If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that a good portion of my dreams and goals involve travel north of the Arctic circle (and south of the Antarctic). That’s why it’s always good (and supremely inspiring, if not a little frightening) to see and track the expeditions of others taking similar journeys. I suppose this is just a way for me to live vicariously through them, but nevertheless, it’s inspiring. Adventurer Ben Saundersis at this moment on an Arctic expedition, and blogging the whole experience for all the world to read.
The wind rose just as we decided to put up the tent and the poles were bent into crazy angles before we managed to tension the wildly flapping fly sheet into submission. Lying here on top of my sleeping bag, basking in the sunlight that’s percolating through the fabric, with the wind still howling outside, it seems barely believable that a few square metres of paper-thin material can provide such a cosy shelter.
Absolutely inspirational stuff if you have an itch for exotic adventuring. Personally, I think it would be incredible to meet the guy one day. Given that he’s about my age (mid-twenties), it’s a bit of a kick in the butt to see that he’s done all this while I… well… I’ve lived a more mundane life, I’ll put it that way. Far from what — I guess — most would consider “normal”, but mundane nevertheless. Check out his site to read all about his adventure. His posts are organized according to date, so check out everything from 13 May 2006 to today (and I guess for the next week). After he gets back, I’ll see if I can score an interview with him for Gnorb.NET. Do I know the guy? No. Is there any chance he’d take the time to do an interview for a rinky-dink little blog? Probably not, but why not ask? It’s not like he can bite me. (He is, after all, in England most of the time.) If you have your own dream adventure you’re planning to go on, have gone on, or simply have a few dreams of travel to far-off places, share them here. I’d love to read what you consider your dream adventure. Sidenote: This post was created using w.bloggar, which I’m currently in the process of testing as a blogging tool.
since you’re a whizbang when it comes to website design any helpful pointers for a beginner? I really like your site design (simple yet artistic) and I am wondering if there are any free resources you could suggest which would improve my site.
and since I don’t want to deviate from the subject of this post too much, had the chance to got mountain biking in the hills of Scotland last year. one of the most amazing trips I’ve been on. friendly people, good beer, amazing scenery. would highly recommend visiting Edinburgh and the surrounding country side if you ever get the chance. I’m actually heading out to Vancouver to do much the same thing in a month.
Hmm… I’ll have to look around for resources. I know there is a good amount of information out there on Blogger, though, so that’s an advantage. What I’m using here is a modified version of the WordPress default Kubrick theme (a version of which is available for Blogger here).
(Or are you talking about what I’m putting together on the test site? That’s a heavily modified version of the Kiwi theme, with most of the seriously cool features stripped out, mostly because I’m a PHP wuss and a CSS-on-IE dolt. I don’t think there’s a Kiwi equivalent for Blogger.)
In any case, drop me a line detailing what (either exactly or nebulously) you want to do and I’ll get on finding resources for you.
Note that this question has sparked the makings of a new blog article, so if you want to wait a few days ’till I write that one up and post it, then you can get into the niddy-griddy. If you don’t have patience, just email me and we’ll talk in detail there.
Oh, and to keep with the theme, The Wife and I are planning on driving from Key West, FL to Prudhoe Bay, AK (though I think the furthest north you can get is Deadhorse, AK) in what I like to call “The IronButt Journey”. Very much looking forward to that.
While in Edinburgh, did you get to see any castles? Closest I’ve ever seen to one in person is El Morro, in San Juan, PR, and the fort at St. Augustine, FL. Also, planning on blogging Vancouver?
no rush with the blogger help, although a basic tutorial beyond what the blogger provides would be helpful. I would like to do a lot of things, only problem is I don’t yet know what most of those things are…if you get my drift.
unfortunately I didn’t get to spend as much time in Edinburgh as I had planned (my flight was canceled because of a hurricane in the new york area and I got into Scotland a day late). although I did get a chance to wander the Royal Mile which was worth it. not sure yet on blogging from Vancouver, depends on computer availability.
how long does it take to drive across north america?
From what I was able to read, at least 90 hours. That covers Key West to Fairbanks, going through (I believe) Montana. It’ll likely take us about a week and a half to get there. After that we’ll probably end up exploring some of the national parks, or maybe evern driving out to the Yukon and checking out Dalton Highway. We plan to fly back, probably from Juneau.
By the way, on the Blogger theme tutorials, I haven’t yet been able to find anything good on the Web, so *ta da!* I’ll start working on one. (I have a Blogger account which I use for testing stuff.) You’ll have to give me about a week on that, though. Still, if you want to get started, just grab yourself a CSS tutorial and start from there. The first half of your code is all CSS anyway, and that’s easy enough to tweak.