Alaskan Adventure - Seward Highway

Next second day I headed down the Seward Highway. My goal was to get all the way to Seward, but that didn’t work out because of the nasty weather. With 20/20 hindsight, I should have gone down it the day before when the weather was perfect and saved Friday for Anchorage. As it was, I drove into slushy snow/rain and winds that were around 35 MPH or better (when I stopped my car for pictures, it would rock!). But in spite of all that, it was still incredibly beautiful.

As you drive from Anchorage, to the right is the Turnagain Arm (bay) with ice floes gliding by faster than a person could run. In the summer Turnagain Arm is home to Beluga whale. The area is known for its bore tides, which is when an incoming tide rushes up a river or narrow mouthed bay against the current. At Turnagain Arm it causes a wave that can be up to 10 feet high and travel up to 15 MPH. “Good” ones don’t happen all the time and darn it, when I was there was not a time to see one…that was going to happen just TWO days after I left!

To my left were the bases of mountains. Some rose up fairly steep, while other areas were cliff faces that shot straight up. Small conifer trees took what grip they could on the rocky slopes and where they couldn’t grow, bright colored moss and lichen filled the niche.

In-between the peaks and mountains were deep snow filled valleys (for lack of a better name). With the warming weather, slushy precipitation and high winds, that snow didn’t look all too stable. And signs warning of avalanche areas didn’t make me feel any better either. At one point just above the town of Bird I pulled into a turnout feeling very uneasy about going farther.

As I stared down the highway I started getting the “hair up on the back of your neck” feeling. One thing I’ve learned in my almost 46 years is when you get that feeling…LISTEN!! (Personally, I think it’s ones guardian angel jumping on your head!) So I turned around and headed back north on the highway.

As I made my way back, I pulled in to the turnouts that were on the land side of the highway. I’d take a look and go back out on the road. Didn’t really sink in that I was always able to pull straight out. That is until I made a turnaround to get a picture I wanted and saw this highway warning sign…

One of my stops on the way back was at Indian Valley Meats. It’s a place that processes fish and game, both for individuals and commercially. And it is also a B&B with a gorgeous view of the water. I picked up some different types of jerky as gifts for Himself, my Dad and some salmon jerky for Cindi’s Maggie and Jack (must not forget the canine kids!).

http://www.indianvalleymeats.com/

Chukars

Moss and lichen

Windswept trees along Turnagain Arm

Dangerous mud flats

Earthquaked!!

Last night or this morning (4:37 AM)…however you look at it…there was an earthquake about 270 miles north of here near Evansville, IN.

According to the comments on the local newspaper’s web site, a lot of people were jolted awake and things rattled pretty good. One person said that her cats ran up onto her bed and sat there staring at her. (Hey Mom! How’d you do that!?)

And I slept right thru it. Didn’t help that I’d only been asleep for 2.5 hours because I had laid my hands on my newest “SisterChick” book and had a marathon night read. But I was miffed.

10:15-ish AM. Himself and I were in the family room when the wall lamp started rattling. And kept rattling. For a good 30 seconds it rattled. Now I know this lamp is a bit wonky and will vibrate when the door slams or such but nothing like that was happening. Himself and I looked at each other and said “Earthquake!” Shortly after the lamp stopped rattling, the stained glass piece next to it started gently swaying. A perfect example of P and S seismic waves.

A check of the earthquake web site confirmed it. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/

Magnitude 4.5
Date-Time
· Friday, April 18, 2008 at 15:14:16 UTC
· Friday, April 18, 2008 at 10:14:16 AM at epicenter
Location
38.539°N, 87.865°W
Depth
10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program
Region
ILLINOIS
Distances
· 13 km (8 miles) E (81°) from West Salem, IL
· 14 km (8 miles) W (275°) from Allendale, IL
· 15 km (10 miles) NE (48°) from Bone Gap, IL
· 68 km (42 miles) NNW (336°) from Evansville, IN
· 207 km (129 miles) E (92°) from St. Louis, MO
Location Uncertainty
horizontal +/- 2.7 km (1.7 miles); depth fixed by location program
Source
· U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center:World Data Center for Seismology, Denver

Event ID us2008qzbw

Magnitude 4.5 - ILLINOIS
2008 April 18 15:14:16 UTC
Earthquake Details

The Schultz family seismograph

Alaskan Adventure - Anchorage

As I said in my 1 March post, I was given the opportunity to travel to Alaska to be on the ship Himself works on.

I arranged it to have 3 full days (outside of my coming and going days) to explore the Anchorage area.




Anchorage was a blast!! That city is in the middle of the most beautiful setting...mountains on one side and Cook Inlet on the other. Wow!




