If you haven’t visited Zion National Park, put it on your schedule. It’s definitely one of my favorite places, and IMHO one of the coolest looking places on earth. And if you do go, make sure to do it in a convertible, since most of the scenery is up Of course, since so many people like to come to the park, you can only drive your own vehicle from November through April. The rest of the time you have to park outside the boundaries and take one of the shuttle buses. Lots of cool hikes on the inside. Here is a taste of what is to come when I get around to building a proper travelogue for this trip…

Today was Guy Fawkes day here in England. Basically, this is an example of a 400-year long grudge. Guy Fawkes was a member of a Catholic group who tried to assassinate the Protestant king James I in 1605 (the Gunpowder plot). They failed, were tortured and executed, and ever since then are remembered on every November 5. There are fireworks and a large bonfire in which Guy Fawkes, aka “the guy” is burned in effigy. There is a bit of a pagan air about the bonfire, but basically it is just an excuse to party! They have been setting off fireworks around town for the last 3 nights, and tonight was the big celebration on the Stray (our huge city park). There was a decent fireworks display, and a truly enormous bonfire. They fueled it with what appeared to be a bunch of wooden pallets, and the tops of IKEA desks. I got a couple of movies of it (sorry about the big file sizes):
Here, it is just starting to catch, and you can still see the guy at the top right (16MB)

Going a bit better now… (7MB)

Then the wind kicked up, and the lower stuff caught (9MB)

This is the maximum height, and it was almost too warm to stand where I was… (12MB)

It’s still pretty huge, even after 15 minutes and 100 yards away…
hehe, fire is cool..