Things We Learn In Mass Transit
Travel Tales
I am always fascinated by the conversations I have on Mass transit, particularly on Triangle Transit, the main way of getting around between Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.
Today, was no different, had a great conversation with a gentleman named Gary who was here from Ft. Collins for a fire fighters conference.
He told me how this year had been much better than a couple of years past with forest fires in his state, and that they were doing much better than California. He also enlightened me about how much worse powdered fake snow is to ski on than the natural stuff, and how much a lift costs and that doesn't even include Lodging and the equipment if you don't have your own...
Apparently in his area, the fee is like around 100 dollars and if you go up to the more destination places like Vail and Aspen the costs are running up near 200 dollars. I would hate to see what the lodging costs..
We also talked about how clear the visibility is and how he can see clear to Wyoming on one side, and Pike's Peak on another.....Seeing as many trees as we have was something totally new to him.
He arrived during the Latin Festival and was leaving as musicians were coming in for the bluegrass festival and he told me about his roommate being the founder of Tour De Fats which makes a stop at Durham every year, and how Telluride started as a bluegrass festival and how even in Colorado, they are disappointed by the taste of Coors.
We also talked about folks in the Mountains of Colorado have more of the isolationist field and and how that is mostly ranch country.......Apparently Wyoming is still known more for its western appeal, almost like you have to have a dress code to get there...
He also talked about how they are talking about putting in toll roads which will make it faster to get to the ski areas and that good ski folks will pay 20 to 30 dolllars in tolls to get where they want to...
After he got on his bus, I was talking to a young man from Hong Kong who was talking about how their is still some resistance to switching over to China, and how Chinese don't even care about communism, they want to be more like Hong Kong. Apparently, there is supposed to be a 50 year moratorium on change as of 1997 that the British imposed which says there can't be any forcing Hong Kong to lose their freedom of speech and freedom of commerce during this time which would be effective until 2047....It also seems like he was saying the Ruling party in China wants to dictate who the candidates are and that some are struggling against that.
He is interviewing with Duke for the possibility of coming to school here next year, and he was talking about how Duke has satellite campuses both in Hong Kong and Dubai. Dubai is a very rich area with a lot of modern buildings, but apparently it is also very hot.......
Like I said these conversations can be amazing!11