Lois Hill is a jewelry designer who travels the world to unearth native and ancient methods of jewelry-making. From granulation (tiny silver dots) dating back to King Tut’s Tomb to metal weaves spotted in museum artifacts, Hill’s natural curiosity and love of travel has taken her all over the globe to learn, create and teach.
“I think of it as ‘working to preserve lost arts,’” says Hill. Her fascination with ancient techniques began with Scandinavian filigree. Born to a Norwegian mother in Illinois, she grew up in a crafty house which strictly believed in principles like “That’s not a walnut. That’s a Christmas tree ornament or a magnet,” Hill recalls with a smile.
Increasingly, cruise lines are developing shore excursions that serve up ultra-exclusive experiences, but are these “private access” experiences worth what they cost?
On Crystal Cruises, for example, cruise passengers can experience the same training that cosmonauts undergo at the world’s largest hydrolab, situated at Star City in Moscow.
Prepare to pay to play, however. The excursion, which goes by the name “Hydro-Space: The Final Challenge” goes for a stratospheric $32,995 per person, which would no doubt be the “final challenge” for flimsier wallets.
Still pricey, but certainly within the grasp of mere mortals, are day excursions to Moscow, which Silversea Cruises offers for $999 per person, from St. Petersburg.
The excursion, lasting 16.5 hours, includes flights to and from Moscow as well as private van transfers, guides, a visit to Red Square and The Kremlin, coffee at Puskin Cafe and dinner at the Writer’s Club, the watering hole of Russian (and Soviet) writers for more than 70 years now.
Cruise ships typically dock two or three days in St. Petersburg on Baltic cruise itineraries, and on three-day calls, you’ll certainly have enough time to visit Moscow. You could even go on your own for much less than $999 per person.
Flights between St. Petersburg and Moscow can be had for as little as $30 each way. Prefer rail? The fast train will take you from city center to city center in about four hours. But with either mode of transport, there is that pesky visa problem, meaning that most nationalities can’t just walk off the ship and into St. Petersburg, much less travel all the way to Moscow. Sauntering ashore requires a tourist visa, which takes time, paperwork and patience.
The above video comes from NBC New York, which claims the exclusive on it. Seventeen seconds in, you can see the emergency slide pop out from the right side of the plane (which is actually on your left). It happens in the center of the screen, but you need to look carefully, because the view is partially obstructed. The slide pops out toward the front of the plane. At 26 seconds, you can see disgruntled flight attendantSteven Slater step out of the plane and start to slide down, though this was shot from a distance, so it’s easy to miss.
When the winds of model-year change blew on Land Rover’s 2010 lineup, they hit the LR3 at hurricane speeds forceful enough to turn it into the LR4. A shade of velocity lost, they still rocked enough impact to reshape the Range Rover Sport into the faster and highly finessed luxo-beast we’d been pining for since we drove it in 2007.
By the time those gales rushed over the clamshell bonnet of the Range Rover they had slowed considerably, leaving a mild-by-comparison alteration of the top-tier landscape. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a potent alteration, though: heightened sensations from innovations like the TFT dashboard and vastly increased motivation from the new Jaguar-derived 5.0-liter V8 helped make the total package a little bit better everywhere. And when you’re already standing on the peak, every little bit counts for a lot.
The Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race takes place today in Leadville, Colorado, with more than 1500 racers from 48 states and 21 different countries taking part in the annual event, which looks to have its deepest field ever, despite the loss of the biggest name in cycling – Lance Armstrong.
The race is actually 104 miles in length, and features an out-and-back format. The route starts and ends at 10,500 feet, but the riders will climb more than 11,600 feet, and reach a peak elevation of about 12,600 feet, while out on the course. The Leadville trail is not the most technical of rides, but the altitude will test the endurance and conditioning of the riders from the moment they start until the finish hours later.
A little over two years ago, the race was barely known outside of the hardcore mountain biking crowd. It had garnered quite a loyal following, but it was completely off the radar for most sports fans, let alone the mainstream population. But then, Lance Armstrong, who had been retired from competitive cycling for a couple of years, announced that he would be competing at Leadville, and the media descended on the event in a frenzy. Lance would go on to finish second behind six time Leadville champ Dave Wiens, who became an instant celebrity, earning the title of “the man who beat Lance.”
Soon after that race, Armstrong announced he was coming out of retirement, and in 2009 he returned to Leadville fresh off a third place finish in the Tour de France, and in much better riding condition. The cycling legend then proceeded to put the hammer down on the mostly amateur Leadville crowd. He ended up winning the race in record time, finishing in just six hours, 28 minutes, and 50 second, and roughly a half hour in front of the second place Wiens. Armstrong was so dominant, he ended up riding the final 65 miles completely alone.
Lance was scheduled to return to defend his title, but earlier this week he pulled out of the race, citing a lingering injury that he suffered in the Tour de France and wanting to spend time with his children before they returned to school. But that race still has an incredibly deep field, including Wiens, who is hungry to reclaim the win. He’ll be challenged by Matt Shriver, who finished third last year and Levi Leipheimer, a teammate of Armstrong’s on Team Radioshack. Additionally, professional mountain bike riders Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski, Todd Wells and Jeremiah Bishop are all in attendance for the first time and are hoping to win the race as well.
The race gets underway at 6:30 AM local time with riders trickling across the finish line all afternoon and into the evening.
For an idea of what the race is like, check out the trailer for the film Race Across the Sky a documentary about the Leadville 100.
[Photo credit: AP Photo/Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp, Larry Pierce)
Increasingly, cruise lines are developing shore excursions that serve up ultra-exclusive experiences, but are these “private access” experiences worth what they cost?
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