Iceland in November

Icebergs and Northern Lights

Icebergs and Northern Lights

I was fortunate to have a photographer friend in Springdale, Utah, Seth Hamel, invite me on a November trip to Iceland at the same time as I was exploring my own winter Icelandic adventure.  It eventually all just fell into place and I was soon flying IcelandAir on my way to Reykjavik.
Continue reading

Crazy Horse Memorial, Black Hills of South Dakota

 For an indication of size & scale, notice the huge diesel truck on the arm.

For an indication of size & scale, notice the huge diesel truck on the pointing arm.

Our trip through Yellowstone National Park, Theodore Roosevelt NP, Devils Tower Memorial, Mount Rushmore National Memorial and Wind Cave NP was exciting for me as I was seeing so many iconic places for the first time.  In addition to these, a very pleasant surprise was our visit to the Crazy Horse Memorial. This is a stop not to be missed when in this neck of the woods, or Black Hills.
Continue reading

Chinese Street Food, Restaurant Food

slide-food-CROPPED-fish food-20131104-_ALL9590

Drying fish in a Shanghai ally

I am proud to say I eat just about any food.  If it is on a menu, I’ll try it.  As a young kid, I ate rattlesnake, squirrel, turtle steak, frog legs, kangaroo tail soup and just about any odd item found on a menu.  The squirrel and frog legs I hunted, which makes me sound a bit like a hillbilly, but it was fun as a kid.  I really looked forward to new foods in China.  However, overall, it was disappointing.  Despite us driving past miles and miles of red peppers piled high in the fields, the food was boiled and bland.  Boiled broccoli, boiled cauliflower, boiled bok choy.  Also, the Chinese do not differentiate between breakfast, lunch and dinner foods.  In the morning you had much of the same foods on the buffet the prior night.  Very few of the dishes were great.  However, I did get to add to my list of unusual foods, which included:

  • Camel tendons
  • Donkey Skin
  • Carp, full of bones
  • Pigs Ear, nothing but cartilage, what else?
  • Horse sausage

My main question was who got the good cuts of meat if in the fine restaurants they were feeding me donkey skin and camel tendons???

slide-food-20131104-_ALL9564

Quail on a stick

slide-food-street cooking-20131101-HALL9441

Outdoor cooks

No, I did not get to eat the above fish.  They were hanging in a Shanghai ally.  Oddly enough, I did not see any flies in these open air markets full of hanging food.
Continue reading