Bad Knees Travel

  The travel home and all of the chores that awaited me in combination to the utter overwhelming nature of whales and the Antarctic have delayed this part of the narrative. Photos of whales are mostly underwhelming. They are usually taken at a distance, and it happens so fast that by the time you remember that you want to take a photo, reach in your pocket to get what ever device you are using, and point the thing, the whale is gone. The other side of the experience is that the moment you see a whale, your life changes. The experience is so deeply moving. We saw several different whales: Humpback, Minkie, Orca.  Mostly we saw them from on the ship. It gave us height to be able to see the whales at a distance.  The orca we saw were playing in the bow wave. My photos didn't take Those on the kayak expedition has one that surface right in the middle of them. Many of us got to post at HappyWhale.com   And then this happened. Turn off your sound. I am clueless about video...

Map: https://goo.gl/maps/PbwEayN92AEDyYiQ7 Out and back or a circle if you go into town. Distance roughly .7 mile from the parking area to the road on the other end. Gentle hill. Dog friendly,  wheelchair accessible,  but muddy. Kissing gate and road gate at the parking lot. Clean outhouse at about halfway.  Benches and we'll marked side trail. I'm taking a break from posting on my polar expedition to comment on a lovely and typical Midwales walk. Photo the sign for the side trails.  You can add to this basic hike,  or let the fast walkers get a stretch.  Today had a rare promise of spring to come. I even saw snow drops on the side of the road.  The Allt Goch is a well traveled path thru a Beech forest. Walking it in late January one can feel the trees starting to consider budding out. I met more than one person turning towards that bright object in the southern sky.  "What is...

First granddaughter, like her mum, has a February birthday.  So Asian New Year always lands on their birthday.  Her teacher is using the moment to present China for the geography unit.  What a perfect time to prepare an origami instruction. Paper:  This offers a good place to use those odd pieces saved from other cuts. The fold is forgiving, most standard weights  will work.    I did this with a strip of wrapping paper that I drew in scales Size: 4-5cm wide by 20-35cm long. Printer paper can be cut to 6 pieces if cut crosswise, 4 if cut long wise. Difficulty: This is a very forgiving fold. The hardest part are the small rabbit ear folds on the head and the thickness in the fold in half towards the end.  Authorship:  Unknown. I have seen several variations of this fold. This is my interpretation of this dragon, and my diagram.  Teaching opportunities: The twin rabbit ears are good repet...

  I love rocks, and maps. And maps of rocks.  Mountains are basically really big rocks, This trip was on the Antarctic Peninsula. This is in the western part of the continent. It is largely volcanic and associated with the Andes mountain that run down the west side of South America. This post doesn't have much to say, just a few comments with some of the photos. Enjoy. Blogger is not happy with my choice of map, so here is a link to a good one:  Map from Wikipedia   My greatest frustration on this trip, like on the Galapagos, is we were not allowed to pick up rocks. Not even tiny pebbles. It is a biosecurity thing, but I secretly suspect that they worry about when they have to off load my luggage.  Typical of most of our hikes snow surrounded by huge rocks. Look at the penguins, think about how they walk. They have to navigate over all of these rocks to get to the land places where they nest. This was one of our dry landings.   I failed to get a good s...

  I lied.  There are no Sealions, only Seals. Also no walrus. I am not a marine biologist, so any identification here is my bad memory of what someone else said. To me all of them look like large slugs on the beach. Still, to see them in their own place is a rare treat. My last post was a lot of talking, and not much photos. This time I will mostly shut up and let you look at the photos I have listed this fellow on happywhale.com More about them later While the penguins keep their distance from the seals at sea,  on land they seem to have no issue with them Some times, they just look like the rocks Seal tracks across the snow