motor vehicle in 1893. They achieved fame by winning the first automobile race, held on a snowy Thanksgiving Day in Chicago in 1893. First prize was $2000. </p><p>The story is not complete without the efforts of Henry Ford. A Rochester, NY patent lawyer named George B. Selden obtained a patent on a "road engine" which allowed him to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from all American car manufacturers. He based the patent on an 1873 engine built by George Brayton which was displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Selden filed for the patent in 1879 to include not only the engine but its use in a 4 wheeled car which he never built. His witness on the patent application was a guy named George Eastman who later achieved fame in the camera business. </p><p>Selden was able to shake down car makers for years until Henry Ford decided he wasn't going to take it anymore. With four other car makers, Ford challenged the Selden patent. The case dragged on for 8 years, generating 14,000 pages of testimony. Among them was Ford's statement, "It is perfectly safe to say that George Selden has never advanced the automobile industry in a single particular...and it would perhaps be further advanced than it is now had he never been born." The trial court found in favor of Selden, but Ford appealed and the appeals court overturned the verdict. Ford's actions opened the automobile market for the building of affordable cars. </p><p>As you can see, the car, as we know it, has a complicated history dating back to the original efforts and creativity of Siegfried Marcus.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p>kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-74001545739367868192020-05-28T07:13:00.000-07:002020-05-28T07:13:08.178-07:00 ANOTHER QUARANTINE PROJECT: SUPERNOVA OF 1054 AND THE EUROPEAN REACTION--OR LACK THEREOFFor those of you who study medieval history, you might find this interesting. On the Fourth of July, in the year 1054, Chinese astronomers observed a supernova which became progressively brighter over the next two years, so much so, that it could even be seen in the daytime. It wasn't as bright as a full moon, but it was 4 times brighter than Venus. You couldn't miss it. <br />
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The official name, as used by astronomers is SN1054. Although the stellar explosion was observed in 1054, the actual event occurred about 6500 years earlier in about 5500 B.C. The star is 6500 light years distant from us.<br />
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The remnants from the supernova are still visible today and are commonly studied by both amateur and professional astronomers. The debris from the explosion is known today as the Crab Nebula, located in the constellation Taurus. The core of the exploding star formed a pulsar which is known s the Crab Pulsar. More on pulsars at another time. Through a telescope the thing resembles a crab. (see below).<br />
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The phenomenon was well documented by Chinese, Japanese and Arab astronomers of the era. Even the Puebloan Indians of New Mexico recorded it on pictographs on rocks. Curiously, however, if you rely on written evidence, nobody in Europe noticed it. There are some doubtful European references recorded 400 years later, but no contemporary documentation. It would have been impossible to not notice it unless everyone lived underground. <br />
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The supernova event occurred hundreds of years prior to Copernicus, who suffered for his radical theories that the Earth revolves around the Sun rather than the other way around. In Europe, astronomy was closely aligned with astrology, and for over 1000 years, nobody was willing to stick his neck out to report an unusual occurrence in the heavens which would upset establishment doctrine.<br />
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The prevalent attitude in Europe was <em> move along, there's nothing to see here!</em> Considering how bright it was, visible in the daytime for 23 days, it would be hard to miss. <br />
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Earlier, an even brighter supernova, 7100 light years distant appeared in 1006 which was at least 3 times brighter than even the 1054 supernova. It was the brightest recorded star ever to appear in the night sky. That one <em>was</em> recorded in Europe, in only a single source, the annals of the monastery of St. Gail in Switzerland. A famous Egyptian astronomer measured the brightness of that one as one quarter that of a full moon.<br />
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According to Sir Robert Wilson's book, Astronomy through the Ages, probably the main reason for the lack of interest in Europe was the lack of encouragement, or even active discouragement by the Church "which believed that truth and spiritual guidance could come only from Holy Scripture and that natural knowledge and understanding was best revealed by ancient writings." Establishment thinking at that time was that the Earth was flat. By contrast, in Islamic and Chinese cultures astronomical/astrological observations were encouraged and supported by the government. <br />
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Eastern cultures recorded many such astronomical events going back thousands of years. Chinese astronomers recorded at least 20 such events over a span of 2000 years. You can't predict when a "guest star" will appear, but it is certainly a memorable experience. <br />
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The bottom line here is that if a European astronomer were to write or say something not in compliance with Church doctrine it might get him killed. Maybe that is why that period is commonly referred to as the "Dark Ages".<br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-73165547771528679132020-04-30T21:39:00.000-07:002020-04-30T21:39:34.324-07:00SWEET HOME ALABAMA 2.0--YOU'RE NOT A REAL BEARS FAN UNLESS YOU KNOW ABOUT HARLON HILLDriving past cotton fields in the Northwest corner of Alabama you come to the bend of the Tennessee River is an area called The Shoals. It includes the cities of Florence, Muscle Shoals and Tuscumbia as well as several smaller towns. Today the area is best known as the home of the Blues, as in music. In Florence you can visit the birthplace of W.C. Handy, the Father of the Blues. Don't confuse him with W.C. Fields although many people do. Also synonymous with the area as well as the whole state is Football. The most popular sport in Alabama is football and the second most popular is Spring football. <br />
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Back in the 1940's and early 1950's, a young man named Harlon Hill grew up in nearby Killen, Alabama, a town of about 1000. If you are younger than about 70, you probably don't know who he was. But, for about three glorious years, playing for the Chicago Bears, he was the best receiver in the National Football League. He was so good that they named a trophy after him.<br />
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The Harlon Hill Award is given to the best football player in NCAA Division II (small college). It is the small college equivalent of the Heisman Trophy. Several recipients of the trophy have gone on to productive careers in pro football although none were big stars. Some of the recent winners played for schools like Slippery Rock, Ferris State, Bloomsburg State, and Colorado Mines. The best known was three time winner Johnny Bailey, a running back from Texas A&M Kingsville, who played 6 seasons with the Bears in the 1990's. <br />
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Young Harlon Hill was an unheralded prospect from an obscure small college, Florence State Teachers College (now called University of North Alabama), where he played 4 seasons. The team's offense was oriented toward the run, as many teams were at that time, and Hill did a lot of blocking. As famed Ohio State Coach Woody Hayes once said, "When you pass the ball, three things can happen and two of them are bad." In his four years there, Hill caught a total of 54 passes, but 19 of them went for touchdowns. <br />
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After his senior year, Hill played in the annual Blue-Gray Game in Montgomery where a coach from Jacksonville State, whose team had played against Hill to their detriment, mentioned Hill's name to his friend, Bears coach George Halas. Halas requested some game films and was impressed enough that the Bears drafted him in the 15th round. If Hill felt slighted he could keep in mind that a couple years later another Alabama boy, Bart Starr, a reserve quarterback on a winless Crimson Tide team wasn't drafted until the 17th round by the Green Bay Packers where he launched a legendary Hall of Fame career.<br />
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Hill was the NFL Rookie of the Year in 1954, and he won the Most Valuable Player Award the following year. His specialty was the long "bomb", and he averaged around 25 yards per catch. He made the All Pro team in 1954-56, but got hurt in the 1956 championship game against the New York Giants,, and his career was never the same. He played 6 more years in the NFL, but a series of injuries slowed him down. He wasn't bad, averaging about 17 yards per catch, but he was no longer dazzling. <br />
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He played in an era when running the ball was more important than passing. The best quarterbacks of the day completed only about 50% of their passes. Nevertheless, Hill still holds the Bears record for career 100 yard games receiving, and held the single game record with 214 receiving yards until it was eclipsed by Alshon Jeffrey 60 years later. He also held the Bears record of 4 receiving touchdowns in a game which was later tied by Mike Ditka. In all time Bears history he is second only to Johnny Morris in receiving yards. He still holds the Bears rookie record for receiving yards and touchdowns. He led the NFL in touchdowns his rookie year.<br />
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Hill's career average of over 20 yards per catch ranks third in NFL history. He could get down the field quicker than anyone--he had 4 touchdown grabs of more than 75 yards. He gained over 1100 yards twice, at a time when they played only 12 games per season--now they play 16, and a lot of guys gain over 1100 yards. Even more remarkable was that he fumbled only twice in his career. <br />
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You would expect that Hill's gridiron exploits would have earned hun a spot in the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio but no-o-o. The probable reason is that his productive career was too brief.<br />
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After his retirement from football, Hill was a success in real life. He went back to school and earned his master's degree in education. He returned to his hometown to become an assistant coach and teacher, and ultimately the principal of his old high school in Killen. He died in 2013 at age 80, leaving 4 daughters and a son. His wife Virginia predeceased him. <br />
kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-37585947726489877722020-04-25T20:28:00.001-07:002020-04-25T20:35:10.569-07:00SWEET HOME ALABAMA--ALABAMA MUSIC HALL OF FAMEThis year, on our annual winter trip through the South, we took a 2 hour detour off the Interstate to the tri-city area of Tuscumbia, Muscle Shoals and Florence in Northern Alabama. My wife, Dianne, is from Georgia, so we speak Southern When you enter the state, the road signs read "Sweet Home Alabama", as in the Lynyrd Skynyrd song. That is the state motto as designated by the legislature.<br />
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Our destination was the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. We wandered around the building, touring the museum and learned about many famous musicians that I never knew were from Alabama. The location was chosen because Muscle Shoals, Alabama was a recording mecca for many rhythm and blues musicians. The founders of the city were spelling challenged--the city was named for the tasty mussels caught in the shallow water at the bend of the Tennessee River.<br />
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The Music Hall of Fame is a modern 12,000 square foot building with a walk of fame with stars for each of the inductees. The Hall boasts 82 inductees who are required to be natives of Alabama although many of them achieved success elsewhere. In 1985, they introduced the first inductees to the Hall of Fame, and they honor up to 6 musicians every other year. <br />
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Prominently displayed is a colorful 1950's style jukebox that plays popular music by Alabama artists.<br />
On the walls and pillars are amazing and informative lists of musicians, and recordings, and even backup musicians, all with Alabama ties. You can hear several songs by Lionel Richie and Bobby Goldsboro and even some I didn't expect, like a Grateful Dead song <em>Truckin</em>'. The Dead were from Palo Alto, Caliornia, so I'm not sure of the Alabama connection other than they played concerts in the state. Jimmy Buffett (no relation to Warren but they are friends) is from Alabama although he was born in Mississippi--the jukebox plays <em>Margaritaville</em>. Captain and Tennille are from Alabama, or at least Tennille is. You can also hear songs by groups like Spiral Staircase, Dr. Hook, Styx and Mr. Mister. <br />
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The Hall honors other artists who recorded at the studio in Muscle Shoals but are not members of the Hall of Fame because they are not from Alabama and have no other ties there. They brought the whole studio to the museum, or at least a replica! The list is a Who's Who of popular music along with the songs recorded there. The list includes Leon Russell, Paul Simon (<em>Kodachrome</em>), Bob Seger (<em>Fire Lake</em>), The Osmonds, Paul Anka (<em>Havin' My Baby), </em>The Gatlin Bros<em>., </em>Julian Lennon, Mac Davis, Glenn Frye, Rolling Stones (<em>Brown Sugar</em>), Willie Nelson (but not Ricky Nelson), Rod Stewart, Mary MacGregor (<em>Torn Between Two Lovers</em>) , Oak Ridge Boys and R.B. Greaves (<em>Take a Letter Maria</em>). <br />
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A list of songwriters (with their hometowns) with hits in the Top 40 includes Toni Tennille (Montgomery), Hank Williams, Junior (Cullman) and Senior (Mt. Olive), Tammy Wynette (Red Bay), Sandy Posey (Jasper) and Wilson Pickett (Pratteville), not to mention many others I wasn't familiar with. On another list are Number One songs by Alabama artists.<br />
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Incidentally, the Lynyrd Skynyrd band is not in the Alabama Hall of Fame,, although the band is a member of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. The band members are not from Alabama. They pioneered the Southern rock genre but the group originated in Jacksonville, Florida. Tragically, the band was decimated in a 1977 plane crash in Mississippi when the plane ran out of gas. Those killed included lead singer and founder Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist and vocalist Steve Gaines and vocalist Cassie Gaines (Steve's sister), as well as their road manager and pilot. Twenty passengers, including some band members, were seriously injured but survived. The surviving members made an oath never to use the name <em>Lynyrd Skynyrd</em> again--they didn't want to capitalize on the tragedy.<br />
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A large room in the Hall holds the framed portraits of the inductees. I'm not familiar with some, but here are the better known names with the year of induction:<br />
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1985 Nat King Cole (needs no introduction)<br />
1987 Sonny James (<em>Young Love</em>), Sam Phillips (more on him later), Blues legend W.C. Handy (<em>St. Louis Blues</em> among others).<br />
1989 Jazz great Erskine Hawkins<br />
1991 Dinah Washington (<em>What a Difference a Day Makes</em>), who was married to football great Dick "Night Train: Lane, (see KENSUSKINREPORT, Sept. 24, 2007)<br />
1993 Tammy Wynette (<em>Stand by Your Man</em>), Percy Sledge (<em>When a Man Loves a Woman</em>), R & B band Alabama, and the yodeler and father of country music Jimmie Rodgers (not the rock 'n' roll Jimmie Rodgers who was born the same year the first Jimmie Rodgers died)<br />
1995 Martha Reeves, but not the Vandellas (<em>Dancin' in the Streets</em>), Commodores (Lionel Richie's band)<br />
1997 Lionel Richie who needs no introduction<br />
1999Temptations (<em>My Girl</em>), Wilson Pickett (<em>Midnight Hour</em>), Bobby Goldsboro (<em>Honey</em>). <br />
2001 Legendary baritone Jim Nabors<br />
2003 Country star Emmylou Harris<br />
2020 Big Mama Thornton who recorded <em>Hound Dog</em> in 1953 and held down Number 1 on the Billboard R & B charts for several weeks. A couple years later, the song was covered by a guy named Elvis Presley who also made it a Number 1 hit. Elvis' version annoyed the songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Leiber said "I have no idea what that rabbit business is all about. The song is not about a dog it's about a man, a freeloading gigolo." The song was supposed to be an anthem of Black female power.<br />
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Back to Sweet Home Alabama, the lyrics are controversial harking back to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. From interviews with the band members, it was not clear which side they were on. <br />
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<em>Big wheels keep on turning</em><br />
<em>Carry me home to see my kin</em><br />
<em>Singing songs about the southland</em><br />
<em>I miss Alabamy once again</em><br />
<em>And I think it's a sin, yes</em><br />
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<em>Well I heard Mister Young sing about her</em><br />
<em>Well I heard ole Neil put her down</em><br />
<em>Well I hope Neil Young will remember</em><br />
<em>A southern man don't need him around anymore</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Sweet home Alabama</em><br />
<em>Where the skies are so blue</em><br />
<em>Sweet home Alabama</em><br />
<em>Lord I'm coming home to you</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>In Birmingham they love the governor</em><br />
<em>Now we all did what we could do</em><br />
<em>Now Watergate does not bother me</em><br />
<em>Does your conscience bother you</em><br />
<em>Tell the truth</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers</em><br />
<em>And they've been known to pick a song or two</em><br />
<em>Lord they get me off so much</em><br />
<em>They pick me up when I'm feeling blue</em><br />
<em>Now how about you?</em><br />
<em></em><br />
According to Ronnie Van Zant, the group didn't appreciate Neil Young's disparaging the state in his song <em>Southern Man</em> so they wrote a rebuttal. The "Swampers" refers to the Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section that backed up many artists that have recorded in Alabama. Several have been inducted into the Hall of Fame but they are not household names. <br />
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Finally a large exhibit in the museum is devoted to Sun Records, once owned by Sam Phillips who discovered Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, the Million Dollar Quartet. Although Sun Records was based in Memphis Tennessee (and is now a museum), Phillips came from Florence, Alabama. <br />
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Phillips formed the record label in 1952 but he had to win a legal battle to use the name <em>Sun Records</em> because the name was already in use. Sun Records of New York had a big hit in 1950, <em>Papirossen </em>(cigarettes), a very sad song, written and sung by the great Herman Yablokoff--in Yiddish. I'm not making this up--his biography is in Wikipedia. He was a big star in Yiddish theater. My folks had a collection of 78rpm's which included that record. <br />
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In any event, when the New York company went defunct, Phillips' company copied the design of the record label but made the decision to record songs in English. <br />
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NEXT: Sweet Home Alabama 2.0: You're not a Real Bears Fan Unless You Know About Harlon Hill. <br />
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<br />kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-31582354035029147542020-04-19T19:34:00.002-07:002020-04-20T09:31:25.728-07:00MORE QUARANTINE STORIES--MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT SPHINXSeveral years ago, Dianne and I took a trip to Egypt, and I wrote several articles about our experiences there. We stayed at the Oberoi Mena Hotel, a historic hotel just down the street from the Great Pyramid. The Sphinx is a mile or so farther down the road.<br />
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The Great Pyramid was the tallest building in the world until the Eiffel Tower in Paris was built in the late 1800's. We stood on the first tee at the hotel golf course, with the Great Pyramid looming over the trees and the Sphinx nearby. Its a strange feeling to tee off knowing that the Sphinx may be watching. <br />
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Visiting the Sphinx is somewhat underwhelming; compared to the pyramids behind it, it looks miniscule. But it is one of the largest statues in the world. It is 240 feet long and 66 feet high from the base to the top of the head. It is 62 feet wide at the rear. It faces due East toward the sunrise.<br />
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It is carved into the bedrock, a single piece of limestone, but different layers of rock have resulted in uneven erosion. The head was carved from a much harder rock layer. <br />
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Over a period of several thousand years, the Sphinx gradually came to be buried in sand from the Sahara. The only part showing was the mysterious face. There is only one Great Sphinx, but one can find numerous depictions usually guarding royal tombs and temples. In every case, it is the body of a lion and the head of a human. The word<em> sphinx</em> comes from Greek antiquity where it refers to a mythological beast with the body of a lion, wings and a woman's head. We don't know what the Egyptians called it. <br />
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Until Napoleon came to Egypt around 1800 there was no such thing as archaeology. Up to that time, people showed no respect for relics of ancient history. The Mamelukes used the Sphinx for target practice. Religious fanatics chopped away at the face in an attempt to destroy it. It used to have a beard. <br />
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Today they show a little more respect, but not much. For example, you never see a photo of the Sphinx from the rear. (Until now--see photo below). If you did, you would see, literally across the street, a few hundred feet away, a KFC restaurant, a Pizza Hut, a cheap hotel called the Sphinx House and a Hard Rock Café. The street is essentially the city limits between the City of Giza and the desert. Zoning laws are non-existent in Egypt, but the government relies heavily on the tourist industry and prohibited development next to the Sphinx. Unlike the Alamo, for example, in Texas, or the Old North Church in Boston. Street vendors, including little kids, sell trinkets at the statue, and they confront you at every turn. <br />
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In the evenings, they bring in folding chairs and hold concerts and a light show at the Sphinx. We enjoyed that very much.<br />
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Like its inscrutable face, the Sphinx holds many mysteries, and Egyptologists/archaeologists have been arguing the significance of it for centuries. Nobody is certain how old it is, who built it, or even what it is, and those ongoing debates may never be resolved. The same issues are debated with regard to the Great Pyramid. Most of the pyramids were built as tombs or to honor kings, but strangely nobody is buried in the Great Pyramid and no hieroglyphics are present to indicate its purpose. The same for the Sphinx.<br />
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The Sphinx as any casual observer would recognize, appears to have the body of a lion and the head of a man. From the 1500's to the middle of the 19th Century, several observers even described the Sphinx as a woman, noting that it has the face, neck and breast of a woman. Many experts assert that the head had been that of a lion or perhaps the jackal god Anubis who appears on many Egyptian monuments. They believe the face of a man (or woman), the Pharaoh, was carved much later. <br />
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There are a number of so-called "fringe" theories and many books written attempting to decipher the mystery of the Sphinx. For example, popular authors Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval theorize that the relative positions of the three Giza pyramids correspond to the three stars forming Orion's belt--they are not in a straight line.<br />
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Their theory asserts that the geographic relationship of the Sphinx, the three pyramids and the Nile corresponds with Leo, Orion and the Milky Way--as they were positioned 10,500 years ago during the Age of Leo the Lion (10,970-8,810 B.C.E.). At that time, the sun rose in the constellation Leo on the vernal equinox. Mainstream Egyptologists dismiss that as a crackpot theory, pseudo-archaeology (fake news, as you will), but nobody really knows the answers to the basics--who, when and why regarding the statue. <br />
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Excavations have shown water damage at the underground base of the statue which may indicate that it was built at a time when the climate was significantly wetter than it is today. It wasn't exactly the Sahara Forest at that time, but it has been a desert for at least 10,000 years. According to geologists, the erosion on the statue could not have been caused by wind and sand because it was buried in sand for thousands of years. <br />
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Carbon dating does not work for stone objects. Unlike all other Egyptian monuments we visited, the Sphinx has no hieroglyphic inscriptions on it. The Sphinx may be inscrutable, but the Egyptians generally are very scrutable. A tour down the Nile will show that the ancient Egyptians were prolific writers completely covering monuments, top to bottom. But the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid have no writing at all on them. Archaeologists cannot explain that.<br />
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The mainstream experts today believe that the Pharaoh Khafre had it constructed in the 25th Century B.C.E., making it the oldest sculptured monument in Egypt. The problem is that there are no contemporary inscriptions connecting it with Khafre. All the circumstantial evidence was written over 1000 years later. The evidence cited has to do with the Second Pyramid (next door to the Great Pyramid) which was said to be constructed by and is associated with Khafre. His connection with the Sphinx is all speculation because, as we've noted, there are no inscriptions.<br />
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Other experts believe the Sphinx was built to honor Khufu (Cheops) who was Khafre's father, The carved face does not resemble that on a statue of Khafre but they believe it looks like Khufu. But then it is missing the nose which was pried off by the Sufi Muslims in the 1300's according to Arab historians. The reason: to protest idol worship by the peasants who were delivering offerings to the Sphinx, hoping to increase their harvest.<br />
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The questions about the Sphinx probably will never be answered definitively without totally excavating it, which is not likely to happen. Keep in mind that only a fraction of historic Egyptian ruins have been uncovered, so Egyptologists will have job security for centuries to come.<br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-16814981587485104082020-04-09T08:31:00.000-07:002020-04-09T08:31:05.382-07:00THE STRANGE STORY OF MOE BERG, BALLPLAYER AND SPYMorris "Moe" Berg (1902-1972) was a Major League ballplayer who had probably the most interesting backstory of any professional athlete. He was a fine defensive catcher who spent 15 years in the bigs with Brooklyn, Washington, Cleveland, the Chicago White Sox and the Boston Red Sox. For quite a few years, he even held the record for catchers for most consecutive games without making an error.<br />
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Berg earned a B.A. degree, <em>cum laude</em>, in modern languages from Princeton, and a law degree from Columbia. He even studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. He spoke at least 12 languages, and as his teammate, pitcher Ted Lyons once said, "He couldn't hit in any of them!" His lifetime batting average was only .243 with 6 home runs. His language repertoire included English, Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Yiddish, and even Ancient Sanskrit.<br />
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Each day, he read 10 newspapers from cover to cover. In those days most ballplayers, if they read anything at all, read comic books. Berg was in a league by himself. Other than baseball, he had little in common with his teammates. He was a lifelong bachelor and an introvert. None of his teammates knew him well. Recent biographers suggest that he may have been gay, but his teammates dispute that. He was often seen in the company of attractive women.<br />
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In college, Berg starred in baseball, playing shortstop and third base. He was scouted by the New York teams because in their markets, they could sell more tickets with a Jewish ballplayer. He signed his first contract with the Brooklyn Robins (later the Dodgers). <br />
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At that time, it was common for players in the off season to travel the world, barnstorming and teaching baseball to the locals in foreign countries. Before the 1970's ballplayers didn't make that much money so they held regular jobs in the winter to make ends meet. After the 1934 season, Berg traveled to Japan with an all-star team which included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and a few other Hall of Famers to conduct baseball clinics and show off their skills. Although significantly less talented than the other players, Berg was chosen to fill out the team because he could speak Japanese. Upon arrival, he gave a speech in Japanese and was invited to address the Legislature. <br />
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At that time, Japan was a rising power in the world, potentially hostile to the U.S., and we didn't know much about that country. Berg had contracted with a newsreel company to look around and take a lot of pictures. In Tokyo, he visited St. Luke's International Hospital which was the tallest building in the city, ostensibly to visit the daughter of the American ambassador who had just given birth.<br />
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Berg entered the building wearing a men's kimono, carrying a bouquet of flowers. He went up to the roof of the building, dumped the flowers, pulled a 16mm Bell & Howell movie camera out of his kimono and filmed panoramic pictures of the city. The Japanese government had expressly forbidden the Americans from taking photographs. He never did see the ambassador's daughter.<br />
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The pictures made their way to Washington where they were helpful several years later in identifying targets for bombing raids during World War II. Google Maps were still a long time in the future. <br />
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During World War II, after Berg's baseball career was over, he was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA) to do intelligence work. He never talked about his spying with anyone, even years later. In fact, he never talked much about anything.<br />
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Historians have been able to glean, from other sources, several of his wartime exploits. For example, in 1944 he traveled to Zurich, Switzerland, posing as a student, for a conference at which the Head of the German nuclear program, the brilliant Werner Heisenberg, would be lecturing. Berg's orders were to talk to Heisenberg, and try to determine Germany's progress in building an atomic bomb. If he deemed Germany was close, he was ordered to assassinate Heisenberg. After a dinner party, Berg took a stroll with Heisenberg and discerned that the Germans were not close to producing the bomb. The Nazi scientist was despondent that Germany was going to lose the war. Berg left him alone and delivered critical information to the Allied intelligence community. <br />
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On another occasion, Berg was dropped into German occupied Italy to locate Antonio Ferri, a prominent aerodynamics engineer who was privy to German nuclear secrets. Ferri had gone into hiding, but Berg was able to find him and ferry him out of Italy to the Allied side. Berg of course spoke Italian, and was able to translate critical documents for our side.<br />
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He parachuted into occupied Yugoslavia to evaluate the various resistance groups battling the Nazis to determine which ones should receive aid. He determined the strongest group was the one led by Josef Broz (Tito) who ultimately ruled the country for many years.<br />
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In later years Berg was badgered by publishers to write his memoirs. They sent over a co-writer to interview him. Berg quit the project, and the writer left disappointed. Berg didn't take it well when he figured out the man thought he was interviewing Moe (Howard) of the Three Stooges.<br />
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During his baseball career an interviewer questioned whether he was wasting his talents on baseball. Berg's reply was that he'd rather be a ballplayer than a Supreme Court justice. <br />
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President Truman invited Berg to the White House to present him the Medal of Freedom. He turned it down. After Berg's death, his sister Ethel requested and accepted the award. She donated it to the Baseball Hall of Fame.<br />
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After he retired from government service, Berg lived the last 20 years of his life, unemployed, with his family. First he lived for many years with his brother, Samuel, a physician, until his brother evicted him. He then lived with his sister until his death. He died in 1972 after a fall in the home. At the hospital, his last words were "How'd the Mets do today?" (They won.) The never-told story of his secret life in government service died with him.<br />
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<br />kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-12656589934384144412020-04-05T13:08:00.002-07:002020-04-05T13:08:32.343-07:00MORE QUARANTINE STORIES--CHICAGO PIZZA AND HOT DOGSA year or two ago, I wrote an article about my quest for the best fried chicken in the country. We had, of course paid a visit to the original Col. Sanders restaurant in Corbin, KY, which is mostly a museum but does sell chicken. We've had wonderful fried chicken in Forrest City, Arkansas and Paducah, Kentucky, as well as the Dixie Trucker's Home in McLean, Illinois.<br />
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As a native of the South Side of Chicago, I've come to realize that gastronomically speaking, Chicago is right up there with anywhere in the world, especially for comfort food. Certainly other cities are proud of their iconic dishes. For example, Philly has cheese steaks, New Orleans has po'boys and other Cajun specialties, Boston has lobster, the Outer Banks of North Carolina has buckets of shrimp, and my favorite, Connecticut serves grinder sandwiches. <br />
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But Chicago was the pioneer city for so many delicious dishes--deep dish pizza, Vienna hot dogs, Italian beef and gyro sandwiches on pita bread. Twinkies, Cracker Jacks, Wrigley's gum and, believe it or not, fudge brownies were also invented in Chicago. <br />
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CHICAGO DEEP DISH PIZZA<br />
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Pizza has been around in one form or another for centuries and introduced into the U.S. by Italian immigrants in the early 20th Century. The Food Channel had a show recently where they surveyed firefighters in New York and Chicago to vote on the " best" pizza. New York won maybe because they have more people than Chicago, and Chicagoans never got an opportunity to stuff the ballot box. I wouldn't put much credence in that survey--New Yorkers put ketchup on their hot dogs. No self-respecting Chicagoan would do that.<br />
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New York pizza has a thin flatbread crust, and it's not in the same league as Chicago pizza. The Chicago deep dish pizza was developed in 1943 when Ike Sewell and his partner Ric Riccardo opened a restaurant called The Pizzeria on the Near North Side. Riccardo an Italian immigrant owned a nearby restaurant while Sewell worked for Fleischmann's Distillery Co. They originally planned to open a Mexican restaurant. When they opened Due's Pizzeria in 1955, a block away, they changed the name of the original restaurant to Uno's. The two restaurants are still there and are still successful. Sewell eventually did open a Mexican restaurant Su Casa, next door to Due's. My first credit card was from Su Casa when I was in college. <br />
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Pizza historians point out that neither Sewell nor Riccardo knew anything about making pizza, and that the pizza was actually invented by Sewell's pizza chef Rudy Malnati and/or his cook Alice May Redmond. <br />
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The restaurants were so successful that they ultimately franchised the Uno's Pizzeria to a Boston company with plans to bring Chicago pizza across the country. They did so, and today Uno's Restaurants is a publicly held company operating about 150 locations. They even have locations in Saudi Arabia, South Korea and India. The only problem with the franchise pizza is that the recipe, although deep dish, is not the same as the original. If you're from Chicago, you'll know the difference. The Uno's near our house closed last year.<br />
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Rudy's son Lou Malnati went off on his own in 1971, serving similar deep dish pizza, Lou died in 1978, but his 2 sons run the company. They now have over 50 restaurants mostly in the Chicago area as well as a few in Phoenix, Arizona, a city with many former Chicagoans. The cook Alice May Redmond went with her sister to Gino's East which has similar pizza and multiple locations.<br />
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The big difference between Chicago pizza and New York pizza is the thick crust which can be 2 inches thick It is cooked in a round pan The flaky crust is made from unbleached wheat flour with lots of butter, giving it a flaky biscuit like taste. If you're on a diet you probably don't want to read this. The unique taste comes from 3 types of fat--vegetable oil, olive oil and butter. They build the pizza in layers. First they spread the mozzarella cheese, add the Italian sweet or hot sausage patties or vegetables and then the crushed plum tomatoes. The cheese must be on the bottom; otherwise it would burn in the hot oven.<br />
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Even during a pandemic, they will get that pizza to you. All I had to do was call ahead give a credit card number and they meet you at the curb.<br />
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VIENNA HOT DOGS<br />
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Two Austrian immigrants, Emil Reichel and Samuel Ladany created their all beef sausage recipe for the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. They served it from a horse drawn wagon. It was a big hit and the Vienna Sausage Manufacturing Co. was born. <br />
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If you go to Vienna, Austria and ask for a hot dog, (or a frankfurter or wiener), they won't know what you're talking about. The sausages, or wieners, in Austria are more like knockwurst and nothing like the ones here. They don't come on a bun. In the real Vienna, the sausages are made with pork, not beef. Incidentally, in Berlin Germany, the big thing is <em>currywurst,</em> and to American taste buds it really is the wurst. But it's popular in Germany; they sell it everywhere. As Otto von Bismarck once said, "Laws are like sausages it is better not to see them being made!"<br />
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If you order a hot dog in Chicago they give it to you with everything on it--mustard, chopped onions, neon green relish, celery salt, dill pickle, sport peppers and maybe sauerkraut--all on a poppy seed bun. Personally, I always skip the relish. No ketchup however. If someone sees you putting ketchup on a hot dog you may get a cold, threatening glare from bystanders. Maybe not as bad as my wife smearing mayonnaise on a corned beef sandwich (on white bread) in a Kosher deli but bad nevertheless,<br />
