Road tripping the west: The third (and final) week

(For the second week, click here. For a google maps summary of the route for the first two weeks, click here. For a summary of the route for week three, click here.)
Day 15 (July 14), Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington.
I dropped off AM at the airport early in the morning (this time she didn’t miss [...]

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Road tripping the west: The second week

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Day 8 (July 7), Park City, Utah to Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
I had asked AM a day or two earlier if she would like to fly in to Portland and go to Crater Lake with me over the weekend. Got an email from her in the morning. It was a yes.
Which meant, instead of [...]

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Road tripping the west: The first week

The idea of road tripping the American southwest and mountain-west first occurred to me a month ago when I was wondering how to spend the five free weeks I would have before my planned early August departure for Switzerland. The way I had envisaged it, it was going to just me, doing a grand circle from California [...]

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Mountain West road trip

In about ten hours, I will leave on a long trip in my car to explore lands from California to Utah, Colorado to Wyoming, Montana to Oregon. I expect to be on the road for three to four weeks, and hope to post descriptive reports from time to time.

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On mountains

I am supposed to be writing a paper but here I am browsing through the website of James Milne (famous mathematician) who has climbed many mountains. Particularly breathtaking is his account of his Everest attempt (he was 61, reached within 350 m of the summit before turning back). Go to this page and read the [...]

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Practising rappel skills near Mt. Baldy summit

I am the guy with the blue helmet.
(Photo courtesy of Stephan)

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The amazing Death Valley

I am an avid hiker and have visited plenty of National Parks in the USA and India. I have been mesmerized by the grandeur of Zion, the majesty of Grand Canyon, the sublimeness of the Himalayas, the spectacular beauty of the high Sierras and the rugged harshness of Joshua Tree. Yet in terms of sheer [...]

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The Bellagio fountains

If you are ever in Las Vegas, do not miss this.

For an amazing video of the same thing from the hotel room on the 30th floor, click here.

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300 days alone on a island

Yep, its for real!
French explorer and adventurer Xavier Rosset is about to embark on a 300 day trip to live alone on a remote tropical island in the South Pacific. His adventures will be filmed and used for a 52 minute documentary.
Xavier’s only luggage will be a Swiss army knife, machete, video camera, and a [...]

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The three New Yorks

“There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter–the city that is devoured by locusts each day [...]

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NY fun

Quick updates from New York:
Today I had the awesomest street food since I came to the US. It’s a cart near Times square, on 45 street and 6th Avenue and is called Qwik Meal. I tried the lamb pita and it is to die for. Think meat marinated into such softness that it feels like tender fish.
Following that, I [...]

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Coffee thought

What is it about coffee shops that make them so awesome?
Anyway, what I want to say is, if you ever happen to visit Greenwich village in southern Manhattan and feel like going to a coffee shop, try out Think Coffee. And I am not saying that because I am anti-Starbucks or anti-corporation — I am not — or in [...]

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El Camino Del Rey

Not a walk I’d recommend to the faint of heart.
(Link via Andrew Sullivan)

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A weekend at Hoegee’s

The reason there were no posts over the weekend is that I went solo-camping in the San Gabriel mountains just north of Pasadena.
The idea of spending a weekend alone in the wilderness first occurred to me during a hike I did in the San Gabriels with a couple of friends last summer. I was awestruck by the utter [...]

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A moment

I was driving from Pasadena to Palo Alto on Tuesday when at one point the freeway started looking rather unfamiliar – too much traffic, too many exits. A short investigation revealed that as a result of staying on the wrong lane about twenty miles back, I was going north along the 99 rather than north-west along the [...]

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