Happy Birthday, Bill

[Eric J (Viking)]

Have a good one Bill…..👨‍🌾

[Matthew]

Happy Birthday Bill! I appreciate you more than is obvious. You're a rare stoic gentleman and a stand-up guy. I thank God for you

[Richter]

Happy birthday, Bill - and many more

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZamKZBPYsAA

[Ernie Nemeth]

Hope you had nice weather for your hike today, with Mara.
Happy Birthday, Bill.

[grapevine]

Many Happy Returns Bill and many many more



Those huge stones in your pic and video, all piled on top of each other in an amazing sculpture. Is there any danger of them toppling ?

[Sue (Ayt)]

Happy Birthday Bill, (and Ernie and Brightstar).
Hope the day was pleasant for you all.
Did you get to enjoy your chocolate cake, Bill?

[Bluegreen]

Best wishes Bill!

[Szymon]

Happy Birthday, Bill,

Wishing you continued success, good health, and a fantastic year ahead.



Cheers ,
Szymon

[DNA]

Living life on your terms, now and hopefully forever.
Happy birthday Bill keep doing what you're doing, it's working.

[Bruce G Charlton]

Belatedly, but warmly - a Happy Birthday to you, Bill!

[jaybee]

~
~



happy birthday for yesterday, Bill........

x

edit- PS - the image I chose didn't 'take' - it was a little cake with a candle in front of a view of mountains..... so perhaps you can imagine it instead

From Bill:
Thanks!! (I managed to embed it above)

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Sue (Ayt) (here)
Did you get to enjoy your chocolate cake, Bill?

Ha! Yes. I always enjoy the exact same one, a tiny near-symbolic cake (with no candle! ) which I get locally for about $2. I didn't take a photo of it yesterday (it was too cold and wet) but here are a couple pics from a previous celebration:

Posted by grapevine (here)
Those huge stones in your pic and video, all piled on top of each other in an amazing sculpture. Is there any danger of them toppling ?

Not really. (And they're not as huge as they might look.) I go up there quite regularly, and the sculptures always seem to be the same. The ones on Cerro Amarillo are quite ornamental, but on other mountains they're far more basic. (They're known as 'cairns', a Scottish word for a pile of rocks.)

Here's a simpler cairn on another mountain:



The very useful thing here is that in thick mist like that the cairn can confirm for you exactly where you are. And cairns are quite often placed at intervals going down from the summit, invaluable in bad weather when it's really easy to lose the trail. (Like this, not my photo)



Interestingly, some hiking sites are now saying that this is environmentally damaging, and that hikers should destroy rock cairns when they see them.

I profoundly disagree. I posted here back in September about a local incident when two hikers in bad visibility got disoriented on Quitahuayco (the highest mountain in the area), went down the wrong side of the thing, and never corrected their mistake. They were eventually found 5 days later by a search team, and one of them died of exhaustion and exposure. If there had been rock cairns, even small ones, marking the correct and safe way down, this would never have happened.

[Bill Ryan]

And here's a conversation I had with Mara.

~~~

Bill:
It was my birthday today.

Mara:
What does that mean?

Bill:
Ah. Well, let me explain.

The earth, which is where we live and is like all the ground under your feet, is like a big ball, though it’s hard and not bouncy. And it spins round and round, just like you do when you get excited.

And the sun is like a big fire, like the fireplace at home, though it’s much hotter. But it’s a lot further away, 50 million times further than the hike you did today. (I know you don’t understand ’50 million’ very well, but that’s like the number of times you’ve sniffed something with your nose in all your life.)

So the sun is like a big hot fire, and that’s why you like to lie in the grass when the sun’s out, because it makes you feel nice and warm.

Now, remember the earth's like a big ball? It goes round and round the sun, like when you run around the house and then come back to where you started. And it takes what we call ‘a year’ to do that.

A year is 365 days, and a ‘day’ is the time between you have breakfast when I get up, and the next time that happens. (I know you don’t understand ‘365’ very well, but that’s like the number of steps you took when you climbed up to the first lake we got to on our hike.)

So when the earth goes round the sun each time and returns to where it was, that’s ‘a year’. And each year that passes after we’re born, we call that a 'birthday’. Like the day that’s 365 days after the day when we’re born, which is when this life started for you. And because the earth goes round and round the sun, that particular day happens many times. (For you, that’s happened 13 times, so we say “you’re 13 years old.”)

Do you understand now?

Mara:
No, I'm so sorry... please could you say that again?

[samsdice]

Which is why I like to say you only get one actual birthday :-)

[truthseek]

Posted by RunningDeer (here)

Happy Birthday, Bill, and to many more that are filled with all you seek and discover.

Thank you for the seen and unseen ways you’re there for so many.

Happy Belated Birthday Bill! Thank you so much for hosting such an amazing forum. Wishing you many Happy Returns for many more years to come!!