tingilinde

super long haul flights

Quantas will be offering 20 hour flights in a few years.  The notion doesn't strike me as fun.

Airline PR here.

 

 

 

greenland makes a play for tourism

But not too fast.  Hopefully it will work out better than Chinese mineral extraction.

snip

...

One cold December day, I was waiting for a delayed flight in Kangerlussuaq, a former U.S. military base just above the Arctic Circle, when a friendly Air Greenland pilot named Stale asked if I’d like to join him on a drive to the harbor to “pick up some musk ox heads.” The offer seemed very Greenlandic, so how could I refuse?

By early afternoon, it was already getting dark. We hopped into a pickup truck and headed down a long, icy road. At the water’s edge, Stale picked up a musk ox skull — they are kept as trophies, and the horns can be valuable for carving and toolmaking. Then we drove up a snow-covered mountain. The full moon illuminated the fjord below. Next to it, the town looked like a lunar base: a small pocket of human activity nestled in a seemingly infinite void.

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tagging along with amtrak

Amtrak lets you hook your private railcar to the back of an Amtrak train for about five bucks a mile.  

 

if you want to get away from everything

Namibia's Skeleton Coast may do the trick.

 

st kilda

One of those places I'd like to visit.

 

volcano watching

Heidi Julavits on trekking to the eruption of Fagradalsfjall.

snip

...

The eruption is certainly better-mannered than many others that have marked Iceland’s geothermic history. Unlike the 2010 eruption at the Eyjafjallajökull ice cap, the Fagradalsfjall eruption isn’t hosing the atmosphere with lethal gas and ash, upending international air travel and forcing Icelanders to flee their homes. Unlike the 1973 eruption on the offshore island of Heimaey, it threatens to eradicate no town or fill a fishing harbor with land. Unlike the 1783 eruption of the Laki fissure, it’s not powerful enough to cause a worldwide extreme winter, leading to crop failures and famines. And it doesn’t pose the ongoing hazard of Mt. Hekla, a still active volcano that, after it erupted in 1104, became known as the Gateway to Hell. Fagradalsfjall had thus far caused no deaths and, temporary traffic jams aside, it had barely even proved an inconvenience. But I knew that, given the unpredictable nature of volcanic eruptions, it was foolish to bank on good manners.

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flying is a heavily regulated privilege and not a right

You can't smoke onboard - why should infection risks be allowed to fly?

snip

...

The same principle applies to limiting the spread of the coronavirus. The number of COVID-19 cases keeps growing, even though remarkably safe, effective vaccines are widely available, at least to adults. Many public agencies are responding by reimposing masking rules on everyone. But at this stage of the pandemic, tougher universal restrictions are not the solution to continuing viral spread. While flying, vaccinated people should no longer carry the burden for unvaccinated people. The White House has rejected a nationwide vaccine mandate—a sweeping suggestion that the Biden administration could not easily enact if it wanted to—but a no-fly list for unvaccinated adults is an obvious step that the federal government should take. It will help limit the risk of transmission at destinations where unvaccinated people travel—and, by setting norms that restrict certain privileges to vaccinated people, will also help raise the stagnant vaccination rates that are keeping both the economy and society from fully recovering.

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recovery in the air?

Remember the prognostications that Zoom will render a devastating blow to business travel - where airlines make their money?  United is seems to be betting against that.  Time will tell...

 

 

zhaotong city - a narrow place

stinker stations

Stinker was a discount gasoline firm in Idaho.  They had creative signs until Lady Bird Johnson's highway beautification push became law.