You know, I think @khepra has been very polite concerning all the off topic comments up in here. It’s probably going to take a while but dag-nammit if someone doesn’t have to go through the thread and flag all of these divergent infractions! 
@khepra has been tremendously polite to our shenanigans. I hope it is seen as affection, and not rejection.
To honor the contraceptives of our forefathers?
Late to the party, but that sounds awesome!
I am a weak and lazy little thing tho, so camping via walking, or as we like to say up in the great white north, “portage” (meaning carrying your fucking canoe and all your gear for 20kms) is too stressful for me (I did say lazy right?).
So we have one of these:
It carries 120L of water. Has a propane stove, and heater, toilet, shower, and it fits in a normal parking pad (we’ve camped in a snow storm in it, and in 35C weather, its good for all!). We can go to serviced camp grounds and plug in, but we don’t because we really really don’t get RV culture, at all. And we don’t stay in one place. The most we ever stay is two nights, and then we’re on to the next place. I really want to do a road trip through Australia in something like this. Thats a thing thats done yes?
Also, have you seen these? http://www.mec.ca/product/5038-315/snow-peak-pack-carry-fireplace-l/
The first time I saw one was on an Australian RV blog, cuz you can’t have ground fires in most places, and everyone seems to love it. But its so frakking expensive…
Yup, although I’d argue that it’s best done on a motorcycle.
I’ve done the Sydney-Melbourne-Adelaide-Uluru-Tennant Creek-Brisbane-Sydney loop a few times. If you sleep by the side of the road, the only expense is fuel and food.
Central Australia is spectacular roadtrip country. Just make sure you turn off the aircon and roll down the windows occasionally; you need to feel the heat and taste the dust. Get your Mad Max goggles on. 
Right, I am from WASP central, Ontario, Canada, we do not sleep by the side of the road! But, MrPants is from Newfoundland, where “gravel-pit” or “quarry” camping is normal and sleeping in a tent by the side of the road is totes normal and encouraged. LOL - I feel like he would get into the swing of things down there quicker than I would. 
I like your profile picture of a Mandala. Below is one like it.
[The Mandala in Buddhism and Hinduism] (Mandala – Sacred Geometry in Buddhist Art)
Perhaps the most admired and discussed symbol of Buddhist religion and art is the mandala, a word which, like guru and yoga, has become part of the English language. Its popularity is underscored by the use of the word mandala as a synonym for sacred space in scholarship world over, and by its presence in English-language dictionaries and encyclopedias. Both broadly define mandalas as geometric designs intended to symbolize the universe, and reference is made to their use in Buddhist and Hindu practices.
A Yantra is a type of Mandala imagery and a particular field within Mandala imagery. The Yantra represents the material earth, the origin and developmental history of the universe. Yantra’s are three dimensional and consist of numerous geometrical shapes. A Yantra has even sided interlacing triangles–isosceles triangles i.e. a triangle having two sides of equal length.
The best-known Yantra diagram is the Sri Yantra Mandala; it is a meditation and concentration diagram. When you look at the Sri Yantra Mandala you see circles, squares, rectangles, diamond shapes; and other odd geometric shapes.
When you look into the Yantra diagram, after a while you start to see triangles in a row pointing both up and down; triangles that are just starting to interlace; triangles that are touching at the point; interlaced triangles (hexagrams).
This is my camper, although it’s fitted for a week of couchsurfing rather than camping in this photo:
Contents: a couple of changes of clothes, shoes, spare parts and repair kit, laptop, bananas and about 3kg of muesli. I bought some other food on the way and had a main meal with my hosts each night.
Someday I’ll get a proper touring bike so I don’t have to use this one for everything - my current everyday bike is getting old and is more suitable for carrying kids or shopping.
I’ve had less fancy setups when I couldn’t afford pannier racks for my <$100 bike though (I had just finished university and had only been in China for a couple of months by this point):
Ten Witty and Thoughtful Quotes on Religion~
“Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money.”–George Carlin
“God has no religion.”–Mahatma Gandhi
“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”–Friedrich Nietzsche
“A truth that’s told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent.”–William Blake
“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”–Douglas Adams
“Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.”–Christopher Hitchens
“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)… There are just some kind of men who - who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”–Harper Lee
“God save us from people who mean well.”–Vikram Seth
“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.”–Edgar Allan Poe
“Yes, reason has been a part of organized religion, ever since two nudists took dietary advice from a talking snake.”–Jon Stewart
There are seven ravens at the Tower of London (these are captive bred, there are no native ravens in London any longer, I checked with one of the raven caretakers). Ravens are spooky which is sometimes a religion thing, and also they keep ravens in the tower because some king said, “If the ravens leave the Tower, the kingdom will fall…” This also seems like an odd religious view, and yet is cool, because voila, ravens:
Also, I’m pretty sure that’s part of an old Roman wall.
That is as equally if not more cool than the ravens.
I had low expectations for the Tower of London, but wound up loving it. Between the ravens, the various coinage displays/things on the mint that was once there (and at one point run by Isaac Newton), the various layers of historical buildings and things going back to Roman Britain, and so on it was really cool. Still liked the Roman baths at Bath more, though. The steam’s from the natural heated spring that feeds the baths.
and the baths are right next to Bath Abbey so there are a lot of lovely views
yes, I am using the Egyptian Jesus religion thread for vacation pics again…
might as well do something useful with it!
Well, when you put it that way…
Portobello road market was awesome, so many amazingly cool things in the little stalls and antique shops:
the antique cameras were esp. lovely
And St. James Park was really cool. Sad I didn’t bring the big lens, we were just walking around Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace and I didn’t realize we’d be there. The geese were awesome and I spotted about 5-6 new species of native birds (the geese besides the greylag goose are not native)
I was probably more pleased to see the Eurasian coot (Fulica atra) than most, but I’d never seen one before…
Loved seeing the grey herons, tufted ducks, goldeneyes, and mandarin ducks too. Someone should start a birding thread…
