Travels with Annie and Elmo

Lessons Learned

2007-01-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

Lessons learned

January 8, 2007

Elmo is still trying to learn a few things; at least I think he is trying. Occasionally he stays next to us on the trail instead of charging the person coming the other direction. I have explained that most of those people are not aware that his tail is wagging, and that all he wants is a rub and reassurance that he is the most lovable dog in the world. I have even explained that some of them may actually be afraid of him, a concept that he still fails to grasp.

When he does stay, he also looks up and smiles at Annie and me, like he is really proud of what he has done.

Annie and I are also learning and wandering helps us learn. Like Elmo, we look up and smile because we are proud of learning these lessons. However, realization of lessons learned comes to us slowly like a form out of the fog finally recognized. We are confident that there will be others, but here are the ones that have already emerged.

1. It is OK to turn around. Focus on the destination causes us to miss things that should not be missed. We might be flying down the highway concentrating on the Rush Limbaugh show (just kidding) and miss the turn to Athabasca Falls, which we wanted to see; but we were planning on being in Jasper tonight. At one time in life we shrugged and rushed on toward the destination. Now we turn back. We may not have another chance. There is really only one destination and some day we will arrive. In the mean time we are just wandering.

2. Take the next right. The unplanned adventure may be the best. On a whim we turned off the Trans Canada Highway and found a village dropped out of a Ukrainian space ship that boasted the biggest Easter egg in the world. The Maine Coast was filled with narrow winding roads that ended at the Atlantic. It was impossible to follow them all or to decide which would be best. So we would just take the next right and follow it until something else called.

Even better would be to get lost and not worry about it.

3. Avoid Cities. As we became more comfortable in the wilderness, we became less comfortable in cities. Villages were OK, even small towns, but cities made us uncomfortable. We usually picked the city for motel night. Sometimes we would hide in our motel room until we could get up and wander on down the road. Entering the city was like an overdose of caffeine or the onset of the flu. We knew something was wrong but were not sure why. Now we know, it is the city; too many streets, too many cars, too many people in a hurry, too much dirt and garbage and fear and stress. In the city we were lost; not the external kind of lost that sharpens one’s senses and thrills with adventure, but the discouraged lost that takes permanent residence in the heart.

4. Call of the wild. Wild places sing a siren’s song that we both hear. That song, for many years, has been unrecognized background music in our lives. Now it is surround sound, like the base emanating from the low-rider hunching down the loop two miles away and rattling the pictures on the wall. And we have no mast or rope.

5. Wander slowly. A baby moose, crossing the highway behind his mother, clops along on his stilts. Red lichen grows on a granite rock next to an icy blue lake. A river foaming and crashing over boulders races down the mountain. A pretty girl at a rest stop points to the eagle hunkering on a naked limb at the top of the dead spruce next to the picnic table. We see none of these from 40,000 feet inside the skin of a Bowing 747.

We don’t hear the Eagle’s screech or smell the flavor of the forest floor or feel the icy sting of the glacier river at seventy miles an hour from inside the Highlander.

The little birds don’t gather overhead when one is struggling up a wilderness trail, and the red fox next to the water who watches us maneuver the raft through the difficult rapids remains unseen.

Probably the best way to wander is to sit; at least most of the time.

6. The back of a Highlander will hold all one needs to live well. “Remember when we could get everything we owned in the back seat of the car?” That is a quote from everyone. We have all said it, usually with nostalgia and longing shortly after digging through several piles of crud that was not needed when bought, hasn’t been used in the last twenty years, and would most likely be rejected by Goodwill. Life piles up around us like climber’s discards on Mount Everest where moth and rust do not consume. Most of us still find it impossible to take something off the mountain. We in fact keep adding to the piles, thereby forcing our children to take off two weeks when we die instead of one just to throw it all away.

We were reminded that we really don’t need much stuff to have a very good life. We lived six months, six great months, on what we could squeeze into the Highlander. OK, OK we did have the car top carrier filled as well. The only thing we both missed was the salad spinner. I hope that we will remember the joyful simplicity of less.

7. There were good reasons for Anne and Tim to marry. I realize that this lesson could have gone the other way. We might have learned that there were no reasons. Fortunately that was not the case. In the last six months, we have spent more time together than we did in the first forty-one years of marriage.

We did have one brown out. At Liard Hot Springs rain started about the time we needed to cook. If it had been two degrees colder it would have been snow. I was in a good mood. I built a big fire, got out the umbrellas, set chairs by the fire, and tried to coax Annie out of the tent by convincing her how great the experience was. Most of you can imagine the result of my enthusiasm. We survived that and there were no others; probably the least conflict in any six month period of our marriage.

We were also reminded that we like each other. We have fun together. We like doing the same things. We love nature and the beauty of God’s creation. We long for our grandchildren and great grandchildren to have the opportunity to experience that beauty. Wild majesty is spiritual to both of us.

I found a poem yesterday that I had written to Annie on one of her birthdays. It says why I like wandering with Annie. She said I could share it.

Chips and Salsa

By Tim Banks

2/24/2002

You are how I feel

When I remember the smell

Of bread baking

Or see a basket of chips

And a big bowl of salsa

Waiting on the table.

Knowing you is like being surprised

By the perfect sunrise,

There when you turn back,

Draped and glowing sunrise colors

Across the bottom of dark gray clouds

Loving you is being caught

When about to fall or

Snuggling warm and cozy

Under piles of cover

When the cold wind blows

Rain drops against the window pane.

You loving me is life

Like air and water

Our souls wrapped in one another

Forever.

Top Ten Drives

2006-12-28T19:48:00.000-08:00

Elmo’s Top Ten Drives

December 5, 2006

Between May 15 and November 8, 2006 we drove 20,000 miles around the North American continent. We crossed prairies, climbed mountains, dipped into canyons, stopped by lakes and streams, camped in twenty state, provincial and national parks, watched the sun sink into the Gulf of Alaska and watched it emerge from the Bay of Fundy. We followed early spring from Texas to Alaska, and followed early fall across Canada to Maine. When we got back to Texas in November we had three days of summer.

The entire drive was a delectable gourmet meal, but some courses were better than others. A few were so special they make my mouth water when I think of them. Coming up with the top ten drives was not so difficult; putting them in order was. Each one of the drives described here is worth the effort to get there.

We admit to some possible bias. It may be that that which is most different from our every day experience impresses us the most. For example, how could we leave the drive through Yellowstone out of the top ten? I don’t know; maybe people, or signs, or board walks, or the fact that it is on all the top ten lists. We had to vote, and all three of us picked Flathead Lake and the White Mountains over Yellowstone

The top two drives are in Alaska. Part of two others is also in Alaska. But Alaska is special and there are not many highways in Alaska. You can drive Highway 1 from Homer at the end of the Kenai Peninsula through Anchorage to the Tok cutoff on the Alaskan Highway. In Alaska the Alaska Highway is Highway 2 and runs from the Canadian border to Fairbanks. Highway 3, the Parks highway runs from Anchorage, past Denali to Fairbanks. Highway 4 connects Delta Junction on the Alaska Highway to Valdez on Prince William Sound, and Highway 11 runs along next to the Alaska pipeline from just outside Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay. Highway 11 used to be paved mostly with frozen tundra. A large portion of it is now paved with melting tundra.

We have driven at least a portion of all these highways except the melting tundra highway. We even drove Highway 8 from Paxson to Cantwell. The first 11 miles is paved and the next 111 is washboard occasionally replaced by muddy ruts. Highway 11 is called the Denali Highway and at one time was the only way to get to Denali National Park.

Five of our top ten are either all in Canada or partially in Canada. Only two are in the lower forty-eight.

Remember that this is not a top ten for all of North America, only for the track we wandered. And you are only going to get a taste of each one, like the tiny glasses of beer they line up when you go to a brew pub. You will not get drunk. But you might order a pint of one or two.

Enough of the disclaimers. Here they are in reverse order, with a little help from Annie and Tim; Elmo’s top ten drives:

10. Drive Through Yellowstone. This drive is on everyone’s top ten list, and there is a reason. This place is special. We should have spent more time there.

