Tagged With "California Gold Rush"
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Re: Iceland: 'No we're not Disneyland'
Now that Rekyjavik is on the European Budget Airlines destinations list its hard to avoid a rush. It was one of those places you wouldn't visit unless you had a business interest and an expenses account. They're still advertising Iceland on TV, so someone must be pleased with the extra income tourism brings.
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Re: Mission San Juan Capistrano, California
Rob, can you tell us what we're seeing in the last photo? PS: I love your layout seeing it on my desktop computer. A small phone screen doesn't do it justice.
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Re: Gumbo's Pic of the Day, Jan. 20, 2014: The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California
Thanks for the pic Ottoman. I have traversed this bridge on 2 separate visits and and was fascinated by its size, architecture and grandeur.
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Re: Gumbo's Pic of the Day, Jan. 20, 2014: The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California
It is a great photo of a great bridge! And likely a rare day. Most of the times I've been in SF the fog and gloom preclude a nice photo of the Golden Gate.
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Re: Gumbo's Pic of the Day, Jan. 20, 2014: The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California
I would recommend renting a bicycle at Fishermans Wharf. Take your time crossing the Bridge Stop at Sausalito - Starbucks - Take in the beautiful surrounds. Watch the Fishing Boats. Take the Cycle track and head for the Ferry at Tiburon. Come back to SF on the Ferry and watch as the City rises from the fog. Great day !
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Re: Is Porto worth the trip?
Much as I loved my time in Porto...it's NOT a day trip. Much too much to do there, including evening stroll along the Douro, port-wine tasting across the river in Vila Nova de Gaia and more. I'd say take the advice above and save Porto for another trip. Of the recommended day trips above, I'd vote for Sintra. It's an easy trip--trains run about every 30 minutes, more frequently in rush hours, The town itself is interesting, the Moorish Castle up on the mountain and the Pena Palace above that...
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Re: Frommer's New EasyGuides: A Future for Print
A review for London ? Haven't been there for 40 years Paul. Really don't like big Cities and the "too busy to care attitude of people who live there" It's just my personal opinion. On the Tube Train into London people don't make eye-contact or talk to strangers. Here in Liverpool you'll be in conversation with 3 or 4 strangers and share a few laughs on the journey ! Someone falls on the street here ( and most of Northern England ) and folks rush to help. London they step over you. Rant over...
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Re: Frommer's New EasyGuides: A Future for Print
Like GarryRF, I'd rather be in wide open places. But that said, I do love snippets of big cities. A week at a time is about enough to satisfy my need for hustle and bustle for awhile. I know others can't live without the constant adrenaline rush of a city. The beauty of a free world is that everyone can pick what they want.
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Re: Minneapolis in the winter
The Mall's more interesting than you might think - besides the shopping there are the restaurants, amusement venues, and events going on. Here some info about stuff to see at the Mall http://www.mallofamerica.com/attractions To get to the Mall of America you Take Metro Transit (easy and clean) From Minneapolis Hiawatha Light Rail (Route 55) - The Hiawatha light-rail line offers fast, frequent service from downtown (5th Street) to Mall of America. Hiawatha light-rail trains leave every 7.5...
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Re: Where Gumbo was #22. Skull Rock, Joshua Tree National Park, California
Lesson learned! I should have Googled Skull Rock instead of speculating about animated films!
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Re: Where Gumbo Was #17: Death Valley, USA
Yes, it's really amazing how colorful and varied desert plants can be. Did you also see the blog from a few weeks ago on the "Spine Garden" of cacti in Arizona? It's at https://www.travelgumbo.com/blo...zona-s-sonora-desert
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Re: Up, Up and Away: Airline miles cards with big bonuses
I have a Delta American Express Platinum card that has served us well. The fee is higher than the gold card, but we can check two bags free, priority boarding, and a free companion pass yearly. We fly two or three times a year and the value of the waived baggage fee and the companion pass far exceed the $150 annual fee. The card also accrues one mile for each dollar spent and lately has offered cash back incentives. For example: spend $15 at Panera's using the card and receive $5 credit on...
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Re: It wasn't scary enough, so now...no floor!
This is becoming more common with some older coasters, and most fans enjoy it. I'm not crazy about it, but at least it's different.
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Re: Welcome to The Golden State.
Later today, after I'd posted this photo, I was watching the local 6:00 news, Sacramento. A fire had started in Lincoln, NE of Sacramento, a yard full of trucks engulfed and spreading into grass, moving toward a subdivision. A spotter plane left the Grass Valley Base, flew over my house and I looked to see what it was. About 10 minutes later the news helicopter showed it arriving low over the fire to inspect it. I went out again to watch the next plane, a retardant tanker, possibly the one...
