Most wonderful National Parks in the world

The 30 best National Parks and Natural Reserves of our planet.
See if your favourite park is included while you listen to the wonderfully soothing soundtrack is written and performed by Lorenzo Pescini an Italian piano composer.




Watch a video of Yosemite National Park

 Amazing photograph of Banff National Park in Canada (one of my favourite National Parks)

Arches National Park lit up at Night, Utah

Wordless Wednesday

LINKED WITH Create with Joy, Project Alicia,

Vintage Holland

Longmen Grottoes

 

2,100 cave-temples with over 100,000 large and small Buddhist statues carved out of the limestone cliffs. These are the Longmen Caves, also called the Dragon's Gate Grottoes, along the west bank of the Yi River near Luoyang in Henan Province, China.

The carving work began in 492 AD and continued for 500 years. The Longmen Caves were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 for these spectacular works of Tang Dynasty art and later dynasties.

The earliest history of the Longmen Grottoes is traced to the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei dynasty when he shifted his capital to Luoyang. Luoyang was the capital for 13 dynasties. The grottoes were excavated and carved with Buddhist subjects over the period from 493 AD to 1127 AD.



龍門盧舍那大佛和菩蕯羅漢像

Buzzards' Roost

Buzzards' Roost, Tennessee

Buzzard's Roost is a cliff located near Millikan's Overlook in Falls Creek Falls State Park, in the US state of Tennessee. The park is in the upper Cane Creek Gorge, an area known for its unique geological formations and scenic waterfalls.

Fall Creek Falls State Park is open year-round and is managed by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

Park facilities include several miles of hiking trails and paved biking trails, an inn and conference center, restaurant, cabins, and three campgrounds, each with bathhouses, offering a total of 228 camping sites. Also an 18-hole golf course and Olympic-sized swimming pool!



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Pink Nebula

A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases. Originally, nebula was a general name for any extended astronomical object, including galaxies beyond the Milky Way (some examples of the older usage survive; for example, the Andromeda Galaxy was referred to as the Andromeda Nebula before galaxies were discovered by Edwin Hubble).MORE AT Wikipedia

World from space

NASA image

Well the news is that this and other amazing images can be seen at Astronomy Picture of the Day - NASA where a different astronomy and space science related image is featured each day, along with a brief explanation.

Where in the world is this?

A piano shaped house

The Piano House located in Huainan City

image via Krystyn Chong at Laughing Squid

The Piano House is built in the shape of a grand piano and the giant transparent violin, which leans against the piano, has stairs inside. It was designed by  students of the Hefei University of Technology School of Architecture and Arts to draw interest to the city in Anhui Province, China. It was constructed by Huainan Fangkai Decorative Engineering Company, Ltd.
The building is a performance and practice space for music students and also looks wonderful when lit at night with 3 horizontal lines on the piano and the outline of the violin illuminated.

Where in the world is Horseshoe Bend?

Horseshoe Bend is the name for a horseshoe-shaped section of the Colorado River in Arizona, in the United States.
The locals call it King Bend.
It can be viewed from a steep cliff above. According to Google terrain maps, the overlook is 4,200 feet above sea level and the Colorado River is at 3,200 feet above sea level making it a breathtaking 1,000 foot drop.

There is also a Horseshoe Bend in New South Wales Australia.

Wonderful wow

Black stripes or white stripes?

The zebra is a wonderful animal don't you think?
Many people were in the past confused about the stripes on zebras: were they white animals with black stripes or black animals with white stripes? Embryological evidence shows that the animal's background color is black and the white stripes and white bellies are additions. This has cleared the question up for once and all.

Maybe you are happy to see the wonderful and weird zebra at the zoo but if you are lucky enough to travel you could see them in the annual migration in Kenya.

RESOURCE: Prothero D.R, Schoch R. M (2003). Horns, Tusks, and Flippers: The Evolution of Hoofed Mammals. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Last stronghold of the Incas

Machu Picchu is a large and ancient town set on a mountain in the Peruvian Andes. It has a world heritage listing which means, amongst other things, it has outstanding universal value. 

 "As the last stronghold of the Incas and of superb architectural and archaeological importance, Machu Picchu is one of the most important cultural sites in Latin America; the stonework of the site remains as one of the world's great examples of the use of a natural raw material to provide outstanding architecture which is totally appropriate to the surroundings.

 
The surrounding valleys have been cultivated continuously for well over 1,000 years, providing one of the world's greatest examples of a productive man-land relationship; the people living around Machu Picchu continue a way of life which closely resembles that of their Inca ancestors, being based on potatoes, maize and llamas

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Machu Picchu also provides a secure habitat for several endangered species, notably the spectacled bear, one of the most interesting species in the area. Others animals include: dwarf brocket, the otter, long-tailed weasel, pampas cat and the vulnerable ocelot, boa, the Andean cock of the rock, and the Andean condor."  Source: UNESCO/CLT/WHC

See list of all 936 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value.