9. Wandering Highway 2 through the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Maine. We liked this narrow track so much that we drove most of it twice, once coming from Alaska to Maine and once on our tree peeping tour. Here is my description from our first drive down Highway 2:

A few minutes later we turned east on highway 2, a two lane highway that in most places Elmo could jump without a running start and which went north, west, south, up, down, and around almost as much as it went east. Villages resembling pictures of New England hamlets with names like Concord, Lancaster, Mt. Madison, Gohrman and Giliead were scattered along Highway 2 close enough to each other for the mayors to waive.

Each village had several white clapboard churches with Paul Revere steeples, stacked stone walls, salt box houses, flashes of color on the maples, roadside stands selling hand crafted maple syrup, gift shops, gardens overflowing with blooming flowers, a speed limit of twenty miles an hour and more cars from Boston than New Hampshire or Maine.

On top of that description add cool sweet air and layers of fall colors in multiple shades and values; yellow, red, orange, green, lime green, purple, rust and brown swished and swirled and dribbled across the hills and exploded in front of the white houses lining village streets.

8. Alaska Highway from Liard Hot Springs to Fort Nelson. We drove this road both directions, which I highly recommend. This drive could be number seven and eight. For example, Summit Lake is really two lakes. When you drive north it is a shock appearing as you top summit pass, naked in its bed hugged by rocky peaks. When you are going south, it is a cool drink on a hot day sipped slowly, or like Sophia Loren tossing her beach towel between my towel and the water when no one would miss me even if I stayed all day.

In either direction you drive through the Barricade Range and the Sentinel Range; you drive over Muncho Pass and Summit Lake pass, and through four Provincial Parks (the Province is British Columbia), not counting Liard Hot Springs. The road curves along with the Liard River in the North and tumbles with Tetsa River in the South and East. We stopped for stone sheep grazing in the rocks next to the road and to let reindeer and moose cross the road.

7. Alaska Highway from Haines Junction (Yukon Territory) to Tok Alaska. The view from one spot on this drive is the wall paper for my computer. Here is the essence, what I said when we were driving this road. I cannot give you a better taste.

Mountains in front of me, mountains to the right of me, mountains to the left, and mountains behind me; mountains behind mountains behind mountains; layers of mountains upon layers of mountains, and those most far, white towers where the sun streaks through the cloud, hurting my eyes. The sense of distance and mass is like other worlds, like planets or moons suddenly on the horizon, in our atmosphere.

There is so much beauty. I am not numb to it, but I am incapable of taking it all into my soul and storing that certain view of a lifetime when a turn of the head, a blink, a curve in the road presents me with another.

When we were looking at this, Annie said, “Can you imagine what David and Joey thought when they first saw this, knowing that this beauty would be their home?”

6. Drive along the northern shore of Lake Superior from Sleeping Giant to Marathon and the eastern shore from Wawa to Batchwanna Bay; Canadian Highway 17, Ontario. I left out the piece of highway that runs inland for about fifty miles. It is also beautiful, but does not compliment this visual feast. This drive was like finding an ocean in the middle of the continent. We drove for parts of three days along the shore of Lake Superior, all that in Canada. The shoreline in the US is longer than that in Canada. We camped next to the water at Sleeping Giant and Agawa Bay. This is the drive of sunsets, sunsets behind rolling mountains, sunsets slipping silently into sun colored water; this is the drive of islands, granite cliffs, small deep blue lakes sleeping in granite holes next to the great lake; the drive of roads curving around hills and dipping into valleys, bays and sandy beaches, boat filled harbors; and the drive of horizons laid with a gentle curve over the water. Famous artists come here to paint.

5. Top of the World Highway. This “highway” runs from the Canadian border to Dawson in the Yukon Territory. It is approximately 150 miles south of the Artic Circle. Part of the fun of this drive is that you have to go through Chicken, Alaska (named by prospectors who couldn’t spell ptarmigan) to get to the Top of the World Highway. We had driven through wilderness for much of our entire adventure. But the drive up to the Top of the World Highway and then along that highway presented a new definition of wilderness. Other than the road under our tires, Chicken, the border outpost, and a mining barge crumbling in the bottom of a canyon where more water must have one day flowed; there was no hint of human habitation; no building, no fence, no telephone or electric line, no roadside park, no plowed field, and no sign advertising that which we could not live without. The Top of the World Highway curves gracefully from ridgeline to ridgeline through high tundra. I think we could see mountains on the Artic Circle to the north. We saw the highway ten miles ahead topping a ridge, disappearing, and then reappearing as a smoky line on another ridge far to the East where the sun squeezed through dark clouds and flashed on the windshield of car we never saw. At one end of this road is the border station perched at the top of bare hill, alone, waiting for a passport to peruse, a citizen to quiz; at the other end is the free ferry that takes cars and people across the Yukon River to Dawson.

4. Drive into Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. There had to be some of Highway 287 on this list. This drive should start on the great prairie just before 287 tumbles into the Wind River Valley near Dubois. Here is a piece of my original essay:

At one point 287 led us across a prairie that was like a yellow table cloth stretched from horizon to horizon. It seemed to have no end. And at that moment we fell off the table cloth and into the side canyons zigzagging and tumbling into the incomparable Wind River valley filled with green fields and surrounded with rocks like castles and turrets and minarets and steeples painted in alternating layers with ice cream colors, strawberry, vanilla, strawberry, vanilla, strawberry.

At the end of The Wind River valley 287 went up the mountains through the snowy pass and showed us the Teton Mountains, hazy white peaks thrust jaggedly into the heavens.

We drove, mesmerized, toward those most mountain-like of mountains until in the park where we stopped at water’s edge on a day when the air did not move and there found an inverted Mt. Moran napping on the polished surface of Jackson Lake.

3. Banff National Park to Jasper National Park, Alberta. This drive has to be about Banff National Park and Jasper National Park because the entire drive is in one park or the other. It is the singing ice, orange lichen, and bike trail along the bow river at Lake Louise; it is the village of Jasper, Athabaska Falls, and hiking the narrow trail through the smooth tunnels and slots carved in stone by the Maligne River. It is also the high road passing gray granite mountains shimmering in early sun, passing the icefields, remnants of the last advance of the glaciers, passing black bears, buffalo, elk, big horn sheep, and finding fairy slippers next to the tent. It is smelling the earth after the rain and hearing water crash into rocks and tasting the local beer in Jasper.

2. Palmer to Matanuska Glacier, Alaska Highway 1. It was a dark and rainy evening, and a black BMW motorcycle accelerated out of Palmer whining through wisps of fog slithering over the road like fat snakes. A form clad in leather the color of fresh blood and wearing a moon walker’s helmet squeezed the BMW with her thighs and snuggled to the gas tank. The form seemed to be painted onto the motorcycle. They leaned into the sharp curves, left toward the cliff that melted and dribbled fiery gold fingers onto the road; then right toward the boiling river, the Matanuska, like curdled milk whipped with chocolate, tumbling over walking rocks and spinning milky fairies into the dripping air. They miss, but barely, the mechanical elephants hauling silver rockets toward Palmer. Rock castles flash on and off in the distant silhouetted against a rolling black sky. Behind the BMW Harry Potter and some of his friends follow on broomsticks slinging lightning bolts at the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The BMW zips down a steep hill, compresses onto a high bridge, dodges ogres, and flashes up the other side of the canyon. At the top of the canyon the Matanuska Glacier appears, rises slowly out of its ancient bed and grows, swelling into the hevans and across the earth like a living organism. The BMW screams to a stop at the Scenic Overlook. An old man, a woman and a dog who had been watching the glacier glance at the motorcycle.

1. The Seward Highway from Anchorage to Seward, Alaska; Highway 1 and Highway 9.

We have driven this Highway more than any other in Alaska, and still it is our favorite—kind of like being married to Annie.

