The Great Solar Eclipse of 2017 crossed the continent, from Oregon to South Carolina, and gave millions of people the chance to witness one of the most awe-inspiring events in the natural world.

But you had to be within the "path of totality", a narrow band across the earth's surface several thousand miles long but only about 70 miles wide. Outside that band you would only see a partial eclipse, not a total eclipse.

And there is no such thing as a "partial total eclipse", despite the impression blogs and the news media might give. I honestly think that's why so many people misunderstand the utter beauty of the spectacle; they may have seen a partial eclipse in the past that was total somewhere else, and even though they weren't in the path the news kept gushing about it being a total eclipse, so they assume they must have seen a total eclipse and just didn't find it all that impressive.


Posted by Dan 08/29/2017, revised 09/06/2017

Taking advantage of gorgeous views and challenging terrain, the Lake Tahoe Marathon Weekend has a little something for everyone.

The weekend features not just a marathon, but your choice of three marathons (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), or for endurance junkies, the option to do all 3 (The Tahoe Triple). Same goes for the half marathon (The Trifecta) and the ultra (The Triple Dare): 72 miles all the way around Lake Tahoe!

... And yes, someone did run the full 216.6 miles in three days (46 hours 27 minutes). See Rob Carter's finish video.

For the rest of us with more modest goals, the menu of events included duathlon, 10k, 5k, kids superhero run, and a number of aquatic events. There were kayak and paddle board races, and open water swim races.

I felt a little greedy looking at all the events to register for, but in the end I opted for the 2 mile swim as one of the more unique choices.


Posted by Kimberly 09/16/2014

After only two days in Indonesia I am in love.

Shanks ponies into the jungle

Indonesia was apparently a very popular destination for tourists before Thailand took over and began drawing people to Southeast Asia. Because of this the tourist infrastructure is there but the islands are blissfully devoid of other tourists. From Malaysia we took a local ferry and made our way overnight by bus to Bukittinggi. For whatever reason it was decided that everyone on the bus should feel like it would be a white Christmas after all and the AC was on full blast all night. Quite ironically we crossed the equator on this stretch making the equator officially the coldest part of my trip. At one point Bukittinggi may have been overrun with tourists using it as a jump off for various treks and tours or just visiting the scenic town, but these days it has settled back into its own quiet existence.

Posted by nik 12/27/2008, revised 02/08/2009

Wow. My last blog was from Koh Phagnan... that seems like ages ago! I guess it seems like ages ago to Mom and Dad, too, 'cause they haven't been diggin' the long silence from their (awesome) daughter.

There's good reason for my silence, though. I was lost. I was lost in an amazing Neverland of happiness and fun. I was living the life on Koh Tao, and for me to sit in front of this computer screen with the task of "write about your month on Koh Tao," well, that's quite possibly the most immensely intimidating, overwhelming task I've faced in lifetimes. But you know what? There's no possible way I could ever ever portray to you the amazingness that was my month on Koh Tao. So with that fact having been recognized, I can now approach this in a "just write something and it's better than nothing" manner. Much easier to get my mind around!

The reason I haven't written a blog in so long

Koh Tao is a little island off the east side of Thailand, in the Gulf of Thailand. It is warm and tropical and happy - essentially everything you want your standard tropical paradise to be. There's so much to be said about the island itself, and there's so much to be said about my personal experience on the island. But I can't say it all in any reasonable number of days, so I'll break it down like this...

The 5 aspects of Koh Tao that make it what it is, ...or 5 reasons "1 week" turned into a month

A picture's worth a thousand words... this one should suffice as a substitute for a blog

Posted by Whitney 10/24/2008