Categotry Archives: Travel
T13 – A Day’s Drive
1. We started the day in the North West tip of Washington, a bit north of Seattle.
T13 Victoria by Land and Sea
1. We had a little time to kill before the ferry took us back to the mainland, so we decided to take a short tour.
13 Shades of Green
1. We visited Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island. it’s one of the few remaining old-growth forests in North America.
13 Pictures From the Butterfly Gardens
1. Even if not for the butterflies, the gardens in the Nanimo area were lovely.
13 From Peak to Peak and Down
We took a gondola to one peak, a chair lift to the highest point, then rode the Peak to Peak gondola. 1. The gondolas that run from peak to peak are about twice as big as the gondola we took up the hill. The towers holding them are even bigger.
13 More Pictures from Mountain Tops
We arrived at the highest point of the mountain after a toe-tingling combination of gondola and ski lift rides. 1. These rustic guy statues were all around in Whistler. Looks better at the very top of the mountain. Notice the gap in the fence? It’s a hiking trail going down one side of the hill.
Canada – Alberta, British Columbia, and Vancouver Island
Seems each year I go on an adventure somewhere in the world. This Summer, that adventure was in Canada. My mother, daughter, and I went straight North to the Banff area in Alberta. From there we went West to Whistler, then on to Vancouver Island in British Columbia, then dropped into Washington and shot straight home. The mountains and glaciers around Banff are impressive. We stopped off at Lake Louise twice. the first time was only intended to be a […]
Welcome Page Until 3/2/14
I went to Mongolia this summer. It was quite the trip. We flew into Ulaanbaatar first, and made it our central hub. International flights limited us to a total of 44 lb. of luggage. Within Mongolia that limit drops down to 33 lb. So each time we left Ulaanbaatar we would leave one suitcase with part of our stuff and take another. Between each segment of the trip we spent a night at the same hotel. That’s where my only […]
Beijing
On out way to Mongolia, we stopped off in Beijing. We only spent a few hours in the airport and only left the international wing long enough to go through paperwork. We didn’t see much of anything. On the way back, we spent a night in town. A few decades ago I visited China a part of an education-based tour group through my university. At that time, Beijing was a third world country with a broken asphalt road between the […]
T13 – The Buddhist Monastery in the Illegal Mining Town
If I ever actually heard the name of this monastery, i didn’t get it written down, and I can’t translate the Cyrillic on the top of the building, so I’m not sure what to call it. 1. View from the parking lot. The place is on the edge of town. The building was built in 2011. The group dates back to 1990, and a proud to have such a long history. Remember, all religion was crushed under Communism.
One More Monastery
We stopped off at a monastery on our way back to Ulaanbaatar from the preserve. I never caught the name of it, so I can’t tell you, but of the three we visited, this was my favorite. And not just because it was so pretty inside. This monastery had a much more open attitude toward things like photography, the lifestyles of the monks, and friendliness to foreigners. They made us feel welcome.
T13: A Hike to the Slot Canyons
Yep, still Mongolia. We hiked in to the slot canyons. 1. This is the view at the end, looking back.
13 Pictures of Ulaanbaatar
By now you’ve probably noticed that I tend to mention Ulaanbaatar a fair amount. Considering it acted as our hub, this isn’t too surprising. It’s also the largest city and the political center of Mongolia. So, of course I noticed a few things. 1. We flew in to the Ulaanbaatar airport (officially the Chengus Kahn Airport) three times. From the air you can really see the river that runs right through it. We’re still a ways out in this shot, […]
Khovsgol Lake
Khovsgol Lake is one of the two largest lakes in Mongolia. It’s the largest by volume, but second largest by area. It’s at about 5,000 feet in elevation, which puts it pretty close to the elevation where I live. It’s close to Siberia. Though it was pretty comfortable when I was there, we talked to some people who had been there the week before, and they thought it was very cold. The main difference is that they had gotten more […]
The Dairy
One of the families we visited in Mongolia ran a dairy. Not that they called themselves that, but that everything they did revolved around cow milk.
