Winter Solstice,
The reign of Darkness is broken
as the sun,
Slowly. slowly begins her return.
Pregnant with the sleeping seeds
Of returning life.
This year the full Moon adds her light to the darkness
Welcoming back the sun
And baby Zaguar
The new life, the new light
Graces the world
And reminds us that
All is a circle.
We welcome this new life, Zaguar,
As we welcome the new life that
Will come with the warming sun.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Autumn Morning Light
Look! The ground fog is lifting.
The orange-red sun has risen to an acute angle.
A tree stands in front of the sun,
its symmetric branches bearing only a few scattered leaves.
The fog, as it rises through the branches,
scatters and diffuses the sunlight
into white beams of God-light.
A halo of misty light spreads
from the spaces between each of the branches,
as if the tree itself were the source of the light.
Look! The ground fog is lifting.
The orange-red sun has risen to an acute angle.
A tree stands in front of the sun,
its symmetric branches bearing only a few scattered leaves.
The fog, as it rises through the branches,
scatters and diffuses the sunlight
into white beams of God-light.
A halo of misty light spreads
from the spaces between each of the branches,
as if the tree itself were the source of the light.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Ends and Beginnings
Twenty years of love, hope, security, companionship, plans.
One year of fear, noncomprehension, anger, grief, pain.
Eight months of learning to unlove, to sever the "we" and become "I."
Ten minutes in the reception area of the law office signing no contest papers.
Two months left to wait until my new life starts.
Not all beginnings are wonderful.
Twenty years of love, hope, security, companionship, plans.
One year of fear, noncomprehension, anger, grief, pain.
Eight months of learning to unlove, to sever the "we" and become "I."
Ten minutes in the reception area of the law office signing no contest papers.
Two months left to wait until my new life starts.
Not all beginnings are wonderful.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Purposeful Hiking.
The forecast for the day is 92 in town. I am at Newfound Gap at 9am, enjoying the cool breeze. The sun has yet to burn off the mist, and the feeling is more like fall than mid summer.
I have a mission today. I will hike out to Icewater Springs to cut back vegetation
encroaching on the trail. I am a volunteer with Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, which is responsible for maintaining the Appalachian Trail throughout this national park. I advertised on the club’s list serve that I would be “mowing” today, and would welcome help, so Ed and Jeanine are with me . Ed is a tall, fit fellow, a bit older than me. I look at his legs and decide he will not enjoy my hiking pace, so we agree that he will walk out to Charlies Bunyon at his preferred pace, and work back, cutting blackberry branches and anything else taking advantage of the sunlight corridor the trail provides.
Jeanine is new to trail work. She has been on a couple “training trips,” but this is her first real “responsible for getting work done “mission. I have been taking care of the trail for about ten years. I don’t go out a lot, just a few times a year, as my life is full with other things, but my days tending to the trail are cherished. I have walked this section of trail over 50 times. I know it, as I know my back yard. Before each turn, I know what I will see around the corner. I know the location of the difficult steps, and my preferred path over them. I see the places where I have worked with the crews who do major tread repair, and admire how our work has held up for several seasons. A trail is not permanent. The mountain looks so timeless, so static, but when really known, shows itself to be ever changing. With each water droplet, each grain of dirt, each pebble, the mountain slowly
moves itself down to the plain. To keep a trail in place is continous work.
Jeanine and I hike the three miles up to where we will start our work, at the junction of the Boulevard Trail to Mt. Leconte with the A.T. This is “my section,” the one I am responsible for, and I want to work on it while we are fresh. We use swing blades to mow grasses, ferns and vines. We have also carried up loppers in our backpacks, and get them out to cut small firs and overhanging branches from larger firs. I enjoy javelin throwing the cut trees down the mountain.
Jeanine is a great worker, totally throwing herself into her work. All new workers are tentative at first, fearful of cutting too much. I give her “permission” to cut, and she blossoms into it. Grass flies off the swing blade, carpeting the trail. At first she uses the loppers to individually prune branches off small trees. I tell her it’s ok to cut down the entire sapling, and down they come once after another. All gardening must be ruthless. One plant has to die so another can live. It’s the same on the trail. A maintainer has to keep pushing the trail back up the mountain.
We enjoy looking at the trail behind us, seeing it as a wide corridor where there was previously a dark tunnel. Hikers come along and ask the usual questions. “What are you doing?” “Do you work for the park service?” One fellow, and I’m not sure whether he is kidding, says “I was thinking I might have to notify a ranger that someone was out here destroying the vegetation.” Many hikers thank us for our volunteer work.
A little after noon hunger overcomes our desire to work our way to the shelter at Icewater springs before lunch. We only lack a hundred feet or so, but we decide to lay down our tools and walk over to the shelter. Jeanine has never been to the shelter before, so I enjoy watching her first time view. I helped rebuild this shelter eight years ago, and think it is quite the elegant lean-to. I also take Jeanine down the path to the privy, and do a quick lecture on composting privies. Ours has a “throne” which can be slid to sit atop one of three bins. One bin is “active” while the other two are composting.
