I have been doing a lot of research lately about the Vikings and their settlement in North America. So far I have discovered that although the Vikings were terrifying the Europeans, the Natives of America were terrifying them. The Vikings did not spend much time in North America particularly Newfoundland because of these Natives. Questions are raised of why not? Couldn't they get more Vikings to come? Did they spread diseases to the Indians? Why didn't they learn the tools that the Indians used in order to survive the Little Ice Age? All good questions. I have no profound answer but refer all those who are interested to Jared Diamond's Collapse for more insights.
My sister and her family came all the way from Idaho to visit us. Naturally we had to take them to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a typical July day, foggy, freezing, windy and crowded. We battled people on bikes and with strollers and the wind to walk onto the bridge. We had just made it to the first tower when we noticed a whale watching tour boat and joked about how cool it would be if there was suddenly a whale that came out of the water. About ten seconds later, A WHALE CAME OUT OF THE WATER! It didn't ever do the complete National Geographic flip over or show it's tail, but there was a Humpback Whale feeding, and it kept coming up to eat. It was amazing. AMAZING. We spent almost 40 minutes watching the whale, possibly whales at the time. There was one in particular that came over, right below us the kids could all see it, and it was so close we could see the barnacles on the mouth, and it rolled and was putting on quite the show for us. It was an amazing sigh...
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