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We stayed in Kamari, home of a famous black sand beach. Well, not sand, really. More like black rocks. Pretty, but not fun to walk on and slippery when wet: I took these while waiting for the boat to Crete at the port in Athinios: As an aside, the cruise ship Sea Diamond sunk in the Caldera roughly 2 1/2 years ago. The wreckage is still seeping fluids. There's a ring over the Sea Diamond intended to trap oil and gas that seeps to the surface: Link to huge pic of the boat sinking, courtesy of Wikipedia. The wreckage as it appears today from the port (look for the orange balls identifying the oil trap): Finally we made our way to Crete. -RBB

On the north end of the island is Oia (pronounced Ee-ya). It's even more attractive than fira, IMO: People from all over the island flock to Oia at day's end to see the sunset - supposedly it's one of the best venues on earth to watch the sun set: Enjoying a nice cold lager while waiting for the show to begin: Yet more Santorini to come. -RBB

Santorini was absolutely beautiful - probably my favorite part of the trip. The topography of the island is really interesting - it's an volcanic island that blew itself apart a few thousand years ago. The result was a massive caldera ringed by 1000-ft walls. Volcanic activity has since produced a new island at the center of the caldera that still considered an active vent, though the last major eruption occurred in 1959: Santorinians have taken advantage of the unusual topography, building towns dramatically perched on and over the edge of the Caldera. Fira, the capitol and largest town on the island: Views of the Caldera: More Santorini to come. -RBB

On Mykonos we stayed at the Venioula's Garden Hotel just outside Mykonos Town. It's a really nice place aside from the 3/4-meter by 3/4-meter shower... The hotel staff was nice enough to supply us with pool towels: I, unfortunately, was unable to swim because my nails had not recently been trimmed and I'd eaten 2 1/2 hours earlier... Mykonos Town, knowns as Hora to the locals, was originally a haven for Pirates. The stone-paved streets were intentionally skinny and confusing to aid in escaping attack. Now, they're home to rows upon rows of shops and restaurants. For the record, the white between the stones is whitewash, and is does not always follow the mortar between the stones - some propterty owners drew their own...: Traffic and no sidewalks made for an interesting walk into town: Hora is known for its picturesque windmills: Just across from the windmills is Little Venice - so named for the buildings that jut out into the sea. These were initially home to boat/pirate boat captains: : King Prawns - nearly a foot long - at a market in Hora: "Cuban Cigars and other things you might need" Psarou Beach, about 6 miles or so south of Hora: We ended our stay on Mykonos with a quick side-trip to the island of Delos. Delos was a hub of commerce and trade for the Mediterranean for nearly two thousand years. But roughly 2000 years ago the city experienced a rapid decline. By the year 100 AD the entire island was pretty much abandoned, an it's never been rebuilt. The benefit of the for us today is that the ruins were never built over. The site itself is absolutely massive. I've only uploaded a couple of the pictures I've taken so far...: This is a view from Mount Kynthos (all Cynthias are named after this mountain) of just a part of the site: Mosaics in the Dolphin House at Delos: There were literally thousands of vases just sitting out, and ceramic shards were everywhere including on the walking paths: From there, it was on to Santorini. -RBB

Next, we made our way to the Acropolis. First, the Propylaea - the entrance to the Acropolis: The view from up there was amazing. It was incredible to see just how huge Athens is - multistory buildings stretched nearly as far as one could see. Four million people live in Athens proper (there are five million in the metro area), and there are no highrises: The Temple of Zeus as seen from the Acropolis: The Parthenon: The Erecthion: The Porch of The Maidens, or Caryatids: Next, a stop at the Temple of Olympian Zeus, built by the Romans. At the entrance is Hadrian's Arch: And here are the ruins of the temple: Wild olive trees were everywhere: Ruins of a Roman bath: The next day, we took a hydrofoil to Mykonos. -RBB