The Taj



Taj Mahal at Agra, India

The Taj Mahal is considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles. In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was cited as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage."

The Taj was built for the Mughal Empress: Mumtaz Mahal (1593 AD – 1631 AD) by The Emporer Shah Jahan (1592 – 1666). The awesome structure, the monument of love that Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan gave to the world, stands as a testimony of his intense love for his wife.

It is a romance celebrated in marble and glorified with precious and semi-precious stones and that’s the way to appreciate it! Read more at the beautiful site by the Department of Tourism, Government of UP, Uttar Pradesh.

Goblin Valley



Goblin Valley State Park, Utah, USA

The distinct shape of these rocks comes from erosion. Because of the uneven hardness of sandstone, some patches resist erosion and some are worn away by wind and water. There are thousands of these unique, goblin shapes .

Hiking is permitted in the park, which features three marked trails.
History:
Native American cultures, including the Fremont, Paiute, and Ute have left evidence of their use of the area in several rock art panels.
In the late 1920s, Arthur Chaffin and two companions were searching for an alternate route between Green River and Caineville and were  amazed  by the rock formations. Chaffin returned in 1949 to the area he called 'Mushroom Valley' to explore the area and photographing its weird and wonderfully eroded rocks.


In 1954 it was proposed that Goblin Valley be protected from vandalism and the state of Utah acquired the property and made it a State Reserve. It was officially designated a state park on August 24, 1964.

Sandcastle creations

Look at the perfect minarets, look at the onion dome!

Architecture in minature.

Have fun in the sand.

Just a few of the competitions:

Antalya, Turkey

Fiesa, Portugal

Vancouver, B.C Canada

Hampton Beach, NH USA

SandFest - Port Aransas, Texas,  USA

GREAT RESOURCE ABOUT EVERYTHING TO DO WITH SAND CASTLES: 

Sand Castle Central

Vivid Colour and Movement

The Rocks in Sydney on 2nd June 2011

The Vivid festival sadly finishes tonight and we must say goodbye, for another year, to the lights that have lit up the city of Sydney in amazing ways. Australia's major international lighting festival had

over 40 brilliant light installations in a free outdoor exhibition where children and adults were encouraged to climb on interactive sculptures such as the giant laser pencil which drew on a wall and the Moore Park stairs where you created your own rainbow by playing hopscotch up and down.

Vivid made Sydney seem extra special for a little while, in the middle of winter, and brought thousands of people to the city at night that would normally be staying at home.

Thank you Vivid.

Interactive painting on MCA exterior interprets your body movements to create colourful splashes and drips made by you. Interactive Paint Projection by Spinifex Group.

Positive Attracts by Edwin Cheong

Life size statues of rainbow light have Infra Red sensors to detect when you are in close range and trigger their LED lighting effect.

The Vivid Light, Music and Ideas Festival for 2013 is 24th May to 10th June.

Amazing cosmic coloured convolutus

Convolutus is the Latin name for the morning glory flower and this is what Mrs E. named this hot spring pool  in 1883!

Mrs. E. N. McGowan was married to Charles McGowan, the Assistant Park Superintendent at Yellowstone National Park in the United States.  

By 1889 Convolutus was being called the Morning Glory Pool or Morning Glory Spring.

It is a wonderful example of the geothermal features of Teton County, Wyoming which also include geysers such as the infamous Old Faithful.  Over the years the colours of the Morning Glory spring change due to the algae and the temperature.

2007                          1966                           1970

Frank Zappa epitomizes weird and wonderful

Zappa and band at Buffalo NY 1980 courtesy of Eddie Berman
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993)


Words cannot explain.
You need to hear his varied musical genres and see his performances and films and read what he said. 

"So many books, so little time." Frank Zappa 

"A mind is like a parachute. It doesnt work if it's not open." FZ

"Frank Zappa dabbled in virtually all kinds of music—and, whether guised as a satirical rocker, jazz-rock fusionist, guitar virtuoso, electronics wizard, or orchestral innovator, his eccentric genius was undeniable." 2004 Rolling Stone Album Guide

"On a personal level, freaking out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricted standards of thinking, dress and social etiquette in order to express CREATIVELY his relationship to his environment and the social structure as a whole" Frank Zappa  in Nik Cohn's AwopBopaLooBopaLopBamBoom

zappa.com official zappa website

Are they weird or wonderful?