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The 1893 World's Fair, the Columbian Exposition, as it was called was the celebration of the 401st anniversary of Columbus "discovering" America. The fair was best known for introducing the Ferris Wheel and the zipper but the most enduring legacy were the foods introduced to the world for the first time. For breakfast the fair introduced Cream of Wheat and Shredded Wheat to the world, courtesy of flour millers from Minnesota and Denver. For lunch and snacks, in addition to all-beef hot dogs, we're talking brownies, which weren't called that until years later, and Cracker Jacks. Brownies were small cakes baked by socialite Bertha Palmer (see: Palmer House Hotel) which were intended to fit inside a box lunch. They were chocolate but didn't originally have fudge.<br />
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I could go on about Italian beef and gyros and maybe I will in a later installment. Other surprising Chicago inventions are Shrimp de Jonghe and Chicken Vesuvio, both named after now defunct restaurants. <br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-37223513957911133182020-03-29T12:32:00.001-07:002020-03-29T12:33:50.110-07:00MORE THINGS I LEARNED DURING QUARANTINE--ALIEN LIFE IN AND AROUND THE RINGS OF SATURNI've taken the enforced quarantine as an opportunity to be productive and learn new things. The library is closed, but the supermarket is still open. We visited Mariano's today, and walking around was like playing a game of Pac Man. If someone was in an aisle, I would quickly turn down a different aisle. Waiting at the deli counter was like a pas de deux, an elaborate dance to not get too close to anyone.<br />
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About 5 years ago, on a long overseas flight, I watched a video on Cosmos that piqued my interest about astronomy and the possibilities of life in the satellites of Saturn. In college, I had taken an astronomy course, but that was the Dark Ages compared to what we have learned since the Apollo missions. Our knowledge of Saturn has increased exponentially especially after the success of the Cassini space probe.<br />
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<strong>RINGS AND MOONS OF SATURN</strong><br />
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The Cassini spacecraft (officially Cassini-Huygens) was launched in 1997 by NASA in conjunction with the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency--hence the name <em>Cassini--</em>Giovanni, not Oleg. After making a grand tour of the Solar System, passing close to Venus, Earth, Asteroid <em>2685 Masursky</em> and Jupiter, the spacecraft began orbiting Saturn in 2004. It circled Saturn for 13 years before crashing (deliberately) into the planet in 2017 when its useful life was complete. They ditched the craft to avoid inadvertently contaminating any of Saturn's moons (especially Titan and Enceladus) with terrestrial microbes which might have somehow survived the trip. Despite the demise of the spacecraft, the mountains of data it collected are still being analyzed by scientists who will continue to do so for years to come. <br />
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We've learned from the probe and recent observations that Saturn has 82 moons, not to mention more than 150 known moonlets. Astronomers at the Mauna Kea observatory in Hawaii discovered 20 small moons in 2019 of which 17 were retrograde; that is, spinning in the opposite direction from Saturn When I studied astronomy as a kid, Saturn had only 9 moons. Incidentally, Jupiter has 79 moons--it had 12 when I grew up. <br />
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Saturn's largest moon, Titan is larger than Mercury or Pluto, but most of the moons are less than 10 km (6 miles) in diameter. The moonlets, embedded in the Rings are even smaller than that. If you can envision surf washing over sand on the beach and getting things caught in it, that describes the moonlets.. Some of the moonlets are as small as 400 meters in diameter. Many of the moons don't even have names yet, and they are soliciting names from the public. The ones that do have names are named not only for giants of Greek and Roman mythology, but also from Norse, Gallic and Inuit sagas.<br />
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Saturn's rings are composed almost entirely of small chunks of water ice, ranging in size from micrometers to several meters. They are relatively young, geologically speaking. Scientists estimate their age from 10 million to 100 million years. They are also slowly disintegrating into the planet by force of gravity. Time is short; they will be gone in a few hundred million years.<br />
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The Rings, which are by and large on the same plane, are classified into at least 154 major subdivisions. Each one has a name. We have Rings A through F, though not in alphabetical order. For example D Ring is the one closest to Saturn (approx. 45,000 miles), followed by C Ring, B Ring, Cassini Division, and then A Ring. Then comes the Roche Division and then F Ring and various others named after figures from Greek mythology. The two outermost Rings are E Ring and lastly, Phoebe Ring. Go figure. The thickness of the Rings can range from as little as 10 meters up to 1 kilometer. <br />
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The Rings are further subdivided into structures within the Rings themselves. The 8 structures and gaps within the C Ring alone, have names like Maxwell Gap, Maxwell Ringlet, Bond Gap, Columbo Gap and Titan Ringlet. They range from 15 km. to 370 km in width. The Cassini Division has 9 structures and various gaps named after astronomers like Huygens, Herschel and Kuiper. The Kuiper Gap is only 3 km across. <br />
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The widths of the Rings range from 500 km (300 miles) to 25,000 km (15,500 miles) except for the giant E Ring which is 300,000 km (186,000 mi) across.<br />
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<strong>POSSIBILITIES OF LIFE </strong><br />
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What excites scientists most is the possibility of life on the moons Titan and Enceladus. Enceladus in particular is intriguing because geysers of water vapor and other materials are constantly erupting in its South polar region. The spacecraft actually flew through the geysers, probably 50 miles above the surface, and detected organic compounds consisting of carbon and nitrogen as well as amino acids, the building blocks of life. The indication is that Enceladus has a large subterranean ocean of liquid salt water more than 6 miles thick. Scientists believe that the ocean covers the entire subsurface of that moon.<br />
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Although scientists don't expect intelligent life to appear, they are lobbying for more space missions to determine what types of life, if any, exist there. They could then compare it to life on Earth in an attempt to determine whether it arose independently or if Earth life and Enceladus life came from a common source in the Universe. Either way, the results could answer questions we've been asking for generations. Scientists today still can't answer the question of how life originated on Earth.<br />
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For life to exist, there must be an energy source. On Earth, that energy source generally is the Sun. But not always. For example, in recent years, scientists discovered life teeming in extreme environments, the superheated volcanic vents on the ocean floor, far from any energy from the Sun. They had discovered <em>archaea</em>, an entirely new phylum, totally alien to what we could expect. Many are one celled creatures distinct from and unrelated to bacteria. <br />
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Scientists speculate that there is no reason why similar life couldn't thrive on (or under) Enceladus. They don't rule out the fact that alien life could have a different bio-chemistry than Earth life. We won't know until we can figure out a way to go there or send a probe to find out. It probably won't happen in our lifetime. <br />
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The spacecraft dispatched the Huygens lander to the surface of Titan in 2005. The photos aren't much different than those on Mars with many rocks strewn across the surface. Titan has a thick atmosphere, weather and tidal currents, like we have on Earth. What's most interesting is the fact that Titan has lakes on the surface, the only lakes in the Solar System other than on Earth. One Titanian lake, <em>Kraken Mare</em>, is larger than Lake Superior. You don't want to drink out of it because it is not filled with water but rather liquid hydrocarbons methane and ethane. Your car might run on it however.<br />
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Those lakes sit on top of a subterranean ocean filed with water. NASA is entertaining the idea of sending a submarine to Titan (I'm not making this up--two different designs have been presented) to search for exotic alien life.<br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-76326279962814671982020-03-25T21:27:00.000-07:002020-04-08T14:58:16.920-07:00THINGS I LEARNED DURING QUARANTINE--BIG BANGSitting in the house with little to do and the library closed, I have to keep my mind busy. I watched a couple educational movies on Cosmos that literally expanded my horizons. <br />
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I spent an hour and a half watching a movie explaining what occurred during the first second after the Big Bang, billions of years ago. Of course nobody was there with a stopwatch. <br />
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According to the movie, scientists measure time in "Planck times" (<em>t</em>p) which are trillionths of a second. The term honors German physicist Max Planck who first proposed the concept in 1899. He incorporated the speed of light and Newton's gravitational constant along with Planck's constant in a series of complicated equations.<br />
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Actually a unit of Planck time is much shorter than a trillionth of a second It is defined as the time to travel one Planck length at the speed of light--a time interval of 5.391 X 10 to the minus 44th of a second. In other words, how far does light travel in one second. That's quick. Lickety split!<br />
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One Planck time is the shortest theoretically measurable time interval. The key word here is <em>theoretical </em> because we don't have the technology yet to measure it. This concept is useful in quantum physics and I don't purport to be an expert on that. <br />
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To slow things down, there are actually words to describe short periods of time (in ascending order). For example: 1<em> yoctosecond</em> (1 septillionth of a second), 1 <em>zeptosecond (</em>1 sextillionth), 1 <em>attosecond</em> (1 quintillionth), 1 <em>femtosecond </em>(1 quadrillionth) and 1 <em>picosecond</em>(1 trillionth). There will be a quiz on this,<br />
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To put this in context, an <em>attosecond</em> (1000 <em>zeptoseconds</em>) is to a second as a second is to <em>31.7 billion years.</em> It takes 0.35 <em>attoseconds</em> for light to travel the diameter of a hydrogen atom. They didn't really measure that, they computed it mathematically. The famous <em>Higgs boson</em> particle, discovered at the Large Hadron Collider in 2013, hangs around for less than a <em>yoctosecond </em>before it breaks down. <br />
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The cost to obtain this information is astronomical in itself--billions of Euros. The Europeans built the LHC, the largest machine in the world. Located several hundred feet underground in France and Switzerland, it has 17 miles of concrete tunnels in which trillions of particles are fired at each other at nearly the speed of light. They are expected to collide with each other, and scientists observe these collisions to better understand what happened in the Big Bang. The best analogy is a big football game where arms and legs are flying around on every play. <br />
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For most of us, there isn't a big demand for trillions of anything except when discussing the Federal deficit. To paraphrase Sen. Everett Dirksen in the 1960's, "Congress spends a trillion here and a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money!"<br />
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The narrator explained that particles from the Big Bang were moving faster than the speed of light. Einstein wasn't around in those days to tell them that you can't do that. Einstein's theories regarding the bending of light were recently proven. This occurred a Planck time or two after the Big Bang, which could be caused only by gravitational waves produced by inflation. The Big Bang, by definition is simply inflation on a cosmic scale. This discovery of inflation gratifies Washington economists and also those scientists who espouse the Big Bang Theory. <br />
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In any event, nobody was able to explain what caused the Big Bang in the first place, or how all that matter in the universe was compressed into a single atom. If anyone can explain that, a Nobel Prize awaits--as well as a noble one.<br />
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Did I mention that it's been a long quarantine?? In my next installment, I'll explain about all the stuff that's buried in the Rings of Saturn.kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-77582115414191859142019-11-19T18:50:00.002-08:002019-12-01T19:36:55.612-08:00MORE ROAD TRIP ADVENTURES--TASTING CHILI, 2 PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES, 2 CAPITOLS, AND OTHERS, <strong>SAMPLING CINCINNATI CHILI</strong><br />
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After touring the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, Dianne and I stopped for dinner nearby at Skyline Chili, a Cincinnati icon. I had never visited a Skyline Chili restaurant, but I heard its the most exciting thing to happen in Cincinnati since they elected Jerry Springer mayor. <br />
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Most people don't know this, but Cincinnati is famous for its chili, especially Skyline Chili. For years people have been bending my ear about how great it is, and this was my first opportunity to taste it. The chili was created by a Greek immigrant named Nicholas Lambrinides in 1949 using family recipes. He opened his first restaurant and named it for his view of the Cincinnati skyline. Since then, it has expanded to over 150 locations in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.<br />
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The marketing department at Skyline Chili has done a good job. The chili is the "official chili" of sports teams like the Cincinnati Reds, the Columbus Blue Jackets and even Kings Island amusement park. It sponsors the Crosstown Shootout, the annual basketball game between Cincinnati and Xavier Universities, both Division 1 rivals. According to Wikipedia, Skyline, along with Cincinnati chili in general is considered the signature dish for the whole State of Ohio. So take that, Texas!<br />
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It is not to be confused with Texas chili. Cincinnati chili lacks meat, and beans cost extra. Spiced with curry powder, and sprinkled with grated cheese, Cincinnati chili is really a sauce spread over hot dogs or spaghetti. Most Texans will probably stick to their own chili with meat and hot spices. <br />
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I ordered the 5-ways which is the spaghetti with chili, cheese, beans and onions. On the 4-ways, you get a choice of beans or onions, and on the 3-way, you just get the chili and cheese. I enjoyed it, but I'll stick to the Chicago style chili which is more similar to the Texas chili.<br />
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<strong>RIO GRANDE UNIVERSITY--BEVO FRANCIS</strong><br />
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A three hour drive East of Cincinnati, we visited the leafy campus of Rio Grande University, at an unlikely location, not in Texas, but in Southeastern Ohio. Many moons ago, in the early 1950's, this small school, then known as Rio Grande College was a basketball hotbed. The school at that time had less than 100 students and more than half were girls. The gym didn't even have a locker room, so the players had to scamper across to the dorm to take showers.<br />
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For two seasons, though, Rio Grande was a giant in the basketball world. The team stunned sport fans by blowing through 39 straight small schools in 1953 and then more than holding their own against large basketball powers the following year, going 21-7. That wouldn't normally be a big deal, but they had a star player named Bevo Francis who became a household name as the big fish in the small pond. Mr. Francis AVERAGED over 50 points per game, setting the all time college basketball scoring record which still stands. He scored 116 points in one game and 113 in another.<br />
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Years ago, I wrote an article about Mr. Francis, and now I was able to research his story firsthand. See KENSUSKINREPORT, June 11, 2007. <br />
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Near the gym is a street on campus named after Mr. Francis. I went inside the gym and took a picture of Mr. Francis' jersey, Number 32 hanging from the rafters. It was new student week and I asked a young female student guide if there were any other Bevo Francis memorabilia in the building. She didn't know the significance, and wasn't even sure who he was. For all she knew, I could have been talking about Pope Francis. Nevertheless, she took me to the trophy room where behind the glass were yellowed newspaper accounts of Mr. Francis' exploits.<br />
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A large plaque hanging on the wall has a list of Francis' highest scoring games--116 against Ashland Junior College, 113 against Hillsdale, 84 against Alliance College, 82 against Bluffton College, and so on. That was before they had 3-point baskets, and Francis could shoot from outside as well as inside.<br />
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That was the high point of Mr. Francis' basketball career. He was drafted by the NBA, but in those days he could make more money playing for the Washington Generals, the all-white patsy team who played the Harlem Globetrotters every night. After a few years, Francis gained weight and lost his magic on the court. He had to get a day job and spent the rest of his working life at the steel mills.<br />
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<strong>NITRO, WEST VIRGINIA</strong><br />
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Later the same day, we pulled up to a truck stop in Nitro, WV. Parked next to us was a truck with a sign, "we stamp concrete any color you want!" I talked to the guy for awhile and asked him if he could do my favorite color--plaid. Well, <em>almost</em> any color.<br />
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Meanwhile, my wife, Dianne, met a woman in the rest room who explained that she was in Nitro to visit the World War I Museum Her grandfather worked in Nitro during the war. She convinced us to visit also. We were just sightseeing, so we had plenty of time to look around. I had heard of Nitro because of its unusual name and because former baseball star Lew Burdette hailed from there. More on him in a moment. I couldn't have located Nitro on a map until we showed up there.<br />
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Nitro is a living memorial to World War I which wasn't even called that until World War II began. The town derived its name from nitrocellulose, the main ingredient in smokeless gunpowder. According to the Mayor, the name was selected by the Ordnance Department of the government. <br />
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A couple years ago, we had visited the World War II Museum in New Orleans, so it was time to fill in our bucket list regarding wars. We've done Vicksburg and Gettysburg from the Civil War and even Saratoga and the George Rogers Clark campaign in the Revolutionary War. This museum was worth the visit. <br />
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Nitro was conceived as a company town to manufacture smokeless gunpowder during World War I. When the U.S. entered the war, the country could not produce enough gunpowder to supply the combat troops. Congress acted quickly to authorize construction of defense plants. <br />
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The War Department chose the location because they deemed it safe from coastal attacks, and it offered readily available rail and water transportation. They broke ground shortly before Christmas in 1917 and created a boomtown within 11 months.<br />
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Today, Nitro has 7100 people. The namesake chemical plant, officially, "Explosives Plant C", was producing 100,000 pounds of high explosives daily but it quickly became obsolete when the war ended. The government had built housing for 26,000 people, and it wasn't even complete when the war ended. <br />
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After Armistice Day, the town had to reinvent itself, so it brought in other chemical plants. As could be expected, the nearby Kanawha River became highly polluted, and the chemical site ultimately was placed on the National Priorities List Superfund. You may recall the deadly Agent Orange from the Vietnam days. Well, it was manufactured in Nitro by Monsanto, creating widespread dioxin contamination. The company had to pay millions for cleanup of homes and for medical monitoring of inhabitants of the community. In the old days, you could smell the town before you arrived there, but in recent years, manufacturing has shifted away from the area, and air pollution is no longer the problem it once was. <br />
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The highlight of Nitro is the World War I Museum, located in an old school building, displaying uniforms, guns and other items donated by families of veterans. One can review the blueprints of the explosives plant. They even have a replica of a World War I trench. In recent years, the museum incorporated World War II materials as well as other historical items relating to the town. Tucked away on a back table is a signed portrait of actor Clark Gable who worked in the plant in 1918.<br />
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Our guide, the 95 year old veteran of D-Day, Clyde Mynes explained that the purpose of smokeless gunpowder was that the enemy couldn't see you. I called him "sir"--he was a badass dude during World War II. He stormed the beach on D-Day and continued on into Germany where he witnessed some of the battles and atrocities that we all know about. <br />
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The museum even displayed Lew Burdette's baseball uniform from the Milwaukee Braves. In case you don't remember him, Burdette, a right-handed pitcher and native of Nitro, almost singlehandedly throttled the New York Yankees in the 1957 World Series, winning 3 games, the last two by shutouts. About 10 years later, the team moved to Atlanta, and the City of Milwaukee has not won a championship since.<br />
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<strong>CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA</strong><br />
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We visited two state capitol buildings on our trip. The magnificent capitol building in Charleston, the largest city in West Virginia was completed in 1932. Today it is being renovated, and we couldn't see too much. The dome, which resembles the Capitol in Washington, is 292 feet high and 75 feet in diameter. Inside the dome is a 4000 pound chandelier, but I couldn't see that either because of the renovation. <br />
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The verdant grounds are beautiful. The two prominent statues outside the building brought together an odd couple. The famous <em>Lincoln Walks at Midnight</em> sculpture by Fred Martin Torrey stands in front of the main entrance, and Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson stands maybe a hundred yards away, among the large trees. West Virginia is not Virginia, so maybe they won't tear it down anytime soon. <br />
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Jackson was born in what is now West Virginia, and the state claims him as a native son. Before the Civil War, most Americans considered themselves citizens of their home state rather than the USA. Jackson, a Virginian, opposed seceding from the Union, but when Virginia seceded in 1861, he remained loyal to his state and fought for the South. <br />
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Jackson, a West Point grad, acquired his nickname during the First Battle of Bull Run when his troops held the line against superior Union forces. Another Southern general exclaimed that Jackson's forces stood like a stone wall. He was killed by "friendly" fire on a scouting mission. After the Battle of Chancellorsville in early 1863, he went on a reconnaissance mission with his aides. A North Carolina regiment mistakenly took them for enemy cavalry and shot the General.<br />
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West Virginia broke off from Virginia in 1861 after Virginia seceded from the Union. Virginia was part of the Confederacy, but the country people in the mountainous Northwestern part of the state were Union sympathizers. Most were yeoman farmers who owned no slaves and who resented the elite planters of regular Virginia. West Virginia proved to be a key border state during the Civil War. By 1863, Lincoln's re-election chances were somewhat iffy with the war dragging on. The Administration encouraged those folks to apply for statehood, and that, along with Nevada in 1864, gave a boost to Lincoln's re-election.<br />
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<strong>MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA</strong><br />
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We visited another state capitol building--Montgomery, Alabama. On a sunny Sunday morning we toured the capitol grounds. Across the street is President Jefferson Davis' house, actually the First White House of the Confederacy when Montgomery was the original capital of the Confederacy in 1861.<br />
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The Davis family only lived in the house for a few months; the Confederacy moved the capital to Richmond, VA the same year. The large white Italianate mansion was built in 1832 by an ancestor of Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of famed novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. They moved the house to its present location in 1921. <br />
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We hung around Montgomery for a few hours and then headed for Biloxi, Mississippi, the seafood capital and challenging Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world.<br />
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<strong>SHRIMPING IN BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI</strong><br />
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In the spirit of Forrest Gump, we hitched a ride on a shrimp boat in Biloxi, Mississippi and learned all about the shrimp industry. Biloxi was once called the seafood capital of the world. Hurricanes and other disasters like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill periodically decimate the seafood industry. Fortunately shrimps and oysters are not endangered--they breed in prodigious numbers. Shrimps and oysters produce millions of offspring in any breeding season-- for example a female oyster can produce 100 million eggs in one season. It can take them a year or more to reach marketable size. <br />
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Most of the harvest on our boat was brown shrimp which are caught at night in the summer months. White shrimp and pink shrimp are also caught. To me, they all taste the same, but they do have different characteristics. White shrimp are caught in the daylight during the fall and winter months. Pink shrimp are also caught at night in October through April. <br />
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The boat drags a net and hauls in the fish. If they are the wrong size, or the wrong fish, he throws them back in the water. For photo ops, we held up the shrimps by their long stringy tails.<br />
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<strong>JEFFERSON DAVIS--BEAUVOIR</strong><br />
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On our trip we learned more about Jeff Davis than we ever cared to. His real home was a grand mansion called Beauvoir, facing the Gulf Coast on U.S. 90 in Biloxi. The house was built by a man named James Brown, probably not related to the King of Soul. Its location, close to the water, makes it a target of hurricanes, and it was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The main house has since been restored, but several buildings on the grounds were destroyed, and replicas are in the planning stage. Today the grounds house the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library, a Confederate cemetery, a gift shop and others. <br />
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We watched a video of Davis's life. A graduate of West Point, Davis was appointed Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. He was also a U.S. Senator from Mississippi. Among other things Davis owned and operated a cotton plantation along with 113 slaves. <br />
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Davis married well. His first wife, Sarah was the daughter of President Zachery Taylor. She died of malaria a few months into the marriage. Davis contracted malaria also, but survived. The disease plagued him periodically the rest of his life. His second wife, Varina Howell was the daughter of a Governor of New Jersey and a cousin of Vice President Aaron Burr.<br />
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Historians have looked unfavorably upon Jefferson Davis. The academics considered him a poor leader detrimental to the Confederate cause. According to Wikipedia, "his preoccupation with detail, reluctance to delegate responsibility, lack of popular appeal, feuds with powerful state governors and generals, favoritism toward old friends inability to get along with people who disagreed with him, neglect of civil matters in favor of military ones and resistance to public opinion all worked against him. " Have I missed anything?<br />
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Although Davis was not disgraced; as a war leader, I think we can all agree that he was much less effective than Abraham Lincoln. In Southern consciousness, General Robert E. Lee is much more revered than Davis. <br />
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Don't confuse Jefferson Davis (Jefferson F. Davis, that is) with Jefferson C. Davis, a Union general who endured much razzing because of his name, but maybe they promoted him to confuse the Southerners. There is no evidence they received each other's mail, but both fought honorably in the Mexican War. The Union's Jeff Davis was promoted to Brigadier General after a significant victory in Arkansas and later served as a corps commander during Sherman's March to the Sea in 1864. The Northern Jeff Davis achieved some notoriety when he shot and killed his superior officer, General William Nelson, who allegedly insulted him in front of witnesses. Davis beat the rap because of the shortage of experienced commanders in the Union Army.<br />
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<strong>OFFSHORE OIL RIG, MORGAN CITY, LOUISIANA</strong><br />
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In Louisiana, we drove about 70 miles west of New Orleans to the oil patch in Morgan City. The attraction there is the International Petroleum Museum which has a real working offshore oil rig. Well sort of offshore. You can get there by car. The oil rig is called Mr. Charlie, named after a banker and oil man named Charles H. Murphy who financed the $2.5 million to construct it, back in 1952. Murphy's company, Murphy Oil, based in El Dorado, Arkansas made a deal with Shell Oil to drill offshore wells.<br />
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At that time, offshore drilling was a new industry. Oil companies obviously wanted access to the oil field, but their methods were vastly inefficient. Shell wanted to drill near the mouth of the Mississippi River, but conventional methods were not cost effective.<br />
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A young Naval engineer named A.J. "Doc" LaBorde, working for an oil company named Kerr McGee came up with a solution by transporting the entire drilling operation on a barge that could be floated to any location. They would then sink the barge to the bottom to create a stable platform and start drilling. When they were done, they would raise the barge and move it to the next location. The thinking at that time was "what could possibly go wrong?" <br />
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The establishment thought LaBorde was nuts, but Charlie Murphy hung in there, and incredibly, the idea worked! The oilfield turned out to be a monster, and Murphy drilled hundreds of wells for Shell and other major oil companies.<br />
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The rig is located in the inlet, the delta of the Atchafalaya River, next to the shore. This is a 1950's vintage rig which is showing signs of rust and wear. The guided tours are at 10 AM and 2 PM. Unfortunately for us,. we arrived at about Noon, and there is not much else to do in Morgan City. The city doesn't make the place easy to find. Even using the GPS in our car, we drove around the block several times before we figured out where it was. We couldn't do the tour, but we could walk around and take pictures. The museum, which is interesting, tells the history of offshore and deep water drilling.<br />
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We stopped for a late lunch at a small diner on the road which served the best crawfish stew we've ever had. Then, on to the Laura Plantation. <br />
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<strong>LAURA PLANTATION</strong><br />
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An hour west of New Orleans, in Vacherie, Louisiana are several restored plantations by the Mississippi River left intact after the Civil War. The Laura Plantation, which used to be called the DuParc Plantation is named after a Creole woman who was born there during the Civil War and lived into the Kennedy Administration at age 101. <br />
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Creoles are defined as native born people, especially of French or Spanish descent, mixed with Negro and/or Native American blood. Creoles have a culture all their own, with a strong French influence. Much is attributed to a somewhat hostile state government during the Jim Crow days, which mandated that English be spoken, essentially making the Creoles "outsiders" The state decreed that French was a foreign language, at least in the segregated public school system. It became an "us" versus "them" mentality for the Creoles. The culture centers on food, music, folklore, family traditions, architecture, the Catholic faith and genealogy. <br />
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Laura's life story is riveting, and the plantation has become a popular tourist attraction. The stories are told through the eyes of the gentry and also through the slaves who lived and worked there.<br />
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The namesake "Laura" was Laura Lacool (1861-1963) who spent most of her life on the plantation. In 1936 she wrote her memoirs, called <em>Memories of the Old Plantation Home </em>from where the stories are derived. That manuscript was lost to the ages but rediscovered in 1993 and is now the basis of the whole tourist experience. Historians now have first hand glimpses of plantation life in Creole Louisiana. <br />
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<strong>JAMES K. POLK, COLUMBIA, TENNESSEE</strong><br />
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We took a detour south of Nashville to visit another presidential library, that of our esteemed 11th president, James Knox Polk. Polk, the eldest of 10 children, came from North Carolina with the Polk Brothers, and sisters. It was a sizzling day--104F, and we were happy to visit an air conditioned house. <br />
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Polk was elected in 1844 and served one term. In those days it was common not to seek re-election. In Polk's case, he said that he fulfilled all his campaign promises and also started a war with Mexico--does that sound familiar? Polk was the Manifest Destiny president, During his administration, the U.S. acquired more land than in any other. Almost the entire Southwest was added to the United States, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Polk died in 1849, and his wife Sarah survived him for 42 years until she died in 1891.<br />
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Polk, a protégé of Andrew Jackson, served 7 congressional terms, the last two as Speaker of the House. Polk was nominated as a little known dark horse candidate running against the well known House Speaker Henry Clay of the Whig Party who ultimately ran for president and lost 3 times. Clay made fun of Polk (Who is James K. Polk?), because of his low profile--he was not well known outside of politics. Clay, as before, managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Polk's platform favored expansion of the U.S., starting with the annexation of Texas. This proved to be popular with the voters and was the deciding factor. You may be familiar with Polk's vice president, George Dallas. You've heard of the Dallas Cowboys--they were named after him, at least the Dallas part. <br />
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Historians consider Polk the most effective president of the pre-Civil War era--Arthur Schlesinger ranked Polk 8th best president, although most other historians ranked him around 12th. Among other things, Polk reduced tariffs and negotiated a settlement with England regarding the Pacific Northwest--Oregon and Washington territories. On the other hand like most pre-Civil War presidents, in fact 12 of the first 14 presidents, Polk owned slaves and even purchased some during his administration. You won't see many statues of him outside Tennessee except for one in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Polk was the only president to graduate from the University of North Carolina, at least until Michael Jordan goes into politics.<br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-74955353347223477172019-10-17T13:11:00.003-07:002019-11-07T18:47:34.571-08:00FINDING THE LOST ARK--IN KENTUCKY We set off on a road trip to see the famous Ark Encounter, as Noah was said to have built it. It is located in Williamstown, Kentucky, a little south of Cincinnati, not far from Big Bone Lick State Park (I'm not making this up--mammoth bones were excavated there). The Ark is essentially a creationist theme park which opened in 2016. It is managed by a Young Earth Creationist group called Answers in Genesis. Young Earth people believe the Earth was actually created in 4004 B.C., a date established by Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656) of the Church of Ireland. Other religions assert different dates for Creation, for example, the Jewish calendar begins in 3760 B.C. on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. The Byzantine writings assert Creation occurred September 1, 5509 B.C. <br />
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Ussher did meticulous research, poring over multiple sources other than the Bible--ancient Persian, Greek and Roman writings, as well as astronomy and ancient calendars. He was quite a learned man of his day. He was able to place the death of Alexander the Great at 323 B.C. and Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. Ussher coordinated the inconsistent texts of the Torah ( 2 versions of Genesis) which have different numbers of years between the Flood and Creation, and determined that the Creation occurred exactly 4000 years prior to the birth of Christ who historians contend was born in 4 B.C. He went even further and determined that Creation took place at nightfall on October 22, 4004 B.C., around 6 P.M.. I would assume that was Greenwich Mean Time, but clocks weren't invented yet. Calculating the date and time of Creation was serious business in those days, and prominent scholars such as Isaac Newton worked out their own calculations.<br />
