The World’s Oldest Living Plants and Animals

One of the oldest living trees on Earth can be found in Sri Lanka. Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi is the name of the oldest living tree on record and began as a cutting from the fig tree that Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) was said to have prayed and meditated beneath in India. That original fig tree (or “Ficus religiosa”) is long gone, but the one that remains in the Mahamewna Gardens (Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka) is said to be 2,300 years old.

Hildesheim, Germany, is the…

Ready, Set, Adventure! Africa: Mountains, Hills, Lakes and Waterfalls

“No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.” -Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, 1936

Don’t forget to collect your Spartan and the Green Egg Explorer Stickers to inform and entertain as you imagine your next journey!

• Mount Kilimanjaro: Located in Tanzania, East Africa, this 19,000-foot tall wonder has three distinct peaks and is of great interest to scientists because of the effects of climate change, including melting icecaps and shrinking glaciers. Ernest Hemingway—famous not only for…

“Less is a Bore.” –Architect, Robert Venturi A Bird’s Eye View: The Tallest Buildings in New York City (“Lunch Atop a Skyscraper”, Originally printed in the New York Herald-Tribune on October 2, 1932–800 feet in the air, at what is now Rockefeller Center) “[H]e could see the island of Manhattan off to the left. The towers were jammed together so tightly, he could feel the mass and stupendous weight. Just think of the millions, from all over the globe, who yearned to be on that island, in those towers, in those narrow streets! There…