April 1990. When our oldest son Brandon was six years old, I took him with me to the North Pole. It was my 14^th expedition there, and as always, we stopped to visit friends at Canada’s northernmost community, the Inuit hunting village of Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island. Brandon thought it would be cool to sleep in an igloo, which the Inuit do only when they’re hunting seals or walrus far out on the ice.

So the villagers happily complied, showing him how they built one, carving out blocks of wind-blown snow, shaping and placing them in an inward-sloped spiral with one block on top, and packing snow as mortar between the blocks. When it was bedtime – still daylight with 24-hour sunshine by April – they lined the inside with caribou skins, which shed like crazy with hairs everywhere but sure are warm. Snuggled into our arctic down sleeping bags, we slept like stones.

It was an experience both of us will never forget. Never pass up an opportunity to have an adventure with your kids they’ll always remember. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #50 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Jack Wheeler is Escape Artist’s World Exploration Expert. He is the founder of Wheeler Expeditions at WheelerExpeditions.com.

This is not a Monet painting.  It is a real photograph looking straight down upon the swirling clear blue water of the Syri i Kaltër – Blue Eye – Spring burbling up from a deep karst hole of the Bistricë River in the mountains of southern Albania.

The water surges up with such force that scuba divers trying to determine the spring’s depth could only get down to 50 meters (164ft) and no more, thus the depth of the underwater source is unknown.  The water is cristal clear, drinkably pure, and very cold.  Found between the World Heritage mountain town of Gjirokaster and the Adriatic beach resort town of Saranda, it’s a hypnotic, mesmerizing experience. The Blue Eye is the beauty of nature at its most entrancing. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #293, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

You’re looking at something historically and scientifically astonishing. It is what remains of an astronomical observatory built 600 years ago – in 1420 – by a Sultan in Central Asia who loved science and mathematics more than war and conquest.

It was in Samarkand, the most fabled oasis of the Silk Road, that Sultan Ulugh Beg built his circular observatory, three stories high of white marble. All that’s left today is part of the underground sextant that you see in the photo.

For the full story of what he achieved, with many more photos, click on The Sultan Astronomer in TTP I wrote in 2020.

This Glimpse is to whet your appetite to learn about this amazing Sultan and his scientific achievements.

The story of The Sultan Astronomer is but one example of what awaits you in exploring Central Asia, an enrichment of your life beyond description. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #212 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The magnificent Sher-Dor Madrassa, built in the early 1600s, is part of the Registan public square complex of the ancient Silk Road oasis of Samarkand. What’s fascinating is the mosaic depiction of living beings on either side of the arch – a tiger and on its back a rising sun deity with a human face. This is honoring the pre-Islamic history of Samarkand that goes back almost 3,000 years.

It was centuries old when Alexander conquered it in 329 BC. For a thousand years as Central Asia’s great entrepot on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean, it was a cosmopolitan center for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Nestorian Christianity. Incorporated into the Islamic world in the 700s, sacked by Genghiz Khan in 1220, rebuilt by the time Marco Polo in 1272 described it as “a large and splendid city,” Tamerlane made it his capital in 1370.

Colonized by Czar Alexander II in the 1860s within the Russian Imperial Empire, and by the Soviets in the 1920s within the Uzbek SSR, Samarkand is flourishing today in independent Uzbekistan. There is so much to learn and contemplate upon when you are here. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #67 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The men of the Intha people living on Inle Lake in Burma have a unique way to fish.  Using their large conical nets, they row by standing on one leg on the prow of their canoe, and paddle with their other leg.  They feed their families this way.  Burma (Myanmar) is one of the most picturesque, historical, and serene places on earth. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #27 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)