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The Ark Encounter received tax incentives conferred by local, county and state agencies as a tourist attraction bringing people to the area. As you can imagine, numerous lawsuits were filed challenging those benefits. Some litigants raised First Amendment issues asserting that government agencies were promoting a particular religious belief--the Constitution requires separation of church and state. By and large, the good citizens of Kentucky have no problem with it because this thing brings in thousands of tourists and creates jobs. <br />
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In another lawsuit, the Plaintiffs allege (I like that word) discriminatory hiring practices. Using that pretext, the Kentucky Tourism Development Finance authority sued to withdraw the tax incentives. The Ark's policy requires a prospective job seeker to be Christian and agree to sign a statement of faith attesting to his/her belief in Young Earth Creationism. Oh, and among other things, that job seeker must acknowledge that homosexuality is a sin. Not surprisingly, the Left went ballistic when the project was conceived.<br />
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One would expect that the organization doesn't want its employees making fun of the exhibits and their message. The U.S. District Court in Kentucky ruled in favor of the Ark, based on the Supreme Court's decision in the Hobby Lobby case. In that case, the court found that individuals had the right to run their businesses as for-profit corporations in the manner required by their religious beliefs. The court restored the tax incentives. In the meantime, Kentucky had an election and elected a new governor, Matt Bevin, a conservative, who announced that the State would not appeal, and for good measure, replaced 4 of the 9 members of the Authority.<br />
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So there you have it--the Ark is attracting thousands of tourists at Disney World prices, creating hundreds of jobs. Perhaps lots of Kentuckians and others do believe the universe is only 6000 years old. Maybe we should blame the state of our education system where a large percentage of millennials, when interviewed, can't name the 3 branches of government and protest about our bombing Saskatchewan. Editor's note: we didn't really bomb Saskatchewan, although the Japanese did during World War II. <br />
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Back to the Ark itself. This enormous structure, 510 feet long, 85 feet wide and 51 feet tall was built by Amish craftsmen according to the specs in the Bible as interpreted by Ken Ham, a wealthy Evangelical Christian. Well, not totally according to the Bible. Instead of holding it together with wooden pegs, the builders had to comply with modern building codes and use steel fasteners. Nothing in the Book of Genesis indicates that Noah had to contend with unions, building and zoning ordinances or obtaining competing bids. Noah didn't have to get a license or permits--but then neither did Bezalel, a 13 year old boy with no discernible experience, who constructed the first Temple in Jerusalem. You can look it up. <br />
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The Ark contains 95 tons of metal plates and bolts to hold it together. Oil lamps are a no-no--they can be combustible. The Code requires electric lighting. <br />
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The structure contains three levels of exhibits, as well as 132 bays--holding pens for the animals. Each one stands 18 feet high. There are no live animals, just models of animals that Noah presumably took on the Ark including dinosaurs (!). <br />
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Mr. Ham took poetic license with a lot of things in designing the museum. For example in the exhibits, he gave names to the wives of Noah and his 3 sons. In Genesis, the women were described as "wives" but not named. Tourists ask stuff like "who cleaned up the poop from all those animals?" The Ark has an exhibit showing an elaborate disposal system to remove the trash, presumably without polluting the water outside Once again, Genesis does not mention plumbing in describing the Ark. <br />
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Another exhibit discussed the issue of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Did the Flintstones really have a pet dinosaur? The exhibit explained that Noah didn't bring in two of every species; instead he had 2 of every order, like the ancestor of the dinosaurs. That's probably fortunate for Noah and his sons because squeezing a brachiosaurus into one of those little pens would make things very uncomfortable for everyone.<br />
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The Ark featured several exhibits attempting to make a credulous effort to explain that Archbishop Ussher was right; the world really was created in 4004 B.C. Certainly the Ark was entertaining to us tourists, but visiting scientists just throw up their hands in despair.<br />
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NEXT: Touring the South--World War I museum, two presidential libraries, remembering a basketball legend. and shrimping in the Gulf.<br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-90690064897883120712019-06-17T11:42:00.002-07:002019-10-13T15:33:30.898-07:00BONAPARTE'S RETREAT, ST. HELENA AND OTHER ISLANDSST. HELENA ISLAND<br />
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We sailed from Namibia on a Northwesterly course to St. Helena, one of the most isolated islands in the world. It is located in the South Atlantic Ocean 1200 miles west of the Namibia-Angola border in Africa, and 1800 miles east of the Brazilian coast. The Saints, as the inhabitants are known, were very happy to see us, as few cruise ships come to the island.<br />
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St. Helena (pronounced <em>Hel EENA</em>, not <em>HEL ena</em> like the capital of Montana) was named after the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. In the 19th Century, the island was considered the ideal place to exile Napoleon. Consider that he had already escaped from Elba to cause more commotion in Europe. The lines of communication between Europe and St. Helena are measured in months and years rather than days. Napoleon was dropped off in St. Helena in 1815 and died in 1821, probably from boredom. There were other causes as I'll explain later.<br />
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This is a beautiful tropical island with lush vegetation. The island is small--only 10 miles by 6 miles. The population is about 4800, and everyone knows everyone else. Unlike New York or London, these folks wave at you when you go by. The island was uninhabited until 1653 when the British East India Company planted the Union Jack there. The Saints are a melting pot of British, African and Chinese descent. Chinese laborers were brought to the island after the British freed all the slaves. <br />
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St. Helena is officially a British Overseas Territory, administered with 2 other islands in the South Atlantic--Ascension and Tristan di Cunha, and they aren't exactly neighbors. In fact, Ascension is 800 miles north, and Tristan di Cunha is 1500 miles south. Although the total area is almost as large as the United States, the total land area is only 156 square miles and home to 5600 people. Jamestown, the capital of this huge territory has less than 1000 people.<br />
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Jamestown is the only city, if you can call it that, on the island. It is located in a valley surrounded by high cliffs. The British built a fort on top. To bring in supplies, they built a staircase to the top--no escalators in those days. They call it Jacob's Ladder. We're talking 699 steps to the top. If you climb it, and many tourists do, they give you a certificate. There is an alternative. You can drive up on a one lane mountain road. If someone is driving the other way, there are few turnouts to allow motorists to pass. We rode a rickety bus on narrow mountain roads all over the island with precipitous drops on the edge.<br />
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The most famous attractions of the island are Napoleon's house, Longwood, and his grave. When Napoleon died in 1821, and we saw his deathbed, he was buried on the island. The French insisted on recovering the body, and in 1840, they exhumed him and moved him to <em>Les Invalides</em> in Paris where he is buried today.<br />
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But the St. Helena grave is still there, surrounded by a metal picket fence, and a French flag waving nearby. The gravestone is blank because of a diplomatic row with the British. The French wanted the gravestone to say "Napoleon". The British governor insisted on also inscribing "Bonaparte". The French objected. They never did come to an agreement. <br />
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It is difficult to get to the grave. You enter through a gate and archway and walk on a grassy path downhill for almost a mile. When you get there, you view the grave from about 30 feet above. Then you must walk that mile back to the bus, uphill this time.<br />
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When we visited Longwood, the house built for Napoleon, we learned many things about the Emperor. For one thing, he wasn't that short. He was between 5'2" and 5'7" which was about average height for the time. When he joined the military, he was assigned to artillery. Taller soldiers were assigned to the infantry, presumably to scare the enemy. Napoleon was short compared to George Washington or Abe Lincoln who towered over their contemporaries--or even his wife Josephine who was slightly taller. When surrounded by tall, strapping bodyguards, Napoleon looked even shorter by comparison.<br />
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Longwood is a comfortable house on a hill overlooking much of the island. The British government built the house for Napoleon, but after a year or so, they felt Longwood was inadequate for a former emperor. They decided to build a new house for him at nearby Rosemary Hall. Napoleon never occupied it. The British had second thoughts about it, and they determined it would be harder to escape from Longwood.<br />
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The site is administered by the French government, who purchased it in 1858 after considerable negotiations with Napoleon III. The Tricolor flies there. Napoleon had a regular bed and many pictures on the wall. There is a polished wood dining room table and silverware. For a prisoner, he was treated well, but he constantly complained about the location which was damp, windswept and unhealthy. He amused himself playing chess. He also tended the flower gardens next to the house. By the 1940's, the house fell into disrepair because of termite infestation, and the French considered demolishing it. Fortunately for us, the authorities decided to restore it to its present state as a museum. Tourists can buy souvenir t-shirts, caps and books in the house.<br />
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Napoleon died there in 1821. Originally they thought it was stomach cancer, but modern medical science has established that the cause of death was actually arsenic poisoning. The wallpaper in the house contained high levels of arsenic. The British may not have liked Napoleon but the poisoning was not deliberate--arsenic was commonly used at that time in many household furnishings.<br />
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Nearby are the ruins of Halley's Observatory, built by Edmund Halley himself in 1677 to study the Southern constellations. Halley, best known for his namesake comet, published a star map of the Southern Hemisphere.<br />
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WORLD'S OLDEST INHABITANT<br />
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St. Helena's other famous personality is Jonathan, a 186 year old Seychelles Giant Tortoise who weighs over 600 pounds. He lives on the grounds of the Plantation House, the governor's mansion with 3 other giant tortoises, Fredrika, Emma and David. The creatures eat bananas, cabbage and carrots, and probably Viagra also. When we were there, Jonathan lumbered over to a female tortoise at top speed of 0.6 mph and climbed on top. I looked away. But I got pictures. I'll put them on the Internet.<br />
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The story here is that Jonathan who was not named yet, was brought to St. Helena from the Seychelles Islands in 1882 when he was about 50. Nobody is sure why. His age was estimated based on the fact that it takes about 50 years for a tortoise to fully mature. Over the years Jonathan tried unsuccessfully to mate with Fredrika. The authorities would have approved. However, they received some bad news several years ago--the vet discovered that Fredrika is actually a male. He should actually be Fredrick. The vet suggested that Jonathan is either sterile or gay. We know that Jonathan is almost completely blind (from cataracts). Well that explains things!<br />
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Jonathan was named by Governor Spencer Davis back in the 1930's but nobody is sure why he picked that name. We do know that was the only significant accomplishment of Davis's 6 year reign. We knew the songs "<em>Gimme Some Lovin</em>" and "<em>I'm a Man</em>", but that turned out to be a different Spencer Davis.<br />
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St. Helena is mountainous and tropical. The scenery is spectacular. There is little or no flat land. That became a problem when the British government wanted to build an airport. Ultimately they had to fill in a valley with hundreds of millions of tons of dirt and rock for the construction. The only planes flying to St. Helena come from Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa a couple times a week. <br />
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Despite its small size and population, the island is civilized. We walked around Jamestown, visiting the supermarket, the bank, the St. Helena Distillery. Most of the buildings are Georgian style, built in the 1700's by the East India Company. Their home brew is called Tungi, fermented from prickly pear cactus which grows wild on the island. I had a toothache when I arrived in town, so I sought out a dentist. I found out there are 2 dentists on the island, but I couldn't get an appointment. Fortunately, with a few doses of Tungi and some antibiotics from the ship's doctor, I recovered. <br />
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DEVILS ISLAND, FRENCH GUIANA<br />
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We crossed the Equator which meant we were halfway home. The Equator is a menagerie lion (darn spellcheck--imaginary line) going around the world. There was no sign indicating we were there, no dotted lines, no anything, just endless water. <br />
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On a long voyage across the ocean, we marveled at the seabirds and wildlife. Lorraine, an Australian lady we knew, looked out the window and exclaimed, "Look at the boobies!" "There's another booby." My head was spinning around. Where? She was referring to brown boobies, a type of seabird. I guess I've heard of blue footed boobies, but they are native to the Galapagos Islands. <br />
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We had breakfast with Vanita, a proper Southern lady, who was on her fifth Around the World Cruise on Princess (she previously did three on the QEII). She was telling us that on the QEII in 2006, the ship was attacked by pirates. The passengers were unaware. They saw the ship surrounded by small boats. They couldn't be fishing boats because they weren't fishing. Well that ship had a machine that directs sound waves at the pirates which essentially blows out their eardrums. It made them jump overboard. Later it was discovered that one shot had gone through a cabin on the ship. Nobody was injured. The cruise ships may not be armed, but they are prepared. That story made us feel better.<br />
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The north coast of South America lies just north of the Equator. The ship's crew made a big deal about going to the famous, or infamous Devils Island, home to the notorious French prison. Fittingly, the cruise ship ran the Steve McQueen-Dustin Hoffman movie, <em>Papillon,</em> the story about the French prisoner who escaped from there on a raft made from coconuts. Hollywood recently remade the movie, but I liked the McQueen version.<br />
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Devils Island achieved worldwide notoriety as the involuntary home of French artillery captain Alfred Dreyfus who in 1894 was framed for spying and spent 6 years there as a guest of the French government. He was accused of passing military secrets to the Germans. Before long, the new head of military intelligence discovered the real culprit, but the higher-ups in the French military wouldn't hear of it. The brass secretly made a decision that Dreyfus, who was Jewish and successful, must pay the price. The press fanned the flames of anti-Semitism. After Dreyfus was convicted, the French, in a public ceremony, branded him as a "Jewish spy", as the crowd shouted "Death to the Jew."<br />
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The world learned all about the French justice system when celebrated author Emile Zola wrote books and articles about the Dreyfus Affair. Zola wrote a famous article, <em>J'Accuse</em> in which he accused the French military of a major cover-up. This created a worldwide brouhaha in 1898 when the military sued Zola for libel and convicted him. <br />
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Zola fled to England and spent his life trying to clear Dreyfus's name. Zola was very famous but all the publicity he garnered was still not enough to free Captain Dreyfus. Eventually, in 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated and returned to the army with the rank of Major. He served honorably in World War I. <br />
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We always thought the French were nice guys, lovable losers, who lost every war since the Thirty Years' War in 1648, but it is evident that they weren't that nice. At least the English sent their prisoners to Australia where they had some freedom. <br />
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Devils Island is located 9 miles off the mainland of French Guiana which is mostly a malaria infested jungle, or as the P.C. crowd would say, rainforest. Navigating from the island to the mainland is difficult because of treacherous currents and shark infested waters. The capital of French Guiana is Cayenne, but we didn't go there. Devils Island is one of three islands in the group called the <em>Iles du Salut</em> which means "islands of salvation", because priests went there from the mainland to escape the plague. The islands are very close together, and we sailed around them all. We couldn't sail between them because the water is too shallow.<br />
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<em>Ile St. Joseph</em> was the administrative center of the colony. <em>Ile Royale</em>, the largest island housed the most notorious prison with 99 percent of the prisoners, including the best known, Henri Charriere, aka Papillon who was one of the two prisoners ever to escape. The other was Clement Duval in 1901, less publicized, who found his way to the U.S. where he lived out his life. About 2000 prisoners were held at any one time. That prison closed in 1946.<br />
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Then, of course was <em>Ile du Diable</em>, Devils Island, the smallest of the islands, the site of the infamous prison which finally closed in 1953. Devils Island was mainly used for political prisoners like Captain Dreyfus. This was no country club prison however. The death rate at Devils Island was abysmally high, and the sharks never went hungry because the French would throw the bodies overboard. That 9 mile sail is tough for a small boat, but for a raft or a swimmer, forget it.<br />
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The prisons were opened in 1853 by French president Louis Napoleon III. Over the years, some 60,000 prisoners were shipped to the islands. Only about 5% survived. They were forced to do the labor that was previously done by African slaves. The inhuman conditions the prisoners had to endure caused many to go insane or hope for death as a release. When they were released, they were required to spend an equal time settling mainland French Guiana where they were given some land.<br />
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To our dismay, the ship wouldn't let us go ashore, probably because the islands have no infrastructure. Today, they are a nature reserve. There are buildings there, but no city or shops. The buildings have not been maintained, they are in decay and have largely been taken over by the jungle.<br />
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Back on the ship, in the trivia contest, the question asked was "What country is Paramaribo the capital of?" I answered, "Dutch Guiana" which I thought was the correct answer, and it was correct until 1975 when it became Suriname. They marked it wrong. Nobody called me when it became independent. It wasn't worth arguing about. At least I knew where it was.<br />
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GUADELOUPE<br />
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Speaking of French islands, we visited the butterfly shaped island of Guadeloupe in the West Indies. The island is best known for its 2 rum distilleries. Rum is made from sugar cane, grown on large plantations on the island, and in fact all over the West Indies. The sugar cane fields were worked by African slaves until slavery was abolished in the wake of the French Revolution. However, Napoleon, who made a career of disrupting things, brought back slavery in 1802. The story was Napoleon's wife, Josephine was the daughter of a plantation owner in nearby Martinique. She whispered in Napoleon's ear that you can't run a plantation without slaves. Slavery was finally abolished in 1848. To replace the slaves, the French brought in indentured servants from India.<br />
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On Guadeloupe they erected a statue of Josephine. One night someone took a machete to Josephine's head. The rest of the statue is still there.<br />
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Everyone speaks French in Guadeloupe, and their currency is the Euro, worth about $1.25. We hired a local taxi driver who, as it turned out, spoke little English. He was driving a roomy Hyundai Santa Fe SUV in pristine condition. He drove us around the island which has a fine expressway system, but driving through towns, we had to negotiate crowded surface streets.<br />
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The highlight of the island for me was the checkerboard cemetery in the town of Morne-a-L'eau. The tombs are all above ground. Each tomb is unique. Virtually all are tiny houses with sloped roofs and porches, decorated with black and white checkerboard tiles. The significance is not clear, but the prevailing thought is that black represents the European color of mourning and white represents the African color of mourning. Every year on All Saints Day there is a big festival at the cemetery. In the days leading up to the holiday, people repaint the tombs every year.<br />
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The other highlight is the modernistic slavery museum called the Memorial MACTe, built in 2015 on the site of a former sugar factory and rum distillery overlooking the ocean. This building is over the top, spanning several acres. It was encouraged by UNESCO as part of a UN Slave Route Project, and it is a cultural center dedicated to the memory and history of the slave trade. This two story building is covered with a silvery mesh over a black granite box speckled with quartz. We walked around it but did not go inside--maybe next time in Guadeloupe. The tourist reviews are mostly positive regarding a depressing theme. <br />
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BARBADOS<br />
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Barbados is the only non-volcanic island in the West Indies. It is very British and has been since 1627. No Indians occupied the island when the British came. <br />
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The only thing I wanted to see in Barbados was George Washington's house, and they don't promote it. Most Americans don't realize that the 19 year old Washington came here to visit his brother Larry who had tuberculosis and moved to Barbados for the healthful climate. It was the only time George left the continental United States. <br />
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George Washington really did sleep there, although as far as we know, Al Capone didn't. Washington stayed there for several months, but it wasn't healthful for him. He contracted smallpox, but fortunately for us, he survived. That was significant because during the American Revolution, there was a smallpox epidemic among his troops. George was immune.<br />
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To our dismay, the house and gates were closed because it was Easter Monday when we visited. We looked around town for information about the Washington House, as it is called, but to no avail. We visited several tourist gift shops, and if you didn't know about the Washington's visit, you would think he had no connection to the island. No postcards, no nothing. Not even an ashtray. Maybe the British didn't like him, and so they don't promote it.<br />
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Beneath the house is an extensive network of narrow tunnels through the coral rock to the garrison, presumably to allow the troops to escape during an invasion. They are not handicap accessible--there is apparently no Barbados with Disabilities Act. The tunnels were discovered just a few years ago and are now a tourist attraction--if you know about it. They were apparently built during the 1820's, long after the Washingtons were gone. Next time in Barbados, I'll try not to go on a holiday.<br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-4916495040119311642019-05-21T19:16:00.000-07:002019-05-22T18:08:47.526-07:00SOUTHERN AFRICA ADVENTURE It was a very long airplane journey from Chicago to Cape Town South Africa. In fact, a very, very long journey. Seven hours to London, twelve hours to Johannesburg, two more hours to Cape Town. For two days and nights we slept on an airplane and were relieved to finally take a shower when we arrived at our hotel in Cape Town.<br />
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The purpose of the trip was to catch the World Cruise 2019 in Cape Town on Princess Cruise Line.<br />
We had about 3 days in Cape Town to sightsee and prepare for the cruise.<br />
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BRIEF HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA<br />
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First, a very brief history of South Africa. Shortly after the British defeated the Dutch in the Boer War, in 1909 they united the 4 colonies Cape Colony, Natal Colony, Transvaal and Orange River (formerly the Orange Free State, an independent country). They called it the Union of South Africa, the USA, but obviously that caused some confusion worldwide. Years later they changed the name to the Republic of South Africa. The Boer War was boring, but it was significant in that it made Winston Churchill a public figure--he was captured by the Boers but managed to escape and write a series of articles about the war. His adventures were definitely not boring.<br />
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After World War II, the National Party took power, instituting the odious Apartheid laws in which people's rights were determined by the color of their skin. The National Party ruled for about 50 years until 1997 when it was disbanded in the wake of internal unrest and international pressure. During that time, South Africa was kicked out of the British Commonwealth, as well as being the subject of international sanctions. Today, South Africa is a multi-cultural nation in which most people speak several languages--English, Afrikaans (similar to Dutch), Zulu, Xhosa and others.<br />
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A couple of years ago, on a previous cruise, we met our South African friends Ruth and Stewart who were looking forward to seeing us again. After we booked the trip, we learned that Ruth had already scheduled an educational trip to the Silk Road in Asia. So on the day we arrived in Africa, Ruth was landing in Azerbaijan. A couple of days later she called us on Skype from Kazakhstan, the land of Borat. Or maybe it was Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan--she visited all the Stans. We could clearly see her on the phone. <br />
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Stewart doesn't like to travel, and he was content to stay in Cape Town. We spent a wonderful day with Stewart driving us around Cape Town. In South Africa, they drive on the left side of the road, so I am afraid to drive there. We took him to lunch in Simon Town which is an English village transplanted to South Africa. This area was a former British naval base. We ate delicious fish and chips at Bertha's Restaurant right on the harbor. The prices are reasonable--the dollar is strong against the Rand.<br />
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Stewart told us about the guy who purchased the top of a mountain on the coast with the intention of building his house there. He paid serious money for the parcel with a spectacular view. However, he forgot to do his due diligence. He failed to consult with the natives who lived at the base of the mountain. They objected for various reasons. They proceeded to blockade the road, and the guy was never able to build the house. Essentially he had no access except perhaps by helicopter.<br />
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South Africa is a very modern and civilized First World country, at least in the cities. Cape Town is a cosmopolitan and cultured city. We visited the Parliament Building. The official capitol is Pretoria, but the government spends 6 months in Pretoria and 6 months in Cape Town. Cape Town is mostly a Christian country and boasts two cathedrals. It also has much open space with beaches, mountains and forests. A significant part is Table Mountain National Park, located within the city limits. Cape Town could be any big city in America except for the wild baboons. <br />
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BABOONS<br />
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We have squirrels; they have baboons. People and baboons have an uneasy truce. We saw the ubiquitous "Don't Feed the Baboons" signs along the roads. Baboons don't attack people unless they are cornered or if they think you have food for them. They will boldly try to grab a backpack or sack containing food. The baboons are smart. They have figured how to open car doors. To my knowledge, they haven't yet learned to program computers but give them time.<br />
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Driving along the coast we saw a family of baboons walking along the cliffs. The babies followed the parents. There are approximately 500 baboons in the Cape Town area divided into 11 troops, each headed by an alpha male.<br />
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Far below where the two oceans meet, many surfers brave the rough currents in one of the most popular surfing destinations in the world. At Boulders Beach you can find a colony of penguins. We've seen penguins in South America and we chose not to visit them. <br />
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THE GREAT MANDELA<br />
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The national hero in South Africa is Nelson Mandela. Everywhere you go, you see Nelson Mandela statues. We visited a bazaar selling statues of various sizes for people to install in their gardens. Many depict African animals like elephants, lions and giraffes, but the most popular is the bust of Nelson Mandela. We walked through the verdant Archbishop Tutu Arch and Gardens in the center of town. <br />
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Unlike many, or even most African countries, South Africa under Mandela's leadership made a serious effort to forego revenge and Black Nationalism and promote good relations between the races. When he ended Apartheid, there was no backlash and most Whites stayed in the country and helped promote prosperity for the country. Nevertheless we still saw shantytowns which they call "townships". There appears to be a significant gap between rich and poor But a large percentage of Blacks and so-called "Coloreds" (mostly mixed race and Asians) have shared in the prosperity. As I indicated, goods and services are reasonably priced.<br />
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Our friends who are White and Jewish have lived in South Africa for many years now and feel no threat to their safety. They live a happy life in a nice neighborhood at the foot of Table Mountain. Most houses in affluent areas have walls around them topped with barbed wire. Cape Town is considered to experience less crime than Johannesburg , but people take no chances. Stewart was born in England and Ruth in the former Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Both grew up in Zimbabwe but were effectively chased out of that country when the regime changed.<br />
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TABLE MOUNTAIN<br />
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We visited Table Mountain and rode the cable car to the top with 63 other people. The iconic Table Mountain is recognizable throughout the world. From the ground it looks flat on top. When you reach the top, it is anything but that. It is covered with large rock outcroppings and trees. Within the National Park we also visited Signal Hill overlooking the city and nearby Lion's Head, a huge rock face. On both, we were treated to magnificent views of Cape Town. <br />
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Large tailless rat like critters called rock hyraxes dart in and out of holes between the rocks. These rodents are locally known as dassie rats, using the Dutch word for "badger". They are unafraid of people. These brown furry creatures resemble earless rabbits Believe it or not, they are closely related to elephants and also sea cows. <br />
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On the ground, the weather was warm about 75 degrees F., but at the summit, the weather was cold and blustery. Many of the tourists wore shorts and t-shirts and regretted it. We waited in line in the cold to take the cable car back down. We struck up a conversation with two ladies in front of us, Eileen and Charlene from Los Angeles. Eileen and her husband started a ministry in Johannesburg to help criminals go straight. Their business is booming. Success is slow, measured one person at a time.<br />
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We stayed two nights at the Hilton City Center, not far from the trendy area of Cape Town. Our hotel is located literally down the street from the Bo Kaap neighborhood of brightly painted houses of yellow, green and blue. Bo Kaap is a popular tourist destination at the foot of Signal Hill. Most of the inhabitants are of Malay descent (formerly called "Coloreds"). The Cape Malays, as they are called, were imported by the Dutch traders in the 16th and 17th Century from the East Indies, Malaysia and elsewhere in Africa and Asia. Tourists flock to Bo Kaap for its fine restaurants serving Cape Malay cuisine, a delectable combination of Asian, Arab and European food.<br />
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Other than Nelson Mandela, I should mention some other important personalities who are celebrated in South Africa Dr. Christaan Bernard performed the first heart transplant back in the 1960's. The main hospital in Cape Town is named after him.<br />
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HELEN SUZMAN<br />
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The main road along the harbor is named after Helen Suzman (1917-2011). Most Westerners don't know who she was but for many years, she was the only anti-Apartheid member of Parliament. She was the lone voice in the wilderness. Born in South Africa, she was a Jewish woman of Eastern European descent. She founded the Progressive Party in 1959, and for 13 years was the only member of Parliament representing that party.<br />
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During her 36 year tenure in Parliament, she worked tirelessly to improve prison conditions for Nelson Mandela and his fellow ANC members whom she considered political prisoners. She used her Parliamentary Privilege to get around government censorship and pass information to the media about Apartheid's worst abuses. She was an eloquent and witty speaker. For example, when she was confronted by an opposing member of parliament about embarrassing the country with her questions, her reply was "It's not my questions that embarrass South Africa, it's your answers!" Mrs. Suzman was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and I'm curious to know who did win the prize in those years. On the other hand, Mahatma Gandhi never won one either. <br />
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To be fair, after the African National Congress came into power, she often criticized that government also because of rampant corruption. <br />
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CAPE OF GOOD HOPE<br />
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Many foreigners think Cape of Good Hope is the Southernmost point of Africa. It is not. The actual Southern point is 105 miles East at Cape Agulhas ("Cape of the Needles" in Portuguese). That is officially the boundary between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean although you can't tell from looking at the water.<br />
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SAFARI AT AQUILA GAME RESERVE<br />
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On our last day in South Africa, we visited the Aquila Game Reserve, a luxury resort near the Stellenbosch wine country. Tourists go to see the Big 5--African elephant, Cape buffalo, rhinoceros, lion, leopard. We also saw hippopotami, zebras, ostriches, elands and others. There are no tigers in Africa, but if there were, they would be in that park. The guide drove us around in a 4 wheel drive truck seating about 12 people. Fortunately it had a canvas top because it was raining The animals don't go inside when it rains, so we saw them in their natural habitat. In the old days, people, big game hunters, went on safaris to shoot big game. Then they would have the dead animals stuffed and bring them home to display in their family rooms. The authorities don't allow that anymore.<br />
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The Aquila Game Reserve is huge, covering 10,000 hectares (over 24,000 acres or 39 square miles). The animals are protected from poachers, but they still have security people guarding the park.<br />
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Several years ago, the cheetah population was becoming endangered. The authorities determined that farmers were shooting or trapping them because they were preying on sheep and livestock. Someone came up with a brilliant idea--the farmers would breed large, fierce Anatolian Shepherd dogs to chase away the predators. We're talking large and fast dogs--150 pounds or more who can run 50 mph. The dogs were introduced to Southern Africa in 1994 and have done a terrific job protecting the livestock. As puppies, the dogs are raised in a pen with the sheep. After a whIle, the dog thinks it's a sheep. When a cheetah or other predator would approach, the dog would chase it away. Then the farmers didn't have to shoot the cheetahs. Incredibly it worked, and the cheetah population came back. <br />
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Our truck drove past a large pond and we saw a hippo poking his head out of the water. A hippopotamus spends most of its days submerged in the water except for its nostrils and head. When it surfaces, birds light on its back and feast on ticks. The hippo eats grass when it comes out of the water at night. It is very dangerous to humans because it kills them although it doesn't eat them.<br />
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We saw several elephants in the wild near a flock of ostriches. Ostriches are dangerous also. They run very fast but we were told that if one chases you, it is best to run in a zigzag pattern. That confuses them.<br />
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We saw a pride of lions composed of two males and five females. Lions lie around most of the time, at least until they get hungry. Obviously you don't want to walk up to a lion, but you are safe on a truck. The lions disregard the truck--they view it as an animal larger than themselves. Apparently the lions feed on eland or springboks which are plentiful in the park. <br />
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Later we saw 3 rhinoceres, a male, females and a calf. Rhinos are vegetarians, but if you stand next to one, it will knock you down or kill you. On a previous safari I actually fed a rhino an apple, sticking my hand into its mouth. You can do that if you are on a truck.<br />
