The shortest distance between two points...

...is a straight line, as we all know, except when one of the points is the town of Sheffield in England and the other point is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

In a comment on the previous post, Mr. David Barlow of Ephraim, Utah, took me to task. He accused me of rambling and even of being a tease, all because I had mentioned Santiago, Chile, and the Andes Mountains and these seemed to him to be unrelated to the rest of my post (which, you will recall, was about my friend Yorkshire Pudding’s trip to Easter Island or, as it is known to its closest friends, Rapa Nui).

What I neglected to say in that post was that YP had left his home in Sheffield, England, in the capable hands of his wife, Shirley, and made his way to Heathrow Airport in London (a distance of 176 miles), where he boarded a plane bound for Madrid, Spain (a distance of 783 miles), where he boarded another plane bound for Santiago, Chile (a distance of 6637 miles), where he did a little sightseeing, and then boarded still another plane bound for his ultimate destination, Easter Island (a distance of 2000 miles), a total distance of 9596 miles, give or take a furlong. In Texas, that is what is known as “a mighty fur piece.”

Something else I neglected to mention was that Santiago, Chile, was Yorkshire Pudding’s final “jumping off point” for Easter Island.

More, I trust, will be forthcoming regarding Easter Island itself from the aforementioned Yorkshire Pudding.

Here is a photograph of chili peppers growing.


It has nothing to do with either Santiago, Chile, or Easter Island. I just threw it in for good measure.

Blogging is so broadening enlightening

My British blogging friend, Yorkshire Pudding, whose real name I have never been able to determine, retired a couple of months ago from a 30-year teaching career. As a sort of present to himself, he has decided to fulfill a lifelong dream and take a trip to Rapa Nui to see the Moai. (If that last part made no sense whatever to you, Rapa Nui is another name for Easter Island and the Moai are the 887 monumental statues that have been found on the island.)


That is not Easter Island. Don’t be silly! That is Santiago, Chile, from the air, with some of the Andes Mountains in the background and a layer of smog obscuring the view. According to Wikipedia, the Andes range is over 7,000 km (4,300 mi) long, 200 km (120 mi) to 700 km (430 mi) wide, and of an average height of about 4,000 meters (13,000 ft). The metropolitan area of Santiago, Chile, is home to more than 7,000,000 people, which helps to explain the smog.

No, dear hearts, this is Easter Island:



To read more about Easter Island, click here.

To read more about the Moai, click here.

Here is a sample of the so-far-indecipherable "rongo-rongo script" of the original inhabitants of Rapa Nui, the ones who apparently erected the 887 moai:



Perhaps Yorkshire Pudding is also going to Easter Island to see these:


They are described in the middle row of the rongo-rongo script if I have interpreted it correctly.

Whatever his reasons, just click here to let Yorkshire Pudding be your guide on this fascinating journey.