As we eat our sandwiches, fruit, nuts, and trail bars, Ed arrives at the shelter. He has mowed himself the mile back from Charlies Bunyan, and declares that all is well between the shelter and Bunyan.
After lunch we agree that Jeanine and I will finish working toward the shelter while Ed hacks at the major grass growth around the shelter. Then we all walk back to where Jeanine and I had started our mowing. Our plan is to walk and mow our way back to the trailhead. Watching Ed mow, I see how he could work faster than us. His powerful long arms hacked into the tall grasses, chopping big sections with each swing. Ed gets a bit ahead of us, and on a breathing break I look up and think the sky looks ominous. We’re on a ridgeline which runs for about a mile. I tell Jeanine I think we might ought to leave the mowing and get across the ridgeline before the sky starts acting up. We pick up our blades and hike back down to the last look out before the trail slopes back into the woods. Ed is at the lookout, admiring the view. Although we’re still two miles from the trailhead, we can see and hear cars moving on the road below. After a day spent in the wilderness, a person just doesn’t want to hear cars.
Ed REALLY wants to get the whole trail mowed, but I am running out of steam. The athletes call this “hitting the wall.” When I swing my blade, no grass is cut. I declare I am done. Jeanine is glad to stop, and claims she is only continuing to cut because I am. Ed, though, can’t help himself. If he sees a large stand of grass, he has to take some swipes at it. So we walk down the mountain, with Ed taking the occasional swipe, me whining softly to myself (I hope softly—anyhow that’s my story), and Jeanine happily traipsing along.
When we get to the trailhead, Ed said “Dianne, just call me, and we’ll come finish the last part we didn’t get.” I reply, “OK, Ed, thanks for your great work.” I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is, “another volunteer can get that last section, I believe I’ve done enough for a month or so.”
There is nothing like working physically hard all day at something worthwhile. We could have spent the day hiking the mountains, but by hiking AND mowing, Ed, Jeanine and I gained the satisfaction of not only enjoying ourselves, but accomplishing something that benefits both hikers and the mountain.
(regarding the pictures: I left my camera in the car, so these pictures are from other maintaining outings).
The forecast for the day is 92 in town. I am at Newfound Gap at 9am, enjoying the cool breeze. The sun has yet to burn off the mist, and the feeling is more like fall than mid summer.
I have a mission today. I will hike out to Icewater Springs to cut back vegetation
encroaching on the trail. I am a volunteer with Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, which is responsible for maintaining the Appalachian Trail throughout this national park. I advertised on the club’s list serve that I would be “mowing” today, and would welcome help, so Ed and Jeanine are with me . Ed is a tall, fit fellow, a bit older than me. I look at his legs and decide he will not enjoy my hiking pace, so we agree that he will walk out to Charlies Bunyon at his preferred pace, and work back, cutting blackberry branches and anything else taking advantage of the sunlight corridor the trail provides.Jeanine is new to trail work. She has been on a couple “training trips,” but this is her first real “responsible for getting work done “mission. I have been taking care of the trail for about ten years. I don’t go out a lot, just a few times a year, as my life is full with other things, but my days tending to the trail are cherished. I have walked this section of trail over 50 times. I know it, as I know my back yard. Before each turn, I know what I will see around the corner. I know the location of the difficult steps, and my preferred path over them. I see the places where I have worked with the crews who do major tread repair, and admire how our work has held up for several seasons. A trail is not permanent. The mountain looks so timeless, so static, but when really known, shows itself to be ever changing. With each water droplet, each grain of dirt, each pebble, the mountain slowly
moves itself down to the plain. To keep a trail in place is continous work.Jeanine and I hike the three miles up to where we will start our work, at the junction of the Boulevard Trail to Mt. Leconte with the A.T. This is “my section,” the one I am responsible for, and I want to work on it while we are fresh. We use swing blades to mow grasses, ferns and vines. We have also carried up loppers in our backpacks, and get them out to cut small firs and overhanging branches from larger firs. I enjoy javelin throwing the cut trees down the mountain.
Jeanine is a great worker, totally throwing herself into her work. All new workers are tentative at first, fearful of cutting too much. I give her “permission” to cut, and she blossoms into it. Grass flies off the swing blade, carpeting the trail. At first she uses the loppers to individually prune branches off small trees. I tell her it’s ok to cut down the entire sapling, and down they come once after another. All gardening must be ruthless. One plant has to die so another can live. It’s the same on the trail. A maintainer has to keep pushing the trail back up the mountain.
