Astonishingly, I’ve never been to Indonesia.
Bali is a magnet for YouTube creators.
And it does look like fun.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. Benn TK is one of my favourite travel vloggers.
When will I visit Bali?
Justin Cronin’s Vampire Trilogy
White heroic action guy transports and protects a girl who is somehow immune to the plague.
… Sound familiar? 😀
One season of a TV adaptation was made. Audience 85% on Rotten Tomatoes.
But critics didn’t like it. Not renewed.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Justin Cronin is a graduate of Harvard and former professor of English at Rice.
He’s competent.
But I don’t buy this bloated, confusing trilogy.
It should be 8-9 books in logical sequence rather than 3 massive volumes in seemingly random order.
It’s sometimes compared with King’s The Stand (1978) — but that’s being very generous. The Stand is much better.
Nora Roberts’ Year One is much better.
King said he liked the Passage series, however.
The Passage focuses on Project Noah, a secret medical facility where scientists are experimenting with a dangerous virus that could lead to the cure for all disease, but also carries the potential to wipe out the human race.
… begins in 2016 and spans more than ninety years, as colonies of humans attempt to live in a world filled with superhuman creatures who are continually on the hunt for fresh blood. …
… two sections: the first and shorter section covers the origins of the virus and its outbreak, while the second is set 93 years after the infections, primarily following a colony of survivors living in California. …
I quite enjoyed the long book and was keen to press on.
Good characters. I was never lost.
It’s said the middle book of a trilogy is typically worst.
The Twelve is worse.
Four plot lines. Too many characters.
Too much confusing jumping forward and backward in time.
I didn’t like the characters and their stories nearly as much as in the first book.
The ending was probably the best part. It did tie up some of the many, many loose threads. Of course it made no sense. How does an explosion kill super beings and yet leave mere mortals alive?
The City of Mirrors (2016) is the final book in the trilogy.
The back story of patient zero, Tim Fanning, is pretty much a novella embedded in the 3rd book. It is interesting, however.
Ending of the trilogy?
Doesn’t make much sense to me.
This could have been 3 excellent books rather than a hodge hodge of 8.5 rambling books.
Sleep Above a Glacier for $14 /night
The bivouac “Gervasutti” stands on a rocky outcrop at the altitude of 2835 m, beneath the spectacular walls of Grandes and Petites Jorasses. …
The new hut is built with a modular chassis in sandwich composite and internally organized into 2 areas (the dining room, and dormitory with 12 beds) ….
The approach to the bivouac is in harsh environment, long and tiring that takes place mostly without path or track. Very easy to lose the way. Many yellow signals and stone piles indicate the routes, but in a very rough. Pay attention to overcome a creek that becomes very dangerous during the afternoon. …
SummitPost
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Once You Go This Far by Kristen Lepionka
The start of this book sees an experienced hiker somehow fall to her death at the bottom of a ravine in a Columbus, Ohio park.
Suspicious.
Her daughter, Maggie, doesn’t believe it was an accident, and Rebecca’s ex-husband is her prime suspect. But he’s a well-connected ex-cop and Maggie is certain that’s the reason no one will listen to her.
PI Roxane Weary quickly uncovers that the dead woman’s ex is definitely a jerk, but is he a murderer? …
kristenlepionka.com
Not a bad book. Slow to come together, however.
I was 2/3rds finished before Roxane starts to get anywhere.
It’s got something to do with that secretive church group.
Salzburg, Austra ➙ Red Bull Museum
Dietrich Mateschitz made a fortune selling Red Bull drinks to everyone — except me.
A typical rightwing billionaire, he died in 2022.
But the Red Bull legacy lives on.
… Hangar-7 in Salzburg, Austria, hosting a collection of historical airplanes, helicopters and Formula One racing cars, and serving as home for the Flying Bulls, a private aircraft fleet stationed in Salzburg.
Hangar-7 is owned by Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz.
It houses the Michelin-starred restaurant Ikarus,[1] two bars and a lounge.
The building is airfoil shaped, constructed of 1,200 tons of steel and 75,000 sqft of glass surface. “Hangar 8” is the name of the maintenance facility. …
I boycott motor sports myself, but if you like Formula 1, Hangar-7 is a bit of a pilgrimage destination.