The Seward highway follows Highway 1 out of Anchorage to Tern Lake Junction where Highway 9 begins. Highway 9 ends at Seward, a village hanging to the edge of the mountains at the top end of Resurrection Bay. Across the bay are stark mountain peaks cut by blue green glaciers. On a clear day you can see the outline of Fox Island where Rockwell Kent hid from life with his son, painting, writing, and healing. On Top of the mountains above the village is the Harding Ice field which covers the Kenai Mountains from Seward almost all the way to Halibut Cove and is the mother to over thirty active glaciers; one of which, Exit Glacier, can be reached by car just off the Seward highway.

Boat people land in their thirty story ships in Seward and take the train or bus to Anchorage. If they fly home from Anchorage and don’t come back to Seward, they miss the best part of our number one drive. The Seward Highway is most spectacular on the drive from Anchorage to Seward. Going the other way, it would probably be only Number four.

Just as you leave Anchorage the Seward Highway tops a ridge above Potter Marsh, a great place to stop and watch sea birds. At that point you can see the first fifty miles of the Seward Highway. This section snakes along the shoreline of Turnagain Arm, a piece of ocean flowing off Cook Inlet, which is a piece of ocean flowing off the Gulf of Alaska, which is a piece of ocean responsible for feeding most species of the Pacific including humans. Turnagain Arm is shallow; Tide sweeps in and out boiling along the rocky coast and over the muddy flats like a mountain river rushing to the sea. Across the arm is the northern end of the Kenai Peninsula lined with black snow capped mountains piercing low hanging clouds or, if you are very lucky, jutting into a brilliant blue sky. Above the highway on the north side of Turnagain Arm is the Chugach Mountains laced with waterfalls, and at the far west end of the arm are the mountains giving birth to Portage Glacier which scrubbed out the rut into and out of which Turnagain Arm rushes.

From Potter Marsh; past Indian, Bird, the turn off to Girdwood and the Alyeska Ski Area (also the route to the Crow Pass Trail, which many of you know as the Girl Scout Trail); to the turn off for Portage Glacier and Whittier, Turnagain Arm and the surrounding mountains continue to thrill. For the remainder of the Seward Highway, one must be content with great mountains, high passes, lakes, thick forests, rushing streams, milky glacial rivers, canyons, trail heads leading to fabulous hikes, glaciers, and Moose Pass (the village).

There they are, Elmo’s Top 10 drives for this trip. Some of these would make a lifetime top 10 list. Where one wanders, wander slowly.

Acadia and Down East

2006-10-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

Acadia and Down East

October 24, 2006

Last week we drove Highway 1 up the coast of Maine heading for Acadia National Park and “Down East.” The trees may have been more beautiful than the trees on our tree peeping tour to the White Mountains. Even the red oaks and pin oaks were deep red and copper. The Maples that were first to turn had dropped leaves starting from the top down (where the wind blows harder, I guess). Some Maples, fiery red, were still scattered on the hillsides, and the aspen, more profuse the further north we went, painted great swaths of yellow across the hills.

We camped three nights at Black Woods Campground in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island. They had already closed the other campgrounds, and only a little piece of Black Woods was open. The ranger taking our money at the entrance told us that even Black Woods would close November 1. Not only do the camp grounds close many businesses and restaurants were “closed for the season.”

Despite the closures, early October would be the perfect time to visit Acadia. Annie sat at the picnic table early in the morning wearing three layers of jackets and gloves waiting for the coffee to perk. The sun came through the spruce and warmed her face. There was no wind. The air was crisp. It felt like fall should feel. The crowds; up to nine thousand visitors check in each day at the visitor’s center in the summer; were gone.

Acadia is Lakes (ponds in Maine), rocky coastline, mountains, the view of painted forests the ocean and strings of islands from Cadillac Mountain, a year’s worth of trails to wander, and the “carriage roads.” Between 1913 and 1940 John D. Rockefeller, Jr. designed and built carriage roads all over the park so that it could be enjoyed with out “disturbance from the automobile.” This may be my new favorite old man’s place to bike. There are forty miles of packed crushed stone roads meandering over hills, through valleys and around lakes. I road a wonderful loop around Jordan Pond, by the end of Eagle Lake and past Bubble Lake.

Incidentally, we discovered another good thing about getting older; I bought a life time pass to US National Parks for $10.00. From now on we get into parks free and also get one half off camping fees.

Down East is what they call the most easterly part of Maine. It is also called the Sunrise Coast because the sun lights it’s rocks before anywhere else in the lower forty-eight. The most easterly point in the lower forty-eight is West Quoddy Head outside Lubec, the most easterly village. We walked a trail along the coast and Elmo climbed the rocks down to the water where the only part of the continental US to the east is in the Aleutians.

Wandering Maine

2006-10-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

Wandering Maine

October 21, 2006

When I woke up this morning I had decided that Journey Travel should be called “Wandering.” That is the noun. The verb is, “wander.” When we were in Alaska, Joey went to Sitka and brought me back a t-shirt that says, “The Journey is the Destination.” My motto for this blog was, “The destination is just another part of the journey.”

This morning I think that both the Sitka t-shirt and my motto may miss the idea of Journey Travel. They both emphasize the destination. Maybe there is no destination, only the journey, and the journey is but wandering. I have another t-shirt that says, “Not all those who wander are lost.” So maybe even if we wander, we are not lost. That would be good news.

We wandered northwest to look at leaves. We started on back roads, the ones that have names, not numbers. Orange leaves on red maples shimmered along Swamp Road, flashed on the round hills above Quaker Meeting Road, and huddled in the gullies Poland Range Road crossed on narrow bridges. Depot Road led us to Gray (the village) which was not gray; but vermilion, crimson, yellow ochre, and lemon.

We turned north at Gray on a road with a number and watched the reflection of red leaves on sugar maples in Crystal Lake, Upper Range Pond, Tripp Pond, and Pennesseewasse Lake. At Bethel our old friend Highway 2 meandered west so that we could watch yellow leaves on aspen reflect in the ripples of the Androscoggin River. The leaves led us into New Hampshire where we stopped for lunch at Saladinos in Gorham and then drove to the top of Mt. Washington (worst weather in the US) to shiver in the cold wind and look at leaves as far as the eye could see. Annie and Elmo took me up a trail near the edge of White Mountains National Forest that was littered with dappled orange, yellow and red leaves.

Just before the light faded Parnelli Annie rocketed the Highlander back to Maine over Hurricane Mountain Road, and we wandered the back roads to Bathtub Cove knowing that were passing colored leaves in the dark.

The Artist Eye

2006-10-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

The Artist Eye

October 20, 2006

It is raining and I can just make out the pale gray line of trees dipping close to the pale gray water at the far end of the cove. The green has abandoned the oaks leaving copper polished like the big tubs for sale along the road in Mexico, rust like the splotches on an unused crosscut hanging on the side of a forgotten Maine barn, and red like looking at the sun through a glass of cabernet. The maples that turned first, the burning red ones, have dropped most of their leaves. Stragglers remain, a torn red leaf hanging alone at the end of a branch. Some maples the ones that look like the leaves were painted with sun and dipped in blood are full color. I think the color is more spectacular now than when the sugar maples emerged dripping red from surrounding shades of green.

I asked Len, the lady who owns the Eastland Motel (emphasis on “Mo”) in Lubec, if she knew of any spots around Lubec that would be good for painting. She told me a long story about her friend, Sally, who paints, the essence of which is that Sally sees things differently. Sally notices things that Len would never see, and sees possibilities for a painting where Len sees nothing but an old barn and a sick looking cow in a muddy lot. Sally sees with the artist eye. She sees texture, contrast, shadows, structure, eye candy. She has the artist eye.

I started painting with watercolors after we came to Maine. Maine begs one to paint. Ask Andrew Wythe. I don’t have the artist eye yet, but it is growing slowly in my brain. I already notice special scenes, I never saw before. We drive down untourist roads looking for places that need to be painted. I get out of the car where an old wooden shrimp boat with pealing green and white paint and broken windows is propped in the mud next to a partially collapsed dock from which a gray shack hangs precariously. I run around snapping pictures. I look for angles, shadows, (where is the sun?) where the paint flecks glow, color, the blue plastic barrel in the foreground leaning against the stack lobster traps, orange and green lobster buoys piled and fading next to a heap of aged loading pallets, the red boat floating in the distance and the just painted white house set in the orange and red maples across the bay. Then I wonder about the boat’s history, the owners, the families it supported and where they are now, the storms and close calls, the decision to park it in the mud and whether anyone remembers that it is here; or cares.

