Postcard takes 47 years to travel from Montana to Ohio

HUDSON, Ohio (AP) — A woman’s postcard bearing greetings from Montana has finally arrived in northeastern Ohio — 47 years later.

Insurance agent Dave Conn opened his post office box in the community of Hudson last week and found the mailing sent from Helena, Mont., in 1962.

It was sent to Marion White, the previous renter of the box, who had died in 1988. The writer signed the postcard “Fran” and mentioned having “had a marvelous time in Montana.”

After asking around, Conn says he determined the card must have come from White’s well-traveled friend Frances Murphey, a longtime reporter at the Akron Beacon Journal. She died in 1998 at age 75.

U.S. Postal Service spokesman Victor Dubina says the postcard may have been stuck in equipment or lost behind a mail chute.

Brothers plan 24 hours atop Everest

Pemba Dorje Sherpa, aged 31, and his younger brothers Nima Gyalzen and Phurba Tenzing, intend to use their stay on the summit to pray for peace in Nepal and the world.

They will take with them a 12-inch statue of the Buddha to the peak. And they are vowing to stay there for 24 hours whatever the weather.

Coming from the remote and wild Rolwaling Valley, which lies west of the Everest region, five out of the family’s seven brothers (they also have four sisters) have climbed the world’s highest peak.

Pemba, Nima and Phurba have made 16 ascents between them.

And Pemba is already in the record books having made the summit from base camp in a still-unbeaten eight hours, 10 minutes in May 2004.

The current record for staying on t op is 20 hours. Now that the record-holder, Babu Shiri Sherpa, has died, Pemba feels he can make his bid.

“We can’t tell how the weather will be,” he says. “We’ll take all possible equipment, including ropes. There will be no problem with snow and wind. We’re prepared.”

Smokies celebrate 75 years with hikes, music

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) — The 75th anniversary celebration of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is underway.

The park, with 8 to 10 million annual visitors, is the country’s most popular national park.

Events and activities are scheduled throughout the year to mark the anniversary. They include:

• Seventy Five Miles of Hikes, a series of hikes sponsored by the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, to highlight trails used by its members before the park was officially established in 1934. Hikes include a 7.2-mile hike scheduled for April 5 on Porters Creek Trail; an April 18 hike to White Oak Sink that’s 6 miles, and a June 21 hike to Gregory Bald via Gregory Ridge that will run 12 miles.

• Music of the Mountains, March 28, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at Sugarlands Visitor Center, a free festival of musical traditions of the southern Appalachian Mountains including claw hammer banjo and fiddle styles.

• Spring wildflower pilgrimages, April 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26. Programs with daily hikes, arts and crafts, educational presentations and entertainment.

• National Junior Ranger Day, April 25, with kids’ activities 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the park’s three visitors centers.

• Educational events on citizen science, May 16-17, and biodiversity May 22.

• An event highlighting the history of Cades Cove, June 13, with an outdoor performance by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra (vehicle pass required). Cades Cove, a popular destination in the park, is home to log cabins and other preserved buildings where settlers in the valley lived and farmed in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Dolly Parton, a native of the mountains, helped launch the park’s 75th anniversary by performing Feb. 10 at the annual Tennessee Sampler trade show in National Harbor, Md. She has been designated the official ambassador for the celebration. Parton is donating first-year proceeds from her new CD, Sha-Kon-O-Hey!, to the nonprofit Friends of the Smokies organization. The title of the album means “Land of Blue Smoke” in Cherokee.

For details and the complete schedule of park events, visit greatsmokies75th.org.

Baltimore exhibit celebrates the circus

An exhibit of more than 80 works of art related to the circus opens at the Baltimore Museum of Art Feb. 22, and the city is hosting performances this spring by Cirque du Soleil and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.