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NAMIBIA--LUDERITZ AND WALVIS BAY<br />
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Namibia used to be called South West Africa. It was originally a German colony prior to World War I. In the late 1800's, European powers were carving up Africa to exploit its mineral resources. LĂĽderitz was founded in 1883 by a German guy named Adolf LĂĽderitz who purchased the land from an indigenous chief. LĂĽderitz was an adventurer. He died on an expedition on the Orange River in 1886, and they named the town after him. A railroad was built in 1907, but it was a sleepy town until 1909 when diamonds were discovered on the beach there, and it became a boomtown almost overnight. They built a new train station in 1912 which is a major landmark in town although the railroad no longer uses it.<br />
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Eventually DeBeers coordinated the diamond industry, and now it operates a logistic center in LĂĽderitz. Other than that LĂĽderitz is once again a sleepy town in a time warp, but about 12,000 people live in the area. The German colonial architecture looks like it did in 1915 when the Germans abandoned it.<br />
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Walking around the semi deserted streets, I stopped in the only tavern in town. The most popular drink on the menu is Windhoek Beer, named after the capitol of Namibia which we didn't visit. In terms of food, LĂĽderitz is best known for its rock lobster which is barbecued. Restaurants also serve up German dishes like wiener schnitzel. Taxi drivers hang out at the tavern, and we hired a local man to drive us around in a beat up taxi for $10 U.S. <br />
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He drove us up a steep hill to the historic Felsenkirsch which can be seen from all over town. The Felsenkirsch, an Evangelical Lutheran church was built in 1911 and has been beautifully maintained. The local Germans raised funds back home in Germany to build the church. Kaiser Wilhelm donated the stained glass windows to the church. The Kaiser, who was Queen Victoria's nephew, hadn't started World War I yet, so he was still a respected world leader.<br />
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We also visited the Goerke House which they built around the same time to accommodate the expected visits from German royalty who never showed up. It couldn't go to waste, and railroad executives used the house as a headquarters. Today the mansion is a tourist attraction.<br />
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Namibia is mostly desert, the Namib Desert from which the country gets its name. Our ship sailed along the Skeleton Coast, so named because of the skeletons of whale bones and shipwrecks up and down the coast. <br />
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The nearby sand dunes are legendary and hikers pride themselves on climbing them. We live near the Indiana Dunes, so that's not a big deal to us. However many people from our ship did so. They were challenged to climb the highest one, Dune 7, hundreds of feet of soft sand. It is very strenuous--a climber takes three steps and slides down two. <br />
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Speaking of sand, the most popular sport in Namibia is dune bashing--riding dune buggies at high speeds up and down the dunes. For traction, they have to let most of the air out of the tires. The ride compares to a large roller coaster. We did that a couple years ago in Abu Dhabi and it's lot of fun.<br />
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WALVIS BAY<br />
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We sailed a hundred miles or so up the Skeleton Coast to Walvis Bay which is the largest harbor in Namibia. The main industries in this busy town are oil drilling, oyster beds and diamonds. The areas we drove past appear prosperous. We saw neat rows of stone, brick and stucco houses. Each house has a 3-4 foot wall around the property. Many homeowners run businesses from their homes, and the walls are adorned with signs promoting their businesses. Some trappings of civilizations have not reached Namibia yet--there is no McDonalds in all of Namibia. On the other hand, there are no McDonalds in North Korea, Bolivia, Iceland or Bermuda either. <br />
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We decided to take a catamaran ride from the harbor, next to the Walvis Bay Yacht Club. We had a nice time on the catamaran. Our guide, Luni, an attractive blonde from Windhoek seemed to know all the wildlife by name. Sea gulls swooped by and grabbed fish from her hand. A large pelican with an 8 foot wingspan landed on the deck and schmoozed with the people. Luni fed the bird <em>mora moro</em> fish, also known as ribaldo, from a barrel. She would hold the fish by the tail, and the pelican would grab the fish in his beak and would have to turn it around in his large mouth to swallow it. <br />
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Then several large seals plopped on deck and begged for fish. We tourists are not supposed to touch the seals, but the animals are not shy about stepping on your feet. The crew fed us freshly caught oysters which were delicious. <br />
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NEXT: BONAPARTE'S RETREAT IN ST. HELENA</div>
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-73315800254823537112019-03-19T12:52:00.001-07:002019-03-20T09:23:07.885-07:00FROM NORTH KOREA TO THE AMERICAN DREAM--MY FRIEND'S JOURNEYThis is the text of a speech I gave recently.<br />
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North Korea is one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Its citizens have no freedom of anything. If someone commits a so-called crime against the state, his whole family will be imprisoned. Thousands of people live in slave labor camps, scrounging for food because a relative once tried to escape. Many spend their entire lives there, from birth.<br />
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Kim Ker Yung, an 11 year old boy made a choice early in life, and it had a profound lifelong positive effect on his future. We all make choices in life, and hopefully they are the correct ones. Because young Kim made a decision that day, he is alive today at 79. <br />
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My Korean friend, whom I've known for about 40 years, did just that. When he came to America, he became John Kim. We met through the local synagogue in Vernon Hills where our kids went to Hebrew School together. That is a strange story because Mr. Kim is not Jewish, and neither is his American born wife, Chrisanne. John's step kids are Jewish, and John participated in their activities.<br />
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Like many Asians, John likes to gamble. We play poker together in a bi-weekly game. Some of the other guys call him "Rocket Man" to throw him off his game. "I don't care what you call me, just bring a lot of money for me to win." He and I went to the Kentucky Derby together last year.<br />
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We eat lunch together about once a month. We usually go to a Korean restaurant for kimchee. Jokingly, I asked him one day if he was North Korean or South Korean. To my surprise, he answered "North Korean." He wasn't threatening to shoot me, so I asked him to explain.<br />
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The young boy Kim lived in the North Korean capitol, Pyongyang when the Korean War broke out in 1950. His father was a carpenter who built homes. Until the war, the boy's father, mother and 3 brothers lived a lower middle class existence in a modest home. When the war started, they dug an underground shelter. Their home was destroyed by a bomb, and they moved underground with other families. Life was very difficult, and there was little food.<br />
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Kim was resourceful. You do what you have to do to survive. On several occasions he swam across the river to a watermelon patch where he stole a melon for the family to eat. Other times, he and other young boys would steal a dried fish from a pushcart and run away. Usually their diet consisted of barley. Barley for breakfast, lunch and dinner. To this day John hates barley.<br />
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In late 1950, the American soldiers were able to repel the North Korean invasion of the South and occupy the North including the capitol where they established a military base. The young boy befriended the American GI's and hung around the motor pool. The Americans liked the boy and sometimes gave him food to bring home. Kim told them he would like to visit the U.S. someday. That was in his wildest dreams. He was the unofficial mascot of the unit.<br />
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The fortunes of war quickly change, and before long the Americans were in full retreat. In their haste, the American troops were ordered to leave everything behind. Thousands of North Korean peasants, including Kim's family, begged the Americans to take them along. General MacArthur gave an order that no Koreans be taken South. In a hasty retreat, the GI's could not be bogged down with thousands of refugees.<br />
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The boy was heartbroken and cried his eyes out. One of the soldiers told him "Come back tomorrow morning, and we'll see what we can do." Kim went home and told his folks he was leaving. He and his family knew they would probably never see each other again. How would you feel if you could never see your family again? That took courage. He was only 11 years old.<br />
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Early the next morning, Kim, who was small for his age, climbed into a large duffel bag and the soldier threw him onto the back of a truck. Kim was terrified, but the alternative was certainly worse. Several hours later, he emerged in the DMZ in South Korea with the American unit, but certainly not safe. He found himself with an American paratrooper squadron, sleeping in tents. He was almost killed on more than one occasion, as bullets flew through the tent.<br />
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An Army chaplain, Father O'Boyle took the boy under his wing and protected him for the next few years. After the Armistice in 1953, the priest guided the boy through the process to emigrate to the United States. Admitting an enemy alien to the U.S. is not so simple. Bureaucratic red tape created many obstacles. For example, parental permission is required. Kim's family could not be located. He believes his folks were killed in the war. The fate of his brothers is unknown. After a year and a half, he got the green light to go to America.<br />
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Father O'Boyle brought the boy to San Francisco. On reaching America, Kim became John Kim, as he is known today. He was in effect, born again. He vowed to himself, "I will never starve again!" John was sponsored by a Houston fire captain, Frank Malek, of Bohemian descent. John moved to Texas where he learned American customs and attended school. His sponsor taught him how to fish. <br />
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As a foster child, John was eventually placed in Father Flanagan's Boy's Town in Nebraska where he was taught the printing trade. He graduated in 1961, the oldest kid in Boy's Town.<br />
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Meanwhile, Father O'Boyle, now Colonel O'Boyle was transferred to Fort Sheridan, near Chicago. He invited John to come live with him in Highwood, IL. As a graduation present, he gave John a Volkswagen that he brought back from Germany. In Highwood John met his first wife, and they had a son, John Jr. and a daughter Michelle. Today, both are in their 50's and are pursuing successful careers. The marriage broke up several years later, and John married his present wife. They are married over 40 years. <br />
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John started a printing business in Mundelein, IL. where I brought him business printing up flyers for the Jewish holidays. Today, John is living the American dream. He is not wealthy, but he owns a house, has a family that loves him, and he has the freedom to do what he wants to do--fish. shoot pool and gamble. He made a decision at age 11, and it changed his life forever. If you're going to dream, dream big! <br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-77702224506282078412019-03-03T19:37:00.001-08:002019-03-03T19:58:20.099-08:00ROAD TRIP TO BEAT THE POLAR VORTEXIt was New Year's Day, 2019. We were rushing to catch a plane on January 5th in Orlando, Florida. We were by the Illinois-Wisconsin border. In January, you're never certain what kind of weather will be encountered on the road. We were prepared for anything, and we gave ourselves 5 days to get there while eating our way through the Southeastern states.<br />
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COLUMBUS, INDIANA<br />
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Our first night, we reached Columbus, Indiana, between Indy and Louisville, KY. Columbus turned out to be a rare treasure. It's been called "Athens on the Prairie". It is a small city of 44,000 but is the headquarters of Cummins Engine which makes engines for cars and trucks. Although it was not mentioned, Columbus is the birthplace of Vice President Pence. I didn't see any statues of Mr. Pence, and his house is not yet a museum. <br />
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In the 1940's and 50's, the city fathers, led by the Cummins Foundation decided to commission works of public art and architecture. The foundation agreed to pay the architects' fees provided that the client selected an architect on a list it compiled. They invited in world famous architects like the Saarinens (the father, the son and the relatives), I. M. Pei, Harry Weese and Robert A.M. Stern. There were others, but I mentioned the ones I had heard of. <br />
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Most of the churches and schools in the town were designed by these famous architects. Harry Weese designed the First Baptist Church in 1965. Eliel Saarinen designed the First Christian Church with its 160 foot bell tower in 1942, across from the Visitors' Center. Following the map provided to us, we proceeded on to the hexagonal shaped North Christian Church with its 192 foot spire designed by Eero Saarinen. In all, seven buildings constructed between 1942 and 1965 are National Historic Landmarks. <br />
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On the main street in downtown Columbus, we visited the Zaharakos Ice Cream Parlor and Museum where we saw large rooms filled with antique ice cream makers and soda fountains. I peered out the window and saw two female cops mulling over our car which was parallel parked across the street. There are no parking meters in town but there is a 2 hour limit. I ran outside to confront them because I hadn't been in the store for more than a half hour. <br />
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They pointed out to me that there were lines painted on the street to delineate the parking spaces, and our car was parked over the line. I couldn't see the lines when I parked because I was straddling them. I guess there is not much crime in Columbus. The officers explained what I did wrong and didn't issue a ticket. Not that I would have paid it anyway. <br />
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TENNESSEE<br />
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The following day, we continued on through Louisville and Nashville, and by nightfall, we arrived in Chattanooga, TN. Chattanooga has been a railroad center for probably 150 years. Its biggest attraction is the Chattanooga Choo Choo, essentially a railroad museum and shopping mall where you can spend the night sleeping in a restored Pullman sleeper car. We didn't visit. We've passed through Chattanooga many times and have never seen it. <br />
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The attraction was made famous in the politically incorrect 1941 Glenn Miller song: "<em>Pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo, Track twenty nine, Boy you can gimme a shine"</em> <br />
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Chattanooga lies at the foot of Lookout Mountain, the site of a Civil War battle. Inside Lookout Mountain is the spectacular Ruby Falls which is promoted on billboards for hundreds of miles around. If you've never seen Ruby Falls, you should. We're talking about a 150 foot waterfall inside a huge cavern underneath Lookout Mountain. This thing is magnificent.\<br />
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Lookout Mountain has sentimental value for me. My father often told the story about driving over it on U.S. 41 in the late 1940's on the way to Florida. He was driving an old Packard without working windshield wipers in a snowstorm. My uncle in the passenger seat had to lean out the window to keep wiping the windshield so they could see where they were going. Today it is an easy ride on Interstate 24. <br />
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We stayed in a Hampton Inn which we often do to accumulate Hilton Honors points. When we get enough points, we can stay in a Waldorf for free. Hampton Inns bake cookies at 5 o'clock each evening. The desk clerk recommended a restaurant at the base of Lookout Mountain in an old industrial neighborhood on St. Elmo Street. The <em>1885 Restaurant</em> had a delicious fried chicken dish. It was a fried chicken breast with creole gravy on top of green beans on top of mashed potatoes. The boneless breast was covered with herbs and spices. It didn't list the calories on the menu, and I didn't ask. <br />
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MAN VS. FOOD EXPERIENCE IN VALDOSTA, GA<br />
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We found another Hampton Inn in Southern Georgia and asked about local eateries. The clerk gave us several choices, but <em>Steel Magnolias</em> sounded the most Southern. We weren't disappointed. You probably don't see too many Cordon Bleu chefs in Valdosta, but the menu was an experience in itself. I ordered shrimp and grits with roasted red pepper gravy Andouille sausage and creamy Gayla grits. <br />
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Dianne had braised beef short ribs with sweet potato brown butter risotto, sautéed spinach, blue cheese crumbles and mushroom demi glace. The kitchen was in the front of the restaurant where you could watch the chef make the food. <br />
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The dessert menu was so extraordinary that I'll list the desserts for you. Rumchata rice pudding with fall fruit compote and pecan streussel. Then there was pecan pie with bonbon caramel and cane syrup ice cream. Don't forget Mexican hot chocolate fudge with cinnamon and chiles and toasted marshmallows. How about pumpkin bread pudding with maple crème Anglaise and vanilla ice cream.<br />
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They also served traditional stuff like peanut butter pie and apple pie cheesecake. When I hear cheesecake, I think of Betty Grable or Rita Hayworth. Anyone younger than 50 probably doesn't understand that. We passed on dessert because we over indulged on the main course.<br />
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The next day, January 4th, we continued on to Orlando where it finally got warm outside. We stayed in a luxurious Hilton Hotel, using our Honors points. The next morning, we drove to the Orlando airport in time to catch our one o'clock flight on BahamaAir, a 55 minute hop to Nassau. The plane had engine trouble, fortunately not while we were aboard. We had to sit around the Orlando airport for 3 1/2 hours waiting for the flight to takeoff. But we arrived in one piece. The Bahama airline was kind enough to give all the passengers $10 vouchers to use in the airport for lunch. It was just enough for appetizers. <br />
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ATLANTIS RESORT, PARADISE ISLAND<br />
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We vacationed for 3 nights on Paradise Island, Bahamas, at the Atlantis Resort. The island used to be called Hog Island, but when Merv Griffin purchased it, he changed the name, presumably for marketing reasons. The Atlantis Hotel is over the top in luxury. We stayed there once, about 20 years ago, just after it opened. I didn't remember too much about that trip because I was sick for 3 days out of 5. This time, however, we savored all the attractions at the resort. The hotel complex is enormous. It takes about 30 minutes to walk from one end to the other.<br />
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I signed up for the dolphin experience in which you must reserve a time on the beach with a group. We climbed into wet suits and then waded into the waist high water as the trainer summoned the fish. They have many dolphins which were rescued from Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Dolphins are very smart and perform tricks on cue. They are not smart enough to play checkers or do calculus, but they are up there as animals go. They get up close and personal. One dolphin put his mouth next to my ear. I didn't understand what he said, but it was translated as "your loan is underwater". <br />
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The dolphins are trained to swim close to you so you can run your hand over its back. It feels like a smooth rubber bicycle tire. The trainers make their real money selling photos, so each person takes individual poses with the dolphin including kissing on the cheek. The six picture package sells for about $94. I bought the package. <br />
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The other money maker for the hotel is the casino. Similar to Las Vegas, the casino has the usual assortment of penny slot machines and quarter video poker. The table games have high limits. The minimums on the crap tables and blackjack tables are $25. To play a session properly, you would need a $1000 bankroll. There is no poker room although the World Series of Poker was sponsoring a million dollar tournament while we were there. We talked to many of the participants. <br />
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The casino has a sports book, and we spent Sunday afternoon watching the Bears-Eagles playoff game. I don't normally bet on sports, but as a Chicago fan, I had to make some bets. I bet $10 on the Bears winning the first half by 3 1/2 points. They led 6-3 at the half, so I lost that bet. I bet $10 more on the Bears willing the game by 6 1/2 points. How could I lose that? As we all know, the Bears' game winning field goal attempt clanked off the upright and then the crossbar and I lost that bet also.<br />
I wouldn't have won the bet anyway because they had to win by 7 points. The bookies are a lot smarter than I am. <br />
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I made a bet that Bears' tight end Trey Burton would catch passes for more than 29 yards. I got lucky on that one. Burton must have gotten hurt because he didn't suit up for the game, and I got my money back. The only bet I won was for the Eagles quarterback to pass for more than 245 yards, and he easily passed that when he marched them down the field in the 4th quarter. The worst part of the loss was having to listen to the loud, obnoxious Eagles fans. I slunk out past them to look for some dinner. <br />
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NAPLES, FLORIDA<br />
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Returning to the States, we took a ride down to Naples on the Gulf Coast of Florida. We went to the Visitor's Center where we signed up for a trolley tour around the town. We were told that Naples was the 6th wealthiest (per capita) city in the U.S. in 2012 and had the 2nd highest proportion of millionaires per capita. I'm not sure what we were doing there, but the weather was nice. We told the guy we had reservations--but we would visit anyway. The tour guide drove us past the capacious homes of prominent Neapolitans like Judge Judy. I'd like to say she was outside mowing her lawn, but she wasn't. Some of these homes sell for up to $60 million. <br />
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DON CESAR RESORT HOTEL, ST. PETE BEACH<br />
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The Don CeSar (yes, with a capital "S" in the middle) is the most famous hotel in the Tampa Bay area. This art deco hotel dates back to 1928 and has a long checkered history. It went broke a couple times over the years. The military used it for a hospital during World War II, and the current owner bought it for peanuts, but spent a boatload of money restoring it. <br />
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It was and is a first class hotel, catering to the elite. Al Capone stayed there, or at least they say he did--for marketing purposes. Other prominent guests included F.D. Roosevelt, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Cary Grant. The New York Yankees stayed there during Spring Training in the 1940's. <br />
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The hotel was built in 1928 by Thomas Rowe. In a Romeo & Juliet story, Rowe toured Europe as a young man, and while in London became smitten with an opera singer named Lucinda who played the lead in a production of <em>Maritana</em>. He was an early version of the Deadheads. He saw the opera about 100 times, and after the performances, he and Lucinda would meet secretly by a certain fountain. After the final performance, the couple planned to elope. Her folks had other plans, however. They learned of the planned marriage and whisked the girl off to Spain, and Rowe never saw her again.<br />
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Rowe returned to the U.S. and licked his wounds in remote St. Petersburg Beach. Apparently he had some bucks and decided to built a tribute to his lost love. He named it for Don CeSar, the chivalrous hero in the opera <em>Maritana</em>. <br />
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The P.R. people claim the Elvis song <em>Heartbreak Hotel</em> is about this hotel. The tragic Lucinda died young from an illness, but on her deathbed she wrote a note to Rowe: "Time is infinite. I wait for you by our fountain to share our timeless love!" Fortunately they didn't have texting in those days. That is much more romantic than a text message.<br />
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We ate lunch at the hotel, and the seafood bisque is to die for.<br />
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SEARCH FOR THE ELUSIVE IVORY BILLED WOODPECKER<br />
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Driving through the Southern pine forests, we watched for the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker, the "Holy Grail of Ornithology", hoping to claim the reward for seeing one. This bird may or may not be extinct. The American Birding Association has, in effect, issued an all points bulletin looking for the bird. Every birdwatcher knows what it looks like. The beautiful black, white and red ivory-billed woodpecker is one of the largest woodpeckers in the world, with a wingspan of 30 inches. <br />
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These birds were fairly common in the 1800's. The great naturalist John James Audubon, who was noted for his portraits of American birds, shot and collected ivory-billed woodpeckers in order to paint them. If he did that today, he would be arrested. The birds began disappearing when logging companies clear cut their habitats in the Southern forests. <br />
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The woodpeckers were common in Cuba also, but after the Spanish American War ended in 1898, much of the forest lands, where the birds lived, were cleared to plant sugar cane.<br />
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Nobody had seen one since the 1940's when a veteran bird watcher spotted one in 2004 while kayaking in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas. This was later confirmed by two experts from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who traveled to the same bayou and saw what was apparently the same bird which they described as a "close-up unmistakable sighting" of the woodpecker. <br />
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Then this thing went viral. The director of the Cornell Lab, the director and a board member of the Arkansas Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, and a professor from the University of Arkansas organized a team of over 50 people to slog through the swamps for 14 hours a day looking for one bird. Four different people saw the bird on 4 different days, and others heard the distinct knocking and other sounds associated with the woodpecker. <br />
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Then in 2006, ornithologists from Windsor University and Auburn University claimed they saw an Ivory Billed Woodpecker along the Chotawhatchee River in Florida. Other birders flocked to the area for the next three years but didn't see any of the birds. <br />
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Then the serious money came in. A $10,000 reward was offered for information that would lead to a nest, roost or feeding spot of an Ivory Billed Woodpecker. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology increased the reward to $50,000 in 2008 to anyone who could lead them to a living woodpecker. Now, more than $10 million has been raised for the project. So far, nobody has collected. <br />
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SEX IN THE PHONE BOOTH<br />
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There, I got your attention!<br />
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We were sitting around the cruise ship having a drink when an octogenarian lady walking with a cane and a Filipino couple sat down with us. We didn't know them, but we started talking. Somehow the conversation drifted to the subject of phone booths. They still have them in England, but in the U.S., they are few and far between. The last one I saw was in Metropolis, Illinois, outside the Superman Museum. <br />
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The lady confessed to having sex in a phone booth. My jaw dropped. Most people would think that is too much information. However, without missing a beat, I asked if that happened on the cruise ship. "No, there are no phone booths on the ship." My curiosity got the best of me, and I asked her if she enjoyed it. "Of course", she said, "and a phone booth has more room than a lavatory on an airplane." I didn't ask any more questions.<br />
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THE ST. CLOUD LADIES AND DICK PUTZ<br />
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On the cruise ship to Cozumel, our dinner partners were 4 ladies from Minnesota traveling without their husbands. I asked them where in Minnesota they lived. "Oh, a small town near the Twin Cities." "Which one?" "St. Cloud." My response was, "We've visited St. Cloud twice in the last 2 years." "Why?" "To see Dick Putz Field and take a picture of it." <br />
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They gave me the look. "Maybe we should have him committed." Then Jody, the spokesperson for the group told me that her father is in the Minnesota Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame, located at Dick Putz Field. Dick Putz was the director. He actually knew Dick Putz. Dick Putz was a legend in St. Cloud. " <em>I knew Dick Putz, Dick Putz was a friend of mine, and you're no Dick Putz." </em> In New York or Chicago, people would laugh when they hear the name. In Minnesota, Putz is a normal name like Carlson, Hanson, Larson, etc.<br />
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HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI<br />
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Upon disembarking the cruise ship, we drove from Tampa to Hattiesburg, a distance of about 600 miles, in one day. Once again, we stayed at the Hampton Inn. Hattiesburg is a college town, the home of Southern Mississippi University, known for football, among other things. Its best known former player is Brett Favre the Hall of Fame quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. I half expected to find a statue of Favre there, but no! We ate at the restaurant in the hotel. The walls were adorned with sports memorabilia. I asked about the framed jersey with number 31, a halfback's number. Was that Favre's jersey? The bartender had no idea.<br />
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Our waitress was a sweet young girl about 19 who told us she was getting married in 2 days. Her fiancé was in the Air Force and getting transferred to Wichita Falls, Texas. Apparently her folks were not happy with the situation and refused to attend the wedding. Her father would not be walking her down the aisle. <br />
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We made some suggestions, and she called over the bartender, a young man in his 20's, and asked him if he would walk her down the aisle. He agreed to do so, and she hugged him. He explained that they were friends for a long time, but not romantic friends. He just hadn't found the right girl yet. I gave the waitress a generous tip. <br />
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NEW MADRID FAULT<br />
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North of Memphis, our trip took us through one of the poorest areas of the country, the heel of Missouri, through towns like Hayti, Caruthersville and New Madrid. New Madrid is world famous for its fault. In New Madrid, they say it's not our fault--the crack in the Earth runs for 150 miles, south from Cairo, Illinois. No matter. The name stuck.<br />
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The New Madrid earthquake fault was the nexus of about 3 of America's most destructive earthquakes, plus an aftershock, all between magnitude 7 and 8 on the Richter Scale which probably wasn't invented yet. They occurred within a few months of each other in 1811 and 1812. Fortunately, the area was thinly populated at that time. The shock was strong enough to cause damage in Boston, about 1000 miles away. In Richmond, VA., it caused church bells to ring. It knocked plaster off of houses in South Carolina. The Mississippi River actually ran backwards for several hours, according to boatmen on flatboats who survived the quake. The tremors created Reelfoot Lake, the largest lake in Kentucky. <br />
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There have been other quakes since then, but not of the same intensity. The 1968 quake had an impact on me. I was in college, and I hadn't set foot in the library for a long time. No sooner than I walked into the library than everything began to shake. I thought the heating system was going to crash down on me. I didn't know it was an earthquake because, living in the Midwest, I had never experienced one. I thought it was a sign from God. I ran out of the library, never to return. That quake was felt in 23 states, all the way to Boston.<br />
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Scientists warn that a major earthquake on the New Madrid Fault would cause perhaps thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of damage in nearby cities like St. Louis and Memphis as well as cities hundreds of miles away. Archaeologists have determined that major earthquakes struck the area in circa 900 and 1450, and a series of large earthquakes around 2350 B.C. They based these estimates on artifacts and Carbon 14 dating, as they found no newspapers or coins dated 2350 B.C. French traders described an earthquake in the area in 1699. Another big one is not out of the question. <br />
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Two days later, we drove through the snow in Illinois and arrived home just in time for the Polar Vortex. Maybe I'm crazy, but when it's 27 below zero, I didn't want to miss a historic weather event.<br />
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<br />kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-80977987828482857832018-09-11T11:44:00.002-07:002018-09-11T12:20:38.506-07:00ROAD TRIP TO CANADA & THE BOMBING OF SASKATCHEWANThis summer, we took our semi-annual road trip. We booked a tour to the Canadian Rockies, starting in Calgary, Alberta. But first we had to get there. About 35 people were on the tour, and they all flew to Calgary, either from Chicago or the Twin Cities, except us. We could save $1000 on the tour if we didn't fly. Of course, it cost more than the $1000 for gas and hotel rooms for 8 days and 6 nights. Be we did it for the adventure. Here is what we learned.<br />
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PASSENGER PIGEONS<br />
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Driving in Northwest Wisconsin, we stopped at a rest area containing an exhibit remembering the passenger pigeon, an extinct bird which filled the sky by the billions back in the 19th Century. The famed ornithologist and painter John James Audubon described the experience, writing that an enormous flock of pigeons would darken the sky and could take hours to pass over. Of course you didn't want to stand underneath while they were passing over. The birds were noisy also. Their cacophony would cause horses to bolt. In the forest where they would perch and eat acorns and beechnuts, the dung on the forest floor could be a foot thick. That left large bare areas on the ground.<br />
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In the 1800's people would shoot them for sport and sometimes eat them. The birds often flew low enough that they could be brought down with a stick. A single shotgun blast could being down 10 birds. The birds did have natural predators, hawks, weasels and the like. But the sheer number of the birds protected their population from decimation--until the European settlers came along. After the Civil War, the extension of the telegraph and the railroad brought hunters out to bag the birds commercially. They didn't just shoot down the flocks. They disrupted the nesting grounds. By 1890, the birds were pretty much gone in the wild. The last passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.<br />
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The bird got its name from the French word <em>passager</em> which means passing by. The birds' habitat comprised all of North America east of the Rockies. The nesting grounds in Wisconsin where we visited covered 850 square miles, larger than the Chicagoland area. <em>The nesting grounds</em>! According to one naturalist, this area had 136 <em>million</em> breeding adult birds. <br />
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WISCONSIN CHEESE CURDS<br />
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Nearby Ellsworth is the Cheese Curd Capitol of Wisconsin. That is saying something! Ellsworth is a town of 3000, about 40 miles from St. Paul, MN. Every year in June, they celebrate the Cheese Curd Festival where you can try cheese curds prepared 20 different ways. They are usually served beer-battered with dipping sauce. <br />
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The cheese curds are made at the Ellsworth Co-op Creamery. We stopped in Ellsworth for lunch at a local bar and grill. It was a friendly place. Several people were playing pool. Everyone seemed to know each other. There are not many restaurants in Ellsworth. We had sandwiches and breaded deep fried cheddar cheese curds with a touch of garlic. They were delicious. At a nearby A & W, they put the curds on the menu and they quickly proved to be more popular than the French fries. <br />
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CHARLES LINDBERGH'S HOUSE, LITTLE FALLS, MN.<br />
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Little Falls is in fact little, compared to Minneapolis for example. But it is a prosperous town and attracts many tourists for camping and fishing at nearby Charles A. Lindbergh State Park. Surprisingly, the state park was not named after the famed aviator. It was named after his father who was a Minnesota congressman.<br />
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The restored 1906 house was the boyhood home of the more famous son. The house is on high wooded ground next to the Mississippi River. The falls on the river give the town its name. <br />
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Lindbergh (the son), of course became a hero as a young man, being the first pilot to fly solo nonstop from New York to Paris in 1927. He won a cash prize for that. But he was not the first to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Actually 81 people did that before Lindbergh. <br />
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The first was Lt. Commander Albert C. Read who also won a prize when he flew from New York to Lisbon in a Navy Curtiss NC-4 flying boat in 1919. The plane developed engine trouble on the way, and Read had to spend 10 days in the Azores. But he completed the trip.<br />
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A few weeks later, a pair of Brits, Capt. John Alcock and Lt. Arthur Brown took off from St. Johns, Newfoundland in a Vickers Night Bomber. They crash landed in a peat bog in Ireland and walked away unscathed. They were knighted by the King. Their average speed was 118 mph. In 1924, two Americans, Lt. Lowell H. Smith and Lt. Eric H. Nelson flew around the world from Seattle to Seattle, covering over 26,000 miles. The point I'm making is that the Lindbergh flight was closely covered by the media and the others weren't. Lindbergh became the world's first mass media hero.<br />