We enjoy looking at the trail behind us, seeing it as a wide corridor where there was previously a dark tunnel. Hikers come along and ask the usual questions. “What are you doing?” “Do you work for the park service?” One fellow, and I’m not sure whether he is kidding, says “I was thinking I might have to notify a ranger that someone was out here destroying the vegetation.” Many hikers thank us for our volunteer work.
A little after noon hunger overcomes our desire to work our way to the shelter at Icewater springs before lunch. We only lack a hundred feet or so, but we decide to lay down our tools and walk over to the shelter. Jeanine has never been to the shelter before, so I enjoy watching her first time view. I helped rebuild this shelter eight years ago, and think it is quite the elegant lean-to. I also take Jeanine down the path to the privy, and do a quick lecture on composting privies. Ours has a “throne” which can be slid to sit atop one of three bins. One bin is “active” while the other two are composting.
As we eat our sandwiches, fruit, nuts, and trail bars, Ed arrives at the shelter. He has mowed himself the mile back from Charlies Bunyan, and declares that all is well between the shelter and Bunyan.
After lunch we agree that Jeanine and I will finish working toward the shelter while Ed hacks at the major grass growth around the shelter. Then we all walk back to where Jeanine and I had started our mowing. Our plan is to walk and mow our way back to the trailhead. Watching Ed mow, I see how he could work faster than us. His powerful long arms hacked into the tall grasses, chopping big sections with each swing. Ed gets a bit ahead of us, and on a breathing break I look up and think the sky looks ominous. We’re on a ridgeline which runs for about a mile. I tell Jeanine I think we might ought to leave the mowing and get across the ridgeline before the sky starts acting up. We pick up our blades and hike back down to the last look out before the trail slopes back into the woods. Ed is at the lookout, admiring the view. Although we’re still two miles from the trailhead, we can see and hear cars moving on the road below. After a day spent in the wilderness, a person just doesn’t want to hear cars.
Ed REALLY wants to get the whole trail mowed, but I am running out of steam. The athletes call this “hitting the wall.” When I swing my blade, no grass is cut. I declare I am done. Jeanine is glad to stop, and claims she is only continuing to cut because I am. Ed, though, can’t help himself. If he sees a large stand of grass, he has to take some swipes at it. So we walk down the mountain, with Ed taking the occasional swipe, me whining softly to myself (I hope softly—anyhow that’s my story), and Jeanine happily traipsing along.
When we get to the trailhead, Ed said “Dianne, just call me, and we’ll come finish the last part we didn’t get.” I reply, “OK, Ed, thanks for your great work.” I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is, “another volunteer can get that last section, I believe I’ve done enough for a month or so.”
There is nothing like working physically hard all day at something worthwhile. We could have spent the day hiking the mountains, but by hiking AND mowing, Ed, Jeanine and I gained the satisfaction of not only enjoying ourselves, but accomplishing something that benefits both hikers and the mountain.
(regarding the pictures: I left my camera in the car, so these pictures are from other maintaining outings).
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
The Mermaid’s Solitude
She sat in solitude on her island of rock,
Protected by surging seas.
Solitude was her grief, and solitude her comfort.
Then came the wayfaring sailor, lured by her beauty.
He wooed her from her rock and into his arms.
They played in the waves, loved in the deep.
He was the sun she orbited, the center of all.
She was the moon, reflecting soft glow from his brilliance.
Seasons melted, one to the next.
She basked in the comfort of shared love.
But, one day as the migrating birds flew off into the horizon,
So did the wayfaring sailor.
“I tire of you,” said he.
“I’m off to seek my bliss, across the rolling sea.”
She sits in solitude on her island of rock,
Protected by surging seas.
Solitude her grief,
And solitude her comfort.
She sat in solitude on her island of rock,
Protected by surging seas.
Solitude was her grief, and solitude her comfort.
Then came the wayfaring sailor, lured by her beauty.
He wooed her from her rock and into his arms.
They played in the waves, loved in the deep.
He was the sun she orbited, the center of all.
She was the moon, reflecting soft glow from his brilliance.
Seasons melted, one to the next.
She basked in the comfort of shared love.
But, one day as the migrating birds flew off into the horizon,
So did the wayfaring sailor.
“I tire of you,” said he.
“I’m off to seek my bliss, across the rolling sea.”
She sits in solitude on her island of rock,
Protected by surging seas.
Solitude her grief,
And solitude her comfort.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Alaska Cruise
Whittier to Vancouver
September 6-13, 2004
Sunday afternoon we flew over the Smokies and Blue Ridge Mountains on a beautiful trip to Atlanta. At the gate waiting area we talked to another group of Alaska travelers from Alabama, everyone excited to be embarking on their first trip to the magic North Country. We were so relieved to be taxiing on the runway out of Atlanta. FINALLY, after our aborted trip in May, there was nothing but air between us and Alaska. The flight was a VERY long eight hours, but two hours out of Anchorage we started crossing the Wrangle-St. Elias Mountains. For an hour of flying there were snow covered peaks and glaciered valleys. The pilot pointed out some 19-20,000 ft peaks. It was interesting to actually see that the glaciers really were frozen rivers. I could see the black lines of the moraines outlining flow patterns.