Whether one paints or not, developing the artist eye makes wandering special.

One place Len suggested that we go was the East Quoddy Head light house at the far end of the road on Campobello Island. Campobello Island is in New Brunswick, just across the bridge from Lubec, and is where the Roosevelts (Franklin Delano) had a summer house. I don’t know how to paint wind or sideways rain or the sound of waves crashing against the rocks or the white gull floating magically in the wind just above the mountain ash’s red berries. But I noticed them.

A picture of what I did paint is attached.

Walking Monhegan

2006-10-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

October 11, 2006

Walking Monhegan

I was surprised as much by the fact that no one had carved their initials in it as I was by the size. It was growing in woods so thick that nothing green grew in the soil, not even ferns or moss. It was like walking through a cave, spruce needles above, layer on layer until light was only a suggestion, a hint, and idea you might have had. The cave walls were skinny spruce trunks so close together a mouse could have peeked through at Elmo, unafraid of the consequences.

Oh, “it” was a mushroom, the size of a large dinner plate. I am including a picture. I had Annie put her hand next to the mushroom so that you would believe me.

Walking the trails on Monhegan is like going to a twelve screen drive in movie each screen showing a great mystery movie. One must choose a plot or two, and hope for the opportunity to return. Monhegan is an island about twelve miles off the Maine coast. It is only 1.7 miles long and .7 miles wide, but has over seventeen miles of trail. The village, where eighty to ninety people live year round and where the artists and tourists exponentially expand the population in summer, occupies a small part of the island. The rest of the island is owned or controlled by Monhegan Associates, Inc, a private land trust dedicated to preserving Mohegan’s natural state. So far it has done well. Very strict rules govern use of the land trust property. For the most part they are followed. I saw no trash or mindless destruction of nature on Monhegan.

We walked all the way around the island and hiked many of the cross trails. Each trail was a new movie; crashing surf, towering cliffs, ship wrecks, views of rocky gull covered islands, pebble beaches with basketball sized pebbles, musky trails through black woods, open spruce forest crisscrossed with tannin colored streams, forest floors carpeted with spongy moss and decorated with ferns yellowing, tiny fairy houses built under logs and between tree roots, views of the red roofed light house tender’s house, climbs up steep mini-mountains, bluffs covered in blooming asters, white/yellow grass topped with airy fluorescents, ocean side rock gardens decorated with creeping juniper and knee high ancient spruce distorted by Atlantic wind, granite rocks and ledges cracked by time and covered in green moss and orange lichen, shady groves of skinny paper birch and small smooth barked trees with yellowing leaves that look like a mulberry (probably a type of smooth barked maple), crimson leaves floating on pools of water reflecting pieces of sky breaking through forest canopy, red berries topping mountain ash and rained over some bush unknown to me, raspberry brambles fluttered with yellow rumped warblers, and the gatherings of common eider with its bright white back riding over the swells rushing toward the rocks below the island cliffs.

On top of a cliff on the east side of the island, I pointed to the horizon. “Look Annie,” I said. “What’s that? Is that Iceland? No. Not big enough. It must be Ireland.” I jumped up and down. “Annie, it’s a whale.”

Annie stared at the ocean for a few minutes. “Try super tanker,” she said.

The Raine Principle

2006-10-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

October 5, 2006

The Raine Principle

The Raine Principle is part of Journey Travel. In the late 80’s we took a bunch of kids to England. We met a bobby (policeman) in London named David Raine. Raine had lived in London all his life. He knew the story behind every old pub in London and all the back streets between them. He loved London and loved to talk about his London. Wherever one wanders, there is a David Raine and the wandering experience will be much richer if the wanderer can find him.

Just before I left for Denton, Hal Morgan knocked on the back door. He wanted to know how to get in touch with the lady who owns our house. Hal is eighty-three years old and has lived in a little house with his wife near the end of Basin Point Road for the last fifty-seven years. Mrs. Morgan doesn’t get around too well any more; botched hip replacement surgery. Hal doesn’t have any front teeth, or at least he wasn’t wearing them when he knocked on the door. He was wearing patched overalls and a faded blue shirt. Hal is a lobsterman. He used to have a forty-seven foot boat and ran over a hundred and fifty traps. Now he has a twenty foot boat and runs twenty traps when the weather is good.

The tide was out and mud was shimmering in the cove about half way down to Hal’s house. I asked if anyone ever went clamming in Basin Cove.

“Oh yeah, this is the best clamming area in Harpswell. Even the commercial clammers use this cove. They will be right out there in front of your house.”

He was right. By the time we got back from Denton, the clammers were coming every day. They come when the tide is going out and stay until the water gets too deep for them to bend over and dig with their short handled clamming rake. To be a good clammer you must be able to cut your toe nails while standing and be able to hold that position while digging mud for at least six hours. They pull rafts that look like toy coal barges. They drag it across the soft mud and it floats behind them on water. They wear hip boots, say the F word more frequently than the grunts did in Viet Nam, and leave with bushels of clams in net bags thrown in the back of pickup trucks.

Before I met Bill (another David Raine), who lives in Cundy’s Harbor and who is the brother of Cathy who lives in Denton (small world), I thought that Harpswell was a peninsula. I was wrong. Harpswell is a town which consists of a neck and a mess of islands. We live on the neck, Harpswell Neck, which incidentally looks a lot like a skinny peninsula. Bathtub Cove is close to the ocean end of Harpswell Neck. The biggest islands are Great Island, Bailey Island and Orr’s Island. Cundy’s Harbor is on Great Island. The neck and all the big islands are hooked together by bridges. There are hundreds of other smaller islands in Harpswell. They have names and most have cottages, but you have to have a boat to get there.

Bill has lived in Harpswell since he retired from the Marine Corps twelve years ago. He told me that Harpswell has more shoreline than any city or town in the US. I believe him. We have driven down about a tenth of the side roads on both the Neck and the roaded islands. Each side road runs down a sub-peninsula off of which drive ways run down sub-sub-peninsulas. Every road ends at a bay or a cove or a salt marsh.

Bill also suggested that I not go clamming in front of the cabin without getting a permit from the city office on Mountain Road Which connects Harpswell Neck and Great Island. “I’m not even sure you can get a permit,” he said. “You have to live in the city where you are going to clam. Temporary residence may not count.” Bill laughed. “The commercial boys might not like you out there getting their clams.”

He told me about the Harpswell-Brunswick clammers border war. One time some clammers from Brunswick were clamming in a Harpswell bay. The Harpswell boys tried to run them off and the sheriff had to break up the fight. There was apparently some dispute about the location of the bay in relation to the border between Brunswick and Harpswell. The Harpswell city council called a special meeting to discuss the issue and both the Harpswell clammers and the Brunswick Clammers showed up. Before the end of the meeting there was a full scale riot. The sheriff and his deputies couldn’t break it up so they called in reinforcements from all over the area.

“The city game warden checks those bays all the time,” bill said. “He might get you before the clammers.”

One of the clammers in our cove is a woman. I was thinking about seeing if Annie wanted to do some clamming.

Salt Marsh

2006-10-04T11:59:00.000-07:00

Our Cabin from across the bay

Salt Marsh

September 15, 2006

Annie is in Texas. Her father (Papa) is ill and tired, tired of living in a body that has worn out.

In the last four months, Annie and I have spent more time alone together (I know; I am leaving out Elmo) than any other time in our forty plus years of marriage. I have always loved her, but I like her now more than I ever have. I miss her already. Elmo misses her also, but then he misses her when she goes into the bathroom and closes the door. He and I are doing our best to take care of each other.

I will write about Papa, but I am not yet ready to do so.