I spent my first day in Anchorage town itself. First stop (because it opened earliest) was the Russian Orthodox museum. Although very small and rather limited in its displays, it was interesting and since it was free nothing was lost. A bonus was the fact it had a nice little gift shop with both Russian items (icons, mastroika, dolls, etc) and Native Alaskan art…both at good prices.

Right across the street is the Anchorage Museum. Its displays are of “things Alaska”. Special exhibits while I was there included one on Iditarod founder Joe Redington and one on the Yup’ik people and how they have survived on the tundra (with many cool hands on displays like snow slit goggles). There is a tremendous history wing that goes from ancient to current times. Then, being downtown, I checked out the many cute shops with art from local artists. I found several nice Native pieces at good prices. They were done by young ‘up and coming’ artists rather than the well known masters.

My final stop was at the Alaska Zoo. This I found to be disappointing. It reminded me of the old-time ‘roadside zoos’ that disappeared (thankfully!!!) in the 60s. Most of the animals were in small wire fences cages with “doghouse” type shelters. The wolf enclosure was large and had an observation deck, so I got some great photos there. And the musk ox was in a corral so I got some nice close-ups of him. That silly beast decided we were buddies and he wanted to play. He would come racing up to the fence like he was charging…only to come to a sliding stop at the last moment. Then he’d put his nose thru the fence for a pat. One of the times he did that, a couple was walking up the trail. They BOTH screamed as he charged towards me. LOL

While in Anchorage area I tried to eat just things that are "Alaskan". If I could get it in TN I wasn't interested. So I had a lot of seafood (fresh ocean caught salmon, halibut, clams and prawn) plus some caribou. The sourdough pancakes at Gwennie's were wonderful. There was a distinct "ale" flavor to them.

Native basketry at the Anchorage Museum.

Model of an arctic home.

Scrimshaw on a walrus tusk.

Beautifully beaded seal skin mittens.
Polar Bear at the Alaska Zoo.


Arctic Timber Wolf

North...to Alaska!

I am packing my bags and heading to Alaska! Himself has landed me a job working as a pantry chef and also a photographer on his ship. I’ll be flying out next week and spending a few days in Anchorage before flying down to Adak to meet his ship. I’ll being staying a day in Adak also.

Plans are now that I’ll get into Anchorage around 3:30pm, which will give me a bit of time to look around. I’ll spend one day (plus my coming and going days) checking out the city. I want to see things that are Alaskan…if I can see it around here, I’m not interested!! On my list are these possibilities: The Alaska Zoo, The Anchorage Museum, the AK Museum of Natural History and the Russian Orthodox Museum. Plus some cool gift shops. And I’m looking for restaurants that feature Alaskan cuisine.

The second day will have me traveling to Palmer. I’m still working on arrangements but hope to go dog sledding, and see a musk ox farm and a caribou farm. Maybe a wolf rehabilitation center too.

The third day I have hopes of taking a “flight seeing” trip to Denali. If I can’t arrange that, I might drive down to Seward. Supposed to be a FABULOUS drive.

I’ll get into Adak on a Sunday (planes come in only on Sundays and Thursdays) and will spend Monday exploring the area and taking tons of pictures. Sometime Tuesday I will either be picked up by someone from Himself’s ship or I’ll hitch a ride on a fishing boat out to the ship.

From there, I’ll be working in the kitchen and doing some documenting photos of production. And of course photos for myself!

We will move from Adak, to perhaps Dutch Harbor, to Akutan and then a bit up to about Kodiak from where we cut across the Gulf of Alaska. I think we will come over to a bit north of Glacier Bay area. From there, it’s down the Inner Passage to Seattle.

All in all, a 2 week trip.

We’ll spend a few days in Seattle before coming home.

Bon Voyage!

Every year we take a trip. Some years we go overseas and some years are touring thru the US. The common factor is that I plan each one and then implement those plans on the journey. And although it’s a lot of fun, it’s also a tremendous amount of work.

So this last fall when we start batting around ideas for our ’08 trip, I stated I did NOT want to do some big excursion. I wanted a vacation where I could relax…maybe a resort or something like that. Just something that once I got it planned out, on the actual vacation I didn’t have to oversee a thousand details.

The trip we came up with was a cruise. Now we had to decide “where”.

An Alaskan cruise was nixed by Himself since he does that twice a year. (One of these days I’ll do it!) Caribbean was kinda ‘ho-hum’ to both of us. It’s so overdone now and we aren’t partiers. I didn’t feel like going overseas for a Mediterranean cruise. So we started leaning towards a Hawaiian cruise. A friend went on one with his wife last June and loved it.

