Alaska - Victoria, B.C. - Stories from the cruise

The only Canadian stop on the cruise, Victoria, capital of British Columbia, is a delightful city. Located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, it is equidistant (about 60 miles) from both Vancouver and Seattle. First settled by the British in 1843, it trails Seattle by 11 years for being the oldest city on the Pacific Northwest. Never mind that the Coastal Salish First Nations people lived here for centuries before James Douglas, on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Trading Company, set foot on the Island.

Victoria is a beautiful little city. Its history is reflected in the beautifully restored buildings, and the temperate weather promotes year-round botanical marvels. Our tour guide said that Victoria is a favored place to retire, but no place is perfect. The same earthquake fault that threatens California is present here; but the guide said that when the big one comes, Victoria will end up parked on top of Vancouver.

The driver pointed out a statue of George Vancouver, who was responsible for the discovery and development of the region. Originally cast in copper, the green patina made George appear continually sea-sick so the city fathers decided to recast the statue in gold. Unfortunately, when they removed the copper statue to use as a mold, they destroyed one of the legs. So they used the remaining leg as the mold for both and if you were able to look closely, you would see that George has two left feet.

I have been to Canada on several occasions, but not since Homeland Security and Customs and Emigration  and Border Paranoia became a big deal. My first visit, long ago, was on a tour bus at Niagara Falls. Having seen the US side, we crossed over for the Canadian view; a border guard stuck his head inside the bus and shouted, "Anybody not a US Citizen?" When he got no response, he stepped aside to let us pass.

Years later, with the border a bit more controlled, I made a trip to Toronto to speak at a conference. I got to the airport in Austin without thinking about what documentation I might need, and while it took a bit of fast talking on my part, the airline agent stamped my ticket "Documents OK" and away I went. I spent a week in Canada as an undocumented alien. During that time, I worried just a bit about the return trip, but for that leg of the trip I just walked out of Canada into "US territory" at the airport, got on the plane and came home.

The next time I went to Canada on business, I decided not to press my luck and took official documentation, though still not a passport.

To be sure, we had ventured onto Canadian soil earlier in the cruise when the train over White Pass continued into Canada for a few miles before reaching a turn-around junction in the track, so technically we were undocumented aliens at that point, since no one told us we needed passports to take the train trip.

They did tell us that we would need passports in Victoria; in fact, you couldn't board the boat in Seattle without a passport. You had to have a passport, even if you didn't get off the boat in Victoria. So, official, stamped, certified passports in hand, we disembarked, walked about a hundred yards into the Canadian Customs and Emigration building there at the docks.... and walked right on through without a single person giving us a glance!

Coming back, they did check... our cruise ID card, and that was it. Only when we got back to Seattle and left the boat to come home did anyone look at our passports. I wonder, if we had none at that point, would they have put us back on the boat, which was sailing again in just a few hours? Just a thought.

Monday Meanderings - 8.4.2014

Even before we ended our cruise, the Princess Line was pushing the next trip. If you signed up before you left the ship, they offered a big discount and on-board dollars to spend. It didn't matter if you didn't know when and where you wanted to go next, that could all be worked out later.

Since getting home we have averaged two or three emails a week offering similar deals on future cruises. We even got a phone call from our "personal cruise representative." So far, while interesting, none of the offers has tempted us into signing up. Until this email showed up:

Chocolate desserts, chocolate wine tasting, chocolate drinks menu, even chocolate spa treatments. Barb said, "Don't lose that email. I don't care where the cruise is going."

Another large tree limb is down. The good news is that it is from my neighbor's tree. The bad news is that the limb is largely in our yard. I guess I need to see if he wants to borrow my chain saw.

It's August and the low this weekend was 69 degrees. This has been a strange summer.

Rapidly approaching Hatch green chili season; both Chuy's and Central Market are promoting the events heavily. Still a week away, but CM was full of all kinds of baked goodies featuring chilies, including Hatch chili apple pie. I wonder if Princess Cruises knows about green chilies?

For some reason, I have been added to a list of people that might benefit from services available in China. The emails are showing up with verbiage like:

Dear Purchasing manager：

Glad to know you are in the market of rubber parts. Our company is a manufacture of professional rubber parts. We suppy retail all kinds of standard parts.    

And 

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

- 报^关货^运

I'm pretty sure that I am not who they think I am. I think.

Alaska - Pretty little Ketchikan - Stories from the cruise

Ketchikan is the southernmost city in Alaska, 700 miles north of Seattle. Like all Alaskan coastal towns, it was originally a Native fishing village. Fishing is still a major industry and the town promotes itself as the "Salmon Capital of the World." And since the cruise ships stop here, tourism is the significant source of revenue from May to September.

The southern part of town serves the tourist trade, with rather high-end stores and shops right next to the new cruise ship docks. The more typical tourist schlock is available a few streets away on Creek Street; once a brothel district. It was said that both salmon and fishermen came to Ketchikan to spawn.

 Ketchikan is billed as the totem capital of Alaska, but most are located away from the downtown area in the Saxman Totem Park, Totem Bight State Park, Potlatch Park, and the Totem Heritage Center. I did find a few, located in and near a beautiful little park.

 This one was so tall, I had to take two pictures.

I thought the flowers in the park were more interesting than the totems, though.

Back on the ship, Barb and I sat and watched preparations for sailing. Departure time was 11:45 and at 12:20 there were still dawdlers wandering down the wharf. A final couple wandered up and the security guy got in their face and urged them repeatedly to hurry and board, so naturally, they stopped to take pictures! Evidently this couple told security that there were other passengers in a restaurant across the street, because two officers trotted over there to check, but returned empty-handed.