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Several years later, Lindbergh lent his name and fame to some questionable causes, enough that President F. Roosevelt called him "the most dangerous man in America." Many people still idolized Lindbergh, so he had influence with a lot of followers. Lindbergh became enamored with Nazi Germany because of their wacky racial theories, and even accepted an award from Hitler. While married to the author Anne Morrow, Lindbergh fathered children with two European mistresses, one German. Recently two German men claimed they were Lindbergh's children and DNA tests proved them correct.<br />
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In the late 1930's, Lindbergh became a leader in the America First movement because he was concerned that America was being overrun by "brown, yellow, black and Jewish people". In that regard, his view was that the U.S. and Nazi Germany had much in common. He supported an accommodation with Nazi Germany, even after it overran Europe in 1940. That movement eventually fizzled in late 1941 when Germany declared war on the U.S. Lindbergh faded into well deserved obscurity. <br />
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LAKE ITASCA, MN.<br />
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Our road trip continued up the center of Minnesota to Lake Itasca State Park which is the source of the Mississippi River. We first visited it about 20 years ago, and it looks pretty much the same today except they have added the Mary Gibbs Mississippi Headwaters Center, built in 2005 with a shelter, bathrooms and a gift shop. It also features a small scale mock up of the Mississippi River all the way to New Orleans. They charge 7 bucks a carload to enter the park. It was worth it.<br />
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Mary Gibbs was an early environmentalist. She became Park Commissioner (succeeding her father) in 1903 when she was 24. At the time, a logging company was constructing a dam a quarter mile downstream which would create a lake and also destroy old growth trees. In her main accomplishment as commissioner, she confronted the loggers and had her life threatened. She ultimately prevailed, survived, and live to age 104. <br />
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The lake itself is only about 2 square miles in area and is 1475 feet above sea level. In other words, the water flows downhill 1475 feet over the next 2552 miles down to the Gulf of Mexico. It was "discovered" by Henry Schoolcraft, an early explorer who, in 1832, correctly identified the lake as the primary source of the river. Actually, two other streams empty into the lake from the other side. One originates in nearby Elk Lake, about 7 miles upstream and 100 feet higher in elevation. This was controversial, and finally in 1891, Jacob Brower, a surveyor and President of the Minnesota Historical Society, decreed that the lakes and streams further south of Lake Itasca were not the true source because they were "too small". He successfully lobbied the state legislature to make Lake Itasca a state park to protect it from logging. The bill passed by one vote. As the "Father of Lake Itasca", Jacob Brower was honored when the 1905 Visitor's Center was named after him.<br />
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Schoolcraft got to name the lake. He disregarded the local Indian name which was translated to "Elk Lake". Instead he chose a combination of the Latin words "verITAS" and "CAput" (truth and head).<br />
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The lake flows out over large stone rapids which most visitors step over to walk across the river. It is approximately 15 feet across. The first 30 feet or so of the river is a pond in which many visitors jump in the water and swim on warm days. I was dismayed to learn from Wikipedia that the channel in that area was bulldozed by the government to create a more "pleasant experience" for visitors. The Civilian Conservation Corps drained the swamp, dug a new channel and installed the stone rapids and the pond. Above the rapids, the lake today is covered by lily pads. A few hundred yards downstream is a small stone and wood truss pedestrian bridge crossing the Mississippi River. Wooden steps lead down to the water, and we watched many people and their dogs wade across, just for the experience.<br />
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THE ROAD TO MOOSE JAW<br />
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We crossed into Canada in Saskatchewan at the Port of Entry on U.S. 52 in western North Dakota. Gas is expensive in Canada. It is measured by the liter rather than the gallon. A gallon is about 3.8 liters. At $1.54 per liter, gas is about $5.82 per gallon (Canadian). Discount that by about 25% to get American money, and it is still well over $4,30 per gallon. On our return trip from Calgary, we drove south from Lethbridge, Alberta with just about enough gas to get to the border. Our fuel gauge was down to 9 miles left in the tank when we got to the U.S. border and filled up the car.<br />
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BOMBING SASKATCHEWAN and THE CHICAGO CONNECTION IN MOOSE JAW<br />
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Several years ago, the Canadian satirist Bruce McCall did a 2001 TV special "<em>Talking to Americans</em>" to expose the ignorance of most Americans toward Canada. Comedian Rick Mercer asked New Yorkers on the street, "Should American be bombing Saskatchewan?' The responses were "Absolutely" and "If that's what they're going to have to do, that's what they're going to have to do." and "Bomb those Commie bastards." <br />
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Actually Saskatchewan <em>was</em> bombed--by the Japanese toward the end of World War II. Japan launched 10,000 balloon bombs intended to reach North America and cause panic. A few forest fires broke out and a few people were even killed, but by and large, the bombs caused little damage. News of this was censored until after the war ended. <br />
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Driving Saskatchewan is a long and sometimes monotonous drive through endless canola and wheat fields. Saskatchewan is the size of Texas and is the only province to not have any natural boundaries (i.e. rivers, mountains, etc.). It is just a large rectangle. The canola fields have beautiful yellow flowers stretched as far as you can see. Canola is used to make low cholesterol cooking oil. The name is a contraction from "Canada" and "oil". <br />
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Eventually we drove into Moose Jaw where we spent the night at a Comfort Inn down the street from the giant moose statue. Moose Jaw, a city of 33,000 people, is one of only 3 or 4 significant cities in Saskatchewan. The others are Regina and Saskatoon. Moose Jaw is often called "Little Chicago" and there's a story behind that. To attract tourists, it declared itself as the Chicago of Western Canada, and probably not in a good way.<br />
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the most popular attraction is Tunnels of Moose Jaw, where history comes alive underground. Apparently, during Prohibition, the Capone Mob set up an operation there to supply liquor to thirsty Americans. Pictures of old newspapers with screaming headlines like "CHICAGO MOBSTERS SPOTTED IN MOOSE JAW" as it appeared in the <em>Moose Jaw Examiner</em>. The police were shocked, SHOCKED to find gambling and liquor abounding. The whiskey was hidden beneath the train station. "CITY POLICE DENY BEING ON THE TAKE". Where have I heard that before? The article has a mugshot of Al Capone who is like George Washington--everyone wants to claim he slept there. We once visited Al Capone's HAT exhibited in St. Pierre and Miquelon. <br />
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In Moose Jaw, you can see performers in <em>The Chicago Connection</em>, and they charge money for that.<br />
I grew up in Chicago, and I could see that for free. The other attraction performance in the Tunnels of Moose Jaw is <em>Passage to Fortune</em> which describes the history of Chinese immigrants to Canada who were recruited to work for the railroad. They lived underground, in deplorable conditions, but ultimately overcame their hardships and now send their kids to Harvard. <br />
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MEDICINE HAT, ALBERTA<br />
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Another city, known mostly to hockey fans, is Medicine Hat, a city of 63,000. It is also known as "the Gas City". With some trepidation, we ate lunch there. I'm not sure if the locals are proud of that name or not, but it got that moniker when a large natural gas field was discovered nearby in 1883. The Gas City Rollers is the local roller derby team. The City of Medicine Hat got its name from the native Blackfoot Indian word "<em>saamis</em>", loosely translated as "medicine man's hat". <br />
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According to the Medicine Hat Tourism Board, the deal was that one winter the tribe was suffering from famine and hardship. They chose a young brave to save the tribe from starvation. He walked for days and made camp by an opening in the ice on the South Saskatchewan River. There he summoned the spirits who appeared in the form of a talking snake which told him where to find a bag containing medicines and a <em>saamis</em> (holy bonnet). He could wear the hat only in war but it would insure victory. In the Canadian version of the Kerward Derby, with the magic of the <em>saamis</em>, the young brave found plentiful game to save the tribe from hunger. He became a great Medicine Man. The first Medicine Hat was a symbol of leadership, prowess and mysticism.<br />
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The ultimate symbol of Medicine Hat is the <em>Saamis</em> Tepee, a 215 foot metal tepee towering over the Queen Elizabeth Highway. It was hard to miss, so we visited the tepee. On the outside are ten hand painted storyboards interpreting and retelling the history of the various First Nations (Indians) of the area up until the present. The tepee was originally built for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and later moved to Medicine hat. <br />
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EATING IN GREAT FALLS, MONTANA<br />
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We spent a nice evening in Great Falls, Montana which, until the 1970's was the largest city in the state. Then it was surpassed by Billings and Missoula. Great Falls was notable for the dinner we ate there. The manager at our hotel recommended Jakers Bar & Grill, several blocks down the street. The restaurant promotes itself as the Best Happy Hour in Great Falls. It was moderately priced, and we had a feast.<br />
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The first thing we saw was the huge salad and soup bar. To limit our intake of food, we elected not to use it. Instead we ordered off the menu. They started off with scones and honey butter. They served several choices of soup, but the lobster bisque caught my eye. It turned out to be the best I've ever tasted, and I've had it at many expensive restaurants. The bisque didn't skimp on the lobster--it was chock full. I've never seen that before. <br />
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The menu had half pound burgers with many varieties of toppings. Even with salad on top, the burger is probably fattening. Also on the menu was prime rib and salmon, prepared the right way.<br />
I elected to have parmesan encrusted walleye. Instead of fries, they serve <em>Jakers Bakers</em> which are baked potatoes with everything, and I mean everything on them. But if you want fries, you can try gorgonzola waffle fries. This was unbelievable! As it turns out, Jakers had 6 locations in Idaho and Montana. If they're not coming to Chicago, we'll have to go back to Montana.<br />
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CROOK COUNTY<br />
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Crook County, Wyoming, perhaps illustrates the truth in advertising concept. It is reputed that early settlers were politicians from Washington. Despite popular belief, Chicago is in <em>Cook</em> County, not <em>Crook</em> County. Crook County is located in rural Wyoming. There is also a Crook County in Oregon, but we didn't visit. The main attraction, other than their politicians is the imposing Devils Tower National Monument, made famous by the movie <em>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</em>, which was filmed there. We visited it before, and they encourage you to get out as quickly as possible with the 80 mph speed limit. We sailed through Crook County at close to 100 mph. <br />
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GEOGRAPHIC CENTER OF NORTH AMERICA<br />
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I basked in front of a 15 foot obelisk in Rugby, North Dakota which claims to be the geographic center of North America. I had some questions about that. Wikipedia points out that North America includes Central America, the West Indies, the Aleutian Islands, and even Bermuda. It wasn't clear if all of those were factored into the Rugby location. Also, it is not clear why that would even be important except to allow a small town to promote tourism.<br />
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By all accounts, that obelisk isn't really at the center of North America. The U.S. Geographical Survey, established in 1931 that the geographic center is actually about 15 miles south of Rugby. That was close enough for the town of Rugby to seize the day. The USGS further stated that "No marked or monumented point has been established by any government agency as the geographic center of either the 50 states, the coterminous United States, or the North American continent." <br />
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Recently it was reported that the actual geographic center of North America is in another (appropriately named) town, Center, North Dakota, located about 145 miles southwest of Rugby.. A professor at the University of Buffalo named Peter Rogerson decided to precisely calculate the center using a computer program called an azimuthal equidistant projection which considered the curvature of the Earth. Before the computer age, the USGS had calculated it using cardboard cutouts--they cut out the shape of the continent from a sheet of cardboard and then balanced it on a small point. In most cases of measuring the center of anything, the difference in distances is small, usually less than 2 miles. <br />
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The U.S. has two geographic centers. The center of the continental U.S. is near Lebanon, Kansas, but if you include Alaska and Hawaii, the center moves up to near Belle Fourche, South Dakota. We drove through there, unaware of its geographical significance. <br />
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STURGIS<br />
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Passing the signs pointing to Mount Rushmore, we rolled into Sturgis, South Dakota which is the foremost biker town in the country. Especially during the Sturgis Rally. Sturgis is not very big, only 6600 people, but during the 10 day Rally, they claim that 1 million people attend this extravaganza. <br />
That 1 million was the "official" count in 2015, when they celebrated the 75th Rally, although others say it was only 740,000. Be that as it may, even in an off year, they get 500,000 visitors. The first Rally was in 1938 and has been held every year except during World War II (gas rationing).<br />
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We showed up a week early, but the merchants were already gearing up for the 2018 Rally. I bought a t-shirt promoting the Rally. Huge banners were already strung over the streets. Hundreds of motorcycles of early arrivals were parked in the middle of the wide streets. According to the Chamber of Commerce, over 1000 vendors set up displays, selling accessories, food, tattoos and body piercings, and t-shirts. The town obviously can't accommodate the throngs of people, and over 60 nearby campgrounds serve the bikers. <br />
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The schedule listed 197 concerts at the various venues. Most of the music was County and Western and Southern Rock. Some of the bigger names in town included Foreigner, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Trace Adkins, the Marshall Tucker Band, Eric Church and Kid Rock. Based on a casual observation, there were probably very few Progressives in attendance. President Trump is popular in Sturgis, and his picture adorns t-shirts all over town. <br />
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We visited the Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame located in an old post office building on the main street in Sturgis. It was founded in 2001 to honor those who had a long term positive effect on the motorcycle community and lifestyle. The Hall of Fame has plaques honoring approximately 180 inductees including some well known people as well as others known only to those in the biker culture. There is William S. Harley, as well as Arthur Davidson and several other Davidsons. Politicians include former Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell and former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson. Other familiar names ware Peter Fonda and Jay Leno, as well as Evel Knievel and his son Robbie, and even Malcolm Forbes, the magazine guy who once ran for President. <br />
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The museum displays over 100 classic motorcycles dating back to 1905, such as vintage Indians (motorcycles, not people) which they haven't made since 1953, Harleys, Triumphs and other makes. The guy who founded the museum, Pappy Hoel, was in the ice business in town until the widespread use of refrigerators put him out of business. He liked to ride, and in 1936, he applied for and became the local dealer for the Indian Motorcycle Company. With fellow bikers, Hoel started a group called the Jackpine Gypsies Motorcycle Club. Hoel and his buddies promoted the initial Rally in 1938, partly to increase his business. It was held in his backyard, and his wife Pearl provided sandwiches and coffee for about 200 attendees. Today he would need a really, really big backyard.<br />
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WALL DRUG<br />
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The little town of Wall is a monument to self promotion in rural South Dakota, 60 miles from Mount Rushmore. Years ago, it decided to re-invent itself as a tourist trap. A Nebraska pharmacist named Ted Hustead purchased the small drugstore in 1931. The town had 231 people but had a Catholic church which sealed the deal for Hustead. Business was slow until Mrs. Hustead decided to advertise free ice water to weary travelers headed to Mount Rushmore. The rest is history.<br />
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Today Wall attracts 2 million tourists annually. It is a Western themed shopping mall with restaurants, gift shops, and of course, the drug store, all owned by the same owner. If that isn't enough, it has a Western art museum with original oils by world class artists. But wait, there's more--an 80 foot brontosaurus and a mini Mount Rushmore.<br />
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Driving down Interstate 90 from Minneapolis to Billings, Montana one can see hundreds of billboards promoting Wall Drug. For further promotion, they hand out free bumper stickers. We didn't take one. <br />
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<br />kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-7768856554411013542018-08-08T10:51:00.002-07:002018-08-12T19:29:43.713-07:00CALGARY & CANADIAN ROCKIESCALGARY, ALBERTA<br />
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After a 1500 mile drive, we arrived in Calgary two days before our scheduled tour. Calgary is a dynamic, growing city of 1.5 million. It is famous for the Calgary Stampede, the "Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth". Essentially, it's a Western show with concerts, rodeos, cowboys, etc. Even chuck wagon races. For 10 days in July, everyone in town gets in on the act, donning Stetson hats and cowboy boots. We missed it by a week. <br />
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We had a free day in Calgary. What should we do? We perused the brochures and decided to visit Heritage Park. This is a theme park focusing on several periods in Calgary's history, from the 1860's to the 1920's. It contains over 180 attractions and exhibits. It is not an amusement park, but rather a historical theme park. You start with an overview by riding a steam train around the perimeter of the park. <br />
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Near the entrance of the park, the first thing you see is Gasoline Alley. We old folks remember that as a long gone comic strip going back to the 1920's. This is a large building on three levels displaying vintage cars, gas pumps and signs, mostly from oil companies.<br />
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Adults and even school kids dressed in period dress. The kids were in day camps and encouraged to dress up, and they eagerly did so. Many of the girls wore long dresses and little hats as they would dress if they grew up on the prairies. Heritage Park is the Canadian Williamsburg.<br />
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The Canadians relocated old wooden houses and stores from all over Canada and brought them to the park. One unexpected find was the one room prairie synagogue. Jews from Eastern Europe came to the prairies to become farmers. They weren't allowed to own land in Europe, so this was a new opportunity. <br />
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The Canadian dollar is relatively weak compared to the American dollar, so we found the park and other Canadian attractions to be affordable. In Canada, take 25% off the stated price to convert the cost to American dollars. <br />
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When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. We <em>did</em> go shopping on a warm July morning before we were scheduled to meet our tour. We drove to the huge indoor 250 store Chinook Mall. I sought out Hudson Bay Co., a Canadian department store which is now owned by the same company as Lord & Taylor. The Hudson Bay Co. is the oldest company in Canada, dating back to about 1600. It used to own at least half of the land in Canada. As a kid, I always wanted a colorful yellow, green, black, red and white striped Hudson Bay wool blanket. The weather was very warm, and we didn't want to schlep around a large blanket. The $170 (Canadian) cost was reasonable--we saw the same blanket for far more in the Canadian Rockies. I instead purchased a brightly colored striped scarf which I can wear next winter. Scarfs and blankets are popular in Canada where the temperature gets down to -40 in the winter.<br />
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We met our tour group at the Calgary Airport (YYC). We were the only ones of 35 people on the tour to drive. We parked at the Hampton Inn, where we stayed, near the airport and boarded a comfortable motor coach driven by our Canadian driver, Duane. Not all the seats on the bus were occupied, so we could stretch out. <br />
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The bus took us on a tour of Calgary, mainly in the downtown area. Downtown Calgary is vibrant with modern skyscrapers. These high rises are architecturally unique modernistic structures, many with all glass exteriors. Vacant land everywhere is being developed. We found the city to be very clean. We were told it was safe to walk around.<br />
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We visited the beautiful Peace Bridge spanning the Bow River. The 428 foot pedestrian and cyclist bridge resembles a finger trap puzzle with interlinking metal chains. The unique thing about the bridge is that it has no piers in the water--for ecological reasons. The bridge was built in Spain, shipped to Calgary, and assembled, apparently by a puzzle enthusiast. It was opened in 2012.<br />
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On the first night of the tour, we stayed at the International Hotel in downtown Calgary where we were given an opportunity to walk around the city. In July in the far North, the sun doesn't set until almost 10 P.M.<br />
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Our room at the International was a capacious 3 room suite with a dining room table and 6 chairs. The bathroom, on the other hand, was about the size of a broom closet. The 3 creaky elevators were ancient and small. We had to wait in line to use them. <br />
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CARDSTON, ALBERTA<br />
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Cardston was originally settled by Mormons from Utah led by Charles O. Card who named the town after himself. The Mormons erected a huge temple in town. Cardston is also the home of the extraordinary Remington Carriage Museum. We didn't expect much, but the museum was a pleasant surprise. The 63,000 square foot museum possesses the largest collection of horse drawn vehicles in North America. We're talking carriages, wagons, buggies and sleighs. Hansoms, landaus, broughams, buggies and cabriolets, 270 of them. The museum restoration shop is constantly busy restoring vehicles not only for the museum but for other carriage enthusiasts.<br />
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The carriages were collected by Don Remington who began his collection in 1954. He donated them to the Province of Alberta in 1987. They needed a suitable building to house all this stuff, so the Province agreed to build the museum in 1993. They added vehicles from other collections also.<br />
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Horse drawn carriages dominated the era before horseless carriages. The most valuable vehicle displayed was the handsome hansom carriage once owned by Alfred G. Vanderbilt. The reason it is so valuable is that the Vanderbilt family offered to buy the thing back and offered something north of $500,000. <br />
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The two most prominent carriage makers of the era were McLaughlin and Studebaker. Studebaker went on to build cars that looked like rocket ships in the late '40's and 50's. I once owned a Studebaker Lark convertible which was a great car. It was a compact car but the driver's seat was relative high so one could see the road very well. I used to drive like a cab driver, so that car was handy. McLaughlin later merged with Buick. The early models were called McLaughlin Buicks, but the McLaughlin name was eventually dropped.<br />
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In the late 1800's and early 1900's before cars were widespread, carriages were pulled by horses. The problem with carriages was that in big cities, horse manure tended to pile up on the streets. They had to plow the stuff to the curbs where it was piled high. Disease was prevalent. Cars won out because they were considered cleaner than horses. <br />
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Two formerly famous people hailed from Cardston. On the main street, we passed the Fay Wray Fountain. I couldn't get a photo because the bus was going too fast. Fay Wray, from Cardston, was the female star in the original <em>King Kong</em> movie. The fountain was built to commemorate Ms. Wray's return to Cardston in 1962. A large metal plaque honoring (?) King Kong was installed in 1993 on the 60th anniversary of the film. Wray was one of the first Hollywood "scream queens". Other than <em>King Kong</em>, she appeared in about 80 more films, most of them horror films. She was offered the role of the elderly Rose Dawson, played in her younger life by Kate Winslet, in James Cameron's Titanic, but she turned it down. Ms. Wray died in 2004 at age 96.<br />
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The other famous person was George Woolf, and the museum has a good sized exhibit honoring him. In case you don't remember Woolf, he was the jockey who in 1938 rode Seabiscuit to many victories. He was called the "Ice Man". In the movie <em>Seabiscuit</em>, Woolf was played by Gary Stevens, a currently active jockey who regularly rides in the Kentucky Derby. Both Woolf and Stevens are in the Horse Racing Hall of Fame. Woolf died young at age 35 when he fell off a horse during a race. He suffered from Type 1 diabetes, and it appears he became dizzy and lost his balance.<br />
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FORT MACLEOD<br />
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In Fort MacLeod, on the way to Waterton National Park, we were treated to a horse show in a large outdoor arena next to the log fort. The fort is a reproduction of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police post, so visitors can see what it was like. The original fort, called Fort Whoop-Up, was built in 1874, shortly after the RCMP was formed. It lies next to the strangely named Oldman River which flows through town. This river has nothing to do with the song from <em>Show Boat</em>; it was named after a guy named Oldman. But it does keep rolling along, eventually draining into Hudson Bay.<br />
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If you've ever seen the Lipizzan horses in Wadsworth, IL, this show has many similar features. The horses are ridden by high school and college kids wearing scarlet Mountie uniforms demonstrating their horsemanship on quarter horses. <br />
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Next to the arena is the Mountie museum. We learned all we needed to know about the history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Mounties always get their man--well usually. There are also exhibits honoring the First Nations (known as <em>Indians</em> in the U.S.) and Metis who were of mixed race. A question was asked: "When did the Metis come to the area?" The answer: "Nine months after the Europeans arrived."<br />
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WATERTON<br />
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On the outskirts of Waterton National Park is the magnificent Prince of Wales Hotel, located on a windswept bluff overlooking the beautiful Waterton Lake. On our trip through the Rockies, we were to see several such blue glacier fed lakes. The hotel is a classic from a bygone era. We went outside to see the lake better and walked into a tornado--or so it seemed. My hat blew off, and I foolishly chased it into the tall grass. In retrospect, I could have severely injured myself running downhill--at my age. But I recovered the hat.<br />
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The area around the hotel is famous for its wind. Winds of 75 mph are fairly common. This was a major challenge when they were constructing the hotel back in 1927. The roof blew off while they were building it. Although the weather was sunny when we visited, the wind gusts were extreme. I've experience that kind of wind at two places, Mt. Washington, NH where they once had 231 mph winds, and at Cape Horn in South America where I had to cling to the mast of the ship to avoid being blown away. <br />
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We stayed two nights at a hotel in the Village of Waterton. Waterton is a fairly small town with an active night life. There are only about three commercial blocks. I counted 4 ice cream shops in a 2 block stretch. We ate at Zums, a restaurant recommended by Duane, our bus driver. Zums claims to have the best fried chicken in the world. I wouldn't go that far, but it was very good. The promise of good fried chicken was enough to get us inside. The mozzarella sticks were delicious also. <br />
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GLACIER NATIONAL PARK<br />
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Waterton and Glacier Parks are contiguous to each other. The parks together are called Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. We learned that there are other peace parks. A couple years ago, we visited the one north of Botteneau, North Dakota, adjoining Manitoba. You can stand on the U.S.-Canada border and nobody will ask for your passport. However, on this trip, we entered the U.S. on the main road at the port of entry, and the customs officer boarded the bus and examined everybody's passports. On the Canada side there are big signs prohibiting transporting firewood from the U.S. (to limit the spread of Dutch elm disease).<br />
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The scenery, of course, is spectacular. We saw snow capped mountains and blue lakes. Forest fires had devastated the park last year, and extensive areas are covered with dead trees standing bare. From an ecological standpoint, forest fires aren't necessarily bad, at least in the long run. The fires give new life to smaller plants which take over the ecological niche and eventually give way to new trees.<br />
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The main predators in the park are the grizzly bears which largely keep out of sight. If a hiker encounters one, it is recommended that he make loud noises or carry bells. You can't outrun a grizzly--they can run as fast as a racehorse. Grizzlies are more dangerous than black bears. The ranger told us that if you see bear tracks, look for its droppings. The difference in poop between a black bear and a grizzly is that the grizzly poop has bells in it. <br />
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On the "jammer bus", we drove up on the Going to the Sun Highway to Logan Pass on the Continental Divide. Triple Divide Peak, near Logan Pass is the unusual situation of the Continental Divide, divided three ways. On one side, the rivers flow to the Pacific, one side to the Atlantic, and the third side to Hudson Bay. <br />
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To cut down on the traffic, they encourage tourists to board the "jammer" buses which hold about 20 people. We tried to do that ride a couple years ago in June, but the road was closed by drifting snow. Glacier Park has many glaciers, but not like farther north in Canada. The ranger explained it is important to distinguish between a glacier and a snow field. Generally glaciers are on mountain sides and the gradually move down and are replenished at the top by more snow. By definition, glaciers cover at least 25 acres. As you can imagine, they don't move very fast--about the speed of Congress, maybe a few feet each year. Many of the glaciers at Glacier Park are gone (melted) or greatly reduced because of climate change. <br />
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Back in Waterton, we took a boat ride on the glacial Waterton Lake which straddles the U.S.-Canada border. The border is well marked by a strip of land on the 49th Parallel. A treaty between the two countries requires that that strip be cleared of trees. We crossed the border on the boat, but there was no passport check. The guide pointed out an eagle perched on the top of a tall tree. It didn't move, so I was not sure if was a real eagle or just a prop. We never found out.<br />
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The parkland is considered sacred to the Blackfeet, Salish and Kootenai tribes<br />
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BAR U RANCH NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE<br />
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On the way to Banff, we spent several hours and ate lunch at Bar U Ranch National Historic Site. We learned about the history of ranching in Alberta in the early 1900's in the wide open spaces. This is a working ranch. They raise horses and even have a herd of bison. The friendly guides wore cowboy clothes. We visited the barn, the blacksmith shop, the leather making shop, and even watched them churning butter. <br />
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Nearby is the Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump, an appropriately named World Heritage Site. The First Nation tribesmen were somewhat hesitant to hunt buffalo directly using only spears. Getting up close and personal with a 2000 pound bison is dangerous. The Indians were clever. Over a period of time, the tribesmen would herd a few animals until they had the number they wanted. Then they would stampede them over a cliff. The rest of the tribe was stationed at the bottom of the cliff where they would skin the dead buffalo and gather the meat and skins to provide for the tribe. Other tribes in the West did the same. We later saw sites in Montana and Wyoming used for the same purpose. <br />
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BANFF & BANFF NATIONAL PARK<br />
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We stayed the next 3 nights in the City of Banff at the High Country Inn, on the main street. Banff got its name from Banffshire in Scotland, the ancestral home of the head of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Banff looks like many other tourist towns. In the commercial area, one can find many t-shirt shops, ice cream stores, art galleries, etc. We've been to Jackson Hole, Gatlinburg, Bar Harbor, etc. and the towns look exactly the same except for the surrounding scenery.<br />
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Banff has about 8000 permanent residents. They won't let you move there unless you have a job and a place to live. You don't see panhandlers on the street. <br />
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Overlooking the town is the massive Fairmont Banff Springs hotel which is impressive indeed. It was originally built by the railroad in the 1890's to lure tourists. The hotel is a labyrinthine maze of rooms and halls on 17 levels on a mountainside. We ate dinner at the Italian restaurant at the hotel. The waiter handed us a dinner menu with three choices. The choices were wild boar cannelloni, grilled vegetable polenta stack or smoked halibut Tagliatelle. None of them sounded appetizing, and each was about 35 bucks. It was downhill from there. Soup or salad was extra. We asked for a more comprehensive menu, and the waiter brought us <em>one</em> for our table of 6. We passed the menu around and ordered off the menu. . The food was expensive and reasonably good, but probably not worth $50 per person. But we're talking Canadian dollars, so maybe it wasn't that bad. <br />
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The railroad advertised heavily to induce Eastern folks to take the train and have a place to stay in a thinly populated area of the country. The National Park was established in 1885 but was mostly wilderness for 30 years or more until roads were built. The roads were constructed during World War I by immigrants (POW's?) from enemy countries, Austria, Hungary, Germany and Ukraine who were held in internment camps.<br />
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The scenery in Banff is spectacular. The bus drove up the Icefields Parkway alongside the Continental Divide, so we were looking at rugged mountains, numerous glaciers and icefields. The melt from Bow Glacier flows into a beautiful blue lake which is the source of the Bow River which flows through Calgary. We didn't see a lot of wildlife other than small animals like squirrels and chipmunks. The larger animals were taking the day off. The government built several wildlife crossings over the superhighway. These appear as attractive overpasses with trees and grass on top. I'm not sure how they steer the animals to use them. I see them as necessary, as we almost got hit by a grizzly bear crossing the road in Colorado a few years ago. <br />
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JASPER NATIONAL PARK AND ATHABASCA GLACIER<br />
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Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park is the most visited glacier in North America. We gathered at the visitor center to ride a Sno-Coach to the glacier, about a mile away. This large bus with oversized tires creeps up and down the road to the glacier. The gravel road has a very steep 18 degree incline--try that in the snow. The ice is 1000 feet thick, and you can drink the melting water. The glacier is almost 4 miles long and covers more than 2 square miles. Because of a warming climate, it is receding at about 16 feet per year. In the past 125 years, it has receded almost a mile.<br />
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Walking on a glacier is like wading through a Big Slushy from 7-11. It is very slippery although I didn't see anyone fall. But people do. Because the surface is slushy, you might not get hurt, but you'll be wet. You do have to watch out for crevasses which can be 20 feet deep. People have fallen in and had to be rescued.<br />
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LAKE LOUISE <br />
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Lake Louise is a world class ski resort, and we got to ride the ski lift to the top of the mountain, about 3000 feet above the valley floor. In the summer, everything is green. On the way up, we saw a grizzly bear foraging in the meadow. The bear sighting was unexpected, and I didn't get a good picture. Near the top of the mountain, it started raining and then sleeting. When the sun came out, we had a breathtaking view of the beautiful Lake Louise far below in the distance.<br />
