Dinners, round 2

From our last year in Dallas.

Chris Jagers House

I updated my photography page with my latest composite work, a map of a house of a friend of mine:

Dallas to San Francisco Road Trip

As part of our move, we made bringing the car over into a proper road trip. Instead of 1700 or so miles over highways, we drove 2200 or so over smaller roads and through national parks etc, taking 5 days so we'd have plenty of time to stop and check things out. We watched the sun being eclipsed in Mesa Verde, someone's car burning up in a tunnel in Zion, been hot like never before on the salt flats of Death Valley, drove through Yosemite and found some of San Francisco's steepest hills are right next to our appartment, which made for fun manual transmission practise.

Smokey Mountains, NC

In between organizing my move to San Francisco, had a trip to meet my mom in North Carolina, where we enjoyed the beautiful "Smokey Mountains" area near Asheville. Smokey, because clouds almost always hang in between the mountains, and you alternate between sun and dense fog rapidly as you traverse the mountain roads. Had some rain the first two days which then luckily cleared. Saw my first bear in the wild, a small one, but a bear nevertheless! Absolute fun area if you like "driving" too, took the little rental off-roading followed by some of the sweetest curves ever on the Tail of the Dragon. Trespassed into a very cool schoolbus scrapyard, managed to snap a nice collection of em before we got kicked out, see below.

Morocco

We had time for a short trip to Morocco, flying to Casablanca, and visited Marrakech and Fes by train. The country is a nice contrast between the modern streets of Casablanca, and the crazy mazes of the medina's of Fes and Marrakech that make you feel like you have landed in a different world. Imagine endless streets, none of which wider that 2 packed donkeys, no "main" streets or squares to orient yourself to, and most directions being dead ends. I pride myself in being pretty good at finding my way around, but here we got hopelessly, terribly lost time and time again, several maps in hand all being incomplete and disagreeing with each other. A fun adventure for someone like me, it's like a very realistic but rather crazy videogame.

Some of our hotels were deep inside these mazes, impossible to find without help. Having to return there late at night looked kinda scary, but luckily Morocco is a very safe place to be (especially compared to some other places in the world I have been). That doesn't mean it is without challenges: low levels of tourism because of "europe", and it being december meant we often were the only tourists around in seas of street vendors, tour guides and other people that are rather persistent in trying to get your attention. Needless to say my "saying no" skills are in optimal condition now.

To the guy chanting into his megaphone for 20 minutes at 6AM, close to our hotel window: a bit less repetitive would make you more entertaining.

There's lots of rather stunning architecture to be seen absolutely everywhere (if you know where to look, as most inner courtyards are hidden behind non-descript doors). I love the detail, as everything is made up of geometric patterns instead of the more symbolic western styles. Even some of the hotels we stayed in were almost museums.

Oh, and hurray for absinthe leaf tea on random street corners... we needed it.

Benelux