Travel Archives
[1401.03]
(this article first appeared in our 2004 holiday newsletter)
2004 was an amazing travel year for us, starting with a trip to
Iceland to view the aurora borealis (northern lights).
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[1401.10]
(this article first appeared in our 2004 holiday newsletter)
On June 8, 2004, a rare astronomical event occurred. The planet Venus
crossed the disk of the sun, a small dot barely visible to the naked
(solar-filter-protected) eye.
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[1401.21]
(this article first appeared in our 2005 holiday newsletter)
2005 started off wet, ending up just short of 1884’s record 38.2 inches.
Newspaper articles, TV reports, and dozens of wildflower websites extolled
the magnificence of this year’s wildflower blooms.
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[1401.22]
(this article first appeared in our 2005 holiday newsletter)
In July
we took a weeklong road trip through Wisconsin and environs.
We found a guidebook in the library called "Oddball Wisconsin, A Guide to
Some Really Strange Places."
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[1402.03]
(this article first appeared in our 2006 holiday newsletter)
A total eclipse of the sun is one of nature’s greatest spectacles. On March
29, 2006, we joined thousands of people in Libya in the path of the moon’s
shadow.
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[1402.05]
(this article first appeared in our 2006 holiday newsletter)
We missed Disneyland’s 50th anniversary celebration last year, so when it
was continued through mid-2006 we decided to see both it and
the neighboring California Adventure theme park.
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[1402.10]
(this article first appeared in our 2007 holiday newsletter)
We ended 2006 and started 2007 in paradise, Maui to be exact.
Norwalk Kendo Dojo also made a whirlwind tour of Oahu and Maui in August.
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[1402.14]
(this article first appeared in our 2008 holiday newsletter)
Solar eclipses have a tendency to occur over water or some inaccessible place
on land.
This year we traveled to the southern part of the Gobi desert to see one.
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[1402.15]
(this article first appeared in our 2008 holiday newsletter)
One of the great things about eclipse touring is having the opportunity to
visit places that are really "out there". For the Gobi trip
we visited Mongolia, after touring Korea and China.
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[1402.22]
(this article first appeared in our 2009 holiday newsletter)
We were seriously considering skipping this eclipse trip, but several
items pushed us into going. First, this eclipse, lasting about 5 minutes in
eastern China, would be the longest one of this century.
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[1402.23]
(this article first appeared in our 2009 holiday newsletter)
Although we had already visited China several times, on this trip we were able
visit many new places, including Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Tibet, culminating in
a trip to Everest Base Camp.
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[1402.24]
(this article first appeared in our 2009 holiday newsletter)
In May we took a 300-mile trip to the White Mountains to
see bristlecone pines, the oldest living trees in the world, some almost
5000 years old.
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[1403.05]
(this article first appeared in our 2010 holiday newsletter)
In July we went to see a total eclipse of the sun. Yes, another one! But this
truly was one we could not miss, as it passed over Easter Island, home to the
mysterious moai (huge stone carvings of human heads).
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[1403.06]
(this article first appeared in our 2010 holiday newsletter)
Easter Island (Polynesian name Rapa Nui) is one of the world’s most remote
inhabited places, located about 2200 miles west of
Santiago, Chile. It is shaped like a right triangle
with an extinct volcano at each vertex.
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[1403.07]
(this article first appeared in our 2010 holiday newsletter)
Prior to flying to Rapa Nui (Easter Island), we stopped over in
Santiago, Chile’s capital, as well as the port city of Valparaiso, about
an hour and a half northwest of Santiago.
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[1403.20]
(this article first appeared in our 2010 holiday newsletter)
After exotic travels in recent years,
we stayed totally within the United States in 2011.
A trip in October took us in a huge loop through much of California and a
bit of western Nevada.
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[1403.22]
(this article first appeared in our 2011 holiday newsletter)
We have written in previous newsletters about the segway, a
two-wheeled self-balancing personal transporter. This year we had a
chance to take two more awesome tours, in Griffith Park and Atlanta.
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[1403.25]
(this article first appeared in our 2012 holiday newsletter)
We really had not planned to leave the country in 2012, but we didn’t want
to miss seeing what may be the best Northern Lights activity this decade.
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[1403.26]
(this article first appeared in our 2012 holiday newsletter)
Prior to Abisko, we spent several full days exploring London and its
surroundings. Hotels were shockingly pricey in the city, so we stayed at a
hotel at Heathrow and used public transportation to get around.
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[1403.27]
(this article first appeared in our 2012 holiday newsletter)
Last year, we wrote about scoping out observing sites for this year’s May
20th annular eclipse. We decided then on the general region east of Reno,
Nevada, and on May 19th we spent many hours searching the area.
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[1403.28]
(this article first appeared in our 2012 holiday newsletter)
In our 2004 newsletter, we wrote about seeing the transit of Venus from
Africa.
Venus crossed between the earth and the sun again on
June 5th, the last time it will do so until the year 2117.
This time we saw it from Maui.
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[1404.07]
(this article first appeared in our 2013 holiday newsletter)
All year long we had planned to visit Death Valley in winter, to attempt to get
a good view of Comet ISON.
Unlike the comet, Death Valley did not disappoint!
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[1404.08]
(this article first appeared in our 2013 holiday newsletter)
In March we spent a week touring Washington, D.C. I had never been, so we
tacked it on to a trip I was making to attend a kendo seminar in Annandale,
VA. As usual, we crammed everything possible into each day.
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