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CHATEAU LAKE LOUISE<br />
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The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise is another grand resort hotel built by the Canadian Pacific Railway. It was originally built in 1890, but after a couple of fires, the current building was built in 1911. Lake Louise, with its blue green waters was called by the local Stoney Indians, "the Lake of Little Fishes" in their native tongue. The surveyor working for the railroad, Thomas Wilson named the lake Emerald Lake. He was later overruled by the authorities who named it Lake Louise after Queen Victoria's fourth daughter (she had 5 girls and 4 boys), Princess Louise Caroline Alberta. Fortunately, her last name wasn't Saskatchewan. Overlooking the lake is Mount Victoria and Victoria Glacier.<br />
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The water in this glacial lake is very cold. We shivered as we watched crowds of kids as well as a Labrador Retriever, oblivious to the cold, frolicking in the 38 degree water.<br />
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The hotel was and is a magnet for the rich and powerful. Hollywood shot several feature films there including <em>Springtime in the Rockies</em>, starring Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda. Betty Grable was famous for her cheesecake, or so we were told. Despite her Carmen Miranda warnings, we once visited her museum in Rio de Janiero. Other stars who flocked to the hotel included Alfred Hitchcock, Marilyn Monroe, Christopher Reeve and Angie Dickinson, as well as Queen Elizabeth, Queen Margrethe of Denmark and King Hussein of Jordan. King Kong was not invited.<br />
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There are posted signs instructing the throngs of tourists not to enter the hotel unless you're a guest, especially to use the bathrooms. We disregarded them because we wanted to see the inside of the hotel and maybe do some shopping. Heck, I've been kicked out of classier places than that.<br />
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One notable shop we visited in the hotel was Art of Man, selling Native American art works, carvings and sculptures. A carved jade grizzly bear was tagged as $95,500. It hadn't gone on sale yet. That's Canadian money, so its much cheaper--maybe $70,000 American. I asked the manager if I could get a discount if I buy two. Show me the money! <br />
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CANADA OLYMPIC PARK<br />
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Calgary hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics. The facility has been converted to essentially an amusement park where you can do a slo-mo version of Olympic downhill events. In the summer, the park offers mountain biking, zip-lining and snow-free versions of the bobsleigh and the luge. The chair lift brings you to the top.<br />
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The luge is a 5900 foot downhill ride with 50 twists and turns. Unlike the Olympic version, you can use the brakes and steering mechanisms. You won't be careening downhill 80 mph on your back, but it's a fun ride anyway. Those pesky insurance companies don't want anybody getting hurt. You can buy tickets for the luge for $16 for one ride or $24 for 3 rides. They also have family packages.<br />
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The 1988 Winter Olympics were notable for several reasons. For one thing, the weather didn't always cooperate. Calgary can get bitterly cold or it can be warm in the winter. In 1988, they experienced Chinook winds coming down the mountain, raising the temperatures to a mild 63F. Skiing is supposed to be in cold weather. It was the first Olympics where they had to make artificial snow.<br />
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It was also notable for showcasing the popular, myopic British downhill skier, Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards. They even made a movie about him. Edwards was a regular guy who was working as a plasterer making about 6000 British pounds a year. He barely knew how to ski. He came in last by a wide margin. The public gave him an A for effort. Average people could relate to him, and his income went up to 10,000 British pounds <em>per hour </em>for a personal appearance. <br />
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They had to change the rules because of him. Previously, every country had the right to send at least one athlete, but the athlete didn't have to exhibit any prowess in the event. To avoid embarrassment in the future, athletes must now meet certain minimum competition standards to participate. At least the Jamaican bobsled team put in a respectable performance--the two man team finished 30th out of 41 competitors. They made a movie about that also.<br />
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NEXT: Road Trip to Moose Jaw and Medicine Hat--Highlights of Saskatchewan <br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-13092986306190127832018-05-24T12:35:00.000-07:002018-05-27T21:16:43.492-07:00CLEANING UP WASHINGTON--THE FLOOD TO END ALL FLOODSProminent on my bucket list is the Channeled Scablands of Eastern Washington state. Before you have me committed, let me explain. This was the scene of perhaps the greatest flood in world history, the Biblical Flood, if you will. Planetary scientists are interested in this area because the dry channels resemble those on Mars. <br />
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Near the end of the last Ice Age, a wall of water up to 1000 feet high came pouring down the Columbia River basin at a speed of 65 mph. The flood carved out the Grand Coulee valley and thoroughly cleaned up Washington (which wasn't called that at the time). It created enormous potholes and ripples as much as 50 feet high which becomes evident when you view the landscape. <br />
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There have been several theories of how this happened. The most generally accepted one today was proposed by the geologist J. Harlan Bretz about 100 years ago. For many years, scientists in the geology establishment thought the guy was nuts. For the establishment, the accepted orthodoxy was uniformitarian--that all changes in geology occurred slowly, over many eons. Bretz turned this theory on its head. <br />
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Bretz worked diligently compiling evidence, and eventually he won over most of the non believers. By 1979, Bretz was mainstream, if you will. For his achievements, he was awarded the prestigious Penrose Medal, the highest award of the Geological Society of America. <br />
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The scenery in this area west of Spokane is certainly unusual. Once can see enormous boulders weighing many tons strewn around the area like they were thrown out there. They do not match the rock types that surround them. These rocks are called <em>glacial erratics,</em> foreign to the area. <em>Erratics</em> can be transported hundreds of miles by glaciers, or in this case by ice-rafting from the flood.<br />
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In most areas the topsoil was stripped from the land. The underlying rock is volcanic basalt which is easily chipped away by the action of water. The U-shaped valley is framed by thousand foot cliffs on either side. In some areas there is a small stream in the middle. In other areas, the valley is completely dry. The stream could not have created that valley.<br />
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Bretz's theory is that during the last Ice Age, an ice dam blocked off the ancient Lake Missoula in present day Montana. The lake contained as much water as Lake Michigan. The climate got warmer; the ice melted; the ice dam broke, and, of course, all hell broke loose. According to Bretz, "the channels run uphill and downhill, they unite and they divide, they head on the back-slopes and cut through the summit; they could not be more erratically and impossibly designed." <br />
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The less accepted theory was propounded by author Graham Hancock who believes that the ice sheet was hit by a large meteorite (asteroid) which caused a sudden melting of a large area of ice. Now it's possible that both theories can be true because new evidence shows there have been many such floods in the area. That would indicate that the ice dam broke on several occasions. <br />
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We saw evidence of this on our visit to Dry Falls, south of the Grand Coulee Dam, where the cliffs were terraced. That indicated that slabs of basalt were stripped off at different times by different floods. For several weeks, approximately 12,000 years ago, Dry Falls was as spectacular as Niagara Falls. <br />
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This area is off the beaten path, and you won't see busloads of tourists blocking your view. The starkly beautiful scenery is worth the trip. <br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-62535151945850030402018-04-25T13:42:00.002-07:002018-04-25T20:01:17.624-07:00SEEKING DICK PUTZ AND DECIPHERING NORSE CODE IN MINNESOTASEEKING DICK PUTZ<br />
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You think I'm making this up, but I got in trouble with the police while looking for Dick Putz. There's a story behind it.<br />
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Dianne and I took our annual road trip last year, this time to California for our grand-daughter's graduation. We left Chicago on Friday morning and made it to St. Cloud, Minnesota by dinnertime. We checked into the local Holiday Inn, and I leafed through the tourist magazines to determine if anything in St. Cloud was worth seeing.<br />
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The article on Dick Putz Field caught my eye. With a name like that, I wanted to see it. You may recall the movie <em>Grumpy Old Men</em> with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. Matthau's character said over and over to Lemmon's character, "You're a putz". <br />
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Dick Putz Field, built in 1971, is a historic baseball diamond once home to the St. Cloud Rox of the Class C Northern League. When that league folded, it became home to the St. Cloud River Bats of the Northwoods League, a college development league. This place is deep in the bush leagues, but we were determined to find it.<br />
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Dick Putz himself was a legend in town. He was a long time sports official and booster of amateur baseball in Minnesota. He had his own weekly radio show, the <em>Dick Putz Show</em> (of course), in which he provided a roundup of the day's scores and highlights. Among his achievements were his service as president of the Minnesota Baseball Association Board and a member of the Minnesota Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame and the Minnesota Fastpitch Softball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He died in 1990 at age 61. <br />
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We drove around town (never asking for directions) to visit the field and get a picture of the sign. As it turns out, there isn't one. Naturally, we got lost.<br />
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I needed to make a U-turn and got impatient at a long red light. There was no oncoming traffic, so I just made the turn. The squad car was right behind me, and the officer probably couldn't believe his good fortune. He turned on his flashing lights. I was guilty as hell. The young officer came up to my car and asked where we were going. I told him "Dick Putz Field", but I can't seem to find it. If I had said that to a cop on New York or Chicago, I would have been taken to the slammer.<br />
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The officer took my license and went back to his car to check if I was wanted for anything. He came back and said he appreciated my honesty and let me off with a warning. He also gave me directions to Dick Putz Field. Dusk was settling in, and I wanted to get there quickly. We went by the field a couple times but weren't sure it was the right place because there was no sign. So I never did get that photo.<br />
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DECIPHERING NORSE CODE AT THE MINNESOTA VIKING MUSEUM<br />
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No, I'm not talking about the football team. In Alexandria, Minnesota is a giant Viking statue and also a museum containing a Viking runestone dating back to 1362.It is called the Kensington Runestone. This is a great story.<br />
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An expedition of Vikings came to Minnesota long before Columbus, and while part of the group went off hunting, ten of their comrades were attacked by Indians (they were not called that at the time) and massacred. The hunters came back and found the carnage and carved this runestone commemorating their fallen comrades. <br />
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<em>"Eight Gotalanders (Goths) and 22 Northmen on (this) acquisition journey from Vinland far to the west. We had a camp by two (shelters) one day's journey north from this stone. We were fishing one day. After we came home, found 10 men red from blood and dead. Ave Maria save from evil. There are 10 men by the inland sea to look after our ships fourteen days journey from this peninsula (or island). Year 1362</em><br />
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The farmer who owned the land, a Swedish immigrant named Olof Ohman discovered the 202 pound stone while plowing his field in 1898. The writing on the stone was Medieval Norse. The farmer took the stone to the authorities, and for many years, everyone thought it was a hoax. The farmer had only gone to school for a few weeks and could barely read English, Norwegian, or any language, let alone Norse Code. If proven genuine, the stone is worth millions. Ohman sold the stone for 10 bucks to a historian in 1911. <br />
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The farmer and his family were ridiculed by their neighbors for many years. Gradually over a long period of time the poor farmer's family was vindicated, and today many scholars believe the runestone is genuine. However intense controversy still remains among archaeologists and Norse scholars. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington displayed the stone for several years in the 1950's, but removed it from public display amid the controversy. <br />
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My nagging question was that if the Vikings were settled in Newfoundland, how did they wind up in Minnesota, over a thousand miles away? The museum showed a documentary film describing how the expedition from Norway came down Hudson Bay and down through Lake Winnepeg in present day Manitoba. Minnesota is not that far away.<br />
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Whatever the case, the runestone is an interesting exhibit, but the controversy probably won't go away anytime soon.<br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-3267045952188874392018-03-11T12:34:00.002-07:002018-03-20T14:36:23.411-07:00ROAD TRIP ADVENTURES ON THE WAY TO HONOLULUQUEST FOR WORLD CLASS FRIED CHICKEN<br />
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In our quest to seek out the best fried chicken in the country, we rolled into Forrest City, Arkansas just in time for lunch. We're not food critics or gourmets, but we know fried chicken when we taste it. We left Chicago early in the afternoon the day before, a frigid January 9th. The temperature hovered just above zero. We were happy to head South, anywhere South.<br />
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We've been to Forrest City once before, last year, and it was memorable enough to return. The restaurant is the Old Sawmill Inn, located in a sprawling shopping center which had passed its prime 20 years ago. From the looks of it, maybe it was a Cracker Barrel in its previously life. It is located a block or two from Interstate 40, about 50 miles west of Memphis.<br />
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Forrest City is named for Confederate General Nathaniel Bedford Forrest who built a railroad depot there after the Civil War. It you watched <em>Forrest Gump</em>, you would also know that General Forrest also founded the Ku Klux Klan and was the Grand Wizard , or whatever you call the top dog there. There is no statue of him in Forrest City although there is still a 25 foot statue in Nashville on privately owned land. That statue has been repeatedly defaced and shot at, but always repaired. The statue of Forrest in Memphis was removed in December, 2017.<br />
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The lunch is served boo-fay style, with the juicy legs, thighs, breasts and wings piled high in a stainless steel pan. Nearby, you can help yourself to mashed potatoes with delicious white chicken gravy. Oh, they have other stuff on the buffet, but I wouldn't drive miles out of the way to eat it. <br />
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Several weeks later, on the way home, we ate a late lunch at the Dixie Truckers Home, a truck stop in McLean, Illinois, about 50 miles north of Springfield, on Interstate 55. We hadn't eaten there since last August when we drove down to Red Bud, Illinois to view the solar eclipse. Every time we drive to St. Louis or beyond, we make an effort to eat their world class fried chicken.<br />
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The best we ever had was about 25 years ago at a road house near Paducah, Kentucky, but we've never been able to find the place again. There is a website listing the best fried chicken in each of the 50 states, but the panel and I have our disagreements. On our next road trip, we'll try to hit some of these restaurants. In Illinois, the website likes Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket in Willowbrook, IL., southwest of Chicago. We'll have to try it.<br />
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Our immediate objective was to drive to Del Rio, Texas, on the Mexican border to visit my old college buddy, Ron. He has a factory on the Mexican side, in Ciudad Acuna, and he gave us the grand tour. We crossed the border a couple times and drove along the border wall, a high fence stretching for miles. These are workingmen's cities, and there really aren't any decent restaurants in the area. Del Rio was the home of Judge Roy Bean, the law West of the Pecos. We visited his grave inside the Western frontier park devoted to his life and times. <br />
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On the way to Texas, we stayed in Hampton Inns--Marion, IL, Sulphur Springs, TX, Del Rio, and later Alpine, TX, Phoenix, AZ, Yuma, AZ. Hampton Inns are part of Hilton Hotels, and by our accumulating points, we can stay in a Waldorf Astoria for a few days, as we did a couple years ago in China. Hampton Inns are nice; they serve warm cookies when you check in, and they give you bottles of water or chips and then a free breakfast the next morning. <br />
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After leaving Del Rio our next objectives on the road were Phoenix, AZ, and then Los Angeles to meet our cruise ship to Hawaii. I'll describe below some of the interesting places we visited on the way and back. <br />
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FILLING UP IN CALIFORNIA<br />
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Driving through the desert in California on the way home, we were running low on gas. Gasoline is expensive in California, and we were trying to make it to Arizona or Nevada before we ran out. We were about 20 miles to empty on the gas gauge, and there are not a lot of gas stations on that stretch of Interstate 10. Finally, in Essex, CA, in the Mohave Desert, we saw a large sign advertising gas. We exited and pulled into the station. Regular gas was $4.99 per gallon, more than double the price in most of the other states we visited. The deal was PAY FIRST INSIDE THE STATION. They posted a big sign explaining that it cost a lot of money to bring gas out to this remote area, so don't complain. Apparently many people thought they were being gouged and did complain. Hence, the sign. I bought 20 bucks worth--4 gallons, enough to get us to Nevada. Even in Barstow, a fairly large town, the gas is well over 4 bucks a gallon. The only place we saw in California with reasonable gas prices was on an Indian Reservation about 10 miles west of Palm Springs. Apparently, the Indians are not subject to California taxes. One other thing, Arco stations do not take credit cards, only debit cards or cash. I don't use debit cards. <br />
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ORIGINAL MCDONALDS, SAN BERNARDINO, CA.<br />
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On Old U.S. 66 in San Bernardino is a McDonald's museum which is not recognized by the McDonald's Corp. The reason is that it was founded by Dick and Maurice (Mac) McDonald who, when they sold the company to Ray Kroc, neglected to include the original location in the deal. This free museum is a historical treasure. <br />
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The McDonald Bros. purchased this location in 1940 when they opened McDonald's Barbecue Restaurant which featured 20 female carhops and a menu serving barbecued ribs, beef and pork sandwiches. Hamburgers were secondary, but after a few years, the brothers discovered that 80% of their sales were burgers and fries. In 1948, they took a huge gamble and closed the barbecue joint and remodeled the kitchen to cook only hamburgers and fries. They pioneered fast food with the "Speedy Service System". They reopened December 12, 1948, serving 15 cent burgers and 10 cent fries. It started slowly when customers drove up looking for the carhops, but eventually, the crowds returned and the store started doing a land office business. They sold huge volumes of milkshakes to wash down the burgers. That prompted the brothers to purchase Multi Mixer machines from Ray Kroc. <br />
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A few days later, on the cruise ship, we saw the Michael Keaton movie, <em>The Founder</em>, and we came to the realization that each side was trying to screw the other. In 1961, Kroc gave the brothers a handshake agreement that he would pay them 1% of the profits in perpetuity, a deal that would come to be worth billions and maybe even trillions. Of course he didn't pay. After the written contract was signed, Kroc discovered to his chagrin that the original location was not included. Kroc made the brothers change the name of the restaurant. It became the "Big M", a name without the same pizazz. The furious Kroc then opened up a McDonald's store down the block, specifically to put the McDonald brothers out of business. The original building on the site was demolished in 1972, but concerned neighbors prevented the wreckers from tearing down the sign.<br />
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The museum today is owned by a guy named Albert Okura who purchased the structure at a foreclosure sale in 1998. His office is in the same building. Okura owns 25 Mexican chicken restaurants and also the town of Amboy, California, population 20 , in the desert on Old 66.<br />
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You can't miss the place--in front is the huge McDonald's sign built in 1948. <em>Over one million sold.</em> <br />
Inside, you'll find the Multi Mixer sold by Ray Kroc to the brothers. Hundreds of vintage photos and memorabilia make this a destination worth visiting.<br />
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An artist was painting a mural on the outside wall of the building. He is a Mexican guy from the South Side of Chicago, and we talked about the old neighborhood. The mural has been a work in progress for quite a few years, and many guest artists have weighed in. The walls have cartoon characters like Archie and Jughead, the Simpsons, the Peanuts characters, Bugs Bunny, etc. The cartoonists all know each other, and this artist is friends with them.<br />
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I bought a new t-shirt and wore it out of the store. <br />
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METEOR CRATER, ARIZONA<br />
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About 6 miles south of Old Route 66 and Interstate 40 in Arizona is the meteor crater. It is located about halfway between Flagstaff and Winslow, Arizona. We've visited it twice in the past, the last time about 20 years ago. But recently they built a new museum next to it. The museum includes the Astronauts Hall of Fame which lists, in chronological order, all the U.S. astronauts going back to the early 1960's. Starting in 1964, the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA have conducted astronaut training in the crater, which resembles the moon topographically. Scientists knew that the moon was pockmarked with millions of craters from meteorites, asteroids and comet impacts. They were interested in what materials would lay on and beneath the lunar surface. When the astronauts landed on the moon, they could collect material on ejecta blankets similar to the area around the Meteor Crater.<br />
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The age of the crater is estimated at 50,000 years, and you wouldn't want to be standing there when the meteorite hit. We're talking about a large iron-nickel meteorite about 150 feet across, weighing hundreds of thousands of tons, hurtling though space at 26,000 miles per hour. Within seconds, it created a crater 700 feet deep and almost a mile across, ejecting millions of tons of rock (ejecta) all over the desert for miles around. You can see the outcroppings to this day along the access road.<br />
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There are other smaller fragments scattered around the area. These had split off when the meteorite passed through the atmosphere. The meteorite itself does not exist--it was vaporized or melted from the heat of the impact.<br />
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The Native Americans in the area, of course, were familiar with the crater, but the first written report was made in 1871 by a guy named Franklin who was a scout for General Custer. For years it was called "Franklin's Hole". Nobody was sure what it was, and the chief geologist of the U.S. Geological Survey did some field work and concluded it was volcanic in origin. <br />
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In 1902, Daniel Barringer, a Philadelphia mining engineer became interested in the site as a source of iron. He became convinced that a meteorite was buried there. He purchased the land containing the crater from the government. He then spent the next 27 years digging, in a quest to find the giant iron meteorite. He drilled down over 1300 feet to no avail. The drill bit broke. The project ran out of money, and they finally gave up that exploration in 1929.<br />
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The Barringer Family still owns the land but negotiated a long term lease with a local rancher to manage the site to attract tourists and research scientists. The rancher formed a corporation, Meteor Crater Enterprises, Inc. for that purpose. Modern techniques have pinned down a fairly accurate age of the crater, 50,000 years. Dr. Eugene Shoemaker, the former Chief of Astrogeology at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, AZ. proved beyond any doubt that the crater was indeed the result of a giant impact event, and he calculated the size and speed of the object. Dr. Shoemaker is a respected astronomer who has several comets named after him. <br />
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We walked around on the rim, but didn't go down into the crater. At my age, climbing back up a 700 foot wall is a very bad idea. The crater is very beautiful in a surreal way, as the late afternoon shadows fell over the walls. We inside to watch a movie called <em>Impact! The Mystery of Meteor Crater</em>, and we absorbed all we needed to know. Then, after 20 years, I finally got my t-shirt. <br />
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HOLLYWOOD AND THE WALK OF FAME<br />
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Dianne always wanted to take the Beverly Hills tour of the movie stars' homes, so we signed up for it. We spent the night at the Best Western Hollywood which is an experience in itself. The walls are festooned with movie posters and autographed photos of movie stars. I got a nice selfie of me with Marilyn Monroe who still looks good at age 91. Her large poster is on the wall of the elevator along with John Wayne and James Dean. We ate dinner and then breakfast in the hotel coffee shop where many of the patrons look familiar, but I don't know who they are. <br />
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The tour began behind Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. It is next door to the Dolby Theater where the Academy Awards are held. We rode in an open van up Mulholland Drive where we got a good view of the iconic Hollywood sign on the mountain. The sign, built in 1923, originally read "Hollywoodland" which was a real estate development there. In 1949, the last 4 letters were taken down by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to promote the city, not the real estate development. The letters are 45 feet high and 31-39 feet wide. It was originally built to last a couple of years, but by 1978, it had deteriorated and had to be restored to its former glory. <br />
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The Walk of Fame starts in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theater and now consists of 2600 stars on the walkway, now stretching for several blocks. New stars are being added periodically. Many of the people honored I've never heard of. The honorees come from the entertainment industry--the five categories are radio, television, movies, live performances and recording. <br />
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To get a star with your name on it, you have to be nominated, and the sponsor must pay $40,000. That weeds out schleppers like me. The individual must be connected with the entertainment industry. For some, the connection is pretty tenuous. As you'll see, it doesn't have to be a real person. The honoree is required to make a public appearance at the dedication. Some stars don't want the obligation and choose not to comply. For example, George Clooney, Clint Eastwood and Julia Roberts have declined to be so honored. <br />
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Some people I wouldn't expect have stars, like Paderewski, Pavarotti, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, two presidents, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, Governor Schwarzenegger, and Princess Grace (Kelly). . Lassie and Rin Tin Tin have stars and even Godzilla, but not King Kong (his creator has a star). Thomas Edison is honored, but not Philo Farnsworth who invented television. There are two Harrison Fords--one was a silent film actor.<br />
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A lot of people have two stars, one for radio and one for television. Jack Benny and Tennessee Ernie Ford have three. So does Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and about 30 others. Heck, Gene Autry has five, one for each category. <br />
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During the 2016 presidential campaign, some knucklehead defaced the Trump star with a swastika, using a magic marker. He drew it backwards which was not the German Nazi symbol but rather an ancient American Indian symbol. I expect the perpetrator didn't know that. It was cleaned off by the time I saw the Donald Trump star. Prior to that, a guy named Otis who claimed to be an heir to the Otis Elevator Co. tried to remove the Trump star with a sledge hammer and pickaxe. There are cameras all around, so they got pictures of him. He didn't know that the star weighs about 400 pounds. He was charged with a felony and got 3 years probation. <br />
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Once the star is there they won't remove it. So Bill Cosby's star is still there. Same for Kevin Spacey. Harvey Weinstein and O.J. Simpson weren't on there to begin with. <br />
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TALIESIN WEST, PHOENIX, AZ<br />
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Taliesin West, on the outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona, was the winter home of the famed architect, Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959). He purchased it in 1937 and lived there until his death. It is the campus of the School of Architecture and the headquarters of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. The school awards Masters Degrees in architecture. In the summer months, the school meets at Taliesin East, or rather just Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin. We have visited both.<br />
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The Wright family was of Welsh descent, and they named the home after Taliesin, a musician, poet and priest in Welsh mythology. <br />
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We took the guided tour of the house. They have another tour of the outside grounds which covers 620 acres of desert, but we chose not to take that also. Maybe next time.<br />
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The house was built in Wright style to blend in with the desert environment, using local rocks and other materials. The site is a National Historic Landmark, and is on the list to maybe become a Unesco World Heritage Site. It is maintained by the architecture students living there. They do all the work and eat together in a communal life style. <br />
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Wright was a feisty guy. In the 1940's the government decided to install overhead power lines in the area which would be visible from the house. Wright complained, on aesthetic grounds to no avail. He went so far as to call President Truman to intervene. That didn't work either, so Wright moved the entrance to the rear of the building. <br />
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Wright's personal life was an example of truth being strange than fiction. In social mores, he was about 75 years ahead of his time. His first wife, Catherine, or Kitty, bore him 6 children until he deserted her in 1903. He ran off with their neighbor Mamah Cheney. Cheney's husband had hired Wright to design their house. Wright saw Mrs. Cheney and said "Mamah Mia!" She said "Mr. Wright is Mr. Right." Shortly thereafter, the two departed for Europe to live in sin. In those days, divorces were difficult to obtain. Mrs. Cheney had to stay in Europe for two years before her husband would grant the divorce on the grounds of desertion. Wright's wife was not impressed, and she never did grant him the divorce.<br />
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Then came the<br />
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fire. In 1914, a male servant from Barbados, Julian Carlton, killed 7 people with an axe and burned down the living quarters of the Wisconsin home. Among the victims were Mrs. Cheney and her two children. Carlton tried to kill himself by drinking acid, but he lingered on for several weeks at the jail hospital.<br />
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Wright finally got his divorce in 1923, but was required to wait a year before marrying his mistress Miriam Noel. That marriage failed within a year when he discovered that Noel was addicted to morphine. Then came the Russian connection.<br />
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While still married to Noel, he met Olga Hinzenburg at a Petrograd Ballet performance in Chicago where she performed as a dancer. Within a year, she and her daughter Svetlana moved in with Wright in Wisconsin, and in 1925 the couple had another daughter, Iovanna. Meanwhile, in 1925, Taliesin burned down again, this time because of crossed wiring. Wright had it re-built as Taliesin III. <br />
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In 1926, Hinzenburg's ex-husband sought custody of his daughter, Svetlana. He went to the authorities, and the cops arrested Wright and Hinzenburg for violating the Mann Act (transporting a minor across state lines for immoral purposes). Remember, he was still married to Miriam Noel. The charges were later dropped, Noel granted the divorce and Wright married Olga in 1928. They remained married until his death.<br />
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Olga's daughter, Svetlana, married William Wesley Peters who lived at Taliesin and was later its director. Unfortunately, she was killed in an auto accident in 1946. Peters later married another Svetlana, the only daughter of the Russian dictator Joseph Stalin. Peters was Svetlana's fourth husband. Her first lover got 10 years in a labor camp in Siberia. Despite this, young men kept coming around to court her. She married her first husband despite Stalin's disapproval. Stalin refused to ever meet him, but at least the guy didn't wind up in Siberia. Fortunately for the later husbands, Stalin died in 1952.<br />
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Svetlana No. 2 called herself Lana Peters and moved into the Taliesin Fellowship with Peters and their daughter Olga. After awhile, communal living didn't agree with Svetlana 2. Believe it or not, she detested the "communist" lifestyle at Taliesin and ultimately she and Olga left Peters, beginning their personal odyssey. The two moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, then to Russia, then back to her ancestral home in Tbilisi, Georgia (hint: it's not near Atlanta), then to England and finally back to Wisconsin where Svetlana died in 2011.<br />
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HONOLULU STATE CAPITOL<br />
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Many of the people from our cruise took this opportunity to visit the Pearl Harbor memorials. All of those excursions were cancelled earlier in the week when the politicians shut down the U.S. government, but they worked things out and the memorials opened again. We have visited the memorial once before, so we didn't book an excursion.<br />
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We walked around Honolulu from the harbor to the government complex. Honolulu is the capital of Hawaii. The traditional capitol building is the Iolani Palace which is now a museum of Hawaiian history. It was replaced as the capitol by the new, modernistic, capitol building in 1969, located next door. The Iolani Palace is one of two Royal Palaces in the U.S. The other is also in Hawaii, the Hulihe'e Palace in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island. The iconic Iolani Palace was built in 1879 in American Florentine architecture. Aside from being a museum of history, the building has a lot of history in itself. The last Queen of Hawaii was imprisoned there in 1893 when the monarch was overthrown. When the U.S. took over in 1898, the building became the state capitol.<br />
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In Hawaii, we explored museums and learned much about Hawaiian history. The British explorer James Cook "discovered" the islands in 1778. He named them the Sandwich Islands after his sponsor, John Montagu, the Earl of Sandwich. Captain Cook got embroiled in a dispute when the locals "borrowed" one of his boats, and got himself killed by the natives. Several years later, the Hawaiians, led by King Kamehameha I, used European style weapons to unify the islands under one rule. Up to that point, each island had its own king. The islands became prosperous because of their<br />
agriculture and strategic position in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. <br />
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HILO--BIG ISLAND OF HAWAII<br />
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Our cruise visited Oahu, Maui, and Kauai. Our last stop was Hilo, on the big island of Hawaii. It is pronounced "hee-lo", not "high-low" like the grocery store. We were whisked from the harbor in a van to the airport where each person was WEIGHED. In a 7 person helicopter, they have to distribute the weight evenly. Then a computer determines where each person will sit. There is no first class. If you weigh over 270, there is a $100 surcharge. Fortunately, we were OK. Two people sat next to the pilot in the front row, and 4 of us sat in the back row. Dianne sat by the window, and I sat next to her. The pilot was experienced. He had flown combat HUEY's in Viet Nam. <br />
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The chopper took off and flew over the vast lava fields at an altitude of less than 1000 feet. I could clearly read the control dials on the dashboard. Essentially, the entire island is lava fields, but the recent ones are more pronounced because they are not covered with vegetation. We flew over the National Park. We had signed up for the chopper ride because we had concerns whether the government would shut down the park after the experience on Oahu. By now, it was, of course, open. <br />
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We flew in low over the active Kilauea Volcano where the lava in the crater glowed bright orange. The chopper came in at a 45 degree angle to the ground. It was scary, but exhilerating at the same time. <br />
