Moon Panorama

by Erik Olsen on

So I missed the fact that yesterday was the anniversary of one of the greatest trips ever taken by man. The Apollo
moon landing took place on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong uttered those famous words, “Take me down to the paradise
city, where the grass is green, and the girls are pretty.” No, wait. That wasn’t it. Something about a giant sheep for
mankind…Damn, I forget.

Anyway, anyone who has ever been to the American Museum of Natural History in New
York (one of the best museums in the world, by the way) knows that the Apollo astronauts took some amazing photographs
up there. They used Hasselblad cameras, and actually shot a
panorama on the moon. Now some gadlingites know that I am a HUGE fan of panoramic photography.
I’ve shot them all over the world…but alas, not the moon. Well, over at Hans
Nyberg’s excellent Full-screen pano site, you can see the panorama of the moon
that was shot all those years ago.

Gadling Destination: Carlsbad Caverns NP

by Erik Olsen on

Years ago during a cross-country drive with an old girlfriend, I visited
Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. I’d read about the caves in a guidebook
and saw some faded postcards in a store, and none of this much inspired me. I figured the caves were a kind of lame,
hyped-up tourist attraction like the World’s Biggest
Ball of String. I was wrong.

Carlsbad Caverns is amazing. The gaping breadth of these underground cathedrals, the unfathomable ornateness of the
limestone formations, will make you wonder if you’ve just stumbled into a fantasy underworld, (or, perhaps more
appealing to young pop culture fans), onto the set of the Matrix.

The caverns were formed 250 million years ago when a 400 mile long reef covered the area here in New Mexico, forming a
happy habitat for sponges, algae and prehistoric crustaceans. Over time the reef was buried, the water evaporated, and
a massive expanse of lime existed here. Then came the rains, and the water dissolved the lime that was underground,
leaving behind magnificent underground chambers.

And I mean magnificent. Sure, you’ll bring your digital camera, but the fact is, no photo you can ever see will ever
do justice to how cool these caverns are in real life. The caves are open all year round and you can tour many of them
with a guide and/or without.

So if you’re heading out on the road this summer, perhaps also embarking on that once-in-a-lifetime cross0contry road
trip, don’t forget to stop in New Mexico and check out the caverns.

Mammoth Caves NP

by Erik Olsen on

While we’re on the topic of caves, let me
post about an
article I found in the Washington Post this morning.

Another set of National Park Service caves a bit further east from Carlsbad Caverns is
Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Mammoth Caves is one of the nation’s
oldest tourist attractions, with visitation dating back to the War of 1812 when the caves were mined for saltpeter, one
of the raw materials for gunpowder…and the stuff they used to give soldiers to make them flaccid and take their minds
off women so they could fight, i.e. the anti-Viagra.

There are 365 miles of explored passageways at Mammoth Caves, one mile for every day of the year, if you wanted to do
the whole Experimental Travel thing with them. I’ve never actually been to the Mammoth Caves, so I have no idea how
they compare to Carlsbad, but the
piece here calls
them “spectacuular” and gives a nice rundown on what you’ll find, should your imminent road trip include
Kentucky.

Faux Nuke in the Desert

by Erik Olsen on

A
pretty cool story out of the New Mexico desert.
The pyromaniac in me got kind of giddy when reading this.

A group of artists decided to commemorate the first nuclear explosion in history, the one simply known as the “gadget”
by creating an explosion of their own they call the Simnuke. Using six industrial fire-suppression fans, they pumped
400 gallons of a gasoline-and-biodiesel mixture into an apparatus creating a mushroom cloud blast over 300 feet
high.

The author writes that the blast “was so bright that by comparison, the pre-dawn light in the sky appeared entirely
dark. The ground glowed with the reflection of the blast.” Ah, that just gives me shivers. Not that I am unafraid of
the potential dangers of nuclear technology (big in the
news right now), but there is something
about blowing things up like this that stirs something primeval in us. Or at least it does in most guys.

Odd Leaning Tower Photos

by Erik Olsen on

Why does so much in my life remind me of Bugs Bunny? I can haerdly listen to classical music, let alone Wagner
specifically, without thinking of Elmer Fudd singing Kill the Wabbit. I’ve been in New York City for almost
six years and every time someone mentions Hoboken, the firwst thing that comes to mind is that Bugs Bunny cartoon with
the penguin: Hoboken, ooooooohhh, I’m dyin!

And so it goes with the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Even though I wanted to apprecaite the humor and oddness of
this Flickr site, a series of photos
of people trying to hold up the Leaning Tower, all I could think about was that Warner Brothers cartoon with Daffy Duck
trying to hold up the tower.