Balloon flight

5.10 am ! Yes, that it was the meeting time for a balloon flight. OK, I did wake up for that. I must say that I am glad our flight succeeded at the first attempt. Some other people were trying to lift off for the fourth time...

Our group moved to an open field next to a church. Is that a good sign?

The three balloons were quickly unwrapped and hot air was blown into them. Soon they started to become alive. Then it was time to ignite the propane - there was a big flame, almost welcomed in the chilly morning. Soon, we would get to have enough of that flame, as it would burn the top of our head... especially to those without/with few hair.

And then, it was time for the twelve of us to jump into the balloon. Notice, that there was no check-in, no security control, no taking your shoes off, ... Take off!! Smooth and slow.

The balloon's shade would follow us, at the gentle speed of 15 kilometers/hour.

The balloon flew at a decent height of around 500 meters above ground.

 

This gave ample opportunity to enjoy the rural scenery above the Shenandoah valley. Nice fields. At some stages, we flew over chicken farms, disturbed cow herds, made horses gallop, rabbits run, and dogs bark. The best was flying over this deer, which observed our object and in two, three jumps disappeared in the bush.

 

After one hour, it was time to land. Approaching the ground, the wind slowly pulled the balloon towards a tree. Branches were approaching. Leaves were approaching. The bang with the tree was avoided, but not the one with the ground. It was a gentle bang, though. Nice landing. And it would have been a shame to damage a flying object worth 90.000 dollars.

Close encounters at Yellowstone

Yellowstone was first about numbers: 5 entrances (which one to choose?), a road making a big 8 in the park (which direction to drive it?), and 10 best things to see (which ones are indeed a must see?). Quickly this changed as soon as we entered the park. It is indeed a true national park, with beautiful settings, great nature, many wild animals, and of course some unique features.

Let's talk then about wild animals, with a variety apparently unparalleled in the US. The first picture shows deers and the second one, bisons - just in case you do not recognise them yourself... Ok, we got a big yellow leaflet saying that you should not approach the wildlife and keep a distance of 25 yards from bisons. But who knows what 25 yards are? Meters please! This was a close encounter. Yet the closest one was when we were in the car and literally surrounded by a huge herd of bisons. So many of them. 

The animal that I was most keen to see was the bear. And we had to be committed to find one. Indeed the most direct road to the Lamar valley was closed - we could not drive through the entire 8 road, as a few roads are closed during the extended winter time time (yet, we were there at the end of May...!). The detour was worth it. First, we saw two baby grizzly hanging way up two different trees. I did not know bears were climbing trees so high up. An American tourist (who studied in Switzerland...) kindly offered us to look through his binoculars. Apparently, their mother had gone hunting, and the baby's best protection is to stay up in the trees. A few miles down the road, we got to see two black bears this time. The bigger one is pictured above. They were grazing...! So we can definitely say that Yellowstone is a great place to see bears.

Yellowstone was mostly created after a big volcano eruption. Of course, in the crater of the volcano, there should be a lake. This one is huge and peaceful - and more or less normal or even "boring". No trace of underground activity. Beautiful setting for a lunch picnic, with the snowy mountains in the background.

Indeed, other lakes, or rather basins, are more active, bubbling, "alive". Water heated up by the underground lava is coming to the surface. This happens in different ways. The first one is through wide openings - the temperature of the water can reach 70 degrees.

The second one, most spectacular, is through geysers. One called "Old Faithful" faithfully erupts according to a very predictable calendar. Tourists can then plan to sit and wait to see this geyser erupt. I was much more impressed by the one above - the castle geyser. I got lucky to see it, as its rythm is more erratic and infrequent. But there is was. The eruption lasted more than 20 minutes. It's difficult to image on the picture, but there is also a strong noise and the odor of rotten egg (because of the sulfur). So much so that my friend said one could fart unnoticed...  

Another manifestation of the heat coming from below is the smoke/vapor. Driving through the park, time and again there is smoke coming out of the ground and raising above the trees.

 

A more gentle form is the hot springs. Apparently, in winter, animals come and sit in these ponds to warm up.

There are also spectacular waterfalls in the park, like the lower Yellowstone river falls. Notice the snow still on the left side of the falls.

San Francisco

It is certainly the first time - and probably the last time - that I start my entry with a garage door. That is San Francisco for you... a strange place. This garage door is officially where Silicon Valley started. That is where Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard started their now well-known business. The running joke here is that garage rentals are higher than flat rentals.

Silicon Valley is also the place of Google, Apple, Facebook, other start-ups, as well as Stanford University. Guess what trees grow up in Steve Jobs' garden... yes, apple trees! Further, we saw google employees walking around with trial google glasses. They should become the next big technological device. In the meantime, I just got to ride the google bike. It is apparently a very popular way to move around the huge google compound.

 For such a short distance, I did not need google map - there is the car taking all these pictures.

San Francisco is not only for geeks but also for tourists. So there we go for the highlights. First, the Golden Gate bridge. It indeed is a great architectural achievement.

Second, Lombard Street and its steep slope. Of course, when you are in a Mercedes, it is a piece of cake to drive it down. I am still puzzled that this is one of the main touristic highlight... but I did it, so I guess I contribute to it.

Third, the cable car. There we did not get to board it as it was too crowded. It is hard to understand that in this town at the cutting edge of technology, the cable car is so old and outdated. Maybe it says something about the gulf between the private and public sectors.

