I have always said "When I start to slow down, just shoot me?" and I mean it.  We need the stirrings of our brain, we need to think of others far beyond ourselves, and though I feel like a very spring chicken, I suppose I am not.  I am not one to languish, not one to let the world pass me by, not one to not feel all the gentle breezes that have the scent of early spring somehow.  And neither are you.  It is so easy for me to know you.  The question then becomes: do you want the longest life possible or the best life possible.  Too separate choices and easy to choose I think.  You don’t have to respond to me about any of this, LR, as this was just in answer to a question posed.  Look or don’t look - like or not — this is a portion of what makes each of my days so glorious.  Connections from afar, to afar, questioning, learning, keeps me alive - and hopefully able to carry on any or all conversations and add something to them. 

As to Venice, well … what better place to have a conversation.  Isn’t that right?  Joan

LR — No, I have ghostwritten but never written alone my own book and probably wouldn’t.  I have had articles in travel magazines on things I have done though.  There is a Werner Herzog movie of 2005 White Diamond that you must get the DVD of.  True story (and back story) of my airship friend in British Guiana with Werner and his gorgeous airship.  . and what happened there.  After you see it, I will tell you about my friend who is an aeronautical engineer professor at University of London.  He is into dentronautics - look that one up and I have gotten into it also at least in passing.  My friend is the star of the documentary.

OK - there are three books out now where there is a chapter on me - one on green housing, and two written by an author I work with that have chapters about me and my feelings of heaven and God in a light-hearted manner.  I don’t want to put the titles on here but on one, the title is mine and I have been given credit for it inside.  Others before that also.  In coffee table books there are some on the polar regions that are out and have my picture in them.  Two by Galen Rowell - who was killed as you know in the small plane after climbing every mountain - but I have spent time with Galen and have many pictures of him taking photos or us together.  I think I told you that a few years back in Parade - the Sunday piece of most newspapers - I was named one of the 5 outstanding people (or something like that) who were 60.  It was the cover article and after the part on me was the part on Donald Trump.  AFTER me!  If you read New York Times, my writing is in once in a while or Chicago Tribune but I try not to monopolize those.  There are others — but you get the idea.  I have too many irons on the fire to fool with much more — and have travelled the world’s remote places - all of them - so I don’t have a "to do" list still awaiting.  We travel more than most.  My state political office holds me close - as now - when it is more intense.  And now you know 1?10th of what you wanted.  Joan

LR, I find life so endlessly fascinating - so much so that I become a researcher, asking questions and engaging an assortment of strangers into becoming friends and resource far and wide.  The latest cameras on the satellites have lens strong enough to pick up the stains of guano on the otherwise pristine white landscape of The Ice.  Only one of the 18 penguin species I know so well breed on ice in winter - the 4-foot Emperors.  The U.S. has several icebreakers but a smaller variety used for research and unable to have strength enough to get into the new areas.  To me, there is something magnificent in being the first person in the world to step on to a piece of our Earth for the first time.  I have done it once.  I want to do it again, but more than that, to uncover something never before seen.  I can look at these birds with clear eyes, but they do something to my heart.  Wandering albatrosses with their 12-foot wingspan let me sit with them at their nests high up a small mountain with no fear.  My heart melts to watch their eyes.  Yes, I get emotional, but I also am pretty much an expert on these and many other creatures from time spent.  We went up by helicopter to film our icebreaker cutting a BAS (British) small icebreaker with 28 scientists on board who had been trapped for a long time in a place no one could get to.  Planes can not get in as they cannot land.  Now the British Antarctic Survey is willing to do great things for us to have our photos of every detail of saving their scientists for posterity.  And actually, I don’t care to have a documentary taken of me getting in to a new area.  I would rather it be secret to be honest.  And NO, I cannot think who your named cartoon penguin is - darn it!

I am into paleontology also (see Lesley today) - and geology, oceanography, and I normally read only non-fiction to keep up with what is happening in the world of science.  Just think of me as a sponge - which happens to be another interest.  Joan

This should be a marvelous segment.  I don’t know how many get to Hell Creek in the badlands of Montana, where the elk and the coyotes play, but I think this is where the Horner diggings have taken place.  In my family we are big in paleontology - and if you also are, we find what we think is the best museum ever should be worth going out of your way.  Its about 80 miles east of Calgary, Alberta near Drumheller - in the Canadian badlands.  The Royal Tyrrell Museum.  It all seems in nowhere but the museum’s architecture - indoors and out - is probably one of the most striking I have seen anywhere.  You can watch through glass windows and see them working on dinosaur finds so slowly and carefully - and if you didn’t care that much when you opened those museum doors, you will find yourself immersed in paleontology before your visit is over.  I usually hesitate to tell anyone to go — but GO to this and years later, your still feel like a walking encyclopedia in all you so easily learned.

