$30 million ranch for sale near Zion National Park

by Kraig Becker on

Are you in the market for some real estate with a scenic view? Are you looking for a place that will let you get away from it all? If so, then I’ve got just the deal for you. The beautiful Trees Ranch, located right next to Zion National Park in Utah is on the market, and can be yours for just $30 million.

The ranch, which consists of nearly 2200 acres of land, is bordered on two sides by Zion, but the other two neighbors aren’t bad either. One of the other boundaries is the Canaan Mountain Wilderness and a fourth border sits next to acreage that is overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. I think it is safe to say that this prime piece or real estate has the “scenic view” covered quite nicely.

And what exactly do you get for your $30 million? Glad you asked! Trees Ranch comes with 2066 acres of pristine land, 200 of which are dedicated to an organic apple orchard which provides inventory for the the Springdale Fruit Company. There is also several ranch houses, an on site vineyard, a stable and corral, and even a lake complete with a dock for launching boats. There are several historic sites on the premises as well, including an old pioneer homestead and cemetery, as well as ruins from the Anasazi Indian tribes that once lived in the area.

Best of all, the natural landscapes that surround the ranch are amongst the most beautiful in the entire western United States. Zion is well known for its towering rock spires and walls, while Canaan Mountain Wilderness is nearly 45,000 acres of public land, bounded by wind swept sandstone cliffs. The ranch exhibits much of the same scenery, giving the buyer of the property their very own personal national park to explore.

Seems like the perfect haven after a long day at the office. Now if only I could come up with down payment.

[Photo credit: Diliff via WikiMedia Commons]

SAS Stewardess suffers spinal cord injury after turbulent flight

by McLean Robbins on

When the captain says “fasten your seat belts,” please listen. News is just emerging that a SAS Scandinavian Airlines stewardess suffered spinal cord injuries from an incident involving turbulence last August.

As reported by the BBC, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report said the stewardess had been in a crew seat, unrestrained, and was making a passenger announcement when turbulence threw her into the air. The woman landed in her seat and needed to remain on the galley floor until landing at Heathrow.

On the same flight, another cabin crew member hit the cabin roof but was unhurt. Three of the four cabin crew on the flight in question reported being unaware of the request to be seated due to turbulence ahead.

The injured stewardess endured a 10-day hospital stay.

SAS carried out an investigation which highlighted three similar occasions of cabin crew suffering injuries due to turbulence.

[Flickr via Hunter-Desportes]

Malawi to ban farting?

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Malawi doesn’t make it into the news often. The relatively small southeastern African country, close to Honduras in size, has a population of around 15 million. According to the International Monetary Fund and the CIA World Factbook, Malawi is one of the world’s five poorest countries in terms of per capita income.

All that should change for the next week or so, however, due to the ban on farting currently under debate in the country. Yes, you read that correctly, and I’ll repeat. The adoption of a bill prohibiting farting is under consideration in Malawi.

Or is it? There seems to be some disagreement over what the bill would actually prohibit. The BBC reported this morning on a feud between two government officials over the bill, which would aim to turn pollution of the atmosphere “in any place so as to make it noxious to the public” into a misdemeanor. Justice Minister George Chaponda has interpreted the bill to extend to farting, while Solicitor General Anthony Kamanga insists that it should be interpreted as referring exclusively to pollution.

It would be a shame if this scuffle were to derail Malawi’s growth as a destination for tourists. The country’s profile as a tourist destination is currently rising and it’s not difficult to understand why. Malawi boasts beach lodges along Lake Malawi and national parks teeming with wildlife, with Liwonde National Park in the south of the country and Nyika National Park in the north particularly noteworthy.
[Image: Flickr | frankdouwes]

BBC World Service radio facing major cuts

by Sean McLachlan on

It’s been the best source of news to travelers for generations, but now the BBC World Service is facing serious cuts. Five of its 32 language services will disappear completely, many other language services will be limited, and 650 of its workforce of 2,400 will lose their jobs.

Radio is the hardest hit. Services in Azeri, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Spanish for Cuba, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian will all go. Shortwave broadcasts will cease in Hindi, Indonesian, Kyrgyz, Nepali, Swahili and the Great Lakes service (for Rwanda and Burundi).

While best known in the developing world for its radio service, the BBC World Service also has broadcasts on TV, mobile, and online. Those aren’t immune either, and all services for some languages will go–Macedonian, Albanian, Serbian, English for the Caribbean, and Portuguese for Africa.

The BBC hopes to save £46 million ($73 million) a yea r. It estimates it will lose 30 million weekly listeners.

While wandering in the more remote regions of the globe I’ve always found the World Service a timely and reliable source for breaking news. It warned me of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait while I was excavating an archaeological site in the Israeli countryside, told me of Nixon’s death while I was crossing the border from India into Nepal, and has kept me up-to-date in countless other places. The BBC says it will increase its online presence, but we’re not a fully digital world yet, and in the places I like to go, good old-fashioned radio is still the only reliable means of communication. This is bad news for adventure travelers everywhere.

Caligula’s tomb discovered? Probably not

by Sean McLachlan on

The newswires are on fire with a remarkable discovery–the tomb of the infamous Roman emperor Caligula has been discovered near Rome.

The Guardian reports that Italian police caught a man loading a Roman statue onto the back of a truck at Lake Nemi, where Caligula had a palace. They arrested him and when they examined the statue were amazed to see that the man it depicted wore caligae, a type of half boot popular with Roman soldiers. When Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was a boy, he used to tag along on his father’s military expeditions dressed in a miniature uniform. The soldiers thought this was cute and nicknamed him Caligula, which means “little boots”. The tomb robber led the officers back to the tomb where he found the statue. The police triumphantly announced that they had discovered Caligula’s tomb and the press went wild.

Not so fast, says Cambridge classics professor Mary Beard. In a post for The Times she points out that lots of statues show men wearing caligae. It was the normal footwear for soldiers, after all. She also states that since Caligula was so hated by the powers-that-be and was assassinated, it’s highly unlikely that he was given a fine tomb. More likely he was quietly buried in some unobtrusive spot like many other unpopular emperors.

Yet the story doesn’t end there. Dr. Beard admits she hasn’t seen photos of the statue or the tombs (at time of press they hadn’t been released) and until there’s a full archaeological excavation it’s impossible to say for sure whether the tomb contains the mortal remains of one of Rome’s most notorious emperors.

Caligula has always been the subject of inaccurate reporting. While there’s no doubt that his reign from AD 37 to 41 included many abuses, especially insults against the Senate, many of the charges laid against him are unsubstantiated. Some Roman writers said he slept with his sisters, but there’s no proof of this. Modern writers often say say he appointed his favorite horse as consul, but that’s a misreading of Seutonius, who wrote, “it is also said that he planned to make him [the horse] consul.” That sounds like he’s repeating a rumor.

[Photo of the statue of Caligula courtesy Louis le Grand. It is not the statue the police recently discovered.]