Carved out of a cliff face of red sandstone on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau over 1,200 years ago by Buddhist monks, the 233 ft-high Leshan Giant Buddha is the largest and tallest stone Buddha statue in the world.

I took this picture from a boat on the river that runs past it.  As you can see by Buddhist pilgrims working their way down the stone steps on the side and in front carrying umbrellas, it’s raining.  Rain is so frequent here that a sophisticated drainage system was incorporated into the statue when it was built. It is still in working order. Behind the Buddha’s head, between his two ears, and scattered throughout his body, there are several hidden gutters and channels carrying out the rainwater that have kept the inner areas dry and prevented the Buddha from eroding since the 8^th century.

Knowing this adds to the wonder of beholding this extraordinary achievement.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #268 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

April 22, 1990. This is my son Brandon, age six, happily atop a small pressure ridge of sea-ice at 90 North Latitude, the geographic North Pole. I started leading expeditions to 90N in 1978. This was my 12^th, and the best weather there we’d ever had. A glorious day at the very top of our planet, and a glorious memory for both father and son.

If fortune favors you with the opportunity, have grand adventures with your children or grandchildren when they are young. They will treasure the memories so much they will someday tell their grandchildren about them. Life is short, carpe diem. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #104 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

These Mongol nomads in the vast grasslands of central Mongolia milking their goats have a way of life unchanged for centuries. All of our concerns, worries and fears that plague us are totally irrelevant to them. They don’t know about them and wouldn’t care if they did.

Spending time with people such as these gives you an invaluably broader perspective of life on our planet. Our concerns, the issues that dominate our headline news, suddenly seem more parochial and far less important. An evening drinking kumiss (Mongol beer, fermented mare’s milk) in their yurts, telling stories, laughing at jokes – you realize how easy it is to relate to them through the core humanity we all have in our souls.

Exploring Mongolia in this way is a priceless adventure. We’ll be there again next year, in the summer of 2025. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #9 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Antarctic island of South Georgia is one of the most extraordinary places on earth. Square miles of king penguin rookeries, thousands of fur seals, hundreds of gigantic elephant seals amidst a backdrop of massive glaciers and snow-capped mountains.

All of the animals here have no fear of you whatever and ignore your presence – except if you make the mistake of getting too close to a bull elephant seal for his comfort. It’s a mistake I made as you can see. Luckily, with several tons of blubber to carry, this fellow can’t move as fast as me, so I hightailed it quickly. That satisfied him, and all was soon back to placidly normal again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #62 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

First Lady Melania Trump would instantly recognize Lake Bled, for it is considered the most beautiful place in her home country of Slovenia. It’s a glacial lake up in the Julian Alps near the border with Austria. The small lush island you see has been a pilgrimage site for millennia – first to the Temple of Ziva, the Slovene goddess of love and fertility, then until now to the Church of the Mother of God. For all that time, Slovene couples came here to get married.

There are 99 steps from the rowboat landing to the church, and from ancient times to today, the tradition is that for a happy and long-lasting marriage, the groom must carry his bride up all 99 steps while she must remain silent while he does.

Lake Bled is a place of deep serenity and joyous calm. Come here to experience both. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #178 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Enter “The Old Man of Storr” in Wikipedia, and it wants to talk about the steep rocky face of the mountain in the background called “The Storr.”  Google or Duckduckgo the images and you’ll get all these photos of rocky pinnacles and spires.  So where’s the Old Man?  It’s the most famous feature on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, yet you never see the Old Man himself.  Well, here he is.

Look at the three sections of rocks in the foreground.  They form a man sleeping on his back.  In the first section on the left, you can see in order his forehead, eyebrows, large nose, both lips open snoring, and chin.  In the third section on the right, you see his feet with his toes sticking up.  In the middle section – well, now we know why he’s embarrassingly renowned, for there is the Old Man’s manhood standing tall and proud.

Ask any Scottish friend of yours if he knows why the Old Man of Storr on Skye is so-named.  Then send this to him.  He’ll no doubt say, “Well, laddie, this calls for a wee dram or two for us to properly toast the Old Man!” (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #297, photo ©Jack Wheeler)