I did get to try jumping from 39 kilometres (24 mi) above planet earth ➙ Red Bull Stratos.
It’s free. Worth the visit out by the airport.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie
Recommended.
They Came to Baghdad is an adventure novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the 1951. …
The book was inspired by Christie’s own trips to Baghdad with her second husband, archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, and is also one of few Christie novels belonging to the action and spy fiction genres, rather than to mysteries and whodunnits. …
The lead character is a treat. Victoria Jones, a penniless but astonishingly audacious young Brit with no actual life skills, finds her way to Baghdad in an attempt to woo a young man she’d only met briefly.
A stranger dies in her room.
Robert Barnard: “Fairly preposterous example of thriller-type Christie, but livelier than some. Engaging heroine and unusually good minor characters – archeologists, hotelkeeper, etc. The plot concerns attempts to prevent The Big Three (Britain was one of them then) from coming together and making peace. …
Visiting Salzburg, Austria
Mozart‘s home town. 😀
Though I only had a half day to cycle about Salzburg, I vividly remember the fortress of Hohensalzburg — which I hadn’t seen since 47-years-earlier. As a teenager.
One unexpected highlight was the Red Bull museum called Hangar-7.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Visiting Dresden, Germany
A happy surprise for this tourist.
Dresden is as interesting for the visitor as any city in Europe.
Best of all, there are very few tourists here compared with Prague or Budapest.
Like many English speakers my age, I first learned of Dresden from Kurt Vonnegut’s book. The author was in Dresden during the devastating and controversial Allied firebombing of the city that left it in ruins.
Vonnegut survived the attack by hiding in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse, hence the name of his breakthrough novel, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969).
It’s grim. Bombs killed approximately 25,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and destroyed most of the major buildings.
I had low expectations on arrival, mainly wanting to connect to nearby National Park of Saxon Switzerland for cycling and hiking:
- Bastei Bridge (VIDEO)
- Schrammsteine Rocks (VIDEO)
Yet the city centre is known as the Jewel Box for the wondrous architecture.
Much has been rebuilt since WW II.
See my photos of Dresden in Black and White. An experiment for me. I’ve almost never edited in B&W.
Better are these tourist videos.
Click PLAY or get a glimpse on YouTube. (4min)
Over 60% of the city is green space.
There is a huge green flood plain on the Elbe river.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Dresden in Black & White
Faux-tography. 😀
What I liked best about Dresden, Germany was how few tourists cluttered up the great sights. Of the languages I heard, almost everyone spoke German. A few Russian. And a few spoke English.
Early or late in the day — or, especially, in the rain — I had the huge plazas nearly to myself even at the end of August.
Unlike Florence which is swarming with tourists at all times, my photos were mostly unpopulated.
For fun I decided to experiment with editing in black & white (Noir filter) and see if I could capture a feeling of the old East Germany.
My Pilgrimage to Garmisch-Partenkirchen
You might know the (typically) long, hyphenated name Garmisch-Partenkirchen as it was the host of the 1932 Winter Olympics.
It’s the best hiking town in the Bavarian Alps — yet it took me 65 years to get there. 😀
I waited on a good weather window to make the trip down from Munich, and got some of the best days of the year.
Actually … I had hail and hard rain my first afternoon. Here I am sitting out the deluge in a city park.
Moon & Honey recommended the 7 best hikes in Garmisch-Partenkirchen:
With 3 nights, 2 days I managed five:
- Höllental Gorge, Bavaria
- Partnach Gorge, Bavaria
- Circumambulating Eibsee (Yew Lake)
- Zugspitze – Germany’s Highest Mountain
- Hiking Alpspitze, Bavaria
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Excellent.
I enjoyed the cycling, as well.
The valley looks something like Switzerland. But different in the many stark sheds in the fields.
The valley being super busy, I decided to tent legally rather than wild camp.
Campgrounds are generally lousy in Europe, compared with spacious Canada. This one is typical.
The towns of Garmisch and Partenkirchen are nothing special. I much prefer Chamonix, France, and even Whistler, Canada, as scenic ski towns.
The trains, cog railways, and cable cars are superb, however.
It’s still a terrific base for outdoor adventure sport.
Rick McCharles 