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Showing posts from November 1, 2020

100 and Done! (Countries that is...)

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We are back! This last trip brought the total countries visited to 100! It is a crazy milestone. It is difficult, time-consuming and can be (IS) expensive. After I got back from Antarctica in 2007, I started thinking about it. After 2010 I was thinking about it more (as I moved from NY to Georgia) and in 2014 it had become a real goal. Between Angie and I we have been to 109 Countries. We are tied at 100 countries each. We have 9 countries different in our lists. For example, I have been to San Marino. She has not. She has been to Israel. I have not, yet. There has been some fun competition in this area. That's why we had to establish rules. 1.) Must be listed (as a country) with the US State Department 2.) Being in an airport doesn't count. You have to get through immigration somehow and not in a DMZ or a no-mans-land 3.) A passport stamp is not required. I have been to Canada, Paraguay, and Uruguay without getting my passport stamped. There are friendly borders in many places...
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The remnants of Hurricane Zeta hit us pretty good. This time it was wind, not rain with Delta a few weeks back. A lot of trees down; we were without power for a couple of days. I had the generator hooked up powering the entire house once I convinced myself the power wasn't coming back on for awhile. The generator did well and I think it may be the first time I truely needed the generator (in this case it kept the food frozen). It felt good that I was prepared and we enjoyed the family time. Here is a video I just found that shows the derailment story in Duluth from back in June. A real high energy railfan was there. This is the train I like to visit and have filmed with my drone. It's a marvel. It is wildly cool this guy caught the train as it derailed although he was about 1/2 mile away from where the cars flew from the track. The next video is the first minutes at the scene of the derailment.