In front of me, just out the window, across the deck and at the foot of the wall of stacked rocks is a salt marsh. I don’t know much about a salt marsh. We don’t have a lot of salt marshes around Denton or in the Colorado mountains where I have done most of my wandering. I heard a salt marsh expert on NPR say that salt marshes were critical to the entire ocean ecosystem and the air that we breathe; something to do with microorganisms. He also said that many of our salt marshes were dying and that they really didn’t yet know why.

Our salt marsh looks healthy. It may be best that I know so little. If I knew a lot, I would put the names on the paper and move on. But since I have no names I must watch it, feel it, smell it, hear it and get to know it so that I can write you a picture. Whether it is a bird, a flower, a tree or a person; we so often stop with the name. There is more to everything than the name.

The Bathtub Cove salt marsh spends part of most days submerged in salt water.

September 29, 2006

Salt Marsh Continued

I had to go to Denton; Papa was dying.

We came back to Bathtub Cove yesterday; after the struggle ended and Papa died, after the funeral home came and picked up that part of Papa that we thought was him and know now that it was not, after Hospice left; after grand kids came in from Colorado, Washington, San Marcos, Maine, and Alaska; after the stories and barbecue and potato salad and old black and white pictures from WWII; after the tears and hugs and laughter; after the decisions, the cemetery, the flowers; after the funeral--after saying good-by.

The salt marsh is till out side the window, a little more yellow. The sea grass that grows in the middle part of the marsh and that, before we left, looked like combed ducktails from 1957 now lies flat on the mud in yellow brown and green waves, east to west. I watch the tide come in and watch it go out again. I suppose that I should add, “from the dock of the bay.” It is raining today and the wind blows down the cove and slings rain drops against the windows.

A great blue heron lands in the thick pointy grass that still stands stiff and tall in front of the fallen wavy grass. Sea water covers the grass roots and the heron’s feet. The heron waits, frozen like a statute of herself, for a fish to swim into the grass. Her long neck, small head and pointy beak flash like an arrow released from the bow and the fish that had just eaten a tiny crab dies in the beak of the heron. Cormorants like a convoy of miniature submarines with periscopes raised float by, dive, and pop to the surface. The school of tiny fish they chase sprinkle the surface like a handful of gravel thrown from the dock. Some of the fish feed the Cormorants.

Yellow and brown leaves fallen from the cottonwoods and paper birch stick to planks on the porch in front of the windows and litter the small yard off the end of the house. The goldenrod blooms are dirty brown and sad, and a storm that came to the cove while we were gone blew down an old cottonwood in the forest behind the house.

I wait and watch the water and the birds. The tide comes in; bathtub Cove is full. The wind drives waves toward our rocks and dries the planks on the deck. A paper birch leaf blows against the glass, and a monarch flutters by ignoring the wind. The clouds break. Sun light sparkles the wave tops. Down the street wild asters bloom like lavender mist drifting next to the road. The leaves on some of the sugar maples look like hanging campfire coals swished by an unexpected wind. A flock Canada geese honking fly over Bathtub cove in a lopsided V, and Annie comes in the back door humming; carrying a pot of chrysanthemums swathed in bronze blooms.

Bathtub Cove

2006-09-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

September 13, 2006

Bathtub Cove

Several days ago the moon was full. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there. I could see it sparkling on the edges of fog specks that jostled each other for space, glistened my glasses, amplified the owl calling from somewhere across the water and hid both the moon and the end of the dock. The dock runs from the deck behind our cottage (“cottage” is what they call a cabin on the coast of Maine) about forty feet out into the cove.

The name of the cove is Basin Cove, but I have renamed it Bathtub Cove. Bathtub Cove is about a mile and a half long, a half mile wide, and is what is called a tidal cove. That means that it fills with water at high tide and partially empties at low tide. Our Cottage is located at the head of the cove, exactly where your head would be if lying in the tub for a soak. At the other end is the drain. The drain is called Basin Cove Falls and is listed as one of the “unique natural areas” in the DeLorme Maine Atlas and Gazetteer. All water rushing in or out of the cove must squeeze through a narrow passage over granite rocks. The result is reversing rapids, southeast when the tide is going out and northwest when it is coming in. People come with their kayaks and canoes to play in the rapids.

The back of our cottage is all glass. When we wake we are looking down the length of the cove toward the falls. If the tide is high, we see water over the top of the sea grass. If it is low tide, we see mud for at least a half mile and then water. I wasn’t sure I was going to like the mud part of the cycle. I guess I was thinking of high tide and low tide like the bathroom light. You flick the switch and there is light; you flick it again and it is dark. That is not the way it is. The tide is always moving. It is like breathing, in and out, in and out, and the only time it holds it breath is when the tide changes, slack tide, and then only for a moment.

Nature is never static; it changes, always moving on to something new and exciting. We are back to rhythm, like at Hinchenbrook Island. I feel that life is rhythm, and since life is nature, the rhythm must be the rhythm of nature. We spend most of our lives fighting that rhythm and wonder why that is uncomfortable.

I like the mud because the wadding birds and shore birds come to feed; great blue heron, snowy egrets or little egrets or both (I need my friend, Georgette), lesser and greater yellowlegs, plovers, and sandpipers. The gulls come, but they also come at high tide. Our gulls are working gulls, not garbage dump gulls. They fish for a living. The cormorants come at high tide and dive under water next to the grass. Ducks float by. A pair of kingfishers swishes over the surface of the water. One day an osprey circled, hovered, and dove into the water. They all sing to us, and when the wind blows, the leaves on the paper birch and cottonwoods next to the house sing with the birds.

On the night of the full moon, I walked to the end of the dock. I knew it was supposed to be a really high tide, and I wanted to see how far the water came up the pilings. Somewhere between here and Calais, the moon sat on the Atlantic and pushed salty water into the Gulf of Maine. The gulf of Maine couldn’t hold it all and the water poured past Drunkers Ledge, Halfway Reef, Eagle Island and Horse Island into Cosco Bay. The moon was heavy and the water flowed by Potts point out of Cosco Bay and over Basin Cove Falls, up the cove into the salt marsh in front of our cottage and up the rocks next to the deck. The water was almost up to the board to which the planks were nailed. Only the very top of the sea grass was above the surface of the water. The grass gurgled and something slapped the water like big flat rocks dropped from a cliff. I called Annie. We listened to the gurgling and the slapping and tried to see where the fog ended and the water started.

Lower 48

2006-09-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

Thomas Bay behind Jonathan and Rebecca's house

Lower 48

September 1, 2006

We are back in the lower 48; first time since May. A border patrol officer; who wore a name plate that read, “Castro,” and who smiled a lot, welcomed us. We landed in Vermont where Canada’s highway 55 changes to US highway 91.

Each village had several white clapboard churches with Paul Revere steeples, stacked stone walls, cracker box houses, flashes of color on the maples, roadside stands selling hand crafted maple syrup, gift shops, gardens overflowing with blooming flowers, a speed limit of twenty miles an hour and more cars from Boston than Vermont.

Highway 2 continued through New Hampshire and into Maine with little change other than more mountains. Highway 2 will call us back some day when much missed grandchildren do not wait in Brunswick.

5,151 miles from The Banks house above Turnagain Arm in Anchorage, Alaska we arrived at the Banks house above Thomas Bay in Brunswick, Maine; one great ocean to another. It was good to be home and hug grandchildren again.

Magog, the French, and Georgeville

2006-09-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

Magog, the French and Georgeville

August 31, 2006

The government of Quebec decided to use only French on their traffic signs. For some reason in Montréal, they also decided that it would be fun to have all traffic merge and continue to merge until all French speaking Canadians and people with Texas accents were all in one lane. It took us a week to get through Montreal.

We selected a campground near Magog for our last night on the road before Maine. Unfortunately the government of Quebec decided to exclude Elmo (and all other dogs) from all Quebec provincial campgrounds. Elmo was not pleased. We considered, but not for long, a private campground. Instead Annie and the lady in the information center in Magog selected Maison McGowan sur le lac, which boasts “Cet ete laissez-nous devenir votre passeport vers la douceur de vivre,” which loosely translated means, the living is easy in Georgeville, and that Elmo is welcome.

