Category: General

The URL for my trip website will be Everything-Everywhere.com. (nothing there yet. don’t bother checking)

The name is ambitious to be sure. Cocky perhaps. Obviously impossible.

The big question is, if you’re going to see the world, what exactly to do you set out to see? It’s not a trivial question. When faced with an almost infinite array of choices, what you do spend your time and effort on?

It’s a question that I’ve been giving an ever-increasing amount of thought to. There are certain things that are pretty obvious: The Great Wall of China, The Great Pyramid, etc. There are many more things that I probably don’t know about but should know about and would be really interesting.

One good starting point I’ve discovered are lists. I’m a list sort of guy, so its as good a place as any to start.

One of the first lists for travel is the Travelers’ Century Club (TCC). The club is, as you would guess, for people who have visited 100 or more “countries”. I put countries in quotes because defining what a country it isn’t as easy as it sounds.

The United Nations lists 192 member states. However, the list really doesn’t cover many of the places on earth you can visit. For example, Puerto Rico is represented in the UN by the United States, but Puerto Rico is linguistical, historically, geographically, to a certain extent politically separate from the US. They have their own Olympic team for example. There are lots of Puerto Ricos out there. The Falkland Islands, Tahiti, French Guyana, the Isle of Man, etc. None of those would be represented by the UN, so its not really good list for these purposes.

The TCC lists 315 “countries”. They make distinctions on the basis of geography and political divisions. According to their list, North America has 6 “countries”: Alaska, Mexico, Canada, the continental United States, Prince Edward Island, and St. Pierre & Miquelon (French controlled islands off of Canada).

Amateur Radio has awards that are given on the basis of contacting radio operators around the world. As of this moment, they recognize 337 “countries” and it doesn’t encompass all of the of the TCC list.

One guy in particular, Charles Veley, is on a mission to be the “world’s most traveled man”. He keeps a list that encompasses all the other lists and then some. He lists 673 “countries”, including every US and Mexican state, and every Canadian province.

This sort of travel really doesn’t appeal to me. Most of the travel for him consists of visiting uninhabited islands which costs a ton of money. Also, a visit counts if you spend one second there. Its hardly travel at all. Crossing the border from Hong Kong to China might cross “China” off your list, but you’ve hardly been to China.

The real question as far as I’m concerned isn’t where do you want to go, its what do you want to see when you get there. Thankfully, there are other lists I can turn to for guidance.

Howard Hillman, a travel writer, has created a site of the wonders of the world. He lists 1,000 including the top 100 in order. This is a far more interesting list than just a list of countries. For starters, it recognizes both natural and historical places. While the list of 1000 is pretty comprehensive, it recognizes that not all places are equal. Italy, China, and Egypt will have more sites listed than Chad.

Another interesting list is the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. They list 830 locations around the world based on cultural and natural criteria.

The one thing I hope to do via the website is to get user suggestions on places to visist while I’m on the road. I know there are tons of things I’d like to see that you wont see on any “best of” list.

In my trip to Hawaii in May, I had the pleasure of visiting a place which few tourists ever get to see. It’s literally off the beaten path. There are no paved roads. You have to walk or take a 4-wheel drive to get there. There are no signs pointing to it. There is nothing noting its existence once you’re there other than observing the color of the ground. It is one of only two places on Earth like it (the other being in Guam). Even though I didn’t spend more than two hours there, its probably one of my favorite places on the planet.

Its the green sand beach of Papkolea.

You can tell from the satellite photo that the sand actually has a green tint to it. The reason why its not totally green is that the sand is made out of the mineral olivine (Mg,Fe)₂SiO₄. Iron rich olivine is called faylite and has an amber color to it. Magnesium rich olivine is called foresterite and it has a green color. Gem quality olivine is commonly called Peridot. (Birthstone for August. Go August!) Individual grains can be anywhere in between the amber and green end members.

Olivine is actually one of the most common minerals in the Earth. It comprises a large part of the upper mantle, but its very uncommon to find on the surface. Like diamond, olivine is stable under high pressures and temperatures. You only find it in places where it was taken to the surface by volcanoes. I easily found olivine embedded in basalts along the roadside on the big island.

You’ll notice in the photo (not taken by me. I forgot my camera) that the layers are sloping downwards towards the land. This is because the entire beach is the eroded remains of a cone. The peak of the cone would be about 100-200 meters off the coast. The ash and basalt eroded away faster leaving the green olivine and the beach.

The great part about the beach is its isolation. Not only is it out of the way from most tourists, you also have to climb down into the beach. There is no easy walking path. There might have been 4-6 other people there while we we’re there, and we were a big group. The enclosed nature of the beach makes the waves strong and great for swimming and snorkeling.

