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Cemeteries and Islands in Buenos Aires

We had one day left. Back in Buenos Aires. I had to catch a 10:30 pm flight so spent the day touring around. I had been to the cemetery in 2017 but was never able to find Evita Peron’s grave. This time it was pointed out to me along with a couple of other interesting plots.

Next stop was the El Tigre neighborhood. The Lejan river comes together with several others including the Parana and the Uruguayan rivers to form a large delta flowing into the Rio de la Plata which passes by Buenos Aires and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Tigre had a large fruit harbor and market but now it is mostly a tourist destination with weekender cabins all alongs its canals and islands. The only way to get around is by boat.

After ten hours in the air, four hours waiting on the ground, and another two hours in the air I finally made it home. It was horrible at the time and I was so tired I couldn’t see but now I have forgotten it all and just remember all the cool stuff I saw. It was a great trip!

Now, on to planning the next one! I’m going to go back and read Leighton‘s Istanbul blogs.

On to South Pategonia

Punta Arenas is an important port on the Magellan Straight at the very south of Chile. Of its 170,000 people, about a third are of Croatian decent.

In 1518, Ferdinand Magellan left Seville in Spain with five ships. After several problems including a couple of mutinies they found a route through to the Pacific Ocean. The Magellan Straight. It meant they didn’t have to deal with the unpredictable hazards of Cape Horn. One of the five ships made it all the way back to Seville but Magellan was not on it. He was killed in the Philippines.

Another historical figure who had ties to Punta Arenas was Ernest Shackleton who led three expeditions to Antarctica, not always with the best results.

I took a long walk by the water and saw some interesting things.

From there we drove to Torres del Paine national park. Along the way we came across a couple of gauchos crossing the road.

We also saw rheas, guanacos and flamingos.

Once we got to Torres del Paine we took a short hike.

We stayed in a hotel right on Grey Lake and at the end of the lake you could see Grey Glacier.

Next day we had a longer hike.

I found out that glaciers make a rumbling noise like thunder when they move. This one was moving a lot.

Bridges and Towers

The last covered bridge in Minnesota is in Zumbrota, south of the Twin Cities. The bridge was originally built in 1869, to span the Zumbro River and is 120 feet long. It served as a stagecoach route between St Paul, Minnesota and Dubuque, Iowa. It was later restored and moved to its present site in the 1990’s. It still spans the Zumbro River and is now attached to a large city park.

This cute statue was outside the Public Library in Zumbrota. In the 1800’s the settlers of Zumbrota formed a Literary Society and Library Association. In 1877, it became the first public library in Minnesota supported by taxpayers. In 1908, the library received a grant form Andrew Carnegie and became the smallest Carnegie Library in the state. in 1995, it moved to its current location next to the covered bridge.

If you continue south on Highway 52, you will arrive in Rochester, Minnesota. There you will find the Ear of Corn Water Tower, standing 151 feet tall. It was built in 1931, to provide water for the Reid, Murdoch, and Company food cannery. The tower was illuminated by 10 spotlights and from the 1930’s to the 1960’s it was used by the Army Air Corps and Air Force to find a nearby airfield. The cannery changed hands several times and the tower was eventually bought by the county and fully restored in 2021.

Funny Story

So funny story. Our internet went out on Thursday. It was out from about noon to after 10 pm. It came back on the next morning. In my building that means the TV is also out. And it means the public garage we all use is not accessible. The fancy new system they put in just doesn’t work. You can’t get in or out. That night all the people who work downtown could not get out to go home. And residents could not get in to go home. Somebody didn’t think it through when they installed the new fancy scanners. The company that owns the garage almost had a riot in their hands. They finally dismantled everything and opened all the gates. That meant that this morning the garage was full of homeless people sheltering out of the rain.

One word – idiots! Not really so funny. The down side of technology. I think more and more, we need a back up for technology.

Facebook is reminding me about my trip to Ireland four years ago. Check it out.

Winter is coming. William O’Brian State Park was kind of magical.

Fall is in the Air

My photos look a little out of focus today. Kind of psychedelic. Or is it just me? The sky is an odd color. A rainy, dark day. But color starting as the trees adjust to winter.

I actually got a story published this week. No money but think of the fame! The notoriety!

Today is also gloomy and rainy. But that’s okay. We need rain. Rain is good. Winter is coming.

I read today that scientists think mammals will die out in 250 million years. All the land masses will collide, the sun will get brighter, and carbon dioxide will rise. We will suffocate and melt. I wonder if we will really last that long. Will we morph into something else? Will another species thrive on the new atmosphere? Will we build bio-domes like our science fiction writers predict? It is hard to imagine what 250 million years looks like. The dinosaurs roamed the earth for 165 million years and then all blew up about 65 million years ago. Mammals showed up about 225 million years ago. So we are almost half way through our time here. On the other hand the earth itself is 4.5 billion years old. We are but blips in time. It’s like democracy in Russia. A nanosecond. Apparently Earth has another 4 billion years to go. Don’t think I’ll be around to see it.

I’m reading Isabel Allende’s memoirs and in it she mentions the filming of The House of Spirits. I never knew it was made into a movie so I watched it last night. It was star studded, Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Antonio Banderas, Winona Ryder, and a million other people. Of Love and Shadows is another one of her books that was made into a movie. I haven’t read that one but looks interesting.

I read that people who are optimistic and have positive thoughts on aging tend to live longer. I’m feeling positive I am aging.

A friend just found out he is going to Burundi for work. The poorest nation in the world. The most unhappy nation in the world. I first heard about Burundi during the Hutu-Tutsi genocide of the 1990’s. So I have been trying to find positive things about it. It is in the African Great Lakes region bordering on Lake Tanganyika. This is what I found.

They make pretty sisal baskets.

https://basketsofafrica.com/product-category/burundi-baskets/

They have pretty birds.

Image: Michael Gwyther-Jones

Nice landscape.

Image: Dave Proffer

Drums are important.

Lake Tanganyika is big. It has hippos.

See, positive, positive, positive.