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Chasing the Aurora Borealis
The city of Whitehorse, Yukon, population 25,000, lies about 2,400 km north of Vancouver at a latitude of 60º N, just 6º south of the Arctic Circle. While this area has been inhabited off and on for several thousand years by First Nations communities, the first permanent settlement was a result of the Klondike gold…
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Balloon Bliss Day 2
Another early morning found Dianne and me with our cameras and tripods ready to shoot the glow show and pre-dawn launch. Not all pilots are licensed to fly in the dark, so only eight ballons were set up to go at 5:00 am. But the park was packed! People and families with young children everywhere…
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Balloon Bliss Day 1
I find myself in a heightened state of balloon bliss! Dianne and Carroll and I arrived at the race staging area in Rancho San Rafael Park around 4:30 this morning and headed for Cloud 9, our VIP tent. The sky was clear with just a sliver of a moon. A casino catered breakfast – an…
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Checking out the staging area
An early morning flight delivered me to the Sacramento airport where I met up with Carroll and Dianne who conveyed us all to Reno. The photo to the left is of one of two similar trolleys in the baggage area of the airport. One can only assume with some trepidation that these are lost bags.…
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Hot air balloons!
The Great Reno Balloon Race of 2018 looks like the perfect place to take a camera. See https://renoballoon.com/. With so many excellent photos already on the website, why would I go and take more? Because my friends Carroll and Dianne, with whom I visited the Grand Canyon, Costa Rica and Utah, have been before; they enjoyed…
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Some final thoughts about Ísland
Ísland is a truly amazing place and I was fortunate to travel with such a great group of people. That’s all down to Shelley and Mike who recruited 14 of us from their vast collection of friends. When the trip started, everyone but Sue knew Shelley and Mike. By the end of the trip we…
