Month: July 2021

1. Ever heard of Kaiserstuhl? Me neither. It’s a range of hills in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg in southwest Germany, the name referring to King Otto III from 994, and literally means “King’s Chair”

Photo by Claudio Testa on Unsplash

2. Via Open Culture, the world’s oldest cookbook, which was published in 1643 in Japan, which was actually translated to English.

3. Via Atlas Obscura, archaeologists from the University of Warsaw have found walls for a church, portraits of the 12 Apostles in Sudan. This is particularly important because this relates back to the Kingdom of Makuria, which was a Christian kingdom that ran along the Nile River starting in the 4th century and lasting all of the way until the 15th century. That’s sort of insane to think there’s a kingdom out there that’s lasted that long, but I’ve never known about it.

4. Via The Smithsonian Magazine, divers have discovered an 80-foot ship beneath 16 feet of clay in the Nile River in the sunken city of the Thonis-Heracleion, the ship being both Egyptian and Greek in technique:

The ship’s design reflects a mixture of ancient Egyptian and Greek techniques. Its builders used mortise-and-tenon joints and constructed the vessel partly out of reused wood, suggesting that it was made in Egypt. The ship boasted both oars and a large sail; it had a flat bottom and keel, which would have allowed it to navigate the Nile and the delta where the river meets the Mediterranean Sea.

Franck Goddio, founding president of IEASM, says in a statement that finding intact remains of such ancient, fast ships is very rare. The only comparable Greek-style ship is the Marsala Ship, dated to 235 B.C.E., which archaeologists uncovered in western Sicily in 1971.

5. Via PetaPixel, artist Michael Ranger took the reflection from the high definition picture in Buzz Aldrin’s mask from the Apollo 11 mission.

1. Ever heard of Guatape? Me neither. Guatape is a town in Columbia and can be popular with tourists. There’s also this big rock there, la piedra, and it is 200 meters above the groudn and just sticks out of the ground.

Photo by Luisa Forero on Unsplash

2. Are you kidding me. A glass octopus. This is an animal I’ve never seen before and it’s amazing, via Colossal.

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3. Texas Monthly’s Casey Gerald on the greatness of Ft. Worth’s Leon Bridges. This is one of the best things I’ve read about a human in a really long time.

4. It wouldn’t be a Saturday Morning Links witout a link about a trek. Adventure Journal’s Jeff Moag on Neal Moore’s two year trek to journey across America in a canoe.

5. The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis on the retirement of DFW sports broadcaster Dale Hanson.

1. Ever heard of Phang Nga Bay? Me neither. You’ve probably seen pictures of Phang Nga Bay because it looks amazing and probably the set to some James Bond movie. The translation to Phang Bay apparently means “heathen, pagan, primitive people” as the area was originally inhibited by aboriginal people.

Photo by Abhishek Revis on Unsplash

2. On Thursday, July 8th, we were in Port Aransas, the wind was blowing maybe 15 miles an hour and the rain was coming down in sheets. With nothing else better to do I decided to run for half an hour. My wife decided to work out in the comfort of an exercise room and I took to the mean streets to run in the rain. I thought about running on the beach, but wet sand and pouring rain didn’t sound like a good combination. 4 miles at 8’17” with an average heart rate of 141 and an average power of 241.

By the time I finished, I was drenched (because of rain)waited a bit, put on some dry clothes, waited some more for the rain to stop and went to the beach a few hours later.

The next day, deciding that running in the pouring rain wasn’t enough, I decided to run on the beach in 20 mile an hour south winds, coming straight up the coast. The overall pace was 9’10” a mile for 5.5 miles, but the mile splits were hilarious. Against the wind, I was running 10’30” miles and with the wind, I clocked two 7 minute miles and one that went 7’15”. That’s how much the wind pushed me along. My average heart rate was 149 and average power was 220. I also managed to gain 571 feet despite running at sea level.

The next day, which was Saturday, I decided to do a relatively long run and ran basically 3 miles south along the beach and ran another mile past my entry point and finished with 7.5 miles with an average pace of 9’18”. Average heart rate was 144 and power was 213. I tried to maintain a 9’00” to 9’15” mile, not too fast, but not too slow. The last mile and a half the wind picked up and my average went from 9’12” to 9’46”.

I don’t write a ton about my running because it’s usually pretty boring, but the point with these three runs was that they were all pretty difficult in their own ways and despite being on vacation, I enjoyed doing these really difficult things. The sprints in the rain and the run against 20 mile an hour winds were especially tough, but the running with the wind, I felt like I was sprinting. An absolute joy in a ton of ways, I wasn’t any more tired, but I did get to run on the beach, something I’ve never done before.

3. I’ve mentioned before that Colossal is a terrific site for art, design, etc., and these drone shots straight above the pyramids are fantastic.

4. I’d never heard of albino redwoods and had also never heard that some people thought that these albino leaves on the redwoods were leaching off of the actual redwoods, but they may suck out harmful minerals to keep the redwoods healthy.

5. If you like nostalgia, this is for you. Gotham Canoe’s Bill Grueskin tells the tell of a 1973 road trip from Colorado to Canada and back.

1. Ever heard of Duino? Me neither. Duino is in the far northeastern portion of Italy, darn near in Slovenia and Croatia. In fact, the primary language was Slovenian up until the end of World War I. You can also pretty much walk the coast on the Rilke Trail, where it connects Duino and Sistiana.

