We have spent the last couple of days in New Jersey, visiting with Zoya and Vladimir (friends we first met in St Petersburg, Russia in 1992), seeing the last of the Fall Colors, visiting the New York PhotoPro expo, and shopping for last minute items for Iceland. Today we moved to East Village in New […]
Always a Parade
As I have said before, Ecuadorians will start a parade at the drop of a hat, and for almost any reason. Apparently this applies to Peru too. We went in the town of Tumbes, and quickly came across these school kids preparing for a parade on the theme of ecology. Taxis in Cuenca are plentiful, but […]
A Free Lunch
Whoever said there is no such thing as a free lunch was obviously not thinking of blue footed boobies around a fisherman’s catch! The boobies would stand around the crates of fish being brought in by fishermen. As soon as the men turned their backs (with only a couple exceptions, they were all men), the […]
Dramatic Elevator Rescue
Today we embarked on a short trip to Northern Peru, traveling with Alberto and Maite Soriano. It started off on an exciting note — we were stuck in an elevator! We loaded up our small packs and camera bag and got in the elevator at 6AM to go down to meet Alberto and Maite. The […]
Lift Off!
Like many kids, I was enthralled with space exploration. I remember going outside at night to watch Sputnik go overhead in 1957. I saved extra copies of the newspaper when was I a paper-boy the day John Glen went around the earth in a Mercury capsule in 1961. And I actually helped design the mirror […]
Hit By Dragon Snot
Entering Hogsmead felt like Harry first showing up in town, not sure where to turn We are both fans of the Harry Potter books and movies, so when coming to Florida, we had to stop by and see the new Harry Potter World. We bought a two day pass to let us go to Adventure […]
Ringling Circus Museum
Sarasota, Florida was the home of Ringling Bros Circus, and now presents the Ringling Bros Art Museum. Upon entering, the first thing you see is a massive circus in miniature, covering 3700 square feet, reproducing in astonishing detail an early circus lot. The original circus would typically cover an area of 30 acres, requiring 1000 […]
Everglades Airboat
This afternoon we drove from Miami to Naples, across the Florida Everglades. Along the way, we stopped at Buffalo Tiger’s Everglades Airboat tours. We have seen these airboats periodically on TV and in the movies, and this was our chance to see what they were like to ride. This tour guide had the highest rating […]
Lock and Load
Yesterday we went to a pistol firing range for the first time. Today we upped the ante, and went to a machine gun firing range called Lock and Load! We started out with nearly an hour of explanation of what the various gun choices were, and then training on how to stand and fire. These […]
Bulls Eye
We went this morning to the Stone Hart shooting range in Miami, and each fired 25 rounds of a Glock 9mm pistol for the first time in our lives. We have watched cop shows and action movies for years, and wondered “is it really that hard to hit something?” We decided to go try it […]