We arrived in Anchorage at sunset, flying over Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet. At the airport, we were corralled by the Princess rep who helped us collect our luggage and saw us onto a bus into town. We got a tour of downtown as we picked up and dropped off passengers at several hotels. Finally, about 11p Alaska time (3am eastern) we arrived at our hotel, and fell into bed.
Monday morning, Labor Day, we were up before sunrise, our bodies still on Eastern Time, and our minds bouncing with excitement to be in Alaska. Pete photographed a building from our hotel window as it reflected the morning sun. We collected Mom and Dad and ventured out onto the Anchorage streets in search of breakfast. We found a nice café with hearty food.
With city map in hand, we took off on our tour of Anchorage. We found the visitor center, with its little grass-roofed cabin. We walked a ways on the paved waterside trail, and were thrilled to see Denali floating on the horizon. In Anchorage, we were over 100 miles south of Denali, and it is rarely seen, because there are usually clouds obscuring it. I felt blessed that the mountain allowed me to see it. We also visited the Alaska state museum, spending time at various exhibits.
At 11am we boarded a bus for the two hour ride to Whittier, on the coast. The drive along Turnagain Arm was very scenic. The road was sandwiched in a narrow space between mountain and the inlet. The tide was out, and there were mudflats. Towards the end of the inlet we saw beluga whales chasing salmon. The bus driver stopped at a creek so we could look at the spawning salmon thrashing in the shallow water. He also stopped so we could admire a small hanging glacier in the mountain by the road. We arrived at the 2.5-mile Whittier tunnel minutes before it opened to traffic our direction. The tunnel carries railroad as well as wheeled vehicle traffic, but each direction, and each modality has to take turns.
We came out of the tunnel at Whittier and saw the Dawn Princess at the dock. Whittier residents are more likely to own a boat than a car, since the tunnel is their only connection with the inland. Most of the town’s 200 residents live in a large cement apartment building built during WWII. The building also contains schools, shops and theater. We were herded through the lines for embarking on the ship, photographed, and given a little plastic card that was our ship entrance pass and credit card. We found that when we disembarked and re-embarked at ports of call, a security guard would use the card to log us as on or off board.
We boarded the Dawn Princess and found our rooms. Our room steward, Alex, introduced us to the room. We were quickly out of the room and looking for food, which we found on Deck 14 at the Horizon cafeteria, then went on an exploratory mission to try to familiarize ourselves with our new home.
We met Mom and Dad, as we would each evening of the voyage, for dinner at our assigned restaurant, the Florentine room. Pete and Dad enjoyed flirting with the greeter. Pete practiced so he could greet her in a different language every night. It was exciting just to see what would be on the menu. There were always five courses: appetizer, soup, salad, entrée, and dessert. I loved everything, but especially trying out the appetizers and soups. Various of us had different fishes, pheasant, duck, Cornish hen, steak, beef Wellington, escargot. We tried out things we’d never had the opportunity to sample previously. My ongoing comment was “I am going to hate going back to my own cooking.”
As the sun set, the Dawn Princess moved away from the dock. We had been in Alaska 24 hours. The top deck was full of passengers, but as the dusk deepened, and the air chilled, people became more and more rare. Pete, Mom and Dad also gave up and went down to bed, but I didn’t want to leave. Eventually I had the deck to myself. I was sitting quietly, just glad to be where I was, and watching the surrounding mountains fade into darkness. I told myself I would stay out until we passed a certain peak. Just about the time I was going to go in, I noticed a long cloud about 30 degrees up from the horizon. It had an odd color-slightly yellow. As I watched it, the yellow deepened to green, and there would be slight movement in the “cloud.” “Is this it??” I asked myself. After several minutes of watching it increase and decrease in intensity, I knew it WAS IT. I was seeing the aurora borealis. I was SO excited. And here I was alone, with no one to share the miracle. A few passengers showed up—they must have seen the lights from inside and came onto the deck. Pete and Mom and Dad were on my mind. If this were our only opportunity to see northern lights, Pete would be devastated if he missed it. I ran along the deck, caught an elevator to our cabin on the eighth deck, and burst into our room. “Pete, get up RIGHT NOW, NORTHERN LIGHTS!!!!” He was up and out of the room in 60 seconds. We couldn’t make up our minds to bother Mom and Dad—it was late, and we didn’t know if they would be as excited about Northern lights as we were (We know we’re geeky, and happy to be so, but everybody isn’t excited about the things which excite us). The show was still going on when we got back up on deck. We stayed for as long as we could, with a small crowd that had gathered-maybe 20 people. Once of the ships crew did photography, counting out a 90 second exposure. His work was on sale the next day in the ship’s photo gallery, and I intended to buy one, but didn’t get around to it. (Mom and Dad did stay up with us the next night, and the aurora danced for them, too, so I didn’t feel so bad about not waking them up the first night.)