They got the gangways pulled away, and the gangway doors closed, and the ship was underway. It can move sideways, by the way. Then we saw one last couple wandering down the wharf. A Port of Ketchikan official who had been present for the departure met them, and you could see them looking at their watches and at the ship - the departing ship - and I'm pretty sure they were a bit excited at that point. We wondered what the airfare is from Ketchikan, Alaska to Victoria, British Columbia.

We were talking to a young Ukrainian girl, one of the waitstaff, and she said passengers get left on a regular basis (we found out later that 6 were left in Ketchikan). The ship waits for no one. She said sometimes crew members miss the departure; in that case they have to figure out how to survive until the following week, when the boat comes back. And then they have a lot of  'splaining to do.

Next port: Victoria, British Columbia

Monday Meanderings - 7.28.2014

Some six or seven months after the iconic burger chain In-N-Out came to Austin, we finally paid a visit. For the first several months, you had to be significantly more dedicated fans than we are - traffic was so heavy that it took a bevy of off-duty policemen to direct traffic in and around the locations. Now there are 3 In-N-Outs in or near Austin, and we only had to circle the parking lot four or five times before finding a place to park.

Our motivation for finally visiting was family related; Jana, Rob, Luke and Grace were here this past week, and since we have In-N-Outs (and Mighty Fine burgers) here in Austin and they don't in Lubbock... you get the picture. Come to think of it, they don't have a Pappasitos there either. Or a Fran's. We hit them all.

I think I have pretty much sealed the deal, as far as rainfall is concerned here on the homestead. After a fairly wet May and June, I put up a remote rain gauge. That's it on top of the little pole. You know what that means, don't you? Right. Probably won't rain again until December!

I had trouble finding a place to locate it. At first I thought I could put it on the top of the new fence. Too many trees. Okay, on the other side of the house. Ditto. The only open area is the middle of the back yard, but I guess that's a good thing, shade-wise.

You do remember what I had been using as a rain gauge previously, don't you?

From time-to-time I look at the statistics for this blog. I check the total pages viewed count, to make sure all four of my faithful followers are still checking in, and I look to see which posts have the most page views overall. For a long time, it was a post about Austin's Running Man - the dude who exercised daily on the grassy stretch by an HEB store. Then it was all about the Mystery Album, the odd set of 78rpm records I found in the shelf.

But for some reason, over the past couple of years, the post Traveling in Comfort, a description of early automotive evaporative air coolers has outstripped them all. At last count, nearly 5,000 folks have looked at that post. Why, I haven't a clue. But thanks for stopping by.

Alaska - Glacier Bay National Park - Stories from the cruise

On our journey, quite often the ship would slow its pace to allow pilots - experts in local navigation - to board or disembark. When we entered Glacier Bay National Park, we took on a group of Park Rangers and Naturalists, who stayed with us until we left the Park that evening, providing commentary and answering questions throughout our visit.

One of only a handful of National Parks accessible only by boat or seaplane, Glacier Bay has moved through a series of designations and expansions, beginning as a National Monument in 1925, and becoming a National Park in 1980, encompassing some 3,283,000 acres. It is also a National Preserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a Biosphere Reserve, as well as the home of a significant population of Hoonah and Tlingit Native Americans.

What can I say about Glacier Bay? Here's a quote from journalist Sherry Simpson, writing in a gorgeous book of photos by Mark Kelly:

"Every one of us who attempts to capture Glacier Bay fails and always will, because this is a place that cannot be preserved by words or photographs or statistics. Look away, and everything becomes new. The light shifts. The ice cascades. The tide ebbs. Glaciers carve up time and leave behind a stony blank space, and then life fills up the space slowly, slowly. This is the world on its way to becoming something else." 

About 4,000 years ago, the entire basin was a single glacier. Over the centuries, the ice has retreated and geologists now count 50 named glaciers within the park boundaries. From the limited view of the cruise ship, with less than a day to spend, we saw but a handful. The scope of the place is staggering, and the realization of just how much wilderness and habitat surrounds you is mind boggling. It truly cannot be preserved by words or pictures. So, I will share with you some trivial thoughts, some things that surprised me.

One is that some glaciers don't look like what we expect glaciers to look like. Some are barely distinguishable from bare ground.

This is the face of the Grand Pacific Glacier. It has scraped up so much rock and soil as it advanced, it resembles a rocky hillside. Interestingly, it is adjacent to the Margerie Glacier, pictured below.

Another surprise; the turquoise-blue color of the "clean" glaciers. The density of the ice absorbs most of every other color of the spectrum except blue, leaving a distinctive coloration.

Still another surprise, is the noise they make, ranging from booming thunder to sharp cannon-fire.The glaciers are in constant motion, either receding or advancing. The Margerie Glacier is stable, maintaining its 21-mile length from year-to-year, but it still "flows" six feet a day!

And that's another thing. You look at the mass of ice visible above the water and you think that you are looking at many centuries of accumulation. In fact, the ice at the face of the Margerie Glacier was snowfall less than two hundred years ago.

And when glaciers retreat, the earth "rebounds" - rises in elevation measurably. Freed from the billions of tons of overburden, the crust of the earth slowly regains some of the depression that occurred. In Gustavus, just outside the Park, the land is rising almost three inches a year; the high tide line has pushed almost a mile out to sea in the last 50 years.

So much for glacier trivia. On to Ketchikan.