Alaska: Random Shots

This journey is now over. My family and I have parted company, each of us going back to "life in the lower forty-eight". Below is a selection of photos from our Alaska trip:

Mount Ranier taken from the airplane over Washington.

An interesting growth at Mendenhall Glacier park.

Someone's idea of an entryway in Juneau, built of skis, lots of them!

I assume the sheet metal shop in Juneau had something to do with these Wizard Of Oz sculptures.

Yes, southeast Alaska is a rainforest, marsh, moss and all.

A sunny day at Mendenhall Glacier.

Mendenhall Glacier close-up.

A young eagle sharing a meal with a raven.

Alaska just isn't Alaska without one of these, like it or not.

A marina in Sitka.

Starfish at low tide.

The best whale's tail of all.

View from Perseverance Trail

Nugget Falls

These signs are pretty common...

And so are these.

Blue Days In Juneau

Our return ferry trip from Sitka brought us back to Juneau under blue skies. At long last!! Before checking into our hotel we stopped for pizza at the Island Pub, a joint highly recommended by the young locals my kids interacted with. You never saw such a cast of characters: old, young, infants in tow. The going fashion was mostly about denim, casual, a wide range of shirt styles, not a high heel in sight. These people dress as if they just stepped off the trail or came from their fishing boats. I felt right at home.

Mendenhall Glacier in the sunshine.

Adam and Sarah woke very early the next morning for a hike of close to eleven miles coming back with stories of waterfalls, marshlands, bear, and a surprise encounter with a porcupine. No harm done there. After a lunch of elk, wild boar and water buffalo burgers we went along for another hike. Once again there were waterfalls but no wildlife. This is the trail that begins at a gold mining museum that wasn't open, but we passed some old equipment and a small portal that had really cold air literally blasting out of it, a reminder of the people who mined gold here a good century ago. It was a beautiful day and people are out en masse, on foot and on bikes,  accompanied by their dogs. The locals are in shorts, not jeans as I am.

Juneau stretches along the waterfront and is backed by mountains with snow-capped peaks. The old downtown starts on a small flat area, then it crawls up the steep mountainside, turning residential pretty quickly. Very steep and long flights of steps replace sidewalks in the uphill neighborhoods and I am amazed that the locals actually are brave enough to park vehicles on the steeper hills. It must be quite a ride on ice. At the waterfront there are multiple gift shops the locals say are owned by the cruise lines and are boarded up in the winter. Cruise ships are always docked there; once they came one to three times a week and now there are up to four boats daily...or so I was told. I discovered that the local people are really quite friendly but only after they hear you did not come on a cruise ship.

Sitka, Alaska

The long, eventless ferry ride to Sitka took most of yet another grey, rainy day. The locals bring food and sleeping bags in order to make themselves at home. There is a little snack and coffee area with big fat hot dogs, very expensive yogurt and decent coffee. The lady at the register says expectant mothers take the ferry into Juneau for prenatal care so she gets to know the children before they are born and watch them grow as they travel back and forth for whatever brings the family into town.

Sitka has about 8,000 people according to the driver of the bus we took, part of a government subsidized system with three lines and buses that are always on time. Its history is amazing. First there were the Tlinket, the native Americans that had the land the Russians thought they needed. The Russians did not treat them well and, in one notable battle in 1804, a gutsy Tlinket went into the fray weilding a blacksmith's hammer very effectively. The Tlinket retreated, slipped into the woods leaving everything behind and later resettled nearby but the Russians kept their big guns pointed at their village for years afterward. In the end, white man's diseases did what their guns couldn't, insuring Russian dominance over the area. More recently somebody got the big idea of placing a statue of the Russian commander on the hill where the original Tlinket stockade, and later, the Russian fort were located. The natives were highly offended. The statue was heavily cloaked up to the event and, when it was unveiled, they found that someone had been working away at trying to saw the good commander's head off. Evidently it was a bigger challenge than expected so they settled for sawing off his nose. What a great story!

We hiked the trails at the totem park, the only location Ive seen with a collection of totems. I somehow expected to see them everywhere. They are a record of tribal lineage and a form of storytelling that seems to have disappeared.

Tlinkit totems.

Next we went to the Fortress Of the Bears, a rehabilitation project where the bears are kept in circular enclosures that were once the huge vats of a paper mill. The bears were very cute, showing off for all they were worth in hopes of getting food handouts that we weren't allowed to give them. There were also a few small enclosures of small farm animals. The explanation is that children here can identify all salmon species by the age of five and see so many bears they are unimpressed but, since this area is not agricultural, they never see farm animals. As for the bear that are supposed to be so common here, I haven't seen one yet.

St. Michael's Cathedral is the town's only Russian Orthodox church, a centerpiece in this small town. It burned down in the 1960s, taking a whole block with it. The story is that the townspeople formed a human chain into the burning church and passed the icon paintings out, saving them all. Not so the church that was later rebuilt as it was before the fire. It has several bells in the belltower. A local woman told us the priest, father, whatever he is titled, tries to play them on occasion but, according to her, he needs more practice.

Sitka natives are an amazing bunch if their history gives an accurate portrayal. They, mostly the Native Americans, are slow talking in a way that is beginning to sound as distinctive as a deep southern accent. The local people seem to be pretty matter-of-fact, feet-on-the-ground people, helpful if asked but not outwardly friendly. Those I've passed on the street and greeted are not quick to reply in kind. I am not used to this.

