(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Thank you, babushka! A Colorado State Open Thread, 2/20/2023, Presidents' Day [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-20 Angkor Wat, outside of Siem Reap, Cambodia. The Colorado State Open Thread is usually written by myself, but for the last four issues, babushka filled in so that I could go on a trip to SE Asia and Mexico. I am stating up front how much I appreciated her filling in and the very interesting stories she published — www.dailykos.com/…, www.dailykos.com/…, www.dailykos.com/… ,and www.dailykos.com/…. I was able to read those diaries from the road, but there is no way I’d have been able to research diaries, create them, and publish with the amount of effort she put into them. I really appreciated her work while I was away. Thank you, and any time babushka or any other Kosack would like to publish a diary for the open thread, I’m open to that idea. Please let me know. My plan is to publish longer diaries once I get through the pictures I took (some 1200, including video clips) so that I can have some semblance of order to them. Besides, the pictures and stories are not Colorado-focused, other than we were Colorado tourists in strange lands and we ran into people from Colorado throughout our travels. I do have a few comments to make of a general nature. Perhaps these will whet your appetite for the other diaries. There are lots of ways to get to Thailand and Cambodia where I started my trip. I chose to use an airplane, for the simple convenience of it since Thailand is on the opposite side of the northern hemisphere. If you’re going to go, you can take a northern route going to Vancouver and then Bangkok, which was the way I went (very interesting that we changed the route to avoid both Russia and China — if you’re old enough, you might remember that the USSR shot down a Korean Air Lines 747 from Anchorage to Seoul in 1983 (flight 007) because it had entered Soviet restricted airspace. Nowadays, I believe Russia is being avoided because of the Ukraine war just so there are no “mistakes” like the Malaysia Airlines flight #17 shot down over occupied Ukraine in 2014 by either Russian or Ukrainian separatist forces. Flights also go from the west coast of the US to South Korea, Tokyo and Singapore, or you could go east like my friends did by taking Lufthansa through Germany and then to Bangkok or Singapore. It is nice living in a state that has one of the main International hubs where there are direct flights to Europe and the Far East so you can skip one connecting flight and therefore one potential trip snafu. On my way back to the Americas, I flew back through Vancouver and then down to Puerto Vallarta, flying over but not stopping in the US. I enjoy the airplanes where you can bring up the maps to see where your flight takes you. I noted a number of places of interest (to me) including the Puget Sound where there are so many interesting nature diaries (I looked, but couldn’t see any whales this early in the season), Snoqualmie Pass, the Malheur refuge, site of the occupation and subsequent blown legal case against the militia, Great Basin National Park, Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon (over which I saw an unidentified object that looked like a huge (200 yards or so) black floating/flying sheet or plastic veil about our altitude, but too far away to get a good picture so it will have to remain unidentified), the Mexican border where the land had been cleared, the town of Sinaloa where much drug activity seems to be centered, the Sierra Madre (big fan of Bogart and John Huston) and then down to Puerto Vallarta. When we got over Mexico, what had been clear skies with occasional clouds became dusty and dirty skies, I imagine in part from the dry landscape. It was the dry season in the three areas I visited, but in the US I did see snow in many places. My one argument with police came in Mexico. I thought that if I bought something (alcohol) in duty-free and I kept the bag holding the box sealed, I could bring it from Thailand to Mexico and then from Mexico on a different date to the US. Nope — my choices were to find someone to check it through in luggage (not possible for my luggage as it was already long gone into the bowels of the airport) or to throw it away. I argued with the security supervisor about it because I had gone to great trouble to bring that particular bottle several thousand miles and I wasn’t just going to throw it away now (perhaps to have the customs officials retrieve it for a party). Fortunately, United’s Customer Service rep found a box and was able to get it hand-carried in the luggage compartment of the plane so I could retrieve it in Denver, without any damage. The only duty-free liquid purchase was allowed on the other side of security, and had I been willing to look at it from their point of view, I wouldn’t have accepted my bottle either. Fortunately, I got through, the Thai liquor bottle got through, and the copious quantities of tequila got through. I think I’ve mentioned before how I like the Extra Anejo versions of tequila. Here is the selection of tequilas I brought back from Mexico. All are Extra Anejo except for the three flavored versions in the tall bottles towards the left. I had a tequila tasting with the guys who provided the house sitting while we were gone this past week. A good time was had by all. One final note — a trip to a foreign country is great to get out and see things from a new perspective, and, in major ways, to not see the same-old, same-old. The only things I saw on TV were football playoffs (US and European football), cricket and rugby. I missed the news, or more precise, I didn’t miss the news. I barely caught anything about balloons, nothing about the train derailment, and very little about anything else that I would be reading all about if I were home on my computer. I did see DailyKos on occasion, but that was mostly to catch up on babushka’s stories. I was recharged because I wasn’t reading about TFG, our Lauren Boebert (who I don’t think would have been known by anyone I talked to) or even the Ukraine war. I look forward to hearing all about the last four+ weeks and what has been happening while I’ve been gone. The floor is yours... [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/20/2154011/-Thank-you-babushka-A-Colorado-State-Open-Thread-2-20-2023-Presidents-Day Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/