Photo by brunetto ziosi on Unsplash

2. Slate’s Jordan Ellenberg writes about the golden ratio, which is probably two things you should know about math, which is pie (3.14) and the golden ratio’s value (1.618).

3. Afar’s Ann Babe talks to Tom Turcich and his mission to circumnavigate the world by foot with his dog Savannah. Not continuous, because of a handful of things, but he sounds determined to finish. I like the idea of knowing what you’re going to do every day. Just go walk.

12/12/16 Day 612. The great thing about walking everyday is that despite being exposed to the elements I have a purpose each and every day; walk. I never fall asleep unsure what I’ll do with tomorrow. I know I’ll learn a little more and grow [a] little more with each new area I pass into.

4. Sidetracked Magazine and Project 282 as Emily Scott spent a 120 days into climbing every Munroe in Scotland. A Munro is a mountain over 3,000 ft.

5. There’s a huge fence in Australia. Huge. I think it is the longest fence in the world, intended to keep out the dingoes, but the problem with keeping a natural predator out is that you change the ecosystem. Now, farmers want the dingoes back on the property. Without the dingoes, the kangaroos were overpopulated, natural vegetation was sparse, the pastures were overgrazed, and the cattle couldn’t survive. And if you really want to go down a rabbit hole, check out the Great Emu War where the emus basically won. Possibly one of those situations where trying to control something that had developed a pretty great ecosystem was maybe already working way before that ever happened. Or maybe farming and grazing of things wasn’t what was really intended. Regardless, that fence has been up for over 100 years and maybe the thought that the fence does more harm than good is changing.

1. Ever heard of Mpumalanga? Me neither. It’s a province in South Africa that means means, “where the sun rises” which is awesome. Mpumalanga (/əmˌpuːməˈlɑːŋɡə/) borders Eswatini and Mozambique and we’ve talked about the Drakensberg and that’s part of that as well.

Photo by Nadine Venter on Unsplash

2. The always entertaining and through provoking Beau Miles on his 4-day paddle to work. What usually takes 40 minutes takes significantly longer and Miles pondering that river he grew up on. Miles has started exploring the area around his home with significant intensity as the pandemic started, which includes him walking to work and now, paddling to work. What starts out as Miles enjoying pushing himself through some uncomfortable situations turns into a bit of disgust at what we’ve done to a river (this is the collective “we”). Comparing the river to a digestive tract and then to watch Miles paddle through the muck is about as accurate a thing as you’ll watch.

3. Ever wanted to know where all the lighthouses in the world are? Well, you are in luck because here’s a lighthouse map from Geodienst and it is super cool (dated reference, but don’t care).Europe is covered with lighthouses, but North America? Not so much.

4. This is terrific. From Texas Monthly’s Christian Wallace, the story of Bass Reeves, a legendary U.S. Marshal and is widely believed to be the origin of the Lone Ranger. Reeves was also African-American and one of the first African-Americans to wear that badge.

Reeves is just shy of his forty-sixth birthday and has worked as a deputy marshal in the Indian Territory for nine years. He knows this sprawling territory, as he likes to say, “like a cook knows her kitchen.” As he and his posseman, John Cantrell, draw nearer to their destination—Jim Bywater’s general store, near the town of Woodford—Reeves slows the pace. With luck, this is where they’ll find their man.

The fugitive, Jim Webb, is no stranger to Reeves. The year before, Webb had drifted north from Texas to the Chickasaw Nation, where he’d found work as foreman of the sprawling Washington-McLish ranch. Webb was hotheaded and mean, a tyrant who rode herd over some 45 cowboys. One day that spring, a reverend named William Steward was performing a controlled burn on his property when the fire accidentally spread to the neighboring Washington-McLish ranch and scorched some of its grazing pastures. A fuming Webb rode over to confront the circuit preacher and left having murdered him.

A few days after the killing, Reeves and a posseman arrived at the Washington-McLish ranch disguised as trail-driving cowboys. As was custom at the time, they asked for breakfast, and Webb allowed the men to come inside and eat. But the foreman was suspicious of the strangers; Webb and his right-hand man, Frank Smith, drew their sidearms and kept a close eye on them. Reeves kept up the charade until, for a moment, something else caught Webb’s attention. Reeves sprang up, gripped Webb by the throat with one hand, and pulled his six-shooter on him with the other. Smith wheeled around and fired two shots at Reeves. Both went wide. Reeves answered with a single report from his Colt. He did not miss. Webb gurgled a surrender, while his gut-shot compatriot bled on the floor. Webb was put in irons, and the men started the long trip back to the Fort Smith jail, known as “Hell on the Border.” Smith died of his wounds by the time the posse reached the Chickasaw capitol of Tishomingo. His bones lie there still.

5. With the Fourth of July right around the corner, I had never heard of the Serapis flag.

This flag was thrown in 1779 in the Battle of Flamborough Head with U.S. Navy Captain John Paul Jones as he captured the Serapis and was flown from that ship. Benjamin Franklin had described the flag and so this flag is also known as the Franklin Flag

It is with pleasure that we acquaint your excellency that the flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen stripes, alternately red, white, and blue; a small square in the upper angle, next the flagstaff, is a blue field, with thirteen white stars, denoting a new constellation.