Aurora
(c) 1995 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP) & Si Kahn/Joe Hill Music (ASCAP)
When the light is low and the day is done
Aurora dances down
When she find the land that thirsts for sun
Aurora dances down
When the stars are up and the moon is dark
Aurora dances down
When the night leaps out like a fiery spark
Aurora dances down
Chorus
She'll spin and turn and chill and burn
Till your knees fall to the ground
She wears the starry crown
When the moon and sun are joined as one
Aurora dances down
Go to folkmusic.com for the rest of this wonderful song by John McCutcheon
), because the ship would be entering College Fjords with the dawn. We quickly dressed and went up to the Horizon buffet, collected breakfast delicacies, and scored a table by the window. The sky lightened as we entered the fjords, and we saw our first tidal glacier (one that comes down to the sea) from our breakfast table. It got crowded in the restaurant, so we gave up our table and went outside to admire the glaciers and try some photography. At some points during the day we connected with Mom and Dad, but they were on a different schedule than we were. They took all their meals in the sit down restaurants, because they liked the luxury. Pete and I tended to have breakfast and lunch at the buffet line, because we didn’t want to take a lot of time with meals. We all did go one afternoon to high tea, which was very elegant, but we all decided we didn’t need all the extra food when we would be eating dinner a few hours later.
Mom and Dad are bingo enthusiasts, and spent several afternoons in the bingo games. Pete and I spent most of our days on the deck, bundled up against the cool wind, enjoying sailing past mountain after mountain, and always on the lookout for wildlife. A naturalist was on board, and would announce on the ship’s loudspeaker when he sighted anything of interest. We saw the “blows” of some humpback whales but never had an actual whale sighting. We passed a large colony of Stellar’s sea lions, and some Dall’s porpoises swam along with us for a while. There was an alleged grizzly sighting on high ground. I missed the sea otter and seal sightings by being on the wrong side of the deck.
Wednesday, we entered the Glacier Bay National Park. Two park rangers came aboard and manned the loudspeaker as we sailed up to the glaciers. This was the coldest day of the trip. I think we were wearing every item of outer clothing we brought. The ship has lateral thrusters, and can turn itself in a tight circle, so wherever we were on deck, we could see all the surrounding glaciers. I hoped to see a calving, but I missed. We were far enough offshore (even though these glaciers are so huge that it seemed we were right up to them) that the sound of a calving was a second or two after the event. I heard the sound, but never saw the baby berg drop down.
Thursday morning we woke up in Skagway, the town whose claim to fame is the staging site for the Klondike gold rush in the 1890’s. We had 8am tickets on the White Pass railroad, which was built to carry the gold seekers up into Canada where they could float rivers into the Yukon Territory. The train ride was fun. We gained elevation quickly, and when we crossed into Canada the terrain became tundra. It was all a jumble of rocks, occasional scrubby evergreen bush, little lakes dotting here and there, and hanging glaciers on the surrounding peaks. It was easy to imagine that the area had been covered by ice in the not too distant past. We got back to the ship at noon, had lunch at the buffet, and then rearranged our clothes to head out on a hike. A trail head started a quarter mile from the ship and led to Dewey Lake. It was a pleasant, if somewhat steep in places (but not as bad as New Hampshire) walk to the beautiful lake. We also walked the two miles around the lake, and were sorry to discover it was dam created. We had hoped to hike to a glacier lake. Oh well, next trip. We did a quick walking tour of Skagway and then got back on the ship to change for dinner. The ship left Skagway at sunset. We enjoyed watching the undocking maneuvers from the deck.
There was entertainment every evening, but we didn’t really make the most of it. We went to the naturalist talk one evening, another night a movie which I slept through, Mom and Dad went to some stage productions, we saw a fairly lame magician, and a nice jazz band. There was live music in the various bars, and we stopped by a few places. I think I was too exhausted from being mostly outside all day to be very interested in evening entertainment.
Friday the port of call was Juneau. A representative from the visitor’s bureau offered to drive us up to the hospital if we thought we might like to apply for a job. We did call the HR office but got the answering machine. How life can be altered by little circumstances. Who knows what might have happened if a live person had answered the phone. We bought tickets for the tram up Mt. Roberts, and walked around the visitor center there. A Tlinget Indian gave a lecture about his culture. It was my intention to hike on Mt. Roberts, but I miscommunicated with Pete, and we ended up riding the tram back down to the town. We spent the day walking around town and visiting the Alaska State Museum.
