We rented some bikes, traveled 200 kilometers north, and cycled a few days on Le P’tit Train du Nord. This is a rails-to-trails project that goes through numerous lakes and forest. Beautiful, stress-free, and car-free cycling.
Category: nature finds a way
We stayed in the Umeda district of Osaka where the locals liked to keep potted gardens outside their dwellings. These gardens took over streets and sidewalks and were really cool. Even though they showed up in other Japanese cities, we started calling them Osaka gardens.
Just outside Wellington is an eco sancturary called Zealandia where you can see what the north island looked like before the settlers came, burned down the forest, and turned it into a giant sheep pasture. Pretty epic. And lots of amazing birds.
Lots of religion in Bali. The streets are full of daily offerings. There’s constant ceremony and prayer. You can’t throw a stone without hitting a temple (don’t do this). After spending a little time here, I’m all in on the nature worship. The jungle’s power cannot be denied. It overwhelms everything.
where do the roots end and does the pavement begin?
I love little hidden urban green spaces, the wilder the better. And Berlin was full of these.
In the Atocha train station in Madrid, we found the platform that leads to Jumanji.
Lousy photo of the lobby of the Aria. . . If you wanna stay in a greenie weenie resort, this one is for you. . . LEED certified. Awesome plant displays. Totally different vibe than the other mega complexes. Oh, sure, it’s got a mall and a casino. But extra power is drawn off the slot machines to help air condition the building. So every time you gamble, you’re saving the planet!
Here’s a lousy photo of a bunny at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. See em? I didn’t want to get too close, because that’s the most cruel, foul, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!
Back when I worked for the USGS Water Resources Division, I often visited the RMA to help maintain computers used by the hydrologists studying the ground water. That’s when the RMA wasn’t a nature reserve, but a Superfund Site where the army had manufactured cruel, foul, and bad-tempered chemicals like mustard gas and napalm. Love the transformation!
in Badajoz, Spain, old castles are being turned into public parks. . .
on our bike ride we saw lots of structures from various civilizations, abandoned and being reincorporated into nature. . .