If you had asked me last year where in the USA I would most like to visit, I would have answered that if we’re talking about a state, it would probably be Alaska, and if a city, it would undoubtedly be Detroit. Why Detroit and not, say, New York, Washington, San Francisco, or Los Angeles?

I've been writing about ships quite often lately—might as well get myself a boat. But unlike the last post, this time we'll talk not so much about ships as about the town of Powell River and one of its rather interesting landmarks. The town itself, with 13,000 residents (16,000 including surrounding areas), cannot be called a tourist destination.

Each desert, despite the common denominator (well, it's a desert!), is unique and inimitable. Each desert differs in climate, color and shape of sand, vegetation, configuration of dunes, presence (or absence) of mountains and rocks, and finally, simply atmosphere.

I remember the first time I saw the steeps of Columbia when we drove to Yellowstone avoiding the main highway - it was amazing! The coastal mountains familiar to us were replaced by fields, and suddenly out of nowhere steep cliffs with orderly rows of basalt pillars grew around something that, with a stretch, could be called a canyon several kilometers wide. A few minutes - and again there are only fields around. Then I said, “Wow, what was that?! We will definitely need to come back here!” However, around the same time in Wuhan, a Chinese man was going to the market to buy some rice and a couple of bats, and then you know.