But while researching the different cruise lines, I saw itineraries for cruises thru the Panama Canal. Wow! I trotted that pony past Himself, and he was just as excited as I was.

Out with Hawaii and in with the Panama Canal.

More research…

I found out that the Canal season is September thru April. After that, the lines bring their ships to the Caribbean for the summer party season. Since Himself works Jan – April and June – mid Sept, that narrowed down the ‘when’ pretty quickly.

We ended up going with Princess Lines (#2 choice was Holland America). Reason for Princess is that it offered everything we wanted at a better price. It’s not as glitzy as Holland America, but I really don’t care about a golden lobby.
We have a balcony suite on the right side of the ship (so we can watch land as we sail from the Canal to CA). The ports of call are Aruba, Columbia, thru the Panama Canal, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Huatulco Mexico. We get on in Ft Lauderdale and off in Los Angeles.

I can’t pick our excursions until July! --Sigh-- But looking at what they have offered this last season, I know what I’m aiming for. Aruba – snorkeling off a wooden sailing boat, Columbia – Panoramic Cartagena, Folkloric Show, the Canal is a thru cruise with no excursions, Costa Rica – a jungle canopy tour, Nicaragua - Colonial Granada, Masaya Volcano & Craft Market, Guatemala - Lake Atitlan & the Mayan Highlands, Mexico - Rural Communities & Traditions.

In Ft Lauderdale we want to go on an Everglades airboat tour, a cruise along the Ft Lauderdale shore and dinner at the Mai Kai dinner show. In LA, we’ll probably go with Gray Line and do a Hollywood tour and rent a car for a run down to San Diego.
And there are things to do while you’re sailing too. Of course the first thing everyone thinks of is eating. Yes, there’s plenty of food. With Princess you can pick either seated dining (where you have the same time and table every meal) or open dining (such as a restaurant). We are doing open dining since we don’t want to be tied to a schedule or set of people. Seated and Open dining have the same menu, just a different atmosphere. There are 3 formal nights, which will be fun! (Can’t wait to go shopping for that!) But there are also classes offered – such as pottery, cooking, photography and so on. There’s the spa – I’m going to get my first full massage and facial!!

And the best part is once I get off that plane in Florida, I am The Queen. Everything will be set up and all I have to do is enjoy!

Kenya

The images of Kenya in the news hurt.

Places that we visited 14 months ago are shrouded in smoke. Nairobi, Kisumu, Eldoret. This is insane. Two men who say they want the best for Kenya instead by their actions are tearing it apart. Kibaki, by all appearances, has cooked the election. Odinga is urging rioting. No longer Kenyans, now tribal Kikuyu and Luo. The common man has so little, those in the slums has even less. Yet they destroy what little they do have. Insanity.

I have 5 sponsor kids in Kenya. Two are Maasai and live far in the bush, they should be alright.

But 3 live in the slums of Nairobi, tho thank God not Kibera. Two are in Soweto. The headmaster of their school reports, “the last three days I have been spending in school with Holly house children. We are all terrified of what is going to happen at last. As write this email there are gun shots everywhere as the police fight to contain the protesters. Please Pray for us that we go back to our normal lives very soon.” And in the Dandora slum is Tyson, sponsored by friend JoAnna, but we visited him when we were there in ’06. I count him as one of “mine” too. Tyson is Luo. He is an orphan who lives with his older brother and family. I pray the brother doesn’t do something stupid.

The kids are supposed to be starting back to school on Monday. Starting their new year of classes. Will classes start on time? Will the school even be there? Will they be alive to go?

Damn it. It’s not supposed to be this way.

UPDATE: School start was postponed for a week, to 14 Jan.

New Year, New Adventures

A new calendar is hung…2008. This will be my 30th calendar that I have filled in and will keep. Oh yeah… I have every calendar I’ve used all the way back to my little freebie Hallmark one of 1978 marking the days of my high school life. It’s fun sometime to look back over them. AND they’ve come in very handy in winning a few arguments too!

The last 3 calendars have been ones I’ve made at Walgreens.com using my photos from our trips. Brings back great memories with each month’s page. Another thing I like about these calendars is that you can preprint birthdays and other dates onto the pages (and if you did that the year before, you can transfer the data with one click).

I’ve already been writing in new events for a couple months. Photo shows…new sponsor kids birthdays…meetings…trip dates. It doesn’t take long for our calendar to start filling up! However, this year I am working on cutting back my obligations, mainly by not adding more in to the spaces that have opened up. So front seat this year will be church mission activities, my photography activities and my scrapbook book club.

And trips! I’m always planning my next trip and this year is shaping up to be exciting. Stay tuned for further details!