Magog is a beautiful town on the shore of Lac Memphremagog, and Georgeville is a tiny village about 12 kilometers down the shore of the lake. This is obviously a popular tourist area, and for good reason. Our hostess at Maison McGowan said that Georgeville was originally the major town in the area. In the 1800’s the primary route from the US led through Georgeville and Magog was just a couple of houses. Now Magog is a bustling tourist center filled with restaurants, auberges, and shops; Georgeville has country homes overlooking the lake down narrow tree lined lanes, white clapboard churches with pointy steeples, a general store, and a small boat harbor in front of Maison Mcgowan.

Annie said, “The town reminded me of the town of Milford in the book series. The Anglican Church was there and all the beautiful small cottages.”

Great place for our last night on the road before Maine.

Agawa Bay to North Bay

2006-09-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

Agawa Bay to North Bay

August 30, 2006

Our literature tells us that many famous artists have lived for a time on the eastern shore of Lake Superior. It is easy to see why, and the trees are only beginning to show color. I think we will lump the north shore and the east shore together and add it as one drive for our top 10 drives list. The drive would be along Highway 17 from Sleeping Giant Provincial Park to Batchawana Bay just outside Sault (Sue) Ste. Marie. I have only one complaint about this stretch of highway; it is a narrow two lane highway without safe places to stop and take pictures, and many pictures need to be taken.

The forest changes from the northwest end of the lake to the southeast end. On the northwest end the forest is spruce, birch, aspen; much like we had been driving through since Alaska. As we drove down the shore, eastern white pines became more prevalent, usually alone and towering over the surrounding forest. The eastern white pine may become one of my favorite trees. It is majestic. Along the lake the wind has combed its branches and needles toward the mountains, like a 100 foot tall bonsai. My tree book says that before extensive logging, they grew to 250 feet. Great old trees fill my soul with joy. Some old growth should remain for the uplifting of the soul.

Along the eastern shore the hard woods appear, mostly maples. By Batchawana Bay it is a hardwood forest. The other trees are there but the hardwoods dominate. A hint of color brushes the hill sides. Occasionally, like the girl who wears Capri pants before anyone else in school, a bold branch or tree blazes red, orange or yellow, confident that soon all the others will follow.

Sault Ste Marie is where Lake Superior and Lake Huron meet, and something happened to the land here. The granite is on the surface with shallow pockets of soil covered in brush and white stalks of dead birch trees like sun bleached thigh bones protruding from an ancient field of battle. I wonder what happened; not enough soil to grow a forest or did we did we strip the land of trees and they have not returned. Sault Ste Marie is surrounded by smoke stacks so tall that small planes and migrating geese must dodge. Not far past Sault Ste Marie we were in forest again.

Our motel night was in North Bay and unremarkable.

Sleeping Giant to Agawa

2006-09-07T10:14:00.000-07:00

Sleeping Giant to Agawa Bay

August 29, 2006

I put on shorts and a t-shirt when I got up this morning; first time since I left Denton. I should not have ventured out. A cold front came through last night. The tops of the birch, the white spruce, and the big white pines swooshed all night long. I shivered when I got out of the tent and the doe with her fawn in the scrub spruce next to our camp site hissed at me. Elmo barked.

We drove back to 17 and continued our passage along the north and east shores of Lake Superior. The drive from Sleeping Giant to Marathon along the northern coast of Lake Superior (look for Highway 17 and Thunder Bay) may make our top ten beautiful drives. The mountains here are more abrupt, forcing the road up and down and around lakes, hills and bluffs. Something shook the granite or pushed it and pieces of mountains broke off and formed jutting islands in little lakes, cliffs, bluffs and sharp edges. Around corners Lake Superior, splotched with dark islands, makes occasional appearances reminding us of the horizon, and awing like an old movie star seen on the town square.

We bought wine and Cheetos, two of the five food groups, in Wawa (that is an actual city in Ontario) and camped next to the water on Agawa Bay. The sun is sitting and Annie is cooking steak au poivre, with balsamic reduction sauce. Elmo is trying to out stare a small gray squirrel.

Blue Lake to Sleeping Giant

2006-09-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

Blue Lake to Sleeping Giant

August 28, 2006

The granite hills and blue lakes continue. Fairies build fairy houses on rocks next to the road. The land is smooth and rounded like grandma Hestand and easy to relax into. The only sharp edges are next to the roads where the machines cut pink rock. Ancient ice ground, polished and gouged the granite, scribbling its violent history on the surface of the rocks. A few pines, eastern white pines, raised their wind sculpted heads above the spruce, birch and aspen.

We left 17 and drove through Thunder Bay; first place since Fort Dawson we had been before. Our Thunder Bay visit was with 15 kids from Denton after a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters; over 20 years ago. Thunder Bay in 2006 was not impressive. They forgot to tell us they had moved the information center and most of former residents of downtown to the cross town expressway. And the gift shop at Old Fort William no longer carries throwing hatchets. Oh well, the memories are great.

Sleeping Giant Provincial Park occupies an Italy shaped peninsula thrust into Lake Superior. Marie Louise Campground was located on the lake of the same name. The lake was in the center of the peninsula and the mountains which give the park its name were across the lake from the campground, and behind those mountains the sun set. A doe and two fawns, still with spots, lingered in the spruce thicket next to our camp and stared at Elmo and me. We stared back.

Our drive along Lake Superior seems to be a tour of sunsets.

Riding Mountain to Blue Lake

2006-08-30T19:09:00.000-07:00

Riding Mountain to Blue Lake

August 27, 2006

We drove through down town Winnipeg to have lunch at the Forks. Flower beds, barrels, hanging baskets, flower boxes and pots filled with petunias and other annuals splashed ordinary city streets with splotches of rainbow.

The Forks is where the Assiniboine River flows into the Red River. Winnipeg has improved the area with a river walk, an outdoor theater, where a dog show was in progress (Elmo was not impressed), lots of restaurants, shops and a market. We had lunch in a sidewalk café with Elmo just across the rail. He didn’t even know he was being discriminated against. We watched people, the dog show, boats pulling up to the dock at the bottom of the steps, and walked along the River until we started sweating. I think it was 88 degrees in Winnipeg. We just can’t get used to the heat.

From Winnipeg to the Ontario border, the country looked like the country around Amarillo. I kept waiting to drop off the caprock. Near the Ontario border the land changed to rolling granite hills; rubbed, ground, polished and gouged by ancient ice. A few inches of sandy dirt on top of the polished granite supported the forest of spruce, fir and pine. Clear blue lakes as numerous as billboards along I35 filled every hollow carved by the ice.

We camped at Blue Lake, an Ontario Provincial park, just north Vermillion Bay. Scattered pines grew in the sand almost to the shore of the lake, and the trunks were inky poles against blues and yellows and oranges as the sun settled below the far bank.

Night is now black and comes quickly rushing twilight, and stars fill the patches of sky between the pointy tree tops. Common loons sang.

Sound swells into the void

Of the cold black night.

On the lake the lonely loon cries.

Riding Mountain National Park

2006-08-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

Riding Mountain National Park

August 25 & 26, 2006

The sunshine lifted our spirits. Steve called and said he was leaving Denton for Wichita Falls to ride in the Hotter Than Hell 100 tomorrow. It was 105 in Denton when he was talking, and the expected high in WF tomorrow was 106. Like most things in life (despite what the ultra right seems to think) sunshine is relative.

The Wasagaming Campground on Clear Lake has 578 sites. We are in 483 and no one is camped within 50 sites in any direction. We have the bathroom with flush toilets and hot showers to ourselves. Annie said there were a lot of trailers and RV’s lined up to get in when she returned from the village, but they will not come to the non-electric part of the CG.

We like this place so much that we have decided to stay an extra day and make it up somewhere else. Wasagaming Village is similar to Waskesiu Village; rentals, private houses, beach, tennis courts, bowling greens, golf courses; and they both have names that cannot be pronounced. We actually think that Wasagaming is prettier than Waskesiu.

