Random old Bing wallpapers

Paddle out onto Connery Pond in the Adirondacks of upstate New York and you may be treated to this mist-shrouded peekaboo tease from Whiteface Mountain. We're near the town of Lake Placid, known to many as the two-time home of the Winter Olympic Games, in 1932 and again in 1980. The Alpine skiing events in 1980 were held right on the slopes of Whiteface Mountain.

But let's not get ahead of the season. In autumn, when this photo was taken, the forests of the Adirondacks burst with kaleidoscopic color. It does look a bit brisk out there though, so make sure to pack a cozy sweater.

Today we're in England's Ashdown Forest, a tranquil patch of woods 30 miles south of London in East Sussex. We've wandered here because this is the enchanted forest that inspired author A.A. Milne's depiction of Winnie-the-Pooh's neighborhood, the Hundred Acre Wood. It's our way of celebrating Winnie-the-Pooh Day, observed each year by the Pooh faithful on January 18, Milne's birthday. The author, along with help from illustrator E.H. Shepard, introduced the world to Pooh and his many forest friends with the beloved 'Winnie-the-Pooh' books, first published in 1926.

Milne owned a home on the northern edge of Ashdown Forest called Cotchford Farm, and the author drew inspiration from these woods for many of the settings in his series. The real-life Five Hundred Acre Wood became Hundred Acre Wood, while the hill called Gills Lap became Galleon's Leap. Milne also modeled the character Christopher Robin after his real son, Christopher Robin Milne, who himself spent much time as a child in these very woods. If there's any doubt about the importance of Ashdown Forest to the 'Pooh' books, Christopher Milne himself once described the real-life and fictional forests as 'identical.'

The Land of Fire and Ice earns its nickname from the unique landscape of volcanoes and glaciers here, but Iceland's white-hot celebrations in the dead of the Nordic midwinter also evoke the phrase. The tradition of New Year's Eve bonfires in Iceland is said to date from the 18th century, when a group of schoolboys heralded the new year by scrounging up and torching a huge pile of wood scraps. The unruly teenagers' celebration sparked the general public's interest, and annual fires—like this one in Reykjavik—became an internationally noted tradition for Icelanders. Huddle up to the fire and raise a toasty-warm toast to the new year!