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Re: Welcome to The Golden State.
Currently estimated at 32,00 acres in size, the Butte Fire is now burning 1 mile from Mokelumne Hill. While I have no doubt the tiny town will be saved, your best view of it at the moment may be here , on TravelGumbo. More details on the CalFire site.
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Re: California Gardens 2017: Gold Country, Part I
Luv your garden posts! They've taught me to look at the micro of a garden, not just the overview. Thanks for this!
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Re: California Gardens 2017: Gold Country, Part I
A nice observation, DrF, both aspects of the "art" I speak of.
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Re: April 24, 2018: Thirsty?
And not the first time for a toilet as a museum exhibit. The Guggenheim in New York last year had a solid-gold working replica by Maurizio Cattelan, entitled America, that could be used by visitors. And, famously, in 1917, Marcel Duchamp challenged concepts of art and esthetics by exhibiting a 'readymade,' a standard urinal turned on its edge, signed as if by an artist, and labeled... Fountain.
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Re: The Getty Villa, Part 2: The Art
I love the jewelry for the intimacy with the wearers I imagine, and the frescos which, to me, are the most alive of all the Roman artistic expressions. Sculpture and mosaics, to me, much less so. I also love the key and perfume bottles, imagining the individual hands that held and used them.
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Re: The Getty Villa, Part 2: The Art
Thanks for the comments, PM. It is a fascinating collection, very extensive and thorough. What I was striving for in this piece is to give the reader a sample for what's there and why the museum is worth visiting. My favorite piece of the ones in this gallery is the toy, the very last one. I can imagine some father lovingly crafting it for his child. The glass products amazed me. Several of the sculptures were grand, especially the one of Hercules (which Getty was very proud of), but the...
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Re: Cruising California's 17 Mile Drive
Fine houses in their pristinely manicured gardens. Don't think I could even afford the taxes. I do like the areas that remain untouched by golf and the hand of fortune. I prefer the untouched to the "candy box tin" painting of nature. I've been to many places where the presence of paupers - like myself - detract from the ambiance of opulence. Even today I had a note attached to my car, that parking in a non-designated zone was being selfish. Even though they were full !
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Re: Cruising California's 17 Mile Drive
Far be it for anyone to say you are selfish, Garry! It is one of the most expensive places to live in California, but I suspect all those drivers going through help subsidize the neighborhood more than that homeowners might want to let on. And I'm not sure most of us could afford the taxes, even if we wanted to. Being an average guy, this is just not my scene.
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Re: Cruising California's 17 Mile Drive
Breathtakingly expensive if I recall. I'm surprised that you are allowed to take photos without paying into the local coffers! :-)
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Re: Cruising California's 17 Mile Drive
I'm also surprised there's no per photo toll imposed on the great unwashed masses visiting the shores of the drive, Mac!
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Re: Cruising California's 17 Mile Drive
Well, the unwashed mass did enjoy his time there.... :-)
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Re: Visiting historic Skagway, Alaska
I enjoyed this piece, Tom, and find the little town of Skagway charming if there's no cruise ships around. Make sure if you visit that you also go to the town's little cemetery and see if you can find the grave marker of the villainous Soapy Smith. There was a different way to reach the Klondike in addition to those Tom writes about, which while safer was not very successful. That involved sailing all the way up the coast of Alaska, entering the mouth of the Yukon river and navigating...
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Re: Cruising California's 17 Mile Drive
Cars and bikes are fine, JP, but hogs aren't. The road is good enough so I suspect the home owners (much of the drive is through residential areas) don't want the noise of a big pack of motorcycles passing their gates and fine-trimmed lawns.
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Re: Wawona Hotel, Yosemite National Park, California: Where Gumbo Was #60
Looks like a very nice and comfortable place to stay!
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Re: Serra's Church, Mission San Juan Capistrano, California. Where Gumbo Was #46
Somewhere I've got a snapshot of a very young me with a tiny lady holding an object who had insisted my friend take our picture in the garden together. It was in the village of Petra, Majorca and she officiated at the small museum commemorating Junipero Serra's birthplace. I was spending the summer on the island and every student educated in California knows his name almost as well as their own. The address of my high school was El Camino Real, Father Serra's road from mission to mission and...
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Re: Welcome to the town of Dawson City, Yukon
That's the nature of gold boom towns, PHeymont. I believe another gold vein had been found in Alaska near the mouth of the mighty Yukon River, and most of the Klondike prospectors flowed downriver to it. I've been fascinated by the Klondike gold rush since I was a school boy in Canada, reading the writing of Pierre Burton (famous Canadian author, former resident of Dawson City, whose father was one of those who came here during the Klondike Gold Rush and unlike most stayed in Dawson). On the...
