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Enchanted Rock State Park

James — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:36:24 +0000

The three of us (Natalie, Jackson, and I) took a last-minute trip to spend an evening at the beautiful Enchanted Rock State Park near Fredericksberg. It was approximately five hours driving time from the DFW metro area. We saddled up and left early Saturday morning and arrived at the park shortly after 10am.

We had a great time enjoying the park. It was very clean and the hikes were gorgeous. It got very cold overnight, I think to about 27 degrees F, and our sleeping bags were iced over in the morning from the frozen condensation. The sky was extremely clear at night and I have never seen so many stars before. We were wishing we had brought the telescope out!

Visiting The Abandoned Superconducting Super Collider Site

James — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 02:25:40 +0000

Today we took a short trip from the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex to visit the abandoned Superconducting Super Collider site near Waxahachie. Something on the order of $2 billion was spent and 12 miles of tunnels bored before US Congress abandoned the project in 1993 due to managerial and funding issues. Or as far as we’re told, that is what happened.

This atom-smasher would have dwarfed both FermiLab and the LHC in Cern, Switzerland, which is still not yet fully operational. You cannot help but imagine how much more we would know about our universe today if this project had been completed.

Central Europe Trip March 2011

James — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:09:43 +0000

On this trip, Natalie and I flew into Zurich, and traveled by train (in consecutive order) to Innsbruck, Munich, Fussen, Altotting, Salzburg, Vienna, and finally Prague before returning back to the states.

We were concerned that March would be too cold for traveling these countries, but we soon found that we had packed too many warm clothes as the weather was gorgeous the entire time. My favorite part of the trip was experiencing the fantastic train systems. They were nice scenic breaks and allowed our legs to relax from the miles of hiking around.