We had trouble finding a place to have a beer after our ride/walk this afternoon. That difficulty made us realize why these villages seem so safe. There are no or few bars and no late night party spots featuring wet t-shirt and chugging contests. These are not party towns; people who need to party go elsewhere. These are family fun towns, a place to bring your kids and grandkids and play and feel close to family and close to nature. We need places like this. Actually they may exist; I just don’t know where they are.

Saturday we drove to the bison range and watched a herd of buffalo follow instructions from the boss woman. We got a great close up look at the herd. The guy at the comp fire talk said that at one time in the late 1800’s there were only 100 bison left in North America; that was down from an estimated 30,000,000 before the Europeans came here. That is difficult to imagine. There were about 50 in the herd we were watching.

We also drove the other direction, out of the park, to the little town of Onanole looking for a grocery to buy something for dinner. We never got to the grocery. A Saturday market was open in a gravel parking lot next to the road. We shopped the tables and trailers and found everything we needed for dinner and more. Eat locally we did. We had sausage stuffed by the guy under the tarp next to the big white trailer, who looked like he may have been eating a little too much of his product; fresh corn and fresh tomatoes, onions; and a homemade spicy relish from the lady who cans everything. She said she was up late last night putting up the cranberry ketchup. She let me taste it. We didn’t buy it, but did buy her “hot” salsa (it wasn’t, but it did have a great flavor), what she called antipasti, and bread and butter pickles. We bought Canola Honey from the Mennonite lady; it is white; can’t wait to try it. We also got a loaf of homemade bread. Dinner was fantastic, and the only thing that was not from the area around Onanole, was the olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

OK, I am having a contest. If you can figure out how to make a comment or how to email me, please suggest a name of the Toyota Highlander. All entries must be submitted by September 20, and Annie and Elmo will select the winner. The winner will receive a stapled copy of Travels with Annie and Elmo, autographed by both Annie and Elmo.

Prince Albert to Riding Mountain

2006-08-30T18:35:00.000-07:00

Prince Albert National Park to Riding Mountain National Park

August 24, 2006

The hills and plains are covered with fields of wheat, oats, barley, hay and canola. It took a while to realize that we were looking at canola. It has a bushy head and they cut it and lay it out in long curving rows, five feet between rows. The stubble is light green and the cut plant blonds in the sun. There are probably five acres of canola for every acre of wheat, oats, hay and barley. We haven’t seen many cows and wonder what they do with all the hay; ship it to Texas, I guess.

We left the park and went back through Prince Albert on Highway 2 all the way to 16 and then took 16 (Trans Canada) to Yorkton where we had lunch down town at Gramp’s Fish and Chips. The girl with more braces than she could keep in her mouth told us that Gramp’s used to be in a trailer on the highway, “but the fish is just as good.” Gramp’s serves only health food, mental health food. The batter on the fish was so good that you really didn’t need the fish, and the fries piled into mountains on the plate were cut just before dropping into the grease from locally grown “spuds.” Our order took twice as long as the large woman and her large husband sitting at the table next to us. Gramp’s was not discriminating against foreigners. Annie ordered a green salad and they had to run down to the grocery to get the lettuce.

From Yorkton we took Provincial Highway 10 to Manitoba where the number changed to 5. If you have a map of Canada, you can follow our route. It drizzled on us most of the way. Just before Roblin (you need a good map to find Roblin) a storm crashed into the Highlander (I need a name for this car) like waves smashing rocks on the Oregon coast. The car rocked from side to side as the waves hit and visibility was about fifty feet in front of the car. At the height of the storm we were sent on a detour on dirt roads off to the north of the highway. When we finally got to Roblin, we parked in the lee of the local liquor store and waited out the storm.

At Dauphin we turned south on highway 10 to Riding Mountain National Park. The radio said the storm we had driven through was headed toward the park, so we decide to experience nature at the Aspen Ridge Resort. Don’t be too impressed. We are in a one room cabin with cracked linoleum floors. But, as Annie says, it is clean. The storm never came. The sun is out and we are headed for the campground.

Prince Albert National Park

2006-08-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

Prince Albert National Park

August 22 &23, 2006

Prince Albert National Park (PANP) is not like any other national park I have ever seen. There are few roads, towns or people north of PANP. It preserves over a million acres of north woods forests, lakes and bogs. Most of the park can be reached only by foot or canoe. PANP was inspired by Gray Owl, a Brit who came to Canada looking for his father. He never found his father, but he lived with and became a blood brother of the Ojibwa Indians. He then devoted his life to the reestablishment of the beaver in the north woods of Canada. We saw a lot of beaver dams in PANP.

The Park is true wilderness. Yet on the south shore of Waskesiu Lake sets the village of Waskesiu, wholly owned by Parks Canada. Waskesiu is like a 1920’s resort dropped carefully into the 21^st century. Most visitors walk or bicycle, and all cars drive slowly and yield the right of way to pedestrians and cyclists. There are hundreds of rental units, most small cabins strung along narrow streets with canoes propped near by.

The village has a beautiful golf course, tennis courts, and a beach which was crowded with people enjoying the sun when we drove into town.

No one owns property here. All businesses lease from the government. Most streets nearer the water are lined with private summer houses, built by private individuals and leased for 45 years from the government. Many of the houses facing the lake are like “On Golden Pond” houses. One man I met built his house in 1954 and has already signed a new 45 year lease. He has spent ever summer here since he retired. His kids, one of whom now lives in northern Alabama, spent their summers here while growing up.

Another man who I met at the lawn bowling court and who was lawn bowling (I think I could get into that sport) with his wife and daughters said he had been coming here for as long as he could remember. Now his kids are coming. “The best part,” he said, “is that you don’t have to worry about where your kids are. This is still a safe community.”

Our camp was in deep woods on rolling hills just east of the village. We were isolated, yet within walking distance of the village. There was an extensive trail system in the woods around the village and along the lake. Some of the trails were for hikers only so Annie and Elmo could go places I couldn’t. But I could explore more trails in the time we had.

PANP is black bear country. The Park signs and officials warned us to be careful. I road alone because Steve wasn’t here to ride point. I did ride singing, whistling, or shouting out to father bear, except on one particularly difficult up hill section.

Life is definitely good.

Battlefords to Prince Albert

2006-08-30T18:14:00.000-07:00

Battlefords Provincial Park to Prince Albert National Park

3/22/2006

I road my newly clean bike in Battlefords Provincial Park. They had great trails. Annie and Elmo walked. It was good to get away from the city again. Annie, Elmo and I feel that we might be developing a city phobia. Life is so good in the woods. Camping (car camping) is something we enjoy more all the time. We are getting very good at sitting up and taking down camp. We will rival the guy sleeping under the table before long; well maybe not.

Part of why it is so good is that we are in nature all the time. We cook, eat, visit, read, play and write under the trees with the birds singing to us and the mosquitoes buzzing (sometimes). We are frequently shocked to see RV’s parked side by side in a dirt parking lot when the Provincial CG just down the road has private spaces surrounded by forest and close to a beautiful lake. Most of the government parks have hook ups for the RV’s and this time of year are virtually empty. The people in the parking lots must be there to commune with old and new friends. Friends are important, and if all your friends are in the dirt parking lot I guess that is where you camp. We do miss our friends. Cindy, you are a friend. Annie, Elmo and I have had to become better friends, and we have.

Battlefords Provincial Park was on Jackfish Lake. My fishing friends will have to tell me what a Jackfish is. The park was almost deserted. This is a great time of year to go north in Canada. A man I met commented on the empty park, “I guess not many people like fall camping.” Fall? I couldn’t help thinking about four 100+ days in a row back in Texas. Of course the aspen, birch and ground cover around here are beginning to show color.

We took Provincial 4 north to Glaslyn and then 3 east to Prince Albert, a modern city devoted to the ultimate principles of American materialism. I have never seen so many stores outside Frisco. I heard an advertisement for teen girls jeans on the local radio: “If your parents are going to make you go back to school, and you know you grades will suck, why not at least look awesome from behind. . .”