Juneau Grey Days

My biggest mistake was not arriving in Juneau the same day my son did. How I regret saving money on airline tickets by flying Monday and missing Sunday, a sunny day.  Adam and Sarah were already there kayaking, hiking, and otherwise enjoying a rare crystal clear day in Juneau. One guide told them Juneau is overcast, drizzly or downright wet about 300 days a year. She said that when the sun breaks out there is an epidemic in town and they may as well declare a holiday because so many workers call in sick. So sad that I missed it!

Day one took us to Mendenhall glacier just outside of town. It really is impressive but I found it difficult to get a photo that did it justice. We hiked some trails around the park before heading out on our canoe trip. The woods here are fabulous. Blue lupines are flowering and drops of moisture on the leaves sometimes take on a beveled effect. Moss grows everywhere covering rocks and crawling up tree trunks. I would be afraid of standing still for too long lest it envelops me, too.

Our canoe ride took us closer to the glacier and all its little offspring. Some of those are incredibly blue, a refracted light thing. Our guide told us that only about ten percent of them were actually above the water and sometimes they decide to roll. A bald eagle sat atop one of them and was under attack by sea gulls that were courting on the nearby rocky slopes. The rain put a damper on the event, leaving me wet and cold for the rest of the day.

Mendenhall Glacier on a grey day.

Day two we went looking for whales. We saw parts of a few, a glimpse of a tail, an arched back, but never a whole whale. There were a lot of other whale watch boats on the water communicating by radio on a channel devoted to the quest. Capn. Alan said they mostly share the locaton of the whales but some of the new captains are very secretive. The whales were not being social but the seals and sea lions were, much to our delight. It was still rainy and grey,  about 47 degrees, less on the water, but at least we had shelter.

A drop of dew in the center of a lupine leaf.

The Great Dismal Swamp

Its a big green rectangle on the map straddling the state lines of eastern North Carolina and southern Virginia. With a name like 'the Great dismal Swamp', how could anyone resist. I couldn't. So I turned my car southward on the only road giving access to the swamp with visions of deep, darkly-wooded black-water mires full of huge Cyprus trees hung with Spanish moss with a teeming population of  alligators, snakes and exotic birds. No such luck.

I took a narrow dirt road into the swamp headed to Lake Drummond, very blue and normal looking. So were the woods normal-looking having a lot of the same trees I'm so familiar with from home. I drove on feeling a little disappointed until a saw a big black blob ahead of me that could have easily been a huge bear lounging in the road. As I neared, the form broke up into four of the biggest black birds I've ever seen. One had its wings outstretched in a pose that was sure to entice the lady birds and a span of about six feet. Before I could ready my camera, they broke up and lifted themselves into the nearby trees. Bummer.

The road turned to the lake running in a straight line through marshy grassland with a canal  alongside it. The canal had lots of downed and blackened stumps and logs along it, some with incredibly green moss and weeds growing on them while others stretched across the water to serve a sunning spots for turtles. Lots of turtles. I learned right away that one false move from me and they slid quickly into the water. I sure am glad I have a good zoom lens.

On the way out I was led by a great blue heron that flew from place to place just ahead of my car, barely out of range of my camera. I tried for that shot several times and never got a good one.

There really was Cyprus and those are the trees with the heavy, bulbous bases. I'm not sure but think those are also the ones with above ground roots as though they were getting ready to tiptoe right out of that nasty black water. I was surprised to discover that the water was indeed black, not murky, but shiny mirror-black that really made the best of the colors of the sky above. In some places there was some sort of greenish growth, a thin coat with some neat patterns that floated on top and I noticed that where that film was the turtles usually weren't.

I wasn't thrilled with the Great Dismal Swamp but I did find it to be fascinating in a subtle way. What did I like most about it? The bird calls, lots of them, beautiful, melodic, some very unusual.

Trees on tiptoe.

Parting Shots

 A random selection of photos from my trip to Mexico:

 

A couple well dressed skeletons in a store window.

I was taken by his custom inlaid violin.

Yes, its a real bull, at least, it used to be.

An Afternoon In Mexico City

After submitting myself to some really cheap Mexican dentistry, I hopped a bus to Mexico City and stayed one night before flying home. My hostel was located behind a really big, two-stage cathedral with a huge square in front of it. I say two stage because one portion of the cathedral was obviously older and a little tilted. I was once told that Mexico City was built on a lake because the Aztec leader was informed by some ethereal higher up that they were to build their city and settle on the spot that they found an eagle with a snake in its beak. They found it in a lake and settled, gardening on woven mats and on and on, eventually filling the lake in. Not a very firm foundation, yet these buildings are hundreds of years old.

An event was being held in the square called Festiva Patria, a bit of nationalism on display. There were large white tents obscuring the view, stands full of people watching and cheering for something I couldn't see.  A military helicopter, tank and other similar vehicles were on display. Small children were going up a climbing wall and sailing down a length of zip line with the aid of uniformed soldiers. Lorries were parked all up and down side streets and soldiers were everywhere, as were the police. I understand the president made a public appearance the day before and there was a huge counter demonstration. No riots though.

I walked through the historic district and was awed by some of the architecture there. There was a lot of ironwork, tile in floral patterns, and what seemed to me like the influence of an art deco-arts and crafts era mix.

In closing, I would like to say that I felt perfectly safe in Mexico at all times. I did not witness any drug related murders, robberies, nor was I harrassed in any shape form or fashion. The people I encountered were always friendly and helpful.

Notice the rough outside edges of the cape,,,

...it's made of keys, thousands of them!