Editor’s Note: I am WAY behind on blogging – so here’s day two, and here’s to hoping that I can actually get back on track.

Our SOS work portion has yet to begin, and all of the SOS folks are currently out of Delhi. This has given us a couple of days to play super tourists and see some of the sights!

Having seen the Richard Attenborough directed film, ‘Gandhi’ a couple of times, I know a fair amount of the life of “Bapu” already. What he meant (and still does) to this country is an important part of the history.

We started at the Gandhi museum in Raj Ghat. These places are really interesting as well in a calming way. Ripping through the roads of Delhi in a rickshaw can be really….I dunno, overwhelming at times I would say (see: previous post), but then you walk into a place like the National Gandhi Museum and it’s as if the street craziness disappears. You can barely hear a horn the minute you walk in the gate.

The Museum itself was really a rich interesting time period history of Gandhiji’s life. From his nonviolence as a lawyer in South Africa to help end racism against Indians there, to his Salt March and uniting of India to demand home rule from the British, he was obviously a transformative figure. A hugely inspiring person, the likes of which we may never see again – probably not in my lifetime. The National Museum had some beautiful photos and quotes, and more on the morbid side, the clothes he was wearing when he was shot (bloodstained and all) and one of the three bullets that took his life.

After the Museum we found probably the two best parts of the day. First this guy:

India is full of personality, and this gold dealer we met is definitely one of those. He struck up a conversation with Kate in the Gandhi Museum gift shop over, of all things, Hilary Clinton. There’s video because describing this guy is just too impossible. Kate has it on her Flip, so I’ll have to upload it later.

Second, a rickshaw driver named Kumar. Kumar has been driving a rickshaw in Delhi for 28 years, and was a godsend. He was with us all day, shuttling us from place to place, and costing almost nothing based on what we got in return. He was a really nice guy who spoke decent English which was really nice. Again, Kate has that and she just yelled at me for asking for it again. So it’ll have to wait.

We went from Raj Ghat to another Gandhi historical location, the Smriti. This is where he spent the last 144 days of his life, and was ultimately shot on the grounds of this home.

It is really stunningly beautiful, and even traces his final steps down the path to the prayer column where he was shot:

Another big part of Gandhi’s life was his insistence on not depending on British textiles. He was a proponent of Indian’s hand spinning their own cotton, and weaving their own clothes. You can actually buy some of this homemade clothes that are made right there on the grounds of the home.

We also went to India Gate – a massive arc that honors Indians killed in wars overseas. It’s a super touristy area, so the “touts” are out in force there. If I say no to whatever you are selling twice that should be enough. Many of the touts are respectful, but others seem to follow thinking the harder they sell, the more likely I am to give them money to go away. But in fact, if you even hint about pulling out Rupees, it’s as if they all know and then they begin to swarm. Kind of crazy, but really only an issue in the super tourist spots.

Kumar took us on a quick fly by of the political bit, with the Parliament building, Secretariat Buildings and the President’s House (which looks more like the biggest castle/mansion ever).

Writers note: This is the first blog in hopefully a long series over the next month. The timing will be off as I only have access to wi-fi on and off.

We landed at just before midnight – it was a very “Indian” start to the whole thing, I think. It took us over 30 minutes to even get to the gate once we landed. Getting through customs was a breeze, but it took about an hour for us to get our bags.

From there we were greeted by a taxi driver who had a GIANT Wildlife SOS sign taped to a stick – hard to miss.

After a quick money exchange, and purchase of water we were on our way. It was really a shame, I think, that we landed in the middle of the night. It was very hard to really get a feel for the city as the haze really limits your view (I assume that’s the same in the day also). There are A LOT of roundabouts here, that’s for sure. Very easy to realize that Britain once occupied India 

The driving – well the driving is like anything you see on Youtube.com.

(Video shot by me on the first morning – a drive in an auto rickshaw)

Even at night when the traffic was much less, the horn honking and driving all over the road is the norm. Not even sure why they bother painting lanes on the road. Seems just like a big waste of money to me!

We are staying at the Ginger Hotel for the next couple of nights. It’s a fairly basic, but decent budget hotel. It’s 20 bucks a night, and for that I get everything I need, including about 20 channels on the TV that are all in Hindi. So far I am enjoying watching MTV India which is absolutely mesmerizing. We did grab a bite to eat at 3am once we got checked in. There’s a little restaurant in the lobby – Kate had Yellow Daal (lentil curry), I had Jeera Aloo (spicy potatoes). Somehow we also ordered enough Naan to feed Kanab. All told it was four dollars. That I can get used to.

So it’s off to bed for now. I really do need a decent night sleep. As expected I feel really off kilter. The food helped, as I am sure a good chunk of sleep will also do a world of good.

I’m not sure where I ran across it, but I posted this quote on my social network sites and it was popular so thought I’d preserve it here.

“If you want to feel rich, just count all of the things you have that money can’t buy.” – Author Unknown

For those of you who have visited Kanab, you have seen the majestic vermilion cliffs that the town backs up to.

We went on a hike tonight on the Squaw Trail, a (we think) city created and managed trail. It’s only 1.5 miles, but it’s basically 1.5 miles STRAIGHT UP – ending up on top of the vermilion cliffs that make Kanab, Kanab.