Saturday we arrived in Ketchikan, our last stop in Alaska. We bought tickets for a “duck boat,” a novelty vehicle which is a bus on land and a tour boat on water. We toured both the town and harbor of Ketchikan, with an entertaining guide. We also used the opportunity help the local economy by purchasing art. We got two animal prints, a moose and an ocean otter.
The Dawn Princess left Ketchikan with the setting sun, and we threaded our way through the straights toward Canada. We crossed the border during the night, and spent all day Sunday sailing. The weather had deteriorated, and also we were in more exposed seas, so it was rougher sailing. We were blessed the entire week with excellent, if sometimes chilly, weather. The only rain was on this last day of sailing. We entered the straight between the mainland and Vancouver Island in the afternoon. There is so little human activity visible on either shore. We spent a lot of time on deck, but saw very few boats or lights, no roads.
Monday morning we docked at Vancouver (what a difference from the small docks in the Alaska towns. The ship looked so big at the dock in Skagway, in Vancouver it was a small part of a huge waterfront. We were in an early leaving group, so we had a very hurried last breakfast on the ship, and then went down to the seventh deck to wait for our group to be called. Mom and Dad of course were having breakfast in the dining room, and they showed up just minutes before we were called. We were herded onto a bus to take us to the airport. The bus driver gave us a nice tour of Vancouver in the rain. The airport was miserable. We moved from one line to another, pushing our luggage at a rate which would lose a race with a snail. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be a VIP and not have to stand in line with the masses? Finally, the line torture was over and we got to board our east-bound plane to Atlanta. We arrived home in time to fall into bed.
It took me several weeks to sort through my feelings about the trip. The cruise line was very professional, although Mom prefers Carnival (I have no comparison since this was my first cruise). Everything was done very smoothly, and the service was great. I wasn’t wild about being with so many people all the time, and don’t see myself repeating this. My next trip to Alaska will be without a group. The star of the “show” for me was Alaska, not cruising. I loved the glaciers, the mountains were breathtaking, the three towns we visited were delightful little tourist towns (well, Juneau is actually a city). Looking back, we wasted too much time in gift shops. Next trip my motto will be “More mountains, less shops.”
Whittier to Vancouver
September 6-13, 2004
Sunday afternoon we flew over the Smokies and Blue Ridge Mountains on a beautiful trip to Atlanta. At the gate waiting area we talked to another group of Alaska travelers from Alabama, everyone excited to be embarking on their first trip to the magic North Country. We were so relieved to be taxiing on the runway out of Atlanta. FINALLY, after our aborted trip in May, there was nothing but air between us and Alaska. The flight was a VERY long eight hours, but two hours out of Anchorage we started crossing the Wrangle-St. Elias Mountains. For an hour of flying there were snow covered peaks and glaciered valleys. The pilot pointed out some 19-20,000 ft peaks. It was interesting to actually see that the glaciers really were frozen rivers. I could see the black lines of the moraines outlining flow patterns.
We arrived in Anchorage at sunset, flying over Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet. At the airport, we were corralled by the Princess rep who helped us collect our luggage and saw us onto a bus into town. We got a tour of downtown as we picked up and dropped off passengers at several hotels. Finally, about 11p Alaska time (3am eastern) we arrived at our hotel, and fell into bed.
Monday morning, Labor Day, we were up before sunrise, our bodies still on Eastern Time, and our minds bouncing with excitement to be in Alaska. Pete photographed a building from our hotel window as it reflected the morning sun. We collected Mom and Dad and ventured out onto the Anchorage streets in search of breakfast. We found a nice café with hearty food.
With city map in hand, we took off on our tour of Anchorage. We found the visitor center, with its little grass-roofed cabin. We walked a ways on the paved waterside trail, and were thrilled to see Denali floating on the horizon. In Anchorage, we were over 100 miles south of Denali, and it is rarely seen, because there are usually clouds obscuring it. I felt blessed that the mountain allowed me to see it. We also visited the Alaska state museum, spending time at various exhibits.
At 11am we boarded a bus for the two hour ride to Whittier, on the coast. The drive along Turnagain Arm was very scenic. The road was sandwiched in a narrow space between mountain and the inlet. The tide was out, and there were mudflats. Towards the end of the inlet we saw beluga whales chasing salmon. The bus driver stopped at a creek so we could look at the spawning salmon thrashing in the shallow water. He also stopped so we could admire a small hanging glacier in the mountain by the road. We arrived at the 2.5-mile Whittier tunnel minutes before it opened to traffic our direction. The tunnel carries railroad as well as wheeled vehicle traffic, but each direction, and each modality has to take turns.
