My wife and I did London and Paris in 1989. We're driving by Buckingham Palace as I am asking "Where is Buckingham Palace?"
That's it? That's pretty much London in a nutshell. Paris was REAL man.
Both a GREAT cities in their own way. I think got more emotional in London, however, because this is the mother-ship. I'm 100% Victoria Country Club WASP you know.
I did see this outside of Paris back in 1994 which was phenomenal to check out...
Standing inside the gas chamber at Dachau on a freezing day. You don't understand humanity until you do this. Not good... in order to really understand life, though, you have to do this! I'm not anti-semitic. It is just that it's the only way to get the man-inhumanity-to-man issue.
Standing inside the gas chamber at Dachau on a freezing day. You don't understand humanity until you do this. Not good... in order to really understand life, though, you have to do this! I'm not anti-semitic. It is just that it's the only way to get the man-inhumanity-to-man issue.
The mind boggling thing is that Dachau paled in comparison to the other German death factories further to the East.
Grand Canyon was cool but I found it kinda sorta ever so mildly disappointing? Maybe I've just seen it too many times in pics/vids. Definitely amazing but I guess I expected a tiny bit more somehow?
Glacier is badass. Going to the Sun Highway is an adventure everyone needs to experience at some point.
Yellowstone stands alone, nothing like it. Grand Tetons (or Tittytons, as my little brother and I called it as kids) are the shit.
Not a NP but coming northeast bound out of Yellowstone there's a road called Beartooth Highway that is some spectacular mountain scenery and scary af switchbacks.
Olympic, Rainier are obviously legendary but I don't need to tell this bored about them. North Cascades is massively underrated though.
Rocky Mountain is very worth it. Great Smoky Mountains is really cool but you have to set aside your west coast mountain elitism to be able to appreciate it.
Arches is one of my favorites, really unique landscapes. It's the only one of the Utah parks I've been to yet though, I definitely need to see the rest.
Badlands is eery. Wind Cave is fun if you have time for a tour.
I've barely been to the edges of Theodore Roosevelt, Petrified Forest, Mesa Verde and Everglades. Really want to do the full Everglades sometime.
Gateway Arch is a NP now which is ridiculous but it's still cool to visit.
Never been to any of the California or Alaska NPs which is a blackeye for me, IMO.
US nature stuff
Sequoia, John Muir(also see Redwoods), & Yosemite are world beaters. The Olympics can come too. Yellowstone I love but there's less wow factor imo. Maybe that's because my family owns lands in the Wyoming Rockies and I grew up running around there.
I reserve my judgment of the Grand Canyon as I've only ever gotten to visit the lookouts. Still waiting on hitting the lotto for a permit to white water raft it. I have rafted the Snake River in Hell's Canyon which is technically bigger than the Grand Canyon. One of my favorite rafting rivers of all tim and it's amazing to be able to just go and do it without any restrictions.
Arches and the surrounding areas are tits if you are a JEEP fanboy. Hint hint @Swaye
The petrified forest was kind of meh. The painted desert was cool to drive through once. Meteor Crater was actually probably the most impactful.
The Black Rock Dessert anytim there isn't burning man is fucking amazing. Total fucking moonscape and nothing but the sound of the wind and dust blowing. You can drive 100+ on the open playa for hours and not hit a god damn thing. Surreal.
Joshua tree also seems like it would be a good place to do a lot of peyote.
You pretty much can't throw a rock and hit something amazing and beautiful in Hawaii. Too many people spend all of their tim at the Beaches. The volcanoes, waterfalls, and forests aren't appreciated enough.
Standing inside the gas chamber at Dachau on a freezing day. You don't understand humanity until you do this. Not good... in order to really understand life, though, you have to do this! I'm not anti-semitic. It is just that it's the only way to get the man-inhumanity-to-man issue.
The mind boggling thing is that Dachau paled in comparison to the other German death factories further to the East.
When I went there, a sign claimed that the gas chamber wasn't used. Riiiiiiiight... I think it is hard to put even ball park figures on what went on, other than to say, a lot.
Standing inside the gas chamber at Dachau on a freezing day. You don't understand humanity until you do this. Not good... in order to really understand life, though, you have to do this! I'm not anti-semitic. It is just that it's the only way to get the man-inhumanity-to-man issue.
The mind boggling thing is that Dachau paled in comparison to the other German death factories further to the East.
Standing inside the gas chamber at Dachau on a freezing day. You don't understand humanity until you do this. Not good... in order to really understand life, though, you have to do this! I'm not anti-semitic. It is just that it's the only way to get the man-inhumanity-to-man issue.
