I spent the weekend upstate, reveling in the view of the lush New York countryside as fog spills over the hills. It was a rainy but beautiful drive up and back and when I woke up today, I wanted to see more fog scenery. I came across this video of fog over the Sydney harbor on Vimeo and loved it. It’s short and sweet, but moving all the same. Created by Joe Budgen, this time-lapse video is one of his first attempts and he did a good job. Enjoy.
Disney World Princess Races Not Just For Kids
A Disney World vacation is often high on the list of dream destinations for Mom, Dad and the kids; solo travelers; multi-generational families and others. Travelers often plan and budget years in advance to make it happen. But not all Disney World-oriented travel options are focused on theme park rides, blazing Florida sun or capturing images of the kids with Disney characters. For some, the focus is on fitness.
Disney Princess races might bring thoughts of Cinderella trying to manage her fabulous ball gown in a starting line position, but really, these marathons are fantastic opportunities to enjoy the expansive parks while meeting new goals. Some events are serious runs that take focused preparation to compete in and are also planned years in advance. Right now, Disney Princess runners are preparing for the 2014 season, which includes races in six out of the 12 months.Disney’s Princess Half Marathon is a 13.1-mile magical course that makes for “a weekend of majestic runs in the most magical place on earth,” says the RunDisney website. That same weekend, kids get into the act with RunDisney Kids Races where every prince and princess is a winner and VIP Race Retreat packages pile on the royal treatment.
Disney’s Enchanted 10K is a new event that takes competitors through Epcot. The longest race Disney offers, the Glass Slipper Challenge, is a 19.3-mile adventure done over two days. That race combines the Princess Half Marathon with the Enchanted 10K. This event features Disney characters and entertainment on-course, and event weekend transportation is provided to and from all Disney World resorts.
Budget Travel Help From The Mouse
Once registered for one or more of the weekend’s events, travelers can use a Magic Your Way Package to enjoy the rest of their vacation at the Walt Disney World Resort that includes marathon events that are not available to book online.
UNESCO Reports Damage To Timbuktu Worse Than Previously Reported
A team from UNESCO has visited Timbuktu in Mali to make its first on-the-ground assessment of the damage caused by last year’s occupation by the Islamist group Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith).
The group took over Timbuktu in April 2012 and imposed a harsh form of Shariah law. Believing the city’s famous shrines and medieval manuscripts to be against Islam, even though they were created by Muslims, they began to destroy them. Early this year a coalition of Malian and French forces pushed Ansar Dine out of the city and into the northern fringes of the country, where they remain a threat.
Now that the situation has temporarily stabilized, UNESCO sent a team to investigate the damage. They had some grim findings. While recent reports stated that the damage wasn’t as bad as originally thought, that turns out not to be true.
Expedition leader Lazare Eloundou Assomo of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre said, “We discovered that 14 of Timbuktu’s mausoleums, including those that are part of the UNESCO World Heritage sites, were totally destroyed, along with two others at the Djingareyber Mosque. The emblematic El Farouk monument at the entrance to the city was razed. We estimate that 4,203 manuscripts from the Ahmed Baba research center were lost.”
Thousands of other manuscripts were taken away from Timbuktu before the Islamists could get their hands on them. Most are now in the capital Bamako. While this saved them, Mr. Assomo told the BBC that they need to be returned to the controlled environment of the research center before the humid rainy season sets in and causes damage to the fragile pages.
Four Down Two Across: Fairbanks Alaska And The Journey Home
Our last day in Alaska turned out to be our busiest. Shortly before noon Diann Darnall met Robert and me at the Parrishes’ and drove us to the University of Alaska Fairbanks to have lunch with the chancellor, Brian Rogers, and his wife. Lunch conversation covered a lot of topics, but it ended, surprisingly, with an exchange of puzzles. Chancellor Rogers told us a good one that he said is original. I’ll share it with you in a moment.
After lunch Robert and I went to KUAC, Fairbanks’ public radio station, where Lori Neufeld interviewed us live.
Diann met us again and gave us a tour of the university’s Museum of the North, which is said to have more than a million artifacts from the Arctic — stuffed bears and other animals, Eskimo carvings, photos and memorabilia from the Alaska gold rush of the 1890s, Alaskan artwork (both native and otherwise), and lots more. I could have spent hours and hours there.
The last event of the trip was a public exhibition of table tennis back at the Patty Center, which over a hundred people attended. Robert and I put on a show, and members of the Fairbanks club played matches in singles and doubles, with both sponge rackets and hardbat. It was a good showing for the club.
Then it was back to the Parrishes to shower and pack for the flight home.
Regarding yesterday’s puzzle, my answer was McKinley, as in president William. If you thought of another answer that meets the conditions of the puzzle, let me know.
One last new brainteaser, courtesy of Chancellor Rogers: What is the only state in the U.S. in which the sun can set twice in the same day? Identify the state and how this can happen.
Follow Will and Robert’s Trip across Alaska through next week at “Four Down Two Across.”
Plane Took Seven Flights With Dead Stowaway In Wheel Well
A plane operated by Russian-based charter airline I-Fly completed seven flights before maintenance workers finally noticed a dead stowaway in the wheel well, the Aviation Herald is reporting.
The industry watchdog reports that after an otherwise uneventful flight from Rimini, Italy, to Moscow, Russia, maintenance workers found bloodstains on one of the main landing gear struts. After inspecting the wheel well, the crew found the remains of a male carrying a Georgian passport, who was later identified as 22-year-old Giorgio Abduladze. An autopsy revealed the man, who was wearing only a T-shirt and shorts, had frozen to death four days prior to being found, during which the aircraft had completed at least seven flights.
“Apparently the man died from exposure to cold; we suspect that he was a stowaway,” a spokesperson for the investigation told RT.com.
Experts are fiercely debating whether or not maintenance crews should have noticed the body sooner. Some say the inner gear doors only get opened during a weekly check. Either way, sneaking into the undercarriage of a plane comes with an extremely low survival rate. In fact, a recent BBC article noted that from 1947 until September 2012, there were 96 known stowaway attempts that resulted in 73 deaths.
[via news.com.au]