Then Kate decided to play in the sand and make an offering to the Squaw Trail Gods…

Masterpiece

Really fun, short, and strenuous hike. I was having a tough time towards the top – it was really steep. I am sure the weekend in Vegas didn’t help!

But I think this is very funny.

(via xkcd)

Yes, I know that looks like HURR-ee-CAYNE, but here in Utar it’s said HURR-i-CUN. Yeah, weird, but they have good golf courses! Had a chance to play Sky Mountain last year. Beautiful course, HOT, but very scenic.

But on Monday I had the chance to go play Sand Hollow.

Sand Hollow is relatively new, just about a year old. Amazingly picturesque, with several of the holes on the back nine edging along the mesa. The best golf courses I think anywhere, but certainly in the unique topographical area of Southern Utah, are the ones that take the natural beauty and don’t try to outdo it. Just carve a fairway along side the red rock and call it good. There’s enough around for it to be amazing without you, course designer, trying to do too much. This is exactly what John Fought did with Sand Hollow. Simply stunning – wish I could say the same for my finish position here:

A little too twisty there for my tastes – at least I cleared through the ball I guess. Need to work on that. But ignore my whack finish and just look at how amazing that is! Beyond the edge of that green is a several hundred foot drop-off, into the Saint George valley.

Seriously awesome. That was a par 3 that was carved into the cliffs. Sick – and very hard with a stiff breeze left to right.

That was particulalry annoying. Hard to tell from the photo, but that ball is sitting up about 6 inches on a pile of red dirt, in the middle of that dead whateveritis. Managed to get it out and still make par Shot 78, which for me on a course that was as difficult as that was (6,800 from the blue tees!), that I had never played before….I’ll take it.

If you ever find yourself in Southern Utah I highly recommend Sand Hollow!

Went to the Doctor today to get my second Hepatitis shot for the trip to India.

Weighed in – and had her look up in my chart to see how much I have weighed.

December 15th I was 240lbs.

Today, I am 199lbs.

It’s one of the biggest reasons why Wordpress.org is so awesome.

With literally tens of thousands of themes, and the same for plugins, you can pretty much make your blog do everything you’ve ever wanted and more. I challenge anyone to not be able to find a plugin to do something you want to do. Open source for the win.

So a new theme, with a couple of custom rotating header images – photos taken by yours truly (the Moki photo shouting the blog name is from this post).

Also on the request of one of our readers, I have added a link at the top of the page so you can easily find all of the food related posts. The ability to have a header like that to pull together all posts from a particular category apparently is one thing Wordpress doesn’t want to do. So it’s sort of jerry-rigged, but click on food and you’ll find all the food related posts. I now have the challenge to blog more about cooking!

I just got a new cookbook – Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I knew it would be a good book, but it’s HUGE. 1,000 pages, think of it as the Joy of Cooking for those of us who say no to flesh Really am looking forward to sharing recipes, and ideas from this!

We went on a hike through Wire Pass a couple of weeks ago with our good friend, Kate.

Amazingly beautiful, maybe an hour’s drive away. A maze of slot canyons, petroglyphs, and massive amounts of heat (I ran out of water – thank god I wasn’t alone!). We maybe did about 4.5 or 5 miles round trip. Hard to tell since we did go a ways beyond Wire Pass, into Buckskin Gulch.

Here’s some photos from our hike. Not happy with how the photos in the slot canyons came out :-/ Just makes me want to go back and hike it again!

Some of these slots are pretty narrow – obviously a hike to only be done when there are clear skies for many, many miles. We saw logs jammed up the slots 40, 50, 60 feet showing how powerful the running water would be. Scary.

Some beautiful petroglyphs.

And then there are inevitably the morons who just can’t leave such a beautiful area untouched. At least I will give the first guy points for bizarre randomness.

This reads, “Kirkland Signature” the Costco brand. Um…ok?

And tonight, there must be a fire nearby. The moon right now is a glowing orange hazy kind of thing. Hard to capture on film, but here it is anyway.

UPDATE: This is probably why it’s nice and hazy around here right now, California wildfires.

I started this post with a diatribe about my gun ownership opinions. Then I realized no one probably cares – and that you’ll quickly figure it out when I tell you what just happened.

11:22am, 8/18/2009 Phone call: 703-656-9940

Woman on end of phone: “Sir, this is the NRA calling you for your opinion on a critical issue facing our nation. It’s just one question – I am going to play an explanation to the one question we will ask. Are you willing to take part in this survey?”

Me: “Absolutely!”

Recorded Message from Wayne LaPierre, ExVP of the NRA: “Blah, blah, blah, the UN is trying to take our guns – how could we let 3rd world dictators do this….lots more blah, scheme is treacherous, all behind closed doors – they are saturating the world media with anti-gun propaganda.”

Woman comes back: “So Mr. Dunn, should 3rd world dictators & Hillary Clinton be allowed to dictate gun ownership in the US?”

Me: “Absolutely! I am anti-gun!”

Woman: “Um, thank you for your time”

Think I might have just been removed from the polling list for the NRA.