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Re: Spring Time on Table Mountain
I have spent whole days hiking Table Mountain and haven't even covered half of it. The top of the mountain is divided by the single two lane road that cuts up and over it. This day was spent on the West side of the divide. I couldn't find any information on the square mileage, but as a rough estimate I would say "huge". There are also caves, which I have never found, but then again I have never found Phantom Falls, either. Just North of this spot there is a "ghost town" called Cherokee.
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Re: Gallery: The View From Home
I got these just in time. It's been raining every day since, not that I'm complaining, we need it badly. But waiting for a day now when I can do more for "Gold Country".
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Re: Happy Birthday, Eiffel Tower!
I like her tips, especially the advice not to rush past the second level, which too many people regard as just a place to change elevators. I also like that up-from-under shot of the tower...It reminded me to go and find my darker version of that view from 1960, on my first visit to Paris.
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Re: Gumbo's Pic of the Day, April 29, 2014: Water Lilies, Mission San Juan Capistrano, California
The lovely lilies make it a bit easier to swallow the disappearance of the birds... Sorry for the bad pun, but this cartoon may explain why the swallows don't "come back to Capistrano!"
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Re: Gumbo's Pic of the Day, April 29, 2014: Water Lilies, Mission San Juan Capistrano, California
More on the swallows, which now mostly nest a few miles away: Staff at the Mission of San Juan Capistrano are trying to lure the swallows back by playing male swallow mating calls, hoping it will attract the females to the traditional nests, and that they will be followed by the males. Here's a VIDEO from the Orange County Register, and more INFO from the Mother Nature Network.
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Re: Impression about Perth, Australia
" considering they're all descended from convicts " Very cruel DrF ! With the discovery of gold just outside Bathurst in 1851, the nature of Australian migration changed completely. People arrived in far greater numbers and from more varied backgrounds than ever before. Between 1851 and 1861 over 600,000 came and while the majority were from Britain and Ireland, 60,000 came from Continental Europe, 42,000 from China, 10,000 from the United States and just over 5,000 from New Zealand and the...
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Re: The Berkeley Pit, Butte, Montana (Where Gumbo was #130)
Thanks for your comment, HistoryDigger. The tailing pond is relatively shallow and I don't believe is anywhere near as contaminated as the pit water. But I still wouldn't swim in it (not that you could, the entire area is sealed off except to workers) The pit water really is not accessible to anything except birds flying in, and hopefully their natural fear of flying into a hole would keep them away. There's enough rivers and lakes nearby that they have a lot of options -- not like trying to...
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Re: Under the Cirio Tree
What an odd tree! I've been to Baja but never saw one. Guess I've got an excuse to go back now!
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Re: Under the Cirio Tree
There are in the Sonoran Desert part of the Baja Peninsula. I drove the peninsula and back. But who needs an excuse to go. It is one of my favourite places.
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Re: A Road Trip Gallery: Jane's Garden
Of course, I don't know the actual size of Jane's Garden, but I have the sense that it isn't huge. And yet, the variety of shapes, spaces, textures and things you've shown could keep even a much larger space "busy!" Thanks for a great morning view!
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Re: A Road Trip Gallery: Jane's Garden
I think you may be projecting the intimacy of the photos onto the whole garden, which isn't small. I'm trying to be ruthless in my choice of images, editing to remove duplicates and the second rate, to improve the whole. While it can be painful during the process, I'm happier with the result in the end and I think it adds, not subtracts, interest. Leaves 'em wanting more, I hope.
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Re: A Road Trip Gallery: Jane's Garden
I'm not sure why I leapt so quickly to the idea of the garden being deceptively small—it may have to do with the intimacy of the images, and my mental image of "cottage," but it also may have to do with my comfort in smaller, but not spare, spaces. In either case...spectacular choices. It greatly cheered my morning chores.
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Re: Where in the World is TravelGumbo (#114)
I'm confused about the photo with the candle, but the photo on the first page of the building with the gold-leaf dome is the Secessionist Building in Vienna. Best regards, Jude Bell
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Re: Florence, Italy: A city made for walking
Just there myself. Phone's battery running low, so pix are limited. A shop's window. On the way to Ponte Vecchio with a friend who bought two enormous gold rings.
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Re: June 8, 2016: Dockweiler State Beach and Park, CA
Great piece! One of my favorite things in California was taking a bike ride along the beach and seeing that side of LAX. The best part is it's pretty empty!