While in South Africa, arriving Oct 18 and leaving Oct 25, the wife and I took 4091 pictures, used 9.9GB of hd space (on the laptop, we have two 1GB CF cards), almost filled both cards one day as we were on a tour the whole day and couldn’t download the pictures until we returned, almost fully used both batteries in 1 day (again, because we were on a whole day tour).
We are planning on going up north (Mackinaw City, Pictured Rocks in Munising, MI) so I thought I’d check and find out if we might be able to see the Northern Lights.
I found a web site: http://www.spacew.com/www/aurora.html that shows up-to-date information on the areas that can likely see activity. Unfortunately, it seems the visibility is VERY far north so we won’t be seeing anything.
There are some cool pictures: http://www.spacew.com/gallery/image001688.html This one is from a city named Christmas in Michigan, which is very close to Munising, but not enough sun (spot?) activity means we didn’t have a chance of seeing anything.
We’ll have to plan another trip when the activity is high becaues I really want to see the Northern Lights.
We went to Washington DC for the extended weekend.
Meet John and Renata, saw the sights, nearly froze our tails off.
Subway systems still piss me off. They don’t take you extactly where you want to go, they don’t run on time, transfering wastes time.
The weather was pretty bad. We had clear skies when we arrived at 3am and saw (no pictures) a cool moon over the capital and the Washington Monument. The weekend was rainy and cold. Monday was clear, but even colder! Especially with the wind.
The buildings were very cool and almost all of the “attractions” were free. It was quite nice considering it used to hold the title: Murder capital of the US.
So we spent the long weekend in New York.
First, NEVER EVER EVER fly on US Airways. What a joke.
Yeah, most of the delays were weather related but the service, organization, facilities, etc are substandard at least.
I tried to save money by getting a ticket that went through Pittsburg on the way to LaGuardia (and through Philidalphia on the way back). While it cost half as much it was more than twice the pain.
Our taxi ride was an par with the flight service: horrible. He didn’t know where he was going even though I gave him the address written down and a map! At the end he implied that we should get out (in New York at 3am, not knowing where we were) and try to find the apartment ourselves. Luckily we were just next door to it.
We arrived late (bed at 3am) and awoke late. Saturday the weather was not so great, but didn’t rain on us much. The kindness of our Mundo Pequeno friends was great. They took time out of their days to show us around (the south end of) Manhattan.
Sunday the weather was extremely nice, very sunny but not too hot. Unfortunately this meant everyone was out and the line to see the Statue of Liberty was HUGE, so we didn’t go. But Central Park was very nice to have lunch in. The view from The Empire State Building was very nice, however the 1 hour line was aggravting.
Monday was another rainy day, not to mention how tired we were from the previous days, so we attempted to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art but it was closed, so we went to the Guggenheim Museum. Their no camera policy is a bit annoying to say the least.
Fortunately the taxi ride to the airport was much smoother.
I do want to see the Statue of Liberty and our new friends in New York (Lilia, Monica, Aline, Leo and Amanda), but other than that, I don’t have much desire to return to the big apple.
OUCH!
I love the sun, I love to be tan, but this hurts! My back is pretty bad (luckily I could sleep fairly well last night) and the tops of my feet are REALLY red.
Muskegon was very beautiful, as you can see from the pictures:
The water was a little too cold though. Luciana managed to go in, but I didn’t because my feet were almost numb, the water was so cold.
The weather wasn’t super hot, 80F/26C and the wind was constantly blowing, enough to keep you pretty cool.
So my mom, step-dad, mother-in-law, father-in-law, wife and myself go to Traverse City (see Luciana’s web site for the pictures…I took a couple of them!). Its a very nice city, but I can’t imagine how much snow they get in the winter, not to mention their summer is probably 2-3 months maximum.
I was too tired to wake up in the middle of the night to try to see the northern lights, but some how I doubt they are visible (though my mom read a story that someone saw them from Ohio, which I find impossible to believe). Definately something that must be done is seeing the northern lights: Aurora Borealis.
All of Michigan is covered with lakes and rivers, great for canoeing. Even for my parents and myself as seasoned canoeing experts, this river at Ranch Rudolf was fast compared to what I’m used to. But we still had fun, didn’t fall in, saw some birds and a raccoon (though he ran away before we got to take a picture). It was a great weekend, except for the car sickness. I can’t wait till someone invents a better way to travel.
Being in Traverse City means we were half way between the equator and the north pole, so we were at “The 45th Parallel”.