We came out of the tunnel at Whittier and saw the Dawn Princess at the dock. Whittier residents are more likely to own a boat than a car, since the tunnel is their only connection with the inland. Most of the town’s 200 residents live in a large cement apartment building built during WWII. The building also contains schools, shops and theater. We were herded through the lines for embarking on the ship, photographed, and given a little plastic card that was our ship entrance pass and credit card. We found that when we disembarked and re-embarked at ports of call, a security guard would use the card to log us as on or off board.
We boarded the Dawn Princess and found our rooms. Our room steward, Alex, introduced us to the room. We were quickly out of the room and looking for food, which we found on Deck 14 at the Horizon cafeteria, then went on an exploratory mission to try to familiarize ourselves with our new home.
We met Mom and Dad, as we would each evening of the voyage, for dinner at our assigned restaurant, the Florentine room. Pete and Dad enjoyed flirting with the greeter. Pete practiced so he could greet her in a different language every night. It was exciting just to see what would be on the menu. There were always five courses: appetizer, soup, salad, entrée, and dessert. I loved everything, but especially trying out the appetizers and soups. Various of us had different fishes, pheasant, duck, Cornish hen, steak, beef Wellington, escargot. We tried out things we’d never had the opportunity to sample previously. My ongoing comment was “I am going to hate going back to my own cooking.”
As the sun set, the Dawn Princess moved away from the dock. We had been in Alaska 24 hours. The top deck was full of passengers, but as the dusk deepened, and the air chilled, people became more and more rare. Pete, Mom and Dad also gave up and went down to bed, but I didn’t want to leave. Eventually I had the deck to myself. I was sitting quietly, just glad to be where I was, and watching the surrounding mountains fade into darkness. I told myself I would stay out until we passed a certain peak. Just about the time I was going to go in, I noticed a long cloud about 30 degrees up from the horizon. It had an odd color-slightly yellow. As I watched it, the yellow deepened to green, and there would be slight movement in the “cloud.” “Is this it??” I asked myself. After several minutes of watching it increase and decrease in intensity, I knew it WAS IT. I was seeing the aurora borealis. I was SO excited. And here I was alone, with no one to share the miracle. A few passengers showed up—they must have seen the lights from inside and came onto the deck. Pete and Mom and Dad were on my mind. If this were our only opportunity to see northern lights, Pete would be devastated if he missed it. I ran along the deck, caught an elevator to our cabin on the eighth deck, and burst into our room. “Pete, get up RIGHT NOW, NORTHERN LIGHTS!!!!” He was up and out of the room in 60 seconds. We couldn’t make up our minds to bother Mom and Dad—it was late, and we didn’t know if they would be as excited about Northern lights as we were (We know we’re geeky, and happy to be so, but everybody isn’t excited about the things which excite us). The show was still going on when we got back up on deck. We stayed for as long as we could, with a small crowd that had gathered-maybe 20 people. Once of the ships crew did photography, counting out a 90 second exposure. His work was on sale the next day in the ship’s photo gallery, and I intended to buy one, but didn’t get around to it. (Mom and Dad did stay up with us the next night, and the aurora danced for them, too, so I didn’t feel so bad about not waking them up the first night.)
Aurora
(c) 1995 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP) & Si Kahn/Joe Hill Music (ASCAP)
When the light is low and the day is done
Aurora dances down
When she find the land that thirsts for sun
Aurora dances down
When the stars are up and the moon is dark
Aurora dances down
When the night leaps out like a fiery spark
Aurora dances down
Chorus
She'll spin and turn and chill and burn
Till your knees fall to the ground
She wears the starry crown
When the moon and sun are joined as one
Aurora dances down
Go to folkmusic.com for the rest of this wonderful song by John McCutcheon
), because the ship would be entering College Fjords with the dawn. We quickly dressed and went up to the Horizon buffet, collected breakfast delicacies, and scored a table by the window. The sky lightened as we entered the fjords, and we saw our first tidal glacier (one that comes down to the sea) from our breakfast table. It got crowded in the restaurant, so we gave up our table and went outside to admire the glaciers and try some photography. At some points during the day we connected with Mom and Dad, but they were on a different schedule than we were. They took all their meals in the sit down restaurants, because they liked the luxury. Pete and I tended to have breakfast and lunch at the buffet line, because we didn’t want to take a lot of time with meals. We all did go one afternoon to high tea, which was very elegant, but we all decided we didn’t need all the extra food when we would be eating dinner a few hours later.
Mom and Dad are bingo enthusiasts, and spent several afternoons in the bingo games. Pete and I spent most of our days on the deck, bundled up against the cool wind, enjoying sailing past mountain after mountain, and always on the lookout for wildlife. A naturalist was on board, and would announce on the ship’s loudspeaker when he sighted anything of interest. We saw the “blows” of some humpback whales but never had an actual whale sighting. We passed a large colony of Stellar’s sea lions, and some Dall’s porpoises swam along with us for a while. There was an alleged grizzly sighting on high ground. I missed the sea otter and seal sightings by being on the wrong side of the deck.
