A quick hello from Portsmouth, N.H., where Pamelia and I spent the night en route to an unfamiliar destination nine time zones away. We will be flying from JFK to Moscow to the 2014 Winter Olympic host city of Sochi so that I can attend the Olympic World Press Briefing and do scouting and planning work for SI's 2014 coverage. We'll be staying in the Caucasus mountains, where the Olympic skiing and sliding events will take place.
I’ve had this handy volume since my first trip to Russia, in 1986. However, Russian is not an easy language, even with a simple guidebook. For example, the book says that the pronunciation of the Russian term for natural history is yehstyehsthahznahnyeeyehn. That’s how it’s written in the book, with no spaces. Might take me the whole flight over to memorize that one.
The trip should be fascinating. Sochi is a summer resort that is trying to transform itself into a winter one. Some 70,000 construction workers are toiling around the clock to build or improve venues, hotels and roads. I'll post some photos and more details as I get a chance. In the meantime, here are a few more recent shots from Maine:
On our way to climb Dorr Mountain in Acadia National Park late one afternoon, we took a hike past the grassy pond called the Tarn.
The view across Mount Desert Island from (almost) the top of Dorr.
On a walk near our house we watched a young porcupine cross the road and head into the woods.
In case you didn’t see it on our Facebook page, here’s a shot from the new motion-triggered wildlife camera that Eli, Virginia, Julie and Patrick gave us for letting them live at our house.
Notebook team member Julie and boyfriend Patrick are driving out to his home state of Minnesota right now. They left us this very cool homemade card (read the teeth!).
Answer to the Last Puzzler The distinctive star-shaped leaf was from a sweetgum tree.
Today's Puzzler What type of leaves are shown in the photo below?
a) American chestnut b) hickory c) beech