I love old issues of National Geographic. I used to read these in the library in high school, and actually remember this issue because of the picture on page 13

I love old issues of National Geographic. I used to read these in the library in high school, and actually remember this issue because of the picture on page 134 (of the Cupo tree, which is pretty distinctive). There's something about exploring, and in particular this golden age of pulp-novelesque/Indiana Jones-style exploration, which is really exciting to me. Also, check out the way they describe things: an iguana is described as an "antediluvian reptile" on page 140. At this point, the areas which can engender this type of unvarnished wonder and excitement of discovery seem to be the deep ocean and outer space. Most of the rest of the world has been explored thoroughly enough to seem banal or uninteresting to a lot of people, which is really sad. I hope the world never starts seeming ordinary to me.