I managed, my final morning in DC, to explore the Smithsonian Institution’s remarkable gardens, which run between some of the museums and around the “castle,” its first building from the 1840’s. Mercifully, though the shutdown began the day I arrived in town, there were sufficient funds for the museums and gardens – which I’d never even taken time to notice, on past visits! — to remain open for a bit more than a week. I truly hope that, even as so much change comes to how the central government of the US uses the many tax dollars it receives, that support for this national treasure & pride will remain firm.
Above, your last shot of those Hajar Mountains over UAE on the Dhaka to Dubai run in September. Below, another of my new form of “in the air”-ness, taken from a gondola high above the valley of the Ticino river on my way to a mid-mountain stop that gave me access to a Tibetan hanging bridge that connected two villages without having to go up or down and around, not too long ago. You can see the shadow of my gondola on the mountainside, plus some of the city of Bellinzona in the center – left. Much more on both the Tibetan Bridge, and Bellinzona and its pivotal role in history, later… 🙂
The plan is to be back in close proximity to legitimate mountains for some quality time starting one week from today, so with any luck we won’t need to drag out these Hajar Mountain photos as seen while flying over the UAE and Oman last month for too many more entries, but being the wise blogger that I am, I did take more than one photo of this dry desert-dwelling mountain range, as you see 🙂
Departing Bangladesh a few weeks ago, I promised myself I’d keep an eagle eye out the window for anything I could legitimately call a mountain. Thus I offer you the Hajar Mountains in the northeastern UAE, most likely in the emirate of Fujairah, but possibly also in Ras al Khaimah or perhaps even Oman though I’m reasonably sure we were west of Oman by this point…
Today marks my 365th day in a row of posts here, and as the day dawns where I’m now living (also, as it happens, when this post will appear for you dear readers), I should be back in the air on yet another weary international flight for work. Or perhaps in another airport for another connection. (I’m scheduling this post before I head to the airport, if you’re curious…)In any case, it felt appropriate to open the “last day” with a new series, since any of you who’ve followed the blog over the years know I usually have a camera at hand and try to enjoy the perspective from the air when I’m on these long flights, so it’s always likely that there’ll be other opportunities for an entry in this new series. All the photos in this post were taken in the span of ten minutes as our flight approached Abu Dhabi’s airport in the wee hours of a morning last November. Interesting, what serious irrigation (and wealth to create that irrigation) can make of a desert, isn’t it?
More from that early-morning connection in Abu Dhabi’s airport last November. It seems I’ve maybe worked through all my remaining photos in such a manner that I can not only still bring you two posts per day until I hit my 365-day mark on Sunday, but actually have more or less no photos anyone would want me to post, once I’ve done that. And this grim weather here in A’dam means I’m rarely inspired – a lovely long sunny walk yesterday happened with a colleague, which meant I was so busy with work talk that I didn’t think to pull out the camera and take some canal photos. Ah well, the canals aren’t going anywhere and the sun will be back at some point even here. 🙂
Tee hee, those of you viewing this in email or on a small screen without the metadata tags will be lost. 🙂 It’s a desert city at whose airport I transferred while going in and out of Bangladesh back in late November – a trip that’s only showed up on this blog in two posts so far, I believe. I’m 99% confident that the green bit (the “park” of this title, as in something green) is a golf course. No comment. A short exploration of this city on maps (it’s tagged for those of you who choose to open the “full site”) doesn’t tell me what that red-roofed stadium-like structure is. On Sunday I will have posted at least one post per day for 365 days, and then we’ll take break. Hence my dive further afield now that we’ve exhausted nearly all of the photos I took while visiting Madeira last month… 😦
Well, now that I’ve been on four flights during times of covid, I figure I might as well show a few of you who are avoiding airports what it’s like: still mostly empty. On July 4, I flew Dhaka->Dubai->Chicago->SF. Then two days ago I flew SF -> Chicago to spend some time with family in Wisconsin for birthdays and such. There are a few more people in airports now than I saw when I came back into the country in July – in both O’Hare and SFO. It’s a bit sad and a bit alienating, but probably a good deal lower risk than many activities that lots of folks are doing now…and the flights are mighty inexpensive. It does all get a bit exhausting, though, doesn’t it…?
Today marks my 365th day in a row of posts here, and as the day dawns where I’m now living (also, as it happens, when this post will appear for you dear readers), I should be back in the air on yet another weary international flight for work. Or perhaps in another airport for another connection. (I’m scheduling this post before I head to the airport, if you’re curious…)
(so much world, so little time....) 