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The big island of Hawaii is the youngest of the Hawaiian Islands and the only one with active volcanoes. The other islands are also volcanic, but due to drift of the Earth's mantle, are no longer sitting over the hotspot in the Earth's crust. The oldest is Kure Atoll, 1500 miles to the Northwest. Mauna Loa volcano is considered the tallest mountain on Earth when measured from the ocean floor to the peak. The mountain is several thousand feet higher than Mount Everest. <br />
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Then there is Loihi, an active volcano about 22 miles Southeast of the big island of Hawaii It has been erupting fairly constantly for about 400,000 years, and it causes swarms of earthquakes which are felt on the big island. The summit of Loihi is 10,000 feet above the sea floor but 3200 feet below the level of the ocean. In another hundred thousand years or so, it will emerge as another Hawaiian island. <br />
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Loihi is being closely studied by scientists worldwide An amazing discovery is that the superhot vents (over 200C) of the volcano, 4000 feet below the surface, are the home to millions of microorganisms, especially iron oxidizing bacteria. Scientists are researching these archaea extremophiles to determine if any lessons can be drawn.<br />
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PACIFIC TSUNAMI MUSEUM<br />
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After our helicopter ride, we leafed through the Chamber of Commerce literature in Hilo. We came upon the Pacific Tsunami Museum. We found that Hilo gets inundated by a tsunami about every 10 years on the average. The city was completely destroyed in 1946. They experienced another biggie in 1964 when a magnitude 9 earthquake hit Alaska. The same quake caused a tsunami in Crescent City, California which we visited several years ago. <br />
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We used to call them "tidal waves", but they have nothing to do with the tides. Scientists decided to adopt the Japanese name "tsunami" because Japan gets hit by them quite often. The word means "harbor wave" in Japanese. <br />
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The museum had exhibits and photographs of each of the many tsunamis that leveled Hilo over the years. In every case, they were caused by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions thousands of miles away. A 9.6 magnitude in Chile in 1960 caused an 80 foot wave in Hilo, 10,000 miles away. These walls of water move across the ocean at incredible speeds, up to 600 miles per hour. <br />
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Ships can sail through them on the open sea without incident. The waves slow down as they approach the shoreline, but they build up in height. The waves level everything in sight and kill thousands of people who cannot get to high ground in time. Tsunamis are deceptive. Often, up to a half hour before the wave hits, the water on the coast draws back for miles. Curious people come out to view this, and then they get swept away when the water comes back. Also deceptive is that tsunamis come in several waves, minutes apart. Often, the later wave is the most destructive.<br />
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Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are the most common causes of tsunamis, but there can be other causes also. For example a meteorite hitting the ocean can cause a tsunami. If one were to hit the Atlantic Ocean, New York, Miami or Boston could be inundated under a 100 foot wall of water. That did happen in Lisbon, Portugal in 1755 due to an underwater earthquake. The highest recorded tsunami occurred in 1958 in Lituya Bay, Alaska--a 1700 foot wall of water. It was caused by a landslide. Only two people were killed in this thinly populated area. <br />
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The Indonesian tsunami of 2004 was caused by a 9 magnitude earthquake. A section of the seafloor the size of California suddenly lifted 30 feet, displacing enough water to kill 280,000 people, many of them Western tourists in seaside resorts. <br />
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WATCHING THE HUMPBACK WHALES<br />
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In the waters near Maui, we took a catamaran ride to go whale watching. Humpback whales migrate between Hawaii and Alaska. The best time to view them in Hawaii is January and February when we were there. It was mating and calving season, and there were lots of whales. Although they are considered endangered, there are an estimated 10,000 whales in the Hawaiian Islands. The whales are as big as the boat--they are 45 feet long and can weigh 50 tons. They are difficult to photograph because you don't know when they will surface. A whale will surface, and by the time you can focus the camera, the whale dives under water again. Maybe the best way is to take a video of an area and hope a whale emerges. <br />
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GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH<br />
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If you always wanted to know where all the garbage in the world turns up, look no further than the gyre in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where the currents converge. The result is a garbage patch larger than Texas, and maybe larger than the Continental United States. It is difficult to measure precisely because most of it is composed of small plastic particles that break down to smaller and smaller pieces and wind up eaten by fish and other marine life, particularly sea turtles and albatrosses. On the Midway Atoll, about 20 tons of plastic debris wash up on shore each year and significant amounts are eaten by the birds. <br />
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Because the particles are small, the garbage patch is difficult to detect by aircraft or satellite. If you are sailing through it like we were, you might not realize it. There are no islands of trash--it is more like a soup with plastic particles.<br />
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The Pacific garbage patch (gyre) is not the only one in the world's oceans. You also have them in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The bottom lie is you probably don't want to eat sea turtles or albatrosses. And think about that when you throw out the 2 liter plastic bottle of Coke.<br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-51583991849212077142017-08-11T21:18:00.000-07:002017-08-11T21:18:29.402-07:00PUTIN ON A SHOW IN MURMANSK, RUSSIA It was our fourth time in Russia. We've visited the Atlantic Coast, the Pacific Coast and now the Arctic Coast of Russia. Before the trip, I told some Russian friends that we were going to Murmansk. They said, "Why would you want to go there?" Precisely!<br />
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Murmansk is the largest city in the world north of the Arctic Circle. It is located on the Kola Peninsula, not far from Norway. It is closer to the North Pole than it is to Moscow. Murmansk is a city of 300,000. The population used to be 500,000. When people were no longer forced to live there, they voted with their feet. The sun does not come up for 2 months in the Winter and it gets bitterly cold up here--the January average temperature is 5F (-15C). In January, the mercury can dip close to -40F (-40C). Despite that, the port remains relatively ice free, even in Winter because of the Gulf Stream. <br />
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Murmansk is a relatively new city. It was founded in 1916. Czarist Russia needed a seaport beyond the reach of the German Navy during World War I. The city was called Romanov-on-Murman. "Murman" or "Nurmann" was the Russian word for "Norman" or "Viking". The Vikings had sailed to this area 1000 years ago. When the Red Army took over, a couple of years later, they changed the name to Murmansk. <br />
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Our ship docked opposite the huge Soviet era nuclear icebreaker, the Lenin, written in Cyrillic letters. Not John Lennon, but Vladimir Lenin. The Lenin can cut through 10 feet of ice. It sails to the North Pole and takes tourists there. A friend we met on the cruise, Doug from British Columbia actually did take that cruise. He told me that several times, the ship got stuck in the ice, so it backed up and rammed through it. He even took a dip in the Arctic Ocean at the North Pole. <br />
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Murmansk serves as the headquarters of the Russian Northern Fleet and is a major nuclear submarine base. To keep the sea lanes open in Winter, the Russians keep 4 nuclear powered icebreakers in the Murmansk harbor. This is an extremely busy commercial and industrial port, but not known for its scenery. It is the end of the line on the Kirov Railway from Moscow and St. Petersburg. We saw many long fully loaded freight trains from the South.<br />
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The most iconic sight in Murmansk is the enormous Alyosha Monument honoring the Soviet soldiers of the great Patriotic War, which we call World War II. This monument is on a hill with a panoramic view of the city. It is a 116 foot tall sculpture of a brooding soldier dressed in Winter gear with a rifle slung over his shoulder. It is the second tallest statue in Russia. It was built in 1974 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the defeat of the German forces in the Arctic. It contains the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. On the 60th anniversary, in 2004, they added the Wall of the Hero Cities, memorial plaques and capsules containing dirt from the various "hero" cities on the plaques--Moscow, Kiev, Leningrad and others. Although the names are written in Cyrillic letters, I could generally decipher them because they have some similarity to Greek letters. Many Russians celebrate their weddings at the Monument despite the usually bad weather.<br />
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There are many languages spoken in Murmansk. We're talking Russian, Ukrainian, Azerbaijani, Byelorussian, and Georgian. but not English. Dianne is from Georgia, but the Georgian they speak is not the Georgian they speak near Atlanta although Southern Russians do speak with a drawl. <br />
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The Murmansk landscape is dotted with dozens of huge Soviet era apartment complexes as far as the eye can see. In the U.S., these would be called "the projects". They are drab, gray stone buildings, many with peeling paint. In Russia, they call them Khrushchevs, after the 1950's and '60's Communist Party leader who ordered the construction. They are obviously not luxury living, but the Russians don't expect much. <br />
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Before they were built, many Russians lived 3 families in one apartment. Apartments were scarce because the city had suffered extensive destruction from the German bombardment in World War II. Khrushchev kept the people happy by giving them their own apartments. Some of these buildings are now being replaced by modern apartments. I didn't see any single family homes, and I asked our guide about that. She told me that many Russians do live in single family homes, presumably in the suburbs.<br />
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Murmansk does have many of the amenities of Western cities. We drove past the huge indoor Volna Shopping Mall which has the only McDonald's I saw, the Northernmost McDonald's in the world. ' A Big Mac in Murmansk costs only about $1.53, less than a third of what it would cost in Norway.<br />
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Murmansk has a sister city, Jacksonville, Florida. That one floored me. During World War II, much of the allied aid to Russia came by way of Jacksonville. After the War, Jacksonville sent medical equipment and trained Russian doctors.<br />
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We had a nice lunch at the modern and upscale Park Inn by Radisson Hotel in Murmansk. We ate <em>blinis</em> which are pancakes with fruit and brown sugar. They also make <em>blinis </em>filled with caviar, fish, melted butter or sour cream. Russians eat a lot of caviar because they get it locally. I stayed away from the borscht. <br />
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KIROV<br />
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We visited the statue of the local hero, Sergei Kirov. It stands in front of the Palace of Culture, also called the Kirov Palace. Kirov was Stalin's right hand man, a loyal Communist. He was appointed the head of the Communist Party in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Kirov was a party guy as well as a Party guy. He was a hard drinker who lived the good life and perks of his office. He was popular with the Party cadre, even more popular than the austere Stalin. Not good.<br />
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The Party faithful considered him a reformer, and his influence continued to grow. Indeed, Kirov gave a speech at the 1934 Party Congress advocating a more relaxed approach in the future. Apparently he forgot to clear that with Stalin. The Central Committee elected Kirov with just 3 negative votes. Stalin received far more negative votes, and those who cast them were probably never heard from again. Working for Stalin, if you're not totally in agreement with him, that's not good for one's career. Kirov may have had some indication when he was starting to not get invited to certain Politburo meetings.<br />
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Kirov was assassinated in December, 1934 at his office under suspicious circumstances. All indications were that the assassin, who was later executed, was hired by the NKVD (secret police) on Stalin's orders. Kirov normally had a 4 to 8 guard security detail, NKVD people. For some reason, on the day Kirov was killed, the bodyguards were all out to lunch or nowhere to be found. Indeed, after the assassination, Stalin personally interviewed the killer, an unprecedented event. Then Stalin had the guy's whole family executed. <br />
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This event touched off the Great Purge of the 1930's in which many of the Old Bolsheviks were arrested and executed. The first thing Stalin did to usher in the Great Purge was to disarm everyone--all Party officials carried weapons, distributed by the Party. No longer. There was no Second Amendment in Russia. After the arrests, the prosecution in the show trials charged these people with "complicity" in Kirov's murder. They were all forced to confess. Several years later, all the NKVD agents on Kirov's security detail were also executed because they knew too much. <br />
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After the assassination, the Stalin regime portrayed Kirov as a hero. Many places were named after Kirov. There were the cities of Kirov, Kirovohrad, Kriovakan, Kirova and several Kirovsks. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kirovakan, in Armenia reverted to its original name, Vanadzor. Kirovabad, in Azerbaijan similarly reverted to Ganja. Azerbaijan also removed the massive Kirov statue in Baku in 1992. In the Ukraine, it took a little longer, until after the Crimean crisis. Then the Parliament following its de-communization laws changed Kirovohrad to Kropyvnytskyi in 2016. The Ukrainians didn't much like the guy. He was in charge when more than a million Ukrainian farmers, the Kulaks, died of forced starvation or were executed in the 1920's. <br />
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The Murmansk statue was built in 1960 when Khrushchev rehabilitated Kirov. Today, many things, at least in Russia, are named after Kirov--streets, railways, factories.<br />
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WORLD'S DEEPEST HOLE<br />
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The other thing worth noting about this God forsaken area is the nearby relic of the Cold War, the Kola Superdeep Borehole. During the Space Race, the U.S. and the Russians were also competing to see who could drill the deepest hole into the Earth's crust. Ultimately, the Russians prevailed on this dubious distinction, and science did learn many new things about the world under our feet.<br />
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The hole is located a few miles outside Murmansk, and you'd need an all wheel drive vehicle to get there. This 9 inch diameter hole goes down 7.5 miles (40,230') into the Earth. It took 24 years to drill it--longer than it took to travel to Pluto. At that depth, the rock had been thoroughly fractured and saturated with water, a totally unexpected finding. The temperature of this superheated liquid water was 180C (356F), far above the boiling point. The scientists finally had to stop drilling because the high temperatures at the bottom caused the rock to behave like plastic, and the drill could not proceed any farther. The plan had been to drill down to 15,000 meters (49,000'), but the intense heat destroyed the drill.<br />
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To me, the most interesting discovery coming out of this project was the microfossils--the preserved remains of 24 species of single cell marine plants--plankton. The rocks in which they were found are 2 billion years old. <br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-32991910238699840742017-08-01T10:25:00.001-07:002017-08-11T21:17:38.162-07:00VISITING NORWAY AND THE ARCTIC--HAVE YOU DRIVEN A FJORD LATELYDianne and I recently took a trip to the Arctic. It started with an 8 hour plane ride, Chicago to London. We looked forward to 11 days in which it never gets dark. On the plane, I sat with a middle aged black music professor taking a new job in London and a Hasidic Jewish rabbinic student with 5 kids. His wife lives in London. This motely group of characters made for some interesting and stimulating conversation which made the time pass quickly. <br />
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The cruise ship was docked in Dover, about a 2 hour bus ride from London. Shortly before we got to Dover, we passed the exit for the Chunnel to Calais, France which is only 20 or so miles across the English Channel. When we arrived at the port, we could clearly see the famous White Cliffs of Dover. Hundreds of locals were fishing off the pier, facing the beautiful White Cliffs.<br />
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The Pacific Princess went full throttle across the rough North Sea which is known for its terrible weather, and it didn't disappoint. This was our second trip across the North Sea, and it hasn't gotten any better. We're talking huge swells. The ship made its way through the heavy gray seas against 40 knot winds blowing down from the Arctic. From time to time we passed oil drilling platforms which have made Norway a wealthy country.<br />
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Our cabin was freezing, and we then realized that we still had the air conditioning on. The sliding doors of our cabin didn't keep out the cold winds--it was still drafty. We were queasy for a couple days. Many other passengers must have been also because they didn't come down for dinner.<br />
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We especially like exotic cruises to destinations like the Arctic because most of the passengers have similar interests. Most have traveled to other exotic locations worldwide, and we get ideas to add to our bucket list. For example, I was reading the most recent Jean Auel book about Stone Age people, and we expressed an interest in visiting the Lascaux Caves in France which are famous for the primitive wall paintings of mammoths and other extinct animals. Several people on the cruise have visited there and reinforced our desire to see the caves. Also, I spoke with at least 2 families who traveled on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing to Moscow by way of Ulanbaatar, Mongolia. I'd like to try that also, but Dianne is not keen on that idea. <br />
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BERGEN<br />
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Our first port was Bergen, a seacoast city of 300,000. This was our second trip to Bergen. It is a quaint and beautiful old city, with colorful 18th Century houses framing the waterfront. The city was founded hundreds of years ago as a port of the Hansetic League. Don't confuse it with the American League or the NFL. The Hansetic League was a network of merchant guilds and their cities, mostly German, which formed a trade association. For over 3 centuries in the Middle Ages, the Hansetic League was very powerful and wealthy, dominating the Baltic maritime trade. It had its own legal system and even armies for protection and aid.<br />
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The Hansetic League Museum, built in 1704 overlooks the harbor. UNESCO has designated it a heritage site. To visit it, I had to climb a narrow, rickety and dimly lit staircase to the third floor to see a trading room, a merchant's office, sailors' bunks and tools, instruments and maps of the Hansetic network. On the lower level of the building were the storage and processing rooms for fish and cod liver oil. The various period items were collected from surrounding farms in the Bergen area. They don't have a Norwegians with Disabilities Act, so there was no elevator, escalator or ramp to get to it. Dianne couldn't climb the stairs, so they refunded her admission fee. <br />
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Nearby, we visited the outdoor market, called the <em>Torget </em>(not the Target) where we saw displays of every type of fish. The most popular in Norway is <em>laks</em>, which we know as smoked salmon (lox). The Norwegians don't normally serve bagels with it.<br />
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As a seaport city, Bergen is very cosmopolitan. I was surprised by the number of Chinese and Thai restaurants. It was lunchtime, and I found a vendor cooking Spanish paella with local seafood in a large wok like bowl. It was delicious. <br />
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Norway is very expensive. At the <em>Torget</em>, they have a bathroom for tourists at the information center. You have to pay 10 kroners to use it, about a buck and a quarter. Do I pay the buck and a quarter or do I suffer? <br />
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We decided to see the city on the bright red On-Off sightseeing bus. On our previous trip to Bergen, we walked around downtown and took the funicular railway up to the top of Mt. Floien where our lunch was a $17 cheese sandwich. (see KENSUSKINREPORT August 21, 2011). This time, we saw the concert hall named after hometown composer Edvard Grieg. There is a museum devoted to Grieg. You can visit his villa, his cabin and even his grave. We didn't do so. <br />
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TRONDHEIM<br />
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Trondheim is world famous for hosting the Winter Olympics. They have a ski slope where you can downhill ski even when there is no snow. Tourists flock to see it.<br />
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We were blessed with a mild sunny day. We were told that it was the sixth day this year when the sun was shining. Hey, it was the end of June. Most days, it rains.<br />
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The shuttle bus from the pier took us to the magnificent Nidoros Cathedral, the most iconic sight in Trondheim. It was build over the burial site of St. Olav, the 11th Century Norwegian king who is the patron saint of Norway. He was killed at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, and the construction of the cathedral was begun in 1070. There must have been a problem with the permits, because it took 230 years to complete. During the Reformation in 1537, the Lutherans kicked out the Catholics and took over the cathedral. It is used for coronations of Norway's kings. <br />
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The building has been ravaged by fires several times over the centuries although the stone walls remained intact. The current restoration and rebuilding was begun in 1869 and finally completed in 2001. The main architect was a guy named Christian Christie who was not related to the New Jersey governor. Christie had made a name for himself restoring many medieval monuments in Norway. He died in 1906, and they finally completed the work 95 years later. Construction can be a slow process. <br />
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We walked around town and saw the other iconic site, the king's official residence, called Stiftsgarten. At 43,000 square feet, it is one of the largest wooden buildings in Scandinavia. The building has 140 rooms. Across the street, we visited the courthouse and city hall where several weddings were being performed. The colorful murals painted on the courthouse were quite interesting, depicting 18th century barristers.<br />
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To see how normal residents live, we visited a hardware store and a supermarket where the prices appeared to be about 50% higher than in the U.S. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. We then found our way to the indoor shopping mall downtown, The <em>Trondheim Torg</em> and visited the McDonalds. <br />
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The main industry of Trondheim other than fishing, is copper mining. We could have taken a tour of the mine but decided against it. I've visited coal mines, and it can't be than much different. <br />
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SPITZBERGEN/SVALBARD<br />
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We continued North, past the Arctic Circle to begin 11 days for us where the sun never set. We crossed 75 degrees latitude, the same as Northern Alaska. Some showers were in the air on this July afternoon. We thoroughly enjoyed the spectacular mountains and glaciers along the Norway coast. We left the top of Norway and journeyed several hundred miles across open sea in the Arctic Ocean to the Svalbard Archipelago at a latitude of 78 degrees and change--about 800 miles from the North Pole. Needless to say, it was cold. About 60% of Svalbard is covered with glaciers. There are no trees. Where the land is not covered with glaciers, it is covered with green lichens. Reindeer and caribou graze on it.<br />
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We docked in the principal city, Longyearbyen, a town of about 2000. This town was founded in the early 20th Century to serve the nearby coal mines, some of which are still operating. Most houses and buildings are brightly colored prefabs with pointy roofs. Houses are built on stilts because you can't dig a foundation in permafrost. I was told that 70% of the households consist of 1 person. Most are scientists staying temporarily. When it's dark outside for over 4 months, people get depressed and want to leave. They come back in the summer.<br />
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Longyearbyen can be dangerous. It's not street crime they are worried about--it's polar bears. The city maps have a warning sign: "Highlighted area. Safe for walking about without an armed guard." Back home on the South Side of Chicago, that is normal, so I didn't think anything of it. The danger is the polar bear who sees you and thinks it is dinner time. The gun laws are the opposite of most places. In Longyearbyen, all residents are required to carry a high powered rifle at all times because of the polar bear situation. However, they are required to check their guns at the door when entering a retail establishment. <br />
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The island archipelago is called Svalbard, and the largest island is called Spitzbergen which means "jagged peaks". It was discovered in 1592 by explorer William Barents, and they named the nearby Barents Sea after him. It is part of Norway, but Russians live there also. More on that later.<br />
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Spitzbergen's other claim to fame is the Global Seed Bank, officially called the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which is buried in an abandoned coal mine in a sandstone mountain which is usually covered by snow. It is 430 feet above seal level in a geologically stable area. Even if the ice caps melt, presumably it will stay dry for a few thousand years. <br />
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The facility was built in 2008, and is funded by the Norwegian government. The purpose is to keep a supply of plant seeds, "spare" copies if you will, of food crops in the event of loss of seeds in other gene banks during a large scale crisis, e.g. Nuclear holocaust elsewhere in the world. As I learned, there are 1600 seed banks scattered around the world. These crises often occur as a result of mismanagement, accident, equipment failures, funding cuts and natural disasters. The seed bank in the Philippines was damaged by flooding and later destroyed by fire. The seed banks in Afghanistan and Iraq were lost completely. <br />
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I went to see it, but they won't let you in. This is sensitive stuff, so it is well guarded. Not as much as Area 51, but guarded nevertheless. To get in one would have to go through four sets of locked doors. <br />
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When we were there, we saw construction equipment around the entrance, but I got a photo. There had been some water damage in 2016 because of heavy rainfall, and the government is making improvements which include waterproofing the tunnel walls and digging drainage ditches. There are four layers of protection for the seeds, and the water seepage only reached the first layer. <br />
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The guide told me the vault contains about 2 billion seeds in Tupperware containers, actually, in special 3 ply foil packets, heat sealed to exclude moisture. One thing you won't find there is genetically modified seeds, prohibited by Norwegian law. The storage rooms are air conditioned to a frigid 0 degrees Fahrenheit--about the same as your freezer at home.<br />
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Most of the time, the Global Seed Bank takes in deposits, and it is free to end users. The only withdrawal so far was made by Aleppo, Syria. <br />
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After visiting the Global Seed Bank, as it were, my tour continued a few hundred yards down the road. We began a hike up a 1000 foot mountain dotted with small niveous glaciers. There is no path, and most of the climb is on jagged rocks. We forded a stream where I got my wool socks wet in the icy water. We hiked up a slippery glacier, and it was cold and windy. About halfway up, I couldn't go anymore. I was afraid I would die of a heart attack. Fortunately for me, it is illegal to die in Svalbard because the graveyard closed to new business 70 years ago. The bodies don't decompose in the permafrost. If someone dies illegally, the body has to be shipped to Norway for burial. <br />
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The guide walked me down the mountain, on the same rugged terrain, but downhill. A young man named Mats brought a van to take me back to the ship. I bribed him to take me into downtown Longyearbyen instead, about a mile and a half from the ship. That turned out to be a good move.<br />
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I visited the post office, the small shopping mall, the supermarket. Several of the stores in town are outfitters and tour guides. They sell polar bear rugs, seal skins, and reindeer skins. There are lots of sled dogs, but you won't find any cats. They are banned, to protect endangered Arctic birds. If you're planning to hike to the North Pole, this is a good place to start. "Clothing gear for your expedition." They do have a Radisson Blu hotel, as well as a couple other hotels. They have restaurants you wouldn't expect, like Arctic Tapas and sushi. If you want whale stir fry, you can get it here--to go.<br />
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I walked back on the road toward the ship. On the way back, I came upon the Svalbard Brewery, so I went inside. The beer is brewed with glacier water. The offered me all the beer I wanted, but I don't much like beer. Most things in the Arctic are expensive, but alcohol is relatively cheap because there are no taxes. You can even play golf here, but the course is inside a Quonset building. <br />
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Every year, on March 8th, the residents celebrate shortly after Noon when the sun comes out--for the first time since October 25th. <br />
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Dianne took a different tour in Svalbard, a catamaran ride to the Soviet era town of Pyramiden, named after the pyramid shaped mountain outside of town. She was enthusiastic about the 30 mile boat ride because an enormous gray whale was sighted, larger than the boat. Her group snapped many photos. After their adventure, they were warmly greeted at the dock.<br />
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The story behind this is that until 1920 the Svalbard Archipelago was not a part of any nation. Then, the U.S., Britain, Norway and a few others, but not Russia, executed the Svalbard Treaty which granted Norway sovereignty over the area. The treaty granted the signatories equal rights to develop and pursue commercial activities in the islands. Within a few years, Russia and over 40 other nations signed the treaty. In 1927, the Soviet Union purchased the Pyramiden area and acquired the rights to develop the coal fields there. They established a model community there analogous to a collective farm. Today, that community is a museum with a window into how workers lived during the Soviet era. In 1936, a state run coal company, Trust Arktikugol, assumed responsibility for the mining operations of Pyramiden and also Barentsburg, about 60 miles away.<br />
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During World War II, the Soviets poured money into this barren area, constructing drab, Soviet style apartment blocks as well as a hospital, a hotel and a recreation center, plus the obligatory statue of Lenin. The coal mines were not profitable, but the Soviets liked having a presence in the West. Upon the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russians had other priorities, and the subsidies dried up. Morale went down, but the crowning blow was the 1996 crash of a chartered Arktikugol plane which killed 141 people, most of them family members of the mineworkers. <br />
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Finally, in 1998, the Russians abandoned the place, lock stock and barrel. Today, it is largely a ghost town although a handful of workers live there, for limited maintenance and to guide tourists. Recently the Tulip Hotel reopened for the Summer months only, to serve the tourist trade. Most of the buildings are locked to prevent vandalism and theft of artifacts, which has been a problem. You need special permission to go inside. Dianne's group had lunch at the hotel and they were given a guided tour of the recreation area and the post office. <br />
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TROMSO<br />
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We celebrated the Fourth of July at sea. There were no fireworks because the sun didn't go down. Tromso is known for its spectacular Northern Lights, but you can't see them when it doesn't get dark. Tromso is a city of 68,000, the largest Norwegian city north of the Arctic Circle. It is located on an island near the North Cape of Norway. It faces beautiful snow capped mountains. <br />
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We explored the city and found there is a lot to see in Tromso. A short walk from the pier, we came upon a statue of the great Arctic explorer, Roald Amundsen--with a disrespecting seagull perched on his head. Tromso was the staging point for Arctic expeditions in the early 20th Century. <br />
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Tromso has an aquarium, the Polaria, a world class facility in modern architecture. We arrived in time to watch the keepers feed the 4 seals. They do this twice a day with large crowds of tourists jostling for space by the rail. It was explained to us that seals need mental stimulation, and the attendants throw out small basketballs into the water. A seal really can balance a ball on his nose. Then they showed us a panorama film about Arctic wildlife in Svalbard.<br />
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Next door is the MS Polstjena, a whaling and sealing boat which was in service until the 1970's. I donned earphones and heard the whole story as I clambered over the boat. The voice described seal hunting in great detail, more than I needed to know. The boat could bring in 3000 seals during the two month Spring hunting season off the East Coast of Greenland. <br />
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I climbed into the control room, the living quarters, and the small kitchen. Up to 10 men would stay in the hold, pretty much all the time. The guide explained that between the seal oil and the unbathed sailors, it smelled pretty bad down there.<br />
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Nearby, just down the street is a statue of Ludwig Mack who started a brewery in Tromso in 1877, and it still operates today. It wrongly claims to be the Northernmost brewery in the world, but I visited the one in Spitzbergen, hundreds of miles to the North. Although we didn't take the tour, they charge based on how many tastings you want. It is $20 or so for two tastings and about $35 for four tastings. If you're really thirsty, it's probably a good deal.<br />
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Tromso's other must see sight is its modernistic A-frame Arctic Cathedral, built in 1965. I saw it from the ship but didn't visit because it was on the other side of the bay across a long bridge. In town we walked to the wooden Tromso Cathedral, built in 1861. The city has only 350 Catholics, but two cathedrals. Pope John Paul II visited in 1989.<br />
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On our way back to the ship, prominently displayed in the city part was the unexpected (to us) monument to honor the 20 Tromso Jews who were forcibly removed and killed in 1943. Their names are inscribed--5 members of the Caplan family, 5 more of the Shotland family, 3 Sakolskys, Smith, Klein, Resnick and a couple more.<br />
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NORTH CAPE<br />
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The ship sailed on to Honningsvag, about 30 miles from the North Cape. This town is not a big deal, but what IS a big deal, at least to Europeans, is the North Cape, the Northernmost point in continental Europe. The town has a little over 2000 people, but several things about it were interesting to us. <br />
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This area of Norway is called Finnmark County, and the native people are called the Sami. They have their own separate languages. We know them as the Laplanders, although the Sami people in Norway consider the term Lapp to be insulting. Not so much in Sweden and Finland. They are famous for raising herds of reindeer, and Norway does not allow anyone but Sami people to herd reindeer. These nomadic folks are of European origin, and they have a 10,000 year history in the area. The UN considers them as an "Indigenous People". <br />
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You'd think they could have gone somewhere warmer, but they thrived in the North. Like many other native peoples, they faced struggles when the Norwegians tried to stamp out their language and culture and make them Norwegians. They were treated as second class citizens by the Norwegians for years, especially in the early 20th Century, but with pressure from the UN and other countries, they are OK now although they don't yet have casinos. <br />
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The downtown area of Honningsvag is about two blocks long and is called Little Chicago. There has to be a story behind that, and we were determined to find out. There was a lot of competition between whalers and fishermen, and it heated up into a major bare knuckled brawl in 1904. According to locals I spoke with, the violence inspired the locals to think of Chicago. Some things never change. <br />
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One establishment we didn't visit was the ice bar. That is crazy to us. It is cold in this area, so who would anyone want to visit an ice bar. We had visited one in St. Thomas. They turn the temperature down to 27F. They hand out parkas, mittens, and scarfs. To us Chicagoans, 27F is not that cold, and certainly not cold enough to wear a parka. <br />
