Skyline drive is located west of DC off of Highway 66. It’s a beautiful (and can be very long) drive along the Shenandoah Mountains inside the Shenandoah National Park. There are several places that you can enter and exit the driving tail and a large number of spots to pull off the road for views. There is a nominal fee to enter.
So I said this would be a photo blog, and it will be, but I’m going to break my own rules here for a rare exception. I’m going to suggest some reading…Little Brother
I read the book when it came out, not long ago and, frankly, I was amazed. It’s written for teens, so it is an extremely easy read. The founding fathers believed in a balance in everything. That includes the balance between security of the state and personal civil liberties and privacy. I won’t give any spoilers, so things will be fairly generic.
The book starts by laying out the lives of some teenagers. While out one day, an event occurs that causes a chain of events to follow. From there, the book goes to illustrate the dangers and consequences of giving up your civil liberties and privacy. Even things that may seem small add up to larger results. The book illustrates not just the consequences, but the ways that your pivacy can be invaded.
It’s a good, fast, and cheap read, and I highly recommend it.
I’ve visited the National Zoo in Washington, DC several times. They have a wonderful selection of animals and one of my favorites are the red pandas. Don’t show up too early or they’ll be asleep still (like the last picture).
On April 28th, 2007 I visited the National Botanical Gardens… It was perfect timing. The flowers were at their peak, inside and out. The best shot of the set is above. The Passion Flower. It is definitely worth a trip to flickr to view full sized (just click on the image).
(more photos below)
continue reading…
Gadime Cave, originally uploaded by AMWRanes.
On Saturday I visited Gadime Cave. Gadime cave is formed primarily of Paleozoic marble that is only found on the eastern edges of the Kosovo Valley. The cave was discovered in 1969 by Ahmet Diti while he was working near his house. The cave itself is approximately 1500 meters long, but only about 500 meters of it are open to the public.
(more information and pictures on the article page)
continue reading…
First post, third blog… I’ve done this before, but always let it die out either due to lack of time or lack of content. This one will be different. I’m not going to try and do this daily, or even weekly. It will be a casual blog. I’ll post here about picture sets and travels as they go. I may ocassionaly digress to other topics or things I find interesting. To start with, I’ll do some catch-up on past travels and then post as I travel and the pictures are processed. Each post will only have a couple of pictures most likely, certainly not all of the pictures from a trip. At the time of this writing, I have over 3,000 pictures on Flickr and I will continue adding to them there first.
