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Lao Tzu Second Thoughts

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A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. That's according to Lao Tzu. The real late Lao Tzu! I have referred to my fellow traveler, the sack Buddha, as Lao Tzu at first. Lao Tzu, the sack Buddha, became the glorious Holy Shih in the company of Pha Khin Phat. Pha Khin Phat is my pet name for Hotei, the fat laughing Buddha well known for its girth and the luck it gives to gamblers when they rub his fat belly. The Chinese word Shih to my understanding denotes to some poetic verse, maybe some kind of ejaculations, whatchamacallit as glorious orgasmic experiences to celibate monks. A journey to a thousand miles begins with a single step... Lao Tzu said so, again. The journey also started with a mobile post on Facebook while waiting for my flight to Philadelphia. The Holy Shih has graced a lot of some glorious travels, mostly cheesy and full or corn,   ever since I watched the movie Amélie. The glorious Holy Shih Tzu meets Ate Guy! Unknown to Ate Guy, she an...
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Thinking of Lao Tzu

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A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. That's according to Lao Tzu. The real late Lao Tzu! I have referred to my fellow traveler, the sack Buddha, as Lao Tzu at first. Lao Tzu, the sack Buddha, became the glorious Holy Shih in the company of Pha Khin Phat. Pha Khin Phat is my pet name for Hotei, the fat laughing Buddha well known for its girth and the luck it gives to gamblers when they rub his fat belly. The Chinese word Shih to my understanding denotes to some poetic verse, maybe some kind of ejaculations, whatchamacallit as glorious orgasmic experiences to celibate monks. A journey to a thousand miles begins with a single step... Lao Tzu said so, again. The journey also started with a mobile post on Facebook while waiting for my flight to Philadelphia. The Holy Shih has graced a lot of some glorious travels, mostly cheesy and full or corn,   ever since I watched the movie Amélie. The glorious Holy Shih Tzu meets Ate Guy! Unknown to Ate Guy, she an...
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A Visit to the Homelands of the Timbisha Shoshone

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"In our religion, we don't practice within four walls. Our religion is written in all these mountains and in the valleys, in the waters, in the wildlife--everything that belongs to the Creator. So, we're in church everyday. That's what we say." By Pauline Esteves, a Timbisha Shoshone elder Pauline Esteves, a Timbisha Shoshone was 8 years old when  President Herbert Hoover established 2 million acres of her homelands as Death Valley National Monument (DVNM) on February 11, 1933. The federal government presumed that the valley had no permanent residents. Timbisha Shoshone people have nomadic lifesyle of hunting, gathering wild food, visiting sacred sites, participating in ancient tribal rituals, and the like. Now at 3.4 million acres and the largest of all US national parks outside Alaska, Death Valley showcases the spectacular beauty of extremes that has always been reverred by Pauline Esteves and her people. The valley has been home to the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe ...
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Thr Devil’s Punchbowl and the Devil’s Chair

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Once upon a time some 25 million years ago while Mother Nature was taking its course, Devil, one SOB  was left to himself doing as he pleased.  Devil played tricks and making pranks on everyone including North America  and Farallon,  two brothers who were attached to each other like tectonic plates. Devil liked to smack North on  the back of his head and when he turns around to see who had been hitting him, he only saw Farallon whom he smacked even harder to get even.  Many more fights followed until North smashed Farallon and  poor Farallon broke into pieces. Farallon's demise made Pacific very angry that he came home to confront North ramming and denting him but  getting stuck with him instead.  The dent that resulted where   Pacific rammed into  North America became the Devil's punchbowl.  Today, the Devil's Punchbowl Natural Area highlights a tilted sandstone formation that becomes a 300-feet deep canyon in the northern slo...
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Mount Baden Powell

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Katharine Lee Bates who  wrote " America the Beautiful"  must have had  that familiar feeling of awe and wonderment every hiker experiences as she bagged Colorado's Pikes Peak in the summer of 1893.  O beautiful for spacious skies,  For Amber waves of grain,  For purple mountain majesties,  Above the fruited plain America, America  God shed His grace on thee,  And crown thy good with brotherhood  From sea ro shining sea.  It was I who have been calling on mountains. No mountains ever called me back but I love them just the same. As usual, it's just me and  myself sauntering the 40 switchbacks of the 40th hike  of the 52 hike challenge I am doing this year. Twelve more and I would complete the  challenge.  I belt out a slightly modified Rachel Platten's refrain making sure nobody was within hearing distance.  This is my fight song Take back my life song  Prove I'm not old song  My power's turned on...
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NY to NJ on foot

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George Washington Bridge. Bronx. Cabrini Boulevard. Washington Heights. 175th Street, Manhattan, NYC. Interstate 95 or I-95, the main interstate highway of the east coast. New York State Route Highway 9A. US Route 9. US Route 1. Fort Lee, New Jersey. Palisades Interstate Park, New Jersey. White blazes.  Concrete jungles where dreams are made of  There’s nothing you can’t do Now you’re in New York  These streets will make you feel brand new The song “Empire State of Mind” admittedly typical “New York hip-hop shit” by its writers resonates again as I hike my  second bridge for the  family East Coast visit. I’ve had enough of the tourist crowd of the  iconic Brooklyn Bridge and finding the bike path  that would get me to New Jersey on foot got me deeper into  this Jay Z-popularized hip-hop shit.  If  I can make it here, I can make it anywhere, that’s what they say. AllTrails rates the 1.6 mile George Washington Bridge hike easy. The unbroke...
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Hiking Central Park

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Harlem Meer is a man-made lake at the northeast corner of Central Park.  It is a stone’s throw away from the creaky Central Park North Apartments at 111th Street where KG, Karlee, Richard and I stayed. Took  a left on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard towards 110th Street past Malcolm X Boulevard. Meer is the Dutch word for lake. Harlem is a modification. of Haarlem, a city in Netherlands. The 843-acre park is surrounded by Fifth Avenue in the east, the affluent Upper West Side neighborhood,  Midtown Manhattan to the south,  and the  Harlem in the northeastern side. The whole park occupies the  length from 59th Street to 110th Street and the width from 5th Street to 8th Street. Hey, Donalds... The word Manhattan likely came from the Lenape language Mannahatta  which translates to “island of many hills”. The Lenape people were also known as Delaware tribes, the indigenous groups from the Northeastern Woodlands or something like today’s east coast. In 16...
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