The Badness

I don't understand it, but every busy weekend we've had seems to be followed by a really bad Monday for Henry and Meg. He seems to let all the "badness" out the day after. Here's hoping today is an excellent day for them. It's nice and sunny out, they've got a car today, perhaps his favorite park will do the trick.

10,680 quarters turned up ten Canadians, one Philippine 25 Centavos (1966) and one Belgian 5 franc (1949). I've done really bad with the silver quarters lately. I was pretty bummed last night not to come across one with all of these quarters. The two foreign coins are new types for me. The Belgian coin is the 8th oldest foreign coin I've found in a roll.





1,750 dimes yielded two silver Rosies (1961D, 1964) and two Canadians.

1,520 nickels produced four Canadians, two Bermuda 5¢, one French ½ franc and one Kingdom of Greece 1 Drachma (1967).

3,800 pennies rounded up twenty Wheats, twenty-five Canadians and three US dimes. The Wheats were:

1937, 1941(2), 1944(4), 1946, 1951, 1952D, 1952S, 1955D, 1956(2), 1956D(2), 1957D(2), 1958, 1958D

I also finished two books recently.



The first book I finished a week ago, Mad about the Mekong: Exploration and Empire in South -East Asia, by John Keay. The book combined the story of the 19th century French exploration of the Mekong river with more modern history and recent observations. I didn't find the combination too successful and was often looking forward to getting back to more pages about the 19th century as I read the more modern bits. Although it too has its flaws, Milton Osborne's River Road to China: The Mekong River Expedition, 1866-1873 covered the journey in a more satisfying manner. There were lots of good stories from the trip that Osborne covered and Keay left out.




The second book I completed during our vacation, Aurel Stein On the Silk Road, by Susan Whitfield. The visual presentation of this book is great. It's sized like a coffee table book (although a bit thin) and has lots of great images of Stein, his companions and the artifacts they discovered/looted. I'm surprised such a book was made for a such an obscure topic. The text is lightweight and reads quickly. The images within the book are a great companion to the far more comprehensive biography I read of Aurel Stein a few weeks back, Aurel Stein: Pioneer of the Silk Road by Annabel Walker. I recommend getting both and perhaps only reading Walker's.