Lucky Lesley gets to have all the fun with Jack Horner!  How I would love to spend a day out in the Badlands dinosaur hunting with him!  Joan

I love the old hotels like the Metropole that - if I remember - predate 1900.  So stately that I always felt like a queen there … as you must.  I never can resist a visit to the Oceanographic Museum to see what is new in the world underwater, pretending that they are displaying the latest beauty just for me. 

And yes, I could imagine it might be less crowded this year but there is always the feeling that you have this wonderful place to yourself that comes into play.  As I live to travel, for the moment I can remember the past, bring it back to light, through you.  So thank you!!! Joan

I too believe that we - the ones who have spent a lifetime finding that work was exhilarating, challenging, and the rush of the highs seemingly like the sound of the bubbles in champagne (indescribable actually but this is close) - find our minds constantly turning, ideas never ending.  Do we want that time to end?  Not a chance.  We want to go out on our feet, doing what we love to do, living life to the fullest. 

I don’t know about you, but I never seem to run down - always wanting to see what lies around the next corner, around the next corner of the world.  Already, I know your next book is going to be like your own life, fascinating, fulfilling, and will make me admire you - your work and how your life - as I have done for so long.  Joan

Hi Judith …

 Your story of Venice was full of love and wonderful, the personal stories touching.  But I have never heard one of the most beautiful, wonderful cities in the world called a tourist trap before.  Is it a tourist trap because word-of-mouth has made it "the place to go in Italy".  Well, it is . . along with a handful of others.  I then consider it a city of visitors - for very good reason - and no more.  Doesn’t it denigrate it a bit - put it down actually to those who don’t know better - to call it a tourist trap - even 5-star??? 

And tourists I suppose have been known to try to put something over on locals.  I haven’t seen it happen but know it must.  But not "adventurous travellers".  Certainly that is the wrong term.  Adventurous travellers - of which I supposed I could be counted as one - rarely "do" cities.  We don’t do "tourists" either as we are about as far away as we can get from human habitation.  You will likely find us on a mountain top in nowhere or diving in Palau.  We don’t harm a soul as our interests find us normally in the remote corners of the world where we only see others with the same dreams as we have. 

After saying that, I found your stories touching and charming.  I like Venice, too.

1969.

We landed a man on the moon. Threw a little bash at Woodstock.

And started something pretty special on that street where the air is sweet and the sky is always sunny.

Enter a likeable chap named Gordon, who takes a girl named Sally, on a little tour to meet some of the residents.

Hello Susan, Bob, Mr. Hooper, an 8-ft.-tall goofy yellow bird.

Where is that singing coming from?

That’s Ernie and Bert’s place. Gordon explains if you hear singing it’s because Bert is taking a bath.

Other characters soon follow: Buddy and Jim, Alice Braithwaite Goodyshoes, Kermit the Frog, Cookie Monster, Jennie, and the Anything Muppets.

It was the very first performance of "One of these things." (Is Not Like The Other.)

That makes sense since it was the first show.

And when Ernie and Bert introduce a cartoon about the letter E…well the rest is Extraordinary.

(Kermit here, in his classic moment, written by Joe Raposo, would go on to be an international star.)

Not to mention Big Bird who, despite making the cover of Time Magazine, never let it go to his head.

Before Joan Ganz Cooney and Jim Henson, children’s television was mainly about a freckly marionette and his pal Buffalo Bob.

Howdy Doody’s format was followed into the 1960s by Captain Kangaroo and Bozo’s Circus.

Along came a show that recognized the power of television as a learning tool, and aired it all in a racially mixed neighborhood where everyone got along.

Suddenly learning was entertaining and smart.

What a concept.

Today, it’s seen in 140 countries, including South Africa, where Kami, the HIV positive muppet is bringing his message and smiles into countries where AIDS is destroying lives and spirits.

Many happy returns Sesame Street.

Lynn - loved it!

OK, Jimmy, we found the silver spoon so we have only three more to go:  the cat’s in the cradle, little boy blue, and the man in the moon.  C’mon, I think we might have a chance to win this game!