Dan Will Travel
I'm Dan and I WILL Travel
For all the times that I travel, I never cease to be amazed by the ultra-long distances a modern plane can travel. Today, I went from Los Angeles to Dubai, nearly 16 hours in the air, giant double decker A380 aircraft. If you have a globe at home, put your finger on each place and you will see that it is ½ way around the earth. I remember a 1970’s 747 flight from London to Delhi (8 hours) that had to refuel in Tehran. How things have changed…..
Save up those airline points, they can lead to a great experience that you would surely never actually pay for, such as a first class Emirates flight. Knowing what flying is like in the states it is hard to imagine a 16 hour flight that you wish would have been longer. Besides the great service and all, a special highlight on this flight was seeing the northern lights traveling at night over the artic part of Canada.
This begins the current series of my blogs. I will attempt to discover Dubai, a city that is very much on any list of places to see. After a few days, I am then off to South Africa to once again see the great animals and that amazingly beautiful country. One highlight will be the famous “Blue Train,” that travels from Pretoria down to Cape Town. This is another of the famous train trips that I want to do. And, it had better be good, as the evening dinner is a formal affair and I am required to wear a coat and tie. (Which I did not own any more!) But now I have one and it is travelling along with me the entire trip for this one night. I will probably need the porter to help me tie my tie, ridiculous as that seems.
Wish me luck on seeing a big range of wildlife and on getting the shots right so that you can see them as well. I purchased a new 600mm lens of which I will probably be fuddling with while the great shot appears and disappears.
Preparing for departure. I sure hope they loaded enough fuel for over 15 hours of flying! First class is at the front of the upper deck. Business take the balance of the upper deck with a full bar at the rear.
My home for the next 16 hours. mini-bar by window, nice decorative table lamp just past it. The slightly open drawer contains writing stuff, letter sheets, envelopes. Rather quaint I thought. Under my glasses is a pop up make up mirror with various toiletries inside the compartment.
Below are two shots of the shower room that Emirates gets much publicity about. It was about 5′ x 15′ in size, serving as the toilet for most of the flight. For the shower experience, you reserve a 20 minute time slot and get 5 minutes worth of water to shower with. All sort of toiletries, hair dryer, and such are there to be used. Two staff people on hand just to clean up after each use.
Here are a few shots of the Rockies. Please understand these are not hard earned shots taken after a 5-10 mile hike in, sorry. I am 66, and most importantly, travelling alone, and trust me, there are many bears up here so I limited my hikes to pretty brief ones.
This will be my last post from this great trip. It will total 3,300 miles, nearly all on 2 lane roads not freeways. 4 states, 3 provinces. Many, many wild animal sightings, and so far, fortunately, have not hit any of them.
This trip was a great example of the enjoyment of the journey and not just the destinations. Driving does make that experience possible for sure.
Thanks for reading. Later this year, I will blog from South Africa and still later, the Canary Islands and Portugal.
Dan
Snow reflections on the calm Lake Louise.
View into the high peaks beyond Lake Louise
Yes, that is a bear on the tracks. I sure hope he moved on as very fast train came through shortly after this. Taken along the Bow Valley parkway.
The Chateau Lake Louise from a viewpoint that you can hike to.
A classic Lake Louise view taken about 6:15 am.
Along Ice Fields Parkway, Jasper National Park
This poor mother goat somehow got onto this bridge with her kids and now how do they get off?
A large lake still somewhat frozen in early June. Tim: This is the same lake we shot with your mother and aunt, but a month later into the season so it was not frozen.
Views like this are everywhere. Really amazing scenery.
I did a 3 hour guided walk on this glacier, part of the massive Columbia Ice fields north of Lake Louise. If any of you still doubt global warming, go see a glacier. The proof is undisputable, and scary how quickly it is happening. I was the only American on the tour and chose to stay pretty quiet what with how we are backpedaling on the agreements we had already made on this issue.
One of the amazing facts is that the ice I was standing on was hundreds of years old, maybe more, due to the fact that the newer ice had melted leaving this very old ice now at the surface.
The drive up the Icefields parkway was astounding beautiful. It is just one breath taking view after another for the 70 miles that I drove.
Starting out
Rivers within the glacier
Graphic proof. There are two pieces of bright green tape around this pole. The one on the right about 2′ above the current snow line was done June 1st. 11 days before my visit. The glacier here is at least 1/2 mile wide and has melted nearly 2 feet in 11 days! Equally astounding is the green higher up about at the line of the edge of the glacier in this shot. It is from October 2016, 9 months ago! If I knew how to tweet, maybe I could tweet this to Trump who seems unsure about whether global warming is occurring.
Our guide said that this had just opened up in the past few days. It is about 5′ in diameter.
We each refilled our water bottles here. Talk about fresh, cold ice water! This person lives in Singapore. What a different place this must have been for him!
The view further up. We stopped here, about 1/3 of the way up. Over the top becomes the Columbia ice fields. These in total are the largest glacier areas south of the polar circle.
The proof I was there shot.
Our group heading down
Along the approach road to the base of the glacier were various year markers. Here is he end of it as of 1942. At least 3/4 of a mile from where it is now.