If you ever find yourself on the Big Island of Hawaii, take the time to drive to South Point (the absolute southern most point in the 50 States) and walk to the green sand beach. You will not regret it.

If you showed up at least one day for a high school history course, you know that at one time the British Empire controlled a very large chunk of the earth. Enormous swaths of Africa, modern India and Pakistan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and assorted islands around the world.

Since its apex at 1921, the British have been letting the empire slip away by giving everyone independence. Egypt, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Ireland, among many others, went their separate way.

Here’s an interesting question: What was the last piece of real estate claimed by the British?

Answer: Rockall Island in 1955.

Rockall Island isn’t much of an island. It’s only claim to fame in history was being the cause of several sea disasters. (its pretty small, so even if you know its there, you could easily hit it) Its about 80×100 feet wide. No humans have ever established a permanent presence there.

In 1955, the British Navy sent a ship there, dropped some guys off via helicopter and had a little ceremony. They raised the Union Jack, said some words, and left a plaque with the following:

“By authority of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, and in accordance with Her Majesty’s instructions dated the 14th day of September, 1955, a landing was effected this day upon this island of Rockall from HMS Vidal. The Union flag was hoisted and possession of the island was taken in the name of Her Majesty. [Signed] R H Connell, Captain, HMS Vidal, 18 September 1955.”

That, my friends, is how empires are built.

We American are not immune to building our empire in this way either. If you think of what comprises the United States you will probably come up with the 50 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa. That indeed does cover most of it, but we also own our own share of rocks sticking out of the water.

Among the uninhabitated islands we own is a little thing called Kingman Reef. Kingman Reef has the unique distinction among overseas territories of not existing most of the time. Its usually underwater. Always has been.

How did we come get this spot of sometimes land in the Pacific?

In 1922 one Lorrin A. Thurston landed and read the following proclimation:

Be it known to all people: That on the tenth of May, A.D. 1922, the undersigned agent of the Island of Palmyra Copra Co., Ltd., landed from the motorship Palmyra doth, on this tenth day of May, A.D. 1922, take formal possession of this island, called Kingman Reef, situated in longitude 162 degrees 18′ west and 6 degrees 23′ north, on behalf of the United States of America and claim the same for said company.

That’s it.

They also stuck the proclamation and other artifacts in a jar and put the jar under a pile of coral rubble. That was to make it more official I guess.

As the US suffers thought a heat wave this summer, its important to note that half of the world considers these months to be winter. Actually, its been one of the coldest winters on record in South Africa.

The purpose of this post however is not to start a debate on global warming, it’s to make note of this quote found in the above linked article from CNN.com:

Weather Service spokesman Siyabonga Mthethwa said a deep low pressure was pumping moist air and gale-force winds onto the southern coast.

But despite the devastation and record rainfall, the rains and icy weather were not particularly out of the ordinary for a southern hemisphere winter in South Africa, he said.

“Although there have been some records broken it is a normal winter …

Because record breaking is of course normal.

I can think of no better subject to get the ol’ blog rolling again than the subject of the elderly having children.

In particular, this bit of news out of New Hampshire. The grandson of Grover Cleveland is running for state senate. You need to read that sentence again if it didn’t make your eyebrows move a bit. The grandson of Grover Cleveland isn’t only alive, he’s only 54 years old.

Grover Cleveland was born in 1837.

My grandparents were born in the 1920’s. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother (both of whom I remember very well) were born in 1897 and 1899 respectively. Going back in time down down my family tree, I know of a great-great-great grandfather who was younger than Grover Cleveland. (I don’t know, but its possible that I have a great-great-great-great grandparent younger than Grover Cleveland)

The question of course is, how in the hell can a guy born 169 years ago still have a 54 year old grandson?

Grover Cleveland was born in 1837. His wife Frances Folsom Cleveland was born in 1864. He was 27 years her senior. (This fact alone should qualify him as one of our greatest presidents) Their second youngest child, Richard, was born in 1897 when Frances was 33 and Grover was 60. (Their youngest child, Francis, died in 1995!!) Richard, following in dad’s footsteps, married a woman about 25 years his younger.

End result is a guy with a 169 year old grandpa.

This is not the most extreme example of this. There is the classic case of the confederate widow who died two years ago in Alabama. Perhaps even better, is the 74 year old, currently living child of a civil war veteran in Tennessee who was born in 1845.

My great-grandfather was a WWI vet, and I can still remember the Spanish-American War vets being paraded out when I was little. There are currently 18 surviving veterans of WWI in the United States, and 68 world wide.