While Google Maps has shrunken the world down to our desktop, that doesn’t mean we have mastered world geography, or for that matter, even right here in the U.S.  And we’re not just talking state capitals. So to test your knowledge of geography, here’s a simple quiz that recently appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. We have selected 10 questions from its complete list of 50. To find the answers, click on the continued reading link.

1.What major city’s name officially starts with “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de” and ends with “del Rio de Porciuncula”?

2. Which is larger: Great Britain or California?

3. They don’t call it British Honduras anymore. What do they call it?

4. What is the only U.S. state capital that shares a border with a foreign country?

5. Which continent is Greenland considered part of?

6. What’s the only U.S. state named for a Greek island?

7. What is the only state in New England that doesn’t have an Atlantic coast?

8. Which two cities sit 5,772 miles apart, at either end of the Trans-Siberian Railway?

9. What is the only country in which you can see cheetahs and penguins in the wild?

10. Approximately what percentage of the earth’s surface is covered by water? Continue reading →

RailRiders Adventure Clothing has a long-standing interest in Earthbound matters. In fact, this concern goes with the territory for a company born at sea in the early 1990s, and now is known for “making the toughest clothes on the planet.” (For those new to RailRiders, our first product was padded jibe shorts for sailing. Our apparel line now includes many products for hiking, running, traveling. Of course, we haven’t stopped designing apparel for the sea. Our Bone Flats collection has been a success right from the start.) Yes, our planet. Intriguing isn’t it, to see how human time is measured against geological/biological time?

RailRiders Adventure Clothing will be presenting on a monthly basis movie clips from an adventure-oriented film that you might have never seen, or one that deserves watching again. To launch our new adventure-in-cinema series, here’s scenes from the 1972 German classic, “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (“Aguirre, Der Zorn Gottes”). Directed by Werner Herzog, who, in recent years has filmed grizzlies and life in Antarctica, “Aguirre” is the bizarre saga of a 16th century conquistador’s search for “El Dorado,” the lost city of gold, in the hidden reaches of the Amazon basin. The late German actor Klaus Kinski played Aguirre, whose tyrannical control over his party of explorers was so complete that they have no recourse but to follow him on his crazed quest, even as they are being killed off by the unseen Indians.

Here’s the contest photo.  Tibetan Buddhist nuns taking a lunch break from repairing a local road in Daofu, China. Contest rules are simple: we are looking for a caption that is humorous, pithy, or both! Submit your entry to info@railriders.com. Contest deadline has been extended to February 1, 2012

Long before the initials TSA stood for anything but for what a child might find in his bowl of alphabet soup, or for those my-bladder-is-about-to-burst delays on the tarmac and the plane’s two disgusting lavatories are under siege by their own occupy movement, flying used to be fun. Feeling nostalgic for those friendlier skies? Here’s a vintage photo from 1967 as passengers relax in the lounge aboard a Braniff International flight.