On our last full day on the mainland, we saw the sights in Athens itself. First the National Archeological Museum. The museum had employees in every room preventing patrons from touching, taking pictures with flash, or curiously, posing with the artifacts: Poseidon - originally he was holding a trident: A siren: Aphrodite, Pan, and Cupid: Caesar Augustus in bronze: Artifacts from a Roman chariot (the chariot itself, obviously, is not original...): A headpiece: Monastiraki Square - home of the Athens flea market: More from around Athens to come... -RBB

The theater: And all the way at the top, the stadium: There's also a museum containing many of the artifacts recovered on-site: And a model showing how Delphi must have appeared at its peak: Athens day three up next. -RBB

Day two, we made our way up to Delphi (pronounced DELL-fee by the locals), home of the famous Oracle and of temples devoted to Athena and Opollo. The site is on the side of mountain and is much larger than I expected - if you go, wear comfortable shoes and arrive in shape... The gymnasium where athletes trained for competition at the stadium Delphi contains a temple to Athena and Apollo, as well as the Oracle at Delphi The treasury building: Coming up to the temple of Apollo: The temple from above: More Delphi to come: -RBB

Post one of several... On more than one occasion, I was asked by locals if I was Greek. In fact, I am not. One could take that, though, to mean I'd be welcome there, and I'd certainly consider a move to Greece if circumstances would merit so dramatic a life-change. It's an amazing country full of amazing people - direct and quite frank, but friendly and warm even to strangers and foreigners. We left Saint Louis for Atlanta at 10:00 am on September 13th, where we waited for seven hours for our overnight flight to Athens. It was an unpleasant flight - ten-plus hours with an unhappy newborn and a 2-y/o who liked to kick seats immediately behind me - there was little sleep to be had. Nonetheless, we decided to power through without napping after our arrival at 11:30 am the next day. We made our way to our hotel (the Art Hotel in north Athens - nice enough place, but our room was tiny), we were picked up for our first excursion - a bus trip to Cape Sounioun to see the temple of Poseidon. Downtown Athens, just north of Omonia Square, and just south of our hotel: Our hotel: The road to Cape Sounion: The temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion. The temple's location was important because every boat coming to Athens passed by this point. It overlooks the Aegean sea, so named because King Aegeus threw himself into the sea from this point when he thought his son Theseus, sent to kill the Minotaur in the palace of Knossos in Crete, was dead: On our way back, we passed some of the fire-damaged hills from the recent brush fires near Athens: More in a bit... -RBB

++ I was a fan of the previous-gen Legacy. The new one is very disappointing, IMO - at least the exterior. -RBB

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I can't believe it's been two pages and nobody's used one of these... -RBB

A Lotus Elise - looked just like this one: With the following licence plates: YESIFIT -RBB

BOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! -RBB

My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is with the vast blank expanse of dashboard in front of the passenger. IMO it'd look nicer with "BUICK" or "Lacrosse" ("Allure" in Canadia, obviously) embossed that part of the dash. The Camaro suffers a similar issue. Other than that, I'm on board. -RBB

Had my car worked on yesterday at a Mazda/Chevy dealer, and they had two Equinoxes there - one base I-4, and one fully loaded V6. This is a really well done vehicle - photos don't do it justice. I only wish they had one of them unlocked... -RBB

Saw one of these yesterday: -RBB

Saw my first two new Camaros over the weekend. Also this: -RBB

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The 'everything expensive' dealer a few miles away from my place of employ just happens to have one of these for sale: http://www.saintlouismotorsports.com/showi...ed.php?item=146 -RBB

Oh, I've been around a bit, though it's been somewhat infrequent of late. I've just been lurking mostly. I honestly didn't think I was around enough for anyone to notice that I'd been gone. I'm quite pleasantly suprised by the review - I was put off by the RWD to transverse-mounted FWD configuration. But from the sounds of things, the new SRX should handle as well as (if not better than) the old one. Good stuff, indeed. -RBB

Yes. Perfectly identical, these: -RBB

A Mercury Marauder With chromed fender sills and a Landau top -RBB

You just described 90% of the driving population around here. These guys could have golf spike on their tires and spin it off the road, FWD/AWD, or RWD... -RBB

Beautiful concept, but my favorite part is this: -RBB