Still Gravity

She was drunk. Very drunk. Dancing in the narrow hall between bar stools and dining tables at the tune of Spanish songs that she didn’t understand and with puzzled servers zigzagging all around under enormous trays.  She didn’t care. She didn’t care until hunger hit her belly. And that was when I came to the rescue. Food order translated, and the blond girl from Midwest America with a plastic crown of  Feliz Año Nuevo  said, “Can I join your table?”  “Why not?” I replied.  And we ate and drank and talked and danced until 12 when we kissed each other for a lot longer than what a normal friendship advice for a new year celebration.  When did we leave?  Nobody knows.  I grabbed a bottle of wine and she took her cheap plastic crown, and also a high-pitched whistle that screamed all around that she was the happiest girl in the town.  Laughing and drinking, we walked the cold streets of the old Segovia. The one of the Roman aqueduct and the mighty Alcázar where she became queen for a night. 

Photo from the 2006 trip to Alaska- License our images  here . High altitude sickness is a serious problem that can hit anyone hiking or camping over the 6,500 feet. We suffered one episode camping at over 8,000 feet and wasn't fun. Shortness of breath, nausea, discomfort in the chest. This condition is poorly understood and affects some people and spares others. It can be fatal. There are three variants: Acute Mountain Sickness   (the less severe), High-Altitude Cerebral Edema (very dangerous   swelling of the brain), and High-Altitude Pulmonary Edema (fluid in the lungs; very dangerous). The symptoms overlap and may appear one hour after arrival to high elevation or many hours later. The list includes headache, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, lethargy, mental confusion, loss of coordination, sleeping troubles, hallucinations, blueish skin, and persistent cough.  How to prevent this?  Climb

Life is risk and risk and life go together. But we are wary of risk and, therefore, we create insurances to manage risks. The idea is ancient. It began in the times of the  Code of Hammurabi .  Insurance companies chase our deepest fears, but true that they can mitigate risks. Just don't be mistaken in one thing: insurances can't beat fate. How many risks can our insurances manage? Life is risk.  As long as everyone has ten thousand insurance everyone's happy.                       Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

The impact happened 50,000 years ago - License our images  here .          This was the old Canyon Diablo or  Barringer  crater in Arizona. Thirty miles east from the city of Flagstaff and over five south from the I-40, this meteor crater is 3,900 feet wide and 500 deep (1,188 and 152 meters). The impacting object was a meteor 159 feet long (~48 meters) made of nickel and iron.   The force of the impact flipped layers of the terrain.  The old name of Canyon Diablo comes from a ghost town located to the northwest of the crater. This was the place of the  Canyon Diablo shootout where John Shaw was killed in 1905 - learn more about the gone town  here .  There are guided tours to walk on the rim.  

It was his first conference in twenty years. Forgotten his social skills after long wanderings through the wildness of the Magellan Cloud, he felt uneasy. After the exposition, the Q&A flowed better and the best question came from a skinny reporter with enormous glasses. "Which was the weirdest world you found out there?"   "The weirdest?... Umm." The scientist and explorer hesitated for a couple of seconds.  "In a system with a minor star, right on the third planet, I found the weirdest world of all. It's a world of violent people. People easily offended by words. And all got to such an extreme that they removed genre from their language. There is not 'she' or 'he'. Everybody became 'it'. And there is more. They proscribed some colors because of their skin tones. For their languages, the words white, black, and yellow don't exist anymore. They call this 'political correctness'. A weird thing indeed." "And d

The amazing blue of Lake Tahoe - License our images  here . Everybody knows Lake Tahoe - at least from pictures in magazines or the web. How can anyone forget these cobalt blue waters surrounded by Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines? Lake Tahoe was the "lake of the sky" of the Washoe Indians . And then, in 1844, came  John Fremont  and called it the "Mountain Lake".  The best views? Emerald Bay. Ancient glaciers carved this bay and left at its center the only island of Lake Tahoe: Fannette Island.  Fannette Island in Emerald Bay.  Someone came and built The Tea House on top of the tiny island. The building looks like a little castle from the distance. This became the home of the exuberant British captain Dick Barter . He moved here in 1863 and died in the lake during a storm. Ironic end for a vete

One mile farther and I come to a second grave beside the road, nameless like the other, marked only with the dull blue-black stones of the badlands. I do not pause this time. The more often you stop the more difficult it is to continue. Stop too long and they cover you with rocks.                           Edward Abbey, Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside People die every year in summer hikes. Heat kills, and it happens fast. Ten minutes separate life from death in a desert. The odds of finding help on time are against us. We need to learn before venturing in. Our lives depend on it - and using common sense.   Following C on a dune hiking adventure in Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado - License our images  here . These notes are my reminders for desert hikes. Take them as general ideas. I advise nothing here. Research all you read on this pa

Small farm in the Navajo Nation - License our images  here . Be still and the earth will speak to you. Navajo proverb.  Out from the Grand Canyon, we went through the second largest American Indian reservation in the United States. The vast territory covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.  We stopped by the city of Window Rock, the  Tségháhoodzání of the Navajo. This is their capital. The Indian name means "rock-with-hole-through-it" - check the picture . There is a museum, a zoo, and a botanic garden. Navajos are famous for their military missions during World War II. They served as "code talkers" because of their complex language. There is a movie about this called  Windtalkers .  Fort Defiance is some miles north of Window Rock. This town began with a US Army fort built in 1851.

Ready for a night of tales around the fire -  License our images here .         This post is hot. Sure, it's about campfires. Campfires are a simple thing, but we've different log patterns to choose from depending on needs.  For easy lighting : Lay the wood in the shape of a tipi. Put the fire starter - tinder and kindling - at the center. The conical arrange of the logs provides some cover from the wind. When the fire grows, the heat goes upwards, and the flames grow high - depending on the amount of wood. Caveat: These fires burn fast.  For a lasting fire : Two options: The "log cabin" arrangement or the one called "platform", "upside down", or "pyramid". For the first one, create a square-shaped structure alternating layers of logs - it will look like the walls of a log cabin. Put tinder and kindling in the middle. Fire it up. The "upside down" arrangement needs more

Funny episode that left us with many photos. After a day of biking in Everglades National Park , we stopped for lunch in the picnic area of Long Pine Key. A male northern cardinal appeared from nowhere and took possession of our pickup truck. The bad-tempered bird - License our images  here .         This red male - the females are light brown - had a very bad temper. It fought its own reflection on the mirror and the window glass of the truck. The cardinal moved from one to the other as if fighting two birds.  Cardinals defend their nesting area from intruders, so this is a normal response. These birds don't pass the " mirror test " - the "mirror self-recognition test" created by psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr in the 1970s. They don't have self-awareness and see the reflection as another bird. More pictures of our brav