The mind boggling thing is that Dachau paled in comparison to the other German death factories further to the East.
Arlington National Cemetery and the tomb of the Unknown Soldier changing of the guard. (Mrs. Lebam called me a wuss for crying)
Punchbowl and USS Arizona in Hawaii
Fort McHenry + the National Museum with the Flag
Mt. Rushmore
Gettysburg and I have been to numerous Civil War sites
Monticello - Jefferson be my favorite
Rushmore is pretty cool. Been there and Crazy Horse.
#MeToo. I thought Devil's Tower was more impressive than Rushmore.
We couldn't swing Devil's Tower on either Black Hills trip so I've only seen it from a distance off I90. Definitely a place I'd like to visit. Similar experience with Capulin Volcano NM (though it was the highway not the interstate).
Have been to Sunset Crater and Wupatki NMs, both were pretty cool, especially Sunset.
Standing inside the gas chamber at Dachau on a freezing day. You don't understand humanity until you do this. Not good... in order to really understand life, though, you have to do this! I'm not anti-semitic. It is just that it's the only way to get the man-inhumanity-to-man issue.
The mind boggling thing is that Dachau paled in comparison to the other German death factories further to the East.
Mauthausen is pretty sobering, too
Dachau and Mauthausen are notable for being amongst the first camps and the places where the Germans got their reads down. Something like 31,000 were killed and Dachau and 120,000 to 300,000 at Mauthausen. These figures by themselves are horrific. But the final solution really got going at Auschwitz (1,000,000 killed) and Treblinka (900,000 killed).
I chiseled a hole in the Berlin Wall, does that count?
If Herr Gandpa BearsWinn had fought better there would be no wall.
Grandpa wanted no part of the fighting. Got a discharge from the Wehrmacht after his stint in 1940 in occupied France for bleeding ulcers, then neighbor doctor in Vienna kept giving him medication to make him sick whenever he had to go back in for testing to see if he was fit for duty again. Since he was a 35-yo male in occupied Vienna in 1945, still amazed that he wasn't lined up against a wall and shot by the Sovs. Sov soldiers tried to rape bedridden postpartum Grandma but Red Cross nurses fought them off
Great Grandpa was the fighter. Had been an officer in Austro-Hungarian Army pre-WWI, discharged in 1913, brought back at the beginning of the war and put in charge of some sort of elite team, if I read his file correctly (it's faded and in gothic script). Fought in Bohemia and Carpathia against the Russians, then transferred to Italian front in 1917 after 9 months in hospital with typhus. Fourteen combat medals of valor in all, one of which was pinned to his breast by Emperor Karl I during an audience in 1918. Invading Sov soldiers looted the medals in 1945. Family petitioned the govt. in the 1980's to have them re-issued to the family, and for several years four of them hung on my living room wall until I gave them to his oldest surviving daughter (the aunt who was born just as the Sovs marched into Vienna in 1945). As his only great grandson, I got his ceremonial sword, standard model 1861 officer's sabre, complete with sheath crimp at the end so the sabre tip doesn't rattle around at parties.
I chiseled a hole in the Berlin Wall, does that count?
If Herr Gandpa BearsWinn had fought better there would be no wall.
Grandpa wanted no part of the fighting. Got a discharge from the Wehrmacht after his stint in 1940 in occupied France for bleeding ulcers, then neighbor doctor in Vienna kept giving him medication to make him sick whenever he had to go back in for testing to see if he was fit for duty again. Since he was a 35-yo male in occupied Vienna in 1945, still amazed that he wasn't lined up against a wall and shot by the Sovs. Sov soldiers tried to rape bedridden postpartum Grandma but Red Cross nurses fought them off
Great Grandpa was the fighter. Had been an officer in Austro-Hungarian Army pre-WWI, discharged in 1913, brought back at the beginning of the war and put in charge of some sort of elite team, if I read his file correctly (it's faded and in gothic script). Fought in Bohemia and Carpathia against the Russians, then transferred to Italian front in 1917 after 9 months in hospital with typhus. Fourteen combat medals of valor in all, one of which was pinned to his breast by Emperor Karl I during an audience in 1918. Invading Sov soldiers looted the medals in 1945. Family petitioned the govt. in the 1980's to have them re-issued to the family, and for several years four of them hung on my living room wall until I gave them to his oldest surviving daughter (the aunt who was born just as the Sovs marched into Vienna in 1945).
Amazing stuff here. I understand correctly, Grandpa Yella (Capt. US Army Infantry), ended his time in the European theater in Austria in 1945.
