For My Thirtieth Birthday I Will Treat You To

Pretty Pictures of Hedgehogs, Wedgwood, and the wily Vrsic Pass.



Because I have so many substantial things I want to write about I just can't choose.



Hedgehog to cure depression.

Immodest hedgehog.

Modest hedgehog.

I love this Wedgwood pattern enough to tattoo it on my behind. Which in fact might be happening soon. Ok, not my behind, but somewhere.

Ooooh. Lookit the salad bowl. I'll never be able to afford it, but it makes me happy to dream.

Yes I drove the Vrsic pass this May, and yes it makes 51 curves like these on a sharp elevation. In the alps. Built by WWI Russian POWs, who left many of their own buried in the snow up there.

Here's a cool aerial view of the tiptoppimost summit point.

Here's some views of the mountain peaks neighboring the pass.

And here's the view of the mountains the pass traverses from a distant point due south.

In case you were planning to attempt to pronounce the name of the pass, it's one of those special Slovenian words with the accent on the consonant cluster. "VRR-sheech."

You can't escape it by going south, they keep accenting the consonant clusters all the way down the Balkans to Greece, near as I can figure. The only way out of the clusters is over the Vrsic and into boring, plainmouthed Austria.