The museum exhibit, A Circus Family: Picasso to Leger, runs through May 17, with prints, drawings, paintings, sculptures and books by Pablo Picasso, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Fernand Leger, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse and other artists. The works range from Toulouse-Lautrec’s 19th-century circus posters to Picasso’s portraits of circus families, done in 1904 and 1905 in Paris, to lithographs from Leger’s 1950 book Cirque. Tickets are required to see the show. They go on sale Feb. 15 and are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and students and $4 for children ages 6-18; artbma.org or 800-919-6272. The museum is closed Mondays and Tuesdays; general admission is free.

The museum has a variety of circus-related programs, including free family workshops every Sunday in March, adult drawing classes, guided tours, a family activity space with costumes and art projects, a lecture and panel discussion with circus performers (March 31, 7 p.m.), and a reading of a play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, which was written by comedian Steve Martin (readings April 17, 18 and 19). The museum is also hosting a performance by the Zany Umbrella Circus, May 8, 9 and 10. (Tickets are required for the Zany Umbrella Circus and Picasso at the Lapin Agile.)

Happy 150th birthday, Oregon

Oregon turns the big one-five-oh on Saturday, but the birthday festivities will last all year. To toast its sesquicentennial in style, the nation’s 33rd state kicks things off this weekend with fetes and galas across the state.

Throughout May, visit a state park to help remove invasive weeds during the Oregon State Parks Take Care of Oregon Days. Gold Hill celebrates Gold Dust Day in June with a parade, craft booths, gold panning and horse-drawn wagon rides. July celebrates art with the Salem Art Association’s 60th annual Art Fair Festival in the capital city. From the end of August through the middle of October, Oregon’s quilting heritage is celebrated at the Benton County Historical Museum. In September, the Oregon Territorial Express Stagecoach Run gives people a chance to take a train through five counties in five days to the end of the Oregon Trail.

For more information, visit the Oregon Tourism Commission at oregon150.com.

Heart-shaped island is a Valentine’s Day hit

A deserted island which is the shape of a heart has become a valentine holiday hit … after being spotted on Google Earth.

Owner Vlado Juresko did not even realize the islands almost perfect heart shape until he had requests from people who wanted to stay there.

Having seen ‘Galesnjak’ on the popular mapping site a number of people decided they wanted to visit for their honeymoon or on Valentine’s Day.

Juresko, never one to miss out on an opportunity, has renamed the 110,000 square meter island “Lovers’ Island” and started renting it out.

He is now inundated with requests and says he wishes he had known what the island looked like earlier.

Canadians claim South Pole record

Three Canadian men have claimed a new record for the fastest trek across Antarctica to the South Pole.

Ray Zahab, Kevin Vallely and Richard Weber said they had completed the 1,130 km (700 miles) journey in 33 days, 23 hours and 30 minutes.

They say they suffered white-out but survived on a high-calorie diet of deep-fried bacon, cheese and butter.

The Canadians’ journey took them from Hercules Inlet on Antarctica’s Ronne Ice Shelf to the South Pole.

“If you took a cloud, wrapped it around your head and then duct-taped it, that’s what a white-out is like,” Mr Zahab, 39, told The Associated Press by satellite phone from Antarctica.

He had previously run across the Sahara desert but told reporters his feet were more worn out by his latest adventure.

Tom Sjogren, founder of ExplorersWeb.com, a New York-based Web site that compiles statistics on adventurers’ feats, said the men beat the previous record of 39 days, 7 hours and 49 minutes, which was set by American Todd Carmichael just last month.

The Canadian trio used their satellite phone to post photos and podcasts of their journey as they did it.

They pulled 170-lb (77-kg) sleds of equipment, with Mr Zahab travelling on foot and on snowshoes while the other two men skied.

At night, they slept in a tent.

They endured altitude sickness, vertigo and massive, painful blisters.

They kept themselves fuelled with a 7,000-calorie-a-day diet of deep-fried bacon, cheese and huge chunks of butter.

“I’m dying for some pizza,” said Mr Zahab, who added he was too excited to sleep.