Standing inside the gas chamber at Dachau on a freezing day. You don't understand humanity until you do this. Not good... in order to really understand life, though, you have to do this! I'm not anti-semitic. It is just that it's the only way to get the man-inhumanity-to-man issue.
The mind boggling thing is that Dachau paled in comparison to the other German death factories further to the East.
Mauthausen is pretty sobering, too
Dachau and Mauthausen are notable for being amongst the first camps and the places where the Germans got their reads down. Something like 31,000 were killed and Dachau and 120,000 to 300,000 at Mauthausen. These figures by themselves are horrific. But the final solution really got going at Auschwitz (1,000,000 killed) and Treblinka (900,000 killed).
Where did you get these numbers? Personally, I would be suspicious since the authorities disclaim the chamber at Dachau was even used. It look used, big time. Anyway, I leave the arguments to the historians.
Comments
I did see this outside of Paris back in 1994 which was phenomenal to check out...
Grand Canyon was cool but I found it kinda sorta ever so mildly disappointing? Maybe I've just seen it too many times in pics/vids. Definitely amazing but I guess I expected a tiny bit more somehow?
Glacier is badass. Going to the Sun Highway is an adventure everyone needs to experience at some point.
Yellowstone stands alone, nothing like it. Grand Tetons (or Tittytons, as my little brother and I called it as kids) are the shit.
Not a NP but coming northeast bound out of Yellowstone there's a road called Beartooth Highway that is some spectacular mountain scenery and scary af switchbacks.
Olympic, Rainier are obviously legendary but I don't need to tell this bored about them. North Cascades is massively underrated though.
Rocky Mountain is very worth it. Great Smoky Mountains is really cool but you have to set aside your west coast mountain elitism to be able to appreciate it.
Arches is one of my favorites, really unique landscapes. It's the only one of the Utah parks I've been to yet though, I definitely need to see the rest.
Badlands is eery. Wind Cave is fun if you have time for a tour.
I've barely been to the edges of Theodore Roosevelt, Petrified Forest, Mesa Verde and Everglades. Really want to do the full Everglades sometime.
Gateway Arch is a NP now which is ridiculous but it's still cool to visit.
Never been to any of the California or Alaska NPs which is a blackeye for me, IMO.
US nature stuff
Sequoia, John Muir(also see Redwoods), & Yosemite are world beaters. The Olympics can come too. Yellowstone I love but there's less wow factor imo. Maybe that's because my family owns lands in the Wyoming Rockies and I grew up running around there.
I reserve my judgment of the Grand Canyon as I've only ever gotten to visit the lookouts. Still waiting on hitting the lotto for a permit to white water raft it. I have rafted the Snake River in Hell's Canyon which is technically bigger than the Grand Canyon. One of my favorite rafting rivers of all tim and it's amazing to be able to just go and do it without any restrictions.
Arches and the surrounding areas are tits if you are a JEEP fanboy. Hint hint @Swaye
The petrified forest was kind of meh. The painted desert was cool to drive through once. Meteor Crater was actually probably the most impactful.
The Black Rock Dessert anytim there isn't burning man is fucking amazing. Total fucking moonscape and nothing but the sound of the wind and dust blowing. You can drive 100+ on the open playa for hours and not hit a god damn thing. Surreal.
Joshua tree also seems like it would be a good place to do a lot of peyote.
You pretty much can't throw a rock and hit something amazing and beautiful in Hawaii. Too many people spend all of their tim at the Beaches. The volcanoes, waterfalls, and forests aren't appreciated enough.
Have been to Sunset Crater and Wupatki NMs, both were pretty cool, especially Sunset.
Great Grandpa was the fighter. Had been an officer in Austro-Hungarian Army pre-WWI, discharged in 1913, brought back at the beginning of the war and put in charge of some sort of elite team, if I read his file correctly (it's faded and in gothic script). Fought in Bohemia and Carpathia against the Russians, then transferred to Italian front in 1917 after 9 months in hospital with typhus. Fourteen combat medals of valor in all, one of which was pinned to his breast by Emperor Karl I during an audience in 1918. Invading Sov soldiers looted the medals in 1945. Family petitioned the govt. in the 1980's to have them re-issued to the family, and for several years four of them hung on my living room wall until I gave them to his oldest surviving daughter (the aunt who was born just as the Sovs marched into Vienna in 1945). As his only great grandson, I got his ceremonial sword, standard model 1861 officer's sabre, complete with sheath crimp at the end so the sabre tip doesn't rattle around at parties.