Diary of a Mad Natural Historian

This looks like an interesting CD for dreamers like me. “I really need to get this, just in case I end up in Siberia in the next year or so!” Yeah, right…

*

How much do you want to bet that the motorcycle in the picture above is a Ural? I don’t think I could fit 3 dogs, 1 hawk, 1 falcon and a yurt into the sidehack, but who cares? Wishes are free! And a pony!

A bit of suspension trivial - until a few minutes ago, I thought all forks like the ones on the Urals were Earles forks. The great Wikipedian oracle tells me that all Earles forks are leading link forks, but the converse is not true - location of the pivot point is the key criterion.

CD via Birding Mongolia.

Steve was kind enough to send over this shot - he’s drinking airag in his friend  Nyamdorj’s ger - 2001. For info on ger versus yurt versus all the other names for this type of structure, click here and for a great Tetrapod Zoology post on sheep (wall hanging reference), click here.

Courtesy of Sam, over at Altered-Screens - these pictures of what I guessimate to be a 19′, 50’s vintage Airstream - sighted in Newington, NH. Check out the shine!

*

*

Two more pictures here and here.

Yes, six degrees of separation and all, but this stuff continues to be scary. I was checking Bruce Sterling’s blog this morning; there’s an entry where he mentions that ‘I’m staying at Cranbrook — in this guy’s house‘. ‘This guy’ is Carl Milles, a sculptor I was unfamiliar with but whose work (in 2D and on a computer screen, unfortunately) I like. So, I’m reading the wikipedia entry on Mr. Milles when another name jumps out at me - one of Milles’ sculptures is ‘Sven Hedin on a Camel’. Hedin traveled though Asia and the Mideast; I was reading The Silk Road, Trade, Travel, War And Faith over coffee this morning. Here’s a bit of an image dump inspired by all this.

One of Milles’ sculptures, with work by an artist I was already familiar with (I’m not completely ignorant!) - Dale Chihuly:

*

Europa and the Bull (aurochs!):

*

Hedin on a camel (sorta courtesy of the RGS - thus the watermark):

*

Hedin w/ camel in front of yurt (I’m going somewhere with this, I promise):

*

Interior of a present day yurt - one way I’m thinking about doing up the interior of the Airstream (when I get it):

I’ve started to do some research into Airstreams. As a child of the space age, I find these silver pods fascinating - after all, an Airstream served as the quarantine space when astronauts returned from the moon.

My current thought is to find an Airstream in the 27′ range, customize the heck out of the interior and maybe, in a few years time, go ‘fulltiming’ for a few years. Key elements of the customization:

• room for dogs and hawks
• robust networking (stompbox, media server, etc.)
• storage for fishing tackle, tack, firearms, etc.
• lounging around area (at the expense of elaborate sleeping quarters) - if I need more sleeping room, a small (13′) yurt pitched when needed may be the answer.

I took my first look this past weekend - a 1975 27-footer. I have a lot of learning to do - what to look out for, what systems I’ll need to modify, etc., but a little learnin’ never hurt anyone. So, with this post I’ll inaugurate a new category on the blog - nomadics!