At Prince Albert we shopped (I got a cute new outfit) and then took highway 2 north to Prince Albert National Park. We camped on the shore of Waskesiu Lake in the Beaver Glen Campground.

Edmonton to Battlefords

2006-08-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

Edmonton to Battlefords Provincial Park

August 21, 2006

Edmonton is a comfortable city. We walked a trail along the Saskatchewan River that runs through the middle of town. Then we drove through the middle of town into China Town looking for a place to eat where we could park in the shade so Elmo could stay in the car; never found it. Discrimination against Elmos is rampant in Canada.

We ended up having lunch in Veagreville at Vitos about two blocks from the car wash where the Toyota (she needs a name) and my bike (he needs a name also) finally got the Top of the World mud washed away. Veagreville is a Ukrainian community just off Highway 16 (the Yellowhead Highway, also known as the Trans Canada Highway. Most of the older Ukrainians were in Vitos at 1:45 P.M. having coffee. The waitress filled the old Ukrainian’s coffee cups four times before filling my water glass. Across the street from Vitos was a flower Shop that specialized in Ukrainian arrangements and, for those people who took the by-pass of the Yellowhead Highway, Ukrainian gifts. Veagreville boasts the world’s largest Easter Egg (a Pyanka which depicts Ukrainian folk art), which was originally unveiled by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip on their 1978 trip to Canada. Really remarkable what you can be exposed to as a result of the inability to find a shaded parking place in China Town.

The Yellowhead Highway took us through an area of rolling hills decorated with geometric patterns resulting from human’s need for food; squares of wheat, rectangles of oats or barley, curved rows where hay had been cut, blobs and strings of spruce and birch in draws forming wind breaks between fields and around farm houses; light green, dark green, shades of yellow, and dirt brown where roads leaving the Yellowhead humped over the hills to the horizon.

At North Battleford we left the Yellowhead and turned north on Provincial Highway 4 to Battlefords Provincial Park, a great place to camp for the night; how quickly we escape civilization.

Elmo's log Anchorage to Edmonton

2006-08-20T20:33:00.000-07:00

Matanuska Glacier
Panning for Gold in Chicken
Five finger rapids on Yukon River
Ferry across Yukon
Good place to buy bumper stickers in Chicken
Stone sheep in Stone Mountain Park
Clouds on road from Dawson to Laberge
Lake Laberge

Elmo’s Log: Anchorage to Brunswick

Elmo may not type this, but he significantly influences what goes in. Actually it would not take him much practice to achieve my typing proficiency. But for now I still have the job. This log is being posted from Edmonton, Alberta. This is our first access to the internet since leaving Anchorage.

August 15, 2006

Anchorage to Tok

The skies were overcast, dripping water, about 50 degrees; pretty much the weather of the summer in Anchorage (except when the Sunshines were here). This section of our trip was repeating the route we took coming to Anchorage. We couldn’t see anything then because of overcast skies, dripping water.

The clouds lifted by the time we got to Palmer and we could see the mountain tops of the Chugash mountains and they were dusted with new snow. Alaskans call that, “termination dust.” That is appropriate. This wonderful visit was terminating.

Sun actually shined on the Matanuska Glacier glowing green, like slivers and blobs of the Caribbean splashed on the ice. The Matanuska River rumbled next to the roller coaster road and the snow dusted mountains bulged under child painted skies. We decided that we should make a list of the top ten stretches of highway for this trip. The consensus was that the drive between Palmer and the Matanuska Glacier would be high on the list.

We camped again at Tok, but in a new campground, Eagle Trail CG. This was a great improvement over our first experience at the Tok River CG on the other side of town. We were worried about crowds; snowbirds going south; but this CG was almost deserted. We hope our fear of crowds continues to be unfounded.

August 16, 2006

Tok to Dawson City

Adventure is available, if you are ready for it. Elmo is always ready. Tim and Anne were packed and ready to drive by 8:30; a new record. Elmo was having an adventure and didn’t show up until 9:00. His tongue was dragging dirt, and an hour later when we turned north toward Chicken at Tetlin Junction, he was still panting. He has refused to tell us the story; maybe later.

The drive to Chicken and then on to Dawson on the Top of the World highway was a new adventure, a new road, and by itself worth a trip to Alaska. Chicken is now a community of souvenir stores; a restaurant, with souvenir store attached; a pile of gravel, dirt and rocks that is supposed to contain gold; gold panning troughs; and an RV park catering primarily to people who like to pan for gold for $7.50 per day. Chicken was originally founded and named by gold miners who could not spell ptarmigan. It is worth visiting primarily to get a sticker for your Yakama car top carrier and so that you can brag about visiting Chicken, Alaska. The turkey panini with roasted peppers, onions and pesto at the restaurant was also tasty.

One must also go through Chicken to get to the Top of the World Highway. This drive would go on our top ten list and close to the top. The road is further north than any road we have ever traveled and follows a ridge of softly rolling mountains providing endless mountain vistas north and south. The “highway” is dirt, mud and gravel with patches of pavement once you get into Canada.

We crossed the Yukon River on a ferry to get to Dawson City. Dawson looks like a copy of an old gold mining boom town, but a good copy. And don’t forget Robert Service had a cabin here. That also makes it worth the trip. We camped on the Klondike River just outside Dawson. Elmo consented to stay on leash.

August 17, 2006

Dawson to Lake Laberge

My bike is really muddy. It caught all the mud tossed up on the Top of the World Highway. We need to find a bike wash, and maybe a car wash also.

The road toward Whitehorse from Dawson generally follows the course of the Yukon River. Next week they are having a bath tub race down the Yukon from Whitehorse to Dawson. Look at it on the map. I wish I was at five finger rapids when the bath tubs came through. This is all Robert Service Country. And we camped on the “marge of Lake laberge.” Great campsite overlooking the water. Sam McGee picked a beautiful place to be cremated. I wonder about winter here.

August 18

Lake Laberge to Liard Hot Springs

We are back on the Alaska Highway and repeating our previous trip, but it is not the same; it is from the other direction and I think you could drive it a thousand times and be thrilled each time.

We stopped for lunch at a rest stop that provided a view of Simpson Mountain that looked like how a cartoonist would draw a volcano. A sign said it was formed during the Jurassic period (I have heard of that period; where is Reid when you need him) at the bottom of the ocean. We seem to be a long way from the ocean; talk about global warming.

We camped again at Liard Hot Springs because we liked the campground and the hot springs. Oh, almost forgot; we saw a herd of buffalo bedding down on the side of the road just before we got to Liard.

August 19, 2006

Liard Hot Springs to Charlie Lake

The excitement started early. I got up first to start the coffee. A big German Shepard ran barking into the campsite across the road. I told Annie to keep Elmo on the leash because a dog was loose in the campground. Actually it was the black bear that was loose in the campground and the dog had chased him up the tree in the campsite just across the road. And I was standing there watching. The dog ran off and the bear came down the tree and I lost sight of him. Annie, Elmo and I got in the car. A few minutes later a park guy came by in a pickup with dogs in the back. One was the German Shepard I had seen chasing the bear. “Did you see a bear?” the park guy asked.

I told him what I had seen. He got his gun and took off down the road. Two minutes later a lady came down the road walking her miniature poodle. I didn’t tell her about the bear.

We have another recommendation for the top ten drives: Liard to Fort Nelson on the Alaska Highway, really the part through Stone Mountain Provincial Park. Muncho Lake and Summit Lake are special. We saw several groups of Stone Sheep right next to the road. We also saw our first caribou of our journey. Even Fort Nelson seemed better with the sun shining and no sleet.

We camped at Charlie Lake just before Fort St. John; great Campsite, but a lot of traffic noise. Just before we got to Charlie Lake Annie and I both had the feeling that we were coming out of the wilderness. We saw cultivated fields, barbed wire fences, and round hay bales; none of which we had seen since May.

August 20, 2006

Charlie Lake to Edmonton

This route definitely took us through civilization. I have nothing against civilization; it simply takes more effort for me to realize