Wednesday, we entered the Glacier Bay National Park. Two park rangers came aboard and manned the loudspeaker as we sailed up to the glaciers. This was the coldest day of the trip. I think we were wearing every item of outer clothing we brought. The ship has lateral thrusters, and can turn itself in a tight circle, so wherever we were on deck, we could see all the surrounding glaciers. I hoped to see a calving, but I missed. We were far enough offshore (even though these glaciers are so huge that it seemed we were right up to them) that the sound of a calving was a second or two after the event. I heard the sound, but never saw the baby berg drop down.
Thursday morning we woke up in Skagway, the town whose claim to fame is the staging site for the Klondike gold rush in the 1890’s. We had 8am tickets on the White Pass railroad, which was built to carry the gold seekers up into Canada where they could float rivers into the Yukon Territory. The train ride was fun. We gained elevation quickly, and when we crossed into Canada the terrain became tundra. It was all a jumble of rocks, occasional scrubby evergreen bush, little lakes dotting here and there, and hanging glaciers on the surrounding peaks. It was easy to imagine that the area had been covered by ice in the not too distant past. We got back to the ship at noon, had lunch at the buffet, and then rearranged our clothes to head out on a hike. A trail head started a quarter mile from the ship and led to Dewey Lake. It was a pleasant, if somewhat steep in places (but not as bad as New Hampshire) walk to the beautiful lake. We also walked the two miles around the lake, and were sorry to discover it was dam created. We had hoped to hike to a glacier lake. Oh well, next trip. We did a quick walking tour of Skagway and then got back on the ship to change for dinner. The ship left Skagway at sunset. We enjoyed watching the undocking maneuvers from the deck.
There was entertainment every evening, but we didn’t really make the most of it. We went to the naturalist talk one evening, another night a movie which I slept through, Mom and Dad went to some stage productions, we saw a fairly lame magician, and a nice jazz band. There was live music in the various bars, and we stopped by a few places. I think I was too exhausted from being mostly outside all day to be very interested in evening entertainment.
Friday the port of call was Juneau. A representative from the visitor’s bureau offered to drive us up to the hospital if we thought we might like to apply for a job. We did call the HR office but got the answering machine. How life can be altered by little circumstances. Who knows what might have happened if a live person had answered the phone. We bought tickets for the tram up Mt. Roberts, and walked around the visitor center there. A Tlinget Indian gave a lecture about his culture. It was my intention to hike on Mt. Roberts, but I miscommunicated with Pete, and we ended up riding the tram back down to the town. We spent the day walking around town and visiting the Alaska State Museum.
Saturday we arrived in Ketchikan, our last stop in Alaska. We bought tickets for a “duck boat,” a novelty vehicle which is a bus on land and a tour boat on water. We toured both the town and harbor of Ketchikan, with an entertaining guide. We also used the opportunity help the local economy by purchasing art. We got two animal prints, a moose and an ocean otter.
The Dawn Princess left Ketchikan with the setting sun, and we threaded our way through the straights toward Canada. We crossed the border during the night, and spent all day Sunday sailing. The weather had deteriorated, and also we were in more exposed seas, so it was rougher sailing. We were blessed the entire week with excellent, if sometimes chilly, weather. The only rain was on this last day of sailing. We entered the straight between the mainland and Vancouver Island in the afternoon. There is so little human activity visible on either shore. We spent a lot of time on deck, but saw very few boats or lights, no roads.
Monday morning we docked at Vancouver (what a difference from the small docks in the Alaska towns. The ship looked so big at the dock in Skagway, in Vancouver it was a small part of a huge waterfront. We were in an early leaving group, so we had a very hurried last breakfast on the ship, and then went down to the seventh deck to wait for our group to be called. Mom and Dad of course were having breakfast in the dining room, and they showed up just minutes before we were called. We were herded onto a bus to take us to the airport. The bus driver gave us a nice tour of Vancouver in the rain. The airport was miserable. We moved from one line to another, pushing our luggage at a rate which would lose a race with a snail. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be a VIP and not have to stand in line with the masses? Finally, the line torture was over and we got to board our east-bound plane to Atlanta. We arrived home in time to fall into bed.
It took me several weeks to sort through my feelings about the trip. The cruise line was very professional, although Mom prefers Carnival (I have no comparison since this was my first cruise). Everything was done very smoothly, and the service was great. I wasn’t wild about being with so many people all the time, and don’t see myself repeating this. My next trip to Alaska will be without a group. The star of the “show” for me was Alaska, not cruising. I loved the glaciers, the mountains were breathtaking, the three towns we visited were delightful little tourist towns (well, Juneau is actually a city). Looking back, we wasted too much time in gift shops. Next trip my motto will be “More mountains, less shops.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