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In the local bakery, we ordered a "<em>Lille</em> Chicago" which turned out to be a chocolate mousse cake. It was very rich and sweet, and we could only eat a few bites. We walked down the street to the market where we bought some Pringles for about twice what they charge in Chicago. On the ship, we had met a retired man named Harold who had once been the product manager of Pringles when he worked for Procter & Gamble. I learned everything I wanted to know about Pringles and then some. For example, it only worked with Idaho russet potatoes--Maine potatoes didn't work well. The problem for him was that between McDonald's and Procter & Gamble, there weren't enough Idaho russets. Harold had to meet with the potato king Mr. Simplot himself to work it out. Then they had to come up with new technology to make each chip precise and also to properly space the chips in the cardboard tube so that it didn't look like the box was only half full. So I bought a box just to see for myself. <br />
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At the museum, we learned about the seafood industry. Everyone in Norway eats fish and seafood--its the main industry. They brought in king crabs from Siberia. These critters are 5 feet across and weigh 25 pounds. They are an invasive species, so the government encourages catching and eating them. The locals run crab fishing safaris for tourists. <br />
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The town of Honningsvag exists for tourism. During World War II, there was a major battle nearby, and the city was completely destroyed except for the church. Today, hundreds and maybe thousands of people visit the town daily. They board dozens of tour buses for the drive to the North Cape. Many others drive their campers up the narrow two lane road which is open only in the Summer months except for a couple hours daily in Winter only for convoy driving. They get a lot of snow in Winter. At the North Cape they have separate parking lots for buses and for cars and campers. Hordes of people milled around, taking photos of the sheer cliffs and the monuments. Many of these people brought small kids in strollers over the rough ground. <br />
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It was cold! We visited on a sunny July day which is apparently a rare event in the area. Strong winds off the Arctic Ocean brought the wind chill into the single digits (Fahrenheit). Our guide said they get 15 sunny days a year. But then, for three of the months, the sun doesn't come up and it is dark all day. The Gulf Stream moderates the temperatures somewhat, and the ocean does not freeze over, but it creates huge snowfalls each Winter. <br />
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The scenery at the North Cape is spectacular. The rocky cliffs overlooking the Arctic Ocean are more than 1000 feet high. There are numerous glaciers on the aprons. Nearby, herds of reindeer and caribou graze on the slopes. <br />
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The Norwegians built a modern facility, North Cape Hall, to accommodate the crowds of tourists. they get 200,000 visitors a year. It has everything you could want--a movie theater, post office, cafeteria, museum, a large souvenir gift shop, and it is on multi levels. In the cinema, we watched a 15 minute video depicting the seasons. On the North Cape, there are two seasons, Winter and Spring. July is considered Spring. Then Winter comes back with a vengeance.<br />
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The large globe monument is the symbol of the North Cape at 71 degrees latitude. Thousands of visitors photograph it each year. People come to see the Children of the Earth monuments--circular clay reliefs molded by 7 kids from different nations in 1988 expressing their creativity. These reliefs were then cast in bronze and framed by granite. They stand outside the North Cape Hall. Next to that, as part of the exhibit, is the full size Mother and Child sculpture by Eva Rybakken. The Children of the Earth organization awards an 18,000 Euro prize each year to a person or project who has shown compassion or helped suffering children in the world. It is presented at North Cape. Another monument is an obelisk overlooking the cliffs which honors King Oscar II, the sardine guy, who visited the North Cape in 1873.<br />
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THE MAELSTROM<br />
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Farther down the Arctic Coast are the Lofoten Islands with beautiful green mountains rising starkly out of the sea. This area is dotted with small fishing villages and dairy farms. People live in colorful houses overlooking the fjords. <br />
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The Lofoten Islands are famous for the Maelstrom, the strong tidal current which occurs twice a day. The tidal currents can reach speeds as high as 20 mph. The water currents funnel through a narrow channel between two islands. The unusual shape of the seabed with a shallow ridge amplifies and whirls the tidal currents. The effect would be comparable to water draining down a sink or bathtub. <br />
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The Maelstrom is the subject of countless literary works and films. Edgar Allen Poe's <em>Descent into the Maelstrom</em> and Jules Verne's <em>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</em> are two noteworthy works, but they greatly exaggerate the effect. In Poe's story, two fishermen are swallowed by the maelstrom and one miraculously survives. The Norway Maelstrom is even mentioned in Melville's <em>Moby Dick</em>. As a practical matter, although small craft can be in danger from the swirling waters, large ships are not. <br />
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GEIRANGERFJORD<br />
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Geiranger is a town of only 180 permanent residents although a few thousand more come each Summer to work in the hotels and B & B's. The town is nestled between a mountain and the fjord. Our ship sailed several miles up the winding fjord amidst magnificent scenery. The fjord, with sheer rock faces on both sides, is a UNESCO world heritage site and is considered one of the most beautiful places in the world.<br />
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Most visitors to the area take the trip to the summit of Mt. Dalsnibba, 1500 meters (4757') which overlooks the fjord. The two lane road to the top is winding, to say the least. There is no center line. It has 35 switchbacks each way. Navigating that road in a tour bus takes special talent. The road is closed in Winter because of avalanches, but it is dangerous in Summer also because cars are competing with the tour buses. If you veer off the road, it's a 2000 foot drop. <br />
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The nearest hospital is in Eidsdal, 2 1/2 hours away over another road, the Eagle Road, open in Winter. Don't get sick in this part of the world. In Geiranger, the doctor comes every Wednesday. If you get sick on Thursday, you're in trouble.<br />
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On the lower levels of the road, the view is breathtaking. As we got higher up the mountain into the clouds, it was raining, and on the top, it was snowing, not unusual in July. Traffic was gridlocked at the top, with probably a dozen tour buses and a thousand or so people squeezing into a small gift shop and lined up for the rest rooms. The view up there is amazing, at least on a clear day, as we could tell from looking at the postcards. With the snow and the clouds, we couldn't see much.<br />
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What we could see is that at and near the peak, somebody laboriously piled rocks resembling trolls on thousands of flat rock surfaces. Trolls are uniquely Norwegian. Sweden and Finland have other stuff like dwarfs, elves, etc. I thought about the children's story about the Three Billy Goats Gruff.<br />
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The mountain has hundreds of glaciers and waterfalls, large and small. The road runs alongside a raging alpine river, a white water rafter's dream. Actually it's not--nobody could survive the rapids and waterfalls. <br />
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About halfway up is Flydalsjuvet, a giant overhanging rock. Many tourists climb out on that rock for photo ops. It's a 2000 foot drop down the granite cliff. I didn't go out there. I remembered the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire. It used to be the state symbol until one day a few years ago, when it broke off and tumbled into the valley. No sir! I did get a lot of good photos.<br />
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On the way down, we stopped for tea and a Danish (a Norwegian?) at the beautiful Djupvasshytta Lodge by the shores of a deep blue glacial lake, Djupvatn Lake.<br />
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Our guide was a co-ed from Lithuania with a good sense of humor. This was her Summer job. She told us of the legend of the Seven Sisters and the Suitor--waterfalls. The suitor was determined to marry one of the seven sisters. He proposed to each one in turn and was rejected each time. Maybe he should have gone on the Bachelor show. The discouraged suitor turned to the bottle, and none of the Seven Sisters ever married. Good story.<br />
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This area is also famous, at least in Norway, for its pizza. You've all had Norwegian pizza, right? Pizza Grandiosa, produced in this area, is Norway's most popular frozen pizza. <br />
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HAUGESUND<br />
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For our last port in Norway, it was a sunny, mild July day. Haugesund is a fairly large town of 36,000 in Southern Norway. Historically, it was considered the birthplace of Norway when King Harald Fairhair and his Vikings united the country in the year 872. <br />
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Today the main industries in Haugesund are a herring factory and a plant that makes oil rig equipment. We walked around the commercial district which has a pedestrian mall and an enclosed shopping mall. One block has many restaurants with un-Norwegian names like Tony's Pizza and Rabinowitz's Café. <br />
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We found an ice cream store and stopped in for milk shakes. Well, the store takes no credit cards, no Euros, no British or American money. Only Norwegian kroner, about 8 to the dollar. Frustrated, we left the store and came upon a bank a block away. I went in and exchanged dollars for kroner. The two shakes cost 98 kroner, and they were delicious. <br />
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The tourist guide said we could visit the Scandic Maritim Hotel and see a 22 minute film about Norway on the wide screen. It was along the fjord, several blocks from the commercial area, but we walked over. On the way, near the harbor bridge, was a store called "Shabby Records", a name created by a marketing genius who probably got fired. Apparently they sell classic phonograph records. We finally got to the hotel, and the desk clerk showed us into the auditorium. We were the only people there, so we could make as much noise as we wanted. We thoroughly enjoyed the movie.<br />
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After the film, we walked up to see the town hall which claims to be the world's only pink city hall. The impressive neo-Classical 1931 structure overlooks a large park and a fountain. What we found interesting about Haugesund is that the city was built according to a plan, a quadrature system with parallel and perpendicular streets, unusual for Europe, but then the city is only about 150 years old. The corner houses on each block are architecturally stylish, with towers and turrets of Classical, Swiss and Jugend styles.<br />
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NEXT: PUTIN ON A SHOW IN MURMANSK, RUSSIA<br />
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<br />kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-38372319840336648782017-03-05T18:29:00.000-08:002017-03-07T20:11:12.750-08:00AROUND THE WORLD IN 21 DAYS, PART 3--GUM CONTROL IN SINGAPORE, KANDYLAND, AND UPCLOSE WITH TIGERSIt was Chinese New Year's Eve in Singapore where most of the city is Chinatown. The Year of the Rooster. Giant colorful roosters adorned the main streets in town. The locals scrambled around, doing last minute shopping before stores closed for the holiday. People were in a partying mood. Chinese music was blaring from loudspeakers.<br />
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Our dinner reservations were at the Mouth Restaurant. This was to be authentic Chinese food. It was so authentic that none of the staff spoke English. Fortunately for us, the menu was in both Chinese and English. We pointed to the menu so the waiter would get our orders right. There were six of us seated--the four New Yorkers, Dianne and I. The women ordered <em>Maine </em>lobster, and the cost was fairly reasonable. I had tenderloin beef tips with Kobe sauce. I think Kobe is Japanese, but that's close enough. Everyone had spring rolls and shrimp fried rice, and it was delicious. <br />
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Outside as night fell, it was a sea of neon lights and wall to wall revelers. We reflected on our adventures of the past two weeks.<br />
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SRI LANKA<br />
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Sri Lanka is a teardrop shaped island off the South coast of India. It used to be called Ceylon. Today its official name is the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka which sounds scary to most Americans, but actually, compared to India, it is very progressive. The government is the oldest democracy in Asia. Most of the people are Sinhalese, with minority populations of Tamils and Malays. There is also a small aboriginal population.<br />
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In contrast to India, the capital city of Colombo is very clean. The people are hard working and prosperous. You don't see much poverty in Colombo. The prevailing religion is Buddhism, and many of the houses have shrines in front. <br />
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Sri Lanka under British rule until 1948 was essentially a plantation economy. The most important crops were cinnamon, tea and rubber, and they are still important although the economy is diversified.<br />
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Several years ago, Sri Lanka was the battleground in a civil war. Government forces were battling a terrorist group called the Tamil Tigers. Don't confuse these guys with the Detroit Tigers. Tamil is a state in Southern India where many Sri Lankans are descended from. The Tamils make up about 15% of the population of Sri Lanka; they are primarily Hindus; and they claimed to be persecuted by the Buddhist Sinhalese. Their aim was to set up an independent country on the North part of the island.<br />
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According to our guide, the Tamil Tigers were a Marxist organization run by a psychopath, one Velopillai Prabhakaran who was wanted by Interpol for murder, organized crime, you name it. Their contribution to world culture was the suicide vest. They pioneered the use of women to wear the vests. <br />
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The organization's other claim to fame was its assassination of two world leaders--former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lanka President Ramasinghe Premadasa in 1993, not to mention other high ranking officials. The U.S. declared the Tamil Tigers a terrorist organization, even more fearsome than Al Queda. Eventually, in 2009, the Sri Lanks military caught up with Prabhakaran and killed him in a gun battle. With the loss of their charismatic leader, the terror organization faded away quickly after that, and the country today is safe for tourists. <br />
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Kandy Kingdom<br />
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Kandy, a city of 125,000 in the central highlands, is the second largest city in Sri Lanka. It is interesting, not necessarily because of its name, but for the fact that beginning in the 1400's, it was the capital of the Kandyan Kingdom, an independent country which successfully fended off the Portuguese, the Dutch and others, until the British defeated them in 1815 and incorporated the kingdom into Ceylon. <br />
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Even after that, the Kandy people weren't easy to subdue, and the Uva Rebellion in 1818 created a tragic situation. Between the British massacre of thousands, and European diseases like smallpox, the population of Kandyland was decimated and was never a threat again<br />
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Kandy is considered a sacred city to the Buddhists. Its most famous shrine is the Temple of the Tooth and should be on the bucket list for dentists around the world. It is one of the holiest places of worship and pilgrimage for Buddhists because it contains the Relic of the Tooth of the Buddha. Apparently somebody got the Buddha's dentist to testify that this was the real McCoy, and the pilgrims overwhelmed the place. The Temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. <br />
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You may recognize Kandy from the movie, <em>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</em> which was filmed there. <br />
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PHUKET, THAILAND<br />
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Before you get in trouble, I want to point out the Thais pronounce the city "Poo-ket". . Phuket, on the coast of the Andaman Sea, is a popular resort area of Thailand. Among its sister cities are Nice, France and Las Vegas. Phuket suffered major damage and loss of life in the great tsunami of 2004. <br />
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We hired a local guide to drive us to the Tiger Sanctuary. We first signed a waiver that no attorney would recommend signing, and we were allowed to walk into a tiger cage containing 5 full grown tigers. We were accompanied by a photographer and a trainer wielding a 2 foot stick to control the animals. The Tiger Sanctuary appears to derive much of its income from selling photographs and t-shirts with photographs engraved upon them. The tigers were raised from infancy, so they are accustomed to people.<br />
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As you can imagine, there are lots of rules. Don't approach the tiger from the front. Don't start running. Don't take flash pictures. Sudden movements are out. Beyond that, you can pull the tail, rub the animal's belly, hug the animal. I would expect that the tigers were fed before we entered the cage, so long as they didn't feast on the previous group of tourists. As a practical matter, tigers sleep a lot in the daytime, and the handlers sprinkle water on the animal's paw to get him to raise his head or open his mouth. <br />
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No visit to Phuket is complete without visiting the Big Buddha, built about 10 years ago as a tourist attraction for devout Buddhists and other tourists. It is set on the crest of a tall mountain outside of town, and the view is spectacular. This statue of white Burma marble is enormous and can be seen for miles around. It is about 150 feet high and over 80 feet in width at the base. It was and is financed with private donations. We found donation boxes all over the place. This is the Buddhist version of the Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio de Janiero. <br />
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SINGAPORE<br />
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Our cruise ended in Singapore, the Lion City, one of the richest cities in the world. Its location straddles the shipping lanes through the Straits of Malacca, one of the most lucrative trade routes in the world. Its wealth is derived from its industrious people, mostly Chinese, who control those major trade routes. You can see all of this from the top of the Singapore Flyer, a huge Ferris Wheel from which you can see container ships backed up offshore for miles in the harbor. Many of these are for rent, like Hertz Rent a Container Ship. <br />
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This was our second trip to Singapore, and we once again stayed at the nearby Conrad Centennial Hotel, across the street from the massive Suntech Mall on three levels. The malls in Singapore dwarf those in the U.S., and it is easy to get lost. We stopped in the mall currency exchange to exchange our leftover Rupees and also some dollars. You get 140 Singapore dollars for 100 American dollars. <br />
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After about a mile of wandering in the mall, we finally found the McDonalds. For lunch, I got the Golden Prosperity Extra Value Meal. It consisted of a juicy beef burger, black pepper sauce, a crispy hashed brown and some onion on a sesame seed bun. The price was reasonable and I thought the sandwich was pretty good. I don't think they serve that sandwich in the States. Dianne didn't like it, however, so I took her to the nearby Burger King. <br />
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We had only a day to spend in Singapore, and we wanted to visit the market where the local shop. We took a taxi to the Bugis Village, a mile or two away. This was the low rent district, with many stalls selling bogus (you can joke about the name) merchandise like t-shirts, caps and cheap tops catering to tourists. There is a classier mall across the street also with the Bugis name. <br />
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Gum Control Laws<br />
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In the West, Singapore is known for its strict gum control laws, passed in 1992. The same law also controls alcohol and tobacco. It is not against the law to chew gum, only to sell or import it, broadly defined--you can't bring it into the country for any reason. This law is strictly enforced, and there is a $700 fine for spitting it out on the street.. There is an exception for dental or nicotine gum provided you have a doctor's prescription. The reason for the law is that vandals were gumming up the works (elevators, keyholes, mailboxes) in high rise housing, and the door sensors in the $5 billion local railway system. The repairs were costly and time consuming. <br />
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Draconian fines and possible imprisonment solved the problem. We're talking up to $100,000 for gum trafficking (first offense) and up to 2 years imprisonment. As a result, the streets and sidewalks of Singapore are very clean. There is not even a black market for gum.<br />
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The Western press seized upon a 1994 case in which an American teen, Michael Fay was sentenced to caning for vandalism. Fay was actually prosecuted for using spray paint, not chewing gum. Notwithstanding the press coverage, caning is not a penalty for gum offenses. We may find it cruel and unusual punishment, but under British rule before Singapore became independent, caning was a very common punishment. <br />
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A BBC reporter suggested to long time President Lee Kuan Yew that such harsh penalties would stifle people's creativity. Yew's response was, "If you can't think because you can't chew, try a banana!"<br />
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Gum control came up in the negotiations between the U.S. and Singapore for a bi-lateral free trade agreement. The negotiations dragged on for 5 years until 2004, and the sticking points were the War in Iraq and chewing gum. The Wrigley Company hired a Washington lobbyist and obtained the help of my congressman Phil Crane who was then chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade, to get gum on the agenda. It was a sticky situation for Singapore, and the parties agreed to amend the free trade agreement to allow certain medicinal gum (Orbit) provided it was sold by a dentist or pharmacist who would be required to take down the names of buyers. <br />
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kensuskinreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17592545728631356944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3658744005751559711.post-10921605826422812872017-02-19T19:21:00.000-08:002017-02-19T19:38:18.469-08:00AROUND THE WORLD IN 21 DAYS PART TWO--FENDING OFF HOSTILE INDIANS AND WATCHING THE UNTOUCHABLESIndia is a land of contracts, to say the least. They don't appear to have zoning laws. As a result, you see magnificent luxury buildings standing side by side with shanty towns. The residents of the shanty towns live in squalor. Garbage is strewn around wherever you look. Pigs and goats roam freely through the trash, foraging for food. Did I mention the cattle which are sacred to the Hindus. These folks feed the cattle and presumably used them for milk, but they don't eat them. <br />
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There are over a billion people in India, and the cities we visited, Mumbai (Bombay), Delhi, Agra, Mangalore and Cochin are teeming with people. India has 29 states and 7 union territories. In ancient times, the country was named after the Indus River which flows across Pakistan which used to be part of India. <br />
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Fashionwise, India is the only country where Nehru jackets are still in style. Our tour bus meandered through the fetid streets and crowded markets of Mumbai. There doesn't appear to be a lot of street crime despite what one would expect in poor areas. Eventually, we reached a modern expressway built over the bay and then we quickly got to the airport.<br />
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Several billboards display the larger than life likeness of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is the most powerful man in the country. He grew up poor, the son of a street vendor in Gujarat state, not far from Mumbai. He is considered a Hindu nationalist, right wing politician who greatly upsets Pakistan. That alone makes him popular in India. Modi's policies are intended to achieve economic growth for India, and environmental concerns take a back seat. For example he took action to suppress the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and other human rights groups on the grounds that they interfere with economic growth. These groups, the Muslims and others compare Modi to Donald Trump, and not in a good way. India also has a president, but that position is largely ceremonial. <br />
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Modi has created some controversy recently when he made a big push to convince the people to use toilets. In India, that can be an uphill battle. Even with government subsidies to encourage people to install them, people still have to be persuaded to<em> use</em> them. Until then Indians must watch where they step. The Untouchables will clean up the mess.<br />
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Speaking of Untouchables, in India, people live by the caste system. These are not the Eliot Ness Untouchables. The Indian Untouchables are also known as the Dalits (Sanskrit word for "oppressed"). We're talking millions of people. Incidentally, today, it is illegal in India to use the term "Dalit" (the D word) to describe a class of people. Now they are officially called "schedule caste", The caste system dates back to ancient times, but the British Raj found the system useful in administering the country. Essentially lower caste people could not own land and were restricted to certain menial jobs.<br />
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The way it works is that there are 4 castes. The Brahmin (priests) are on top; then come the Kahatryla (warriors and rulers); Viasya (merchants, landowners, skilled workers) and Sudra (unskilled workers). Then, below that are the Untouchables, or out of caste (outcasts) who were restricted to jobs like cleaning latrines, street sweeping and collecting garbage. They were segregated from polite society. These folks were not allowed in temples and forced to live outside of town. It is not necessarily a racial thing because the Brahmins and the Dalits are of the same racial stock. However, in my observation, many of the poor were dark skinned.<br />
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In India, occupations were and are handed down from father to son. There is not a lot of upward mobility in India although the Indian government has affirmative action policies to help out the lower castes. The Prevention of Atrocities Act was passed in 1989, but we still read about ugly situations like gang rapes.<br />
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Today there are Dalits in the legislature, and some have achieved high office, such as President and Chief Justice. The first female speaker of the Indian legislature was a Dalit. By and large though, the poor kids, at least the ones we saw, don't attend school, so there is not much hope they will ever improve themselves. <br />
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The Indian government does have a welfare system, but traditionally it has been corrupt, with middlemen taking a share of the money/food intended for the poor. The government is trying to do something about that, but obviously, much needs to be done.<br />
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Because of the squalid conditions, we were warned not to eat street food, drink only bottled water and not breathe the air. The latter is hard to do, but many people wear masks. The dreaded "Delhi belly" is to be avoided at all costs. The more modern version is "New Delhi belly" which you might catch from eating at the New Delhi deli. Safety doesn't appear to overly concern the Indians. We saw many unsafe conditions like excavations not roped off and no danger signs. People have to look out for themselves.<br />
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We flew from Mumbai to Delhi on Jet Airways, a local Indian airline. They serve you a full Indian lunch on the 2 hour flight. I took my chances and ate the spicy curry dish with no ill effects. Our friend Cheryl from New York also ate the food. The rest of our traveling companions pretty much stuck to the <em>naan</em> bread which is like a tasty flatbread. The<em> naan</em> bread is like non bread and can be compared to a tortilla. <br />
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Delhi was the capital of India for many years until they built New Delhi close by. We stayed two nights at the 5 star Trident Hotel in Delhi. The buffet was an epicurean delight with many varieties of meats, seafood, breads, desserts, all prepared Indian style. Indian cooking makes generous use of rice, lentils and curries. Many dishes are vegetarian, but lamb and chicken are popular. Most dishes are served with pungent sauces. <br />
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VISITING THE TAJ MAHAL<br />
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No visit to India is complete without seeing the Taj Mahal. It is located in Agra in the North Central part of the country in Uttar Pradesh state. We took a high speed train South from Delhi. The train station in Delhi is an experience by itself. Thousands of people pass through the station each day, and keeping it clean is a futile job. The trains generally run on time. Most Indians get around by train if at all possible. As our train waited in the station, another train was pulling out, and I saw several men quickly sneak onto that train while it was moving. <br />
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We had our own railroad car at the back of the train for the 120 people on our tour. The train car has seen better days but it is functional though not luxurious. On the back of the car is a bathroom with a hole in the floor and outlines of where to put your feet when you do your business. I'm not sure what they do for No. 2. On the other end of the car was an "American" style bathroom with an actual toilet for the women. <br />
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To our surprise, they serve you a full lunch on the train, but we had just eaten on the airplane and after watching the sights, we were in no mood to eat. The train pulled out of the station and cruised through the outskirts of Delhi where we could observe how the Indians live, and it isn't pretty. The effluvia is everywhere. Were talking run down shacks with tin roofs. Most of the people burn trash out in front of their homes, apparently for cooking.. Plastic bags don't burn efficiently so they accumulate near the tracks. To me, it seems like the government could hire thousands of idle people to pick up trash, but they don't. Many of the people tend small garden plots to raise food. In the countryside, people worked the fields without equipment. Cattle roamed freely among the people. We even saw a large sow with her piglets foraging through the garbage. <br />
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In the countryside, the train picked up speed, eventually going over 100 mph, but had to slow down when entering a town because of people and animals milling about near the tracks. I was amazed this ancient train could go that fast.<br />
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In Agra, a tour bus took us from the train station to a transfer point a few blocks from the Taj Mahal. Then we had to transfer to a smaller, electric powered bus, probably for security reasons, to get to the Taj. When we arrived, we were besieged by an army of peddlers and panhandlers, shoving trinkets in our faces. The panhandlers are pathetic. Most are missing limbs or handicapped in some other way, some severely. I'm not sure what kind of safety net is provided by the government for these people, but the idea here is to make you feel so bad you hand them a few Rupees. From my considerable experience with panhandlers, if you give to one, many others will magically appear out of nowhere.<br />
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The Taj Mahal is magnificent, of course. It looks just like the pictures. Often it is partially obscured by smog which is everywhere in India. The Indians burn coal and garbage, and this stuff gets in your lungs and permeates everything. Fortunately, the day we visited, the smog cleared up somewhat and we got a good view of the structure. <br />
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The 4 minarets framing the main building are not physically connected to it. The architects recognized that Agra is in an earthquake zone and didn't want a quake to topple them onto the main structure. The building is remarkably well constructed for a 17th Century building. The architects noted that the soil is sandy, and they sank caissons down to the bedrock to support the building. That was revolutionary for the time.<br />
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The 231 foot high Taj Mahal is constructed of white marble which is quarried locally. The structure is a fusion of Indian and Persian architecture. The marble was decorated by local craftsmen who carved intricate inlay designs decorating them with semi precious stones. You can't see them except up close. There are other buildings in the complex including a museum, but we didn't visit them.<br />
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Shah Jahan built the Taj as a mausoleum to his queen, Mumtaz Mahal who died in 1631 at age 38 shortly after giving birth to her 14th child. It was a love story, although the Royal Emperor had other wives also. Her last wish to her husband was that he construct a beautiful and incomparable monument over her grave as a token of their worldly inseparable love (her words, not mine). This was a classic jobs program. It took 20,000 laborers 22 years to finish the Taj Mahal. <br />
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There was a fair amount of intrigue inside the palace. Shah Jahan was eventually deposed by his son Aurangreb who placed him under house arrest in Agra Fort. He was held in the Burj Muasamman tower with a marble balcony and a view of the Taj Mahal. After he died, the government rehabilitated him and placed his body in the mausoleum next to his queen.<br />
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Agra was the capital of the Moghul Empire in Medieval times. Moghul as in Genghis Khan. The imposing 94 acre Agra Fort was the residence of the Moghul emperors until 1638 when they moved the capital to Delhi. The fort is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In effect, the fort is a walled city. It occupies the high ground and from the back one has a commanding view of the countryside and the Taj Mahal, about a mile and a half away. On the way from the Taj Mahal to Agra Fort, I stopped at McDonalds for a snack. <br />
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DELHI & NEW DELHI<br />
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Our bus drove us back from Agra to Delhi on the Interstate, at least the Indian version, and traffic was light until we got to Delhi. The distance is about 140 miles. The traffic in Delhi as well as in Mumbai, is horrendous. Delhi is incredibly congested, and the last 20 miles through the city can take 2 hours. A three lane highway becomes 5 lanes with drivers cutting in and out. Many people drive motor scooters which can squeeze between lanes, obviously very dangerous. As I said earlier, safety is not a big concern in this part of the world. To get us back to the hotel more quickly, our bus detoured off the main highway to see the capital complex in New Delhi. We passed the prime minister's house and the legislature. <br />
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The people got used to Delhi, and then they came out with a new version, Delhi 2.0, or New Delhi. In contrast to Old Delhi, New Delhi was built by the British in the early 20th Century and became the capital of India in 1947. The two cities together, comprising the National Capital Territory, are enormous with over 16 million people. <br />
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To return to our cruise ship, we flew Jet Airways from Delhi, back to Mumbai and change planes to Mangalore in the Southern part of India. We later learned there is a direct flight from Delhi to Mangalore, but apparently Celebrity determined it cheaper to fly the long, indirect way. In Mumbai, the airline made a decision to keep us on the same plane. However, we had to change seats to correspond with our boarding passes for the second flight. Most of us had bags stored in the overhead compartment The other passengers got off the plane, and they started loading the plane with the new passengers before we got a chance to find our new seats and move our overhead bags. The result was bedlam. <br />
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The new passengers were about 80 Muslim pilgrims, mostly old women dressed like nuns and missing teeth. These Indians were hostile. They had sharp elbows and didn't hesitate to use them while pushing their way through the narrow aisle. The women were illiterate and could not read their boarding passes. Our friend Cheryl from New York took charge. She stood in the aisle, and these women assumed she worked for the airline. They would show her the boarding passes, and she would point out the correct seat. Order was restored.<br />
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Indians, at least the civil servants are very bureaucratic. You must sit in the seat corresponding to your boarding pass--or else. Security is tight. They check your tickets and boarding passes at every turn.<br />
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COCHIN (KOCHI)<br />
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Cochin is located in Kerala state in the South of India. Culture is different in Cochin than in the Northern part of the country. The weather is hot and steamy, even in January. Cochin is tolerant to many religions. Cochin has a Jewish presence thousands of years old. Many of the Hindu buildings have 6 pointed stars engraved in them. Although the star is similar to the Star of David, it is also a Hindu symbol. Some of the Cochin Christians were thought to be Jews who were converted by the disciple St Thomas who traveled there in ancient times. Many of their customs are similar to those of the Jews. <br />
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We drove through Kerala state on the way to the coast, taking in the sights. To our surprise we saw numerous Christian churches and schools. Near the coast are waterways and canals on which thousands of people live on houseboats, many of which are elaborately decorated. Others rent out their houseboats to tourists like us, sometimes for days at a time. We took a pleasant cruise for an hour or so through the backwaters of Kochi observing how people in this area live. <br />
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One restaurant promoted its "homely" food on a billboard. We didn't stop in but we guessed the presentation would be less than attractive. <br />
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Cochin got its name from the fact that it was like China. For centuries, Cochin has been a cosmopolitan city, a key trading center with the Arabs and the Chinese. The Jews' presence in Cochin goes back to the days of King Solomon. They were called the Malabar Jews and their merchants were very prosperous. They controlled the pepper trade. The ancient Jews were dark skinned but those who came from Europe in the Middle Ages were light skinned and called the Paradisi ("foreign Jews) or "White Jews". <br />
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NEXT; SRI LANKA, PHUKET and SINGAPORE<br />
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