Fourth, Alcatraz. Prisons on island seem to be a classic. Let's see if Guantanamo will reach the iconic status of Alcatraz.

Inside Alcatraz, there is a very well done audio tour which guides you through the various areas of the jail and presents stories from the prisoners' and wardens' point of view. Thankfully, that day was neither chilly nor wet - being in jail was not too much of an ordeal.

All in all, a very good week-end in San Francisco!

Cherry Blossom

After a never ending winter, including a cold month of March, Spring finally arrived. The trees and blooms took their time to blossom. So much time, that the cherry blossom festival had to be postponed by two weeks.

Just by walking around the city, the trees are everywhere to be seen.

Most tourists and visitors go towards the Tidal Basin and the Monuments, yet this year we decided to go to the Chevy Chase neighborhood. This was a little gem. There are four-five streets with 1200 trees, which were in peak blossoming conditions! 

Driving around, it almost feels like being inside the trees. 

You know you are in Cape Town/South Africa when...

- During a walk in the wild woods, you encounter baboons, reedbucks, bushbucks, frogs, guinea fowls, and ostriches. This is the real wild ! Yet, the best part was still the raw nature.

- The president makes headlines for saying: "Spending money on buying a dog, taking it to the vet and for walks belonged to white culture and was not the African way". Of course, he did not have anything against the fact that he was giving "Christmas gifts" at the same meeting. Christmas probably existed in the Zulu culture before the arrival of the whites...
- You can't swim in the Ocean, because there is a SHARK ALERT. Everybody was directed out of the water, including by the police car seen on the right. For once, South Africans were quite disciplined n not crossing the (shore)line.

- You can not swim in the Ocean, because there are too many penguins around.

 - You find the best cheesecake in the world, among the twenty that you tried! Slight exaggeration, twenty would have meant having eaten more than one per day... I am not far.

- The new serie of the banknotes has a politician/ex-president on the front. OK, the notes are quite colorful and the politician is Nelson Mandela. So, it is quite ok... Let's hope it does not set a precedent.

 - The waiting time at your favorite beach restaurant is more than 90 minutes.

- The entrance to the iconic Kirstenbosch botanical gardens costs more and more at each visit.

- The South African cricket team is so efficient that, once I entered the stadium, I got to see only seven balls with the last two wickets falling. The Proteas thrashed the Kiwis.

"Orlando's worlds" - Kennedy Space Center

The best  in Orlando is undoubtedly the visit of the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. This is a must do. The special guided tour took us to the main launching pad. This pad is where most space rockets to the moon and space shuttles took of. As the guide said it, this is the only place where humans left earth to land on another heavenly object. Quite impressive!

The shape and details of the pad are very specific - nothing is left to chance. There is even a complex system involving lots of water meant to stop the noise from making the platform shake! There is liquid hydrogen, if I remember well, to fill the huge tanks at the side of the shuttle.

We even got to go below the launching pad... We see the two holes through which most of the fuel is evacuated upon lift off. The ground there is completely burnt. It also gives an even better sense of the sheer size of the pad.

This is the hangar where the shuttles and rockets are prepared, before being dragged to the launching pad. NASA likes to say that it is the largest single-store building in the world! On the right is the command room. This is where the countdown is done.

At the Kennedy Space Center, one gets a good sense of the different rockets and space crafts. Usefully, the Christmas tree helps with the dimensions.

On the contrary, the capsule of Apollo XIV is rather small. With the building of the International Space Station, there is now more space in space for astronauts to move around. The movie about life on board the Station was revealing, but it certainly did not motivate me to become a space walker. Afraid of heights, try walking in space with the whole earth moving below you...

The tour also took us to a reconstructed control room.

Lastly, I had to put a picture of a sample of moon's soil. Next objective: planet mars ?

"Orlando's worlds" - Island of Adventures

Island of Adventures is a huge adventure park with water rides, scary rides, a Jurassic park, and a whole lot of other fun activities. Yet, THE main attraction starts behind these gates: the Harry Potter world.

The entrance of Hogsmeade clearly states that you must respect the spell limit. It must indeed be powerful spells that make snow stay on the rooftops, even when exposed to the Florida sun! So you enter the village and find many houses and shops as described in Harry Potter. You can find all sorts of funny, scary, noisy, smelly goods, the most important one being the magic wand - but they are all made in China...

The post office is also worth a visit. There you can of course send a parcel via "owl" post. It is certainly an overnight service... 

There is also the restaurant (called the three broomsticks), but there the chefs certainly do not know the right spells to make your fish and chips tasty. And this spell must not be the most difficult one to master... It is now time to ride the Hogwarts Express...

...to get to Hogwarts. And there the magic is obviously even more amazing.

Opening the doors, the corridors recreate the ambiance of the story so well. The paintings look so real, yet like in the book (and the movie) the portraits move and talk to each other. Very impressive.

And then it was time to meet Dumbledore! Or was it his hologram - to this day, I am still not sure... A little bit further we got to meet with Harry, Hermione and Ron.

One of the most important "object" in the Harry Potter saga is the sorting hat. There it was probably determining who could proceed further inside Hogwarts.

The path leads finally to the Fat Lady, the portrait which guards the door to Gryffindor, or rather in our case, the door to the magical ride. We get to sit on our broomstick and off we fly and follow Harry Potter for a magical tour. The combination of 3D effects and "real" scary effects (the roaring dragon and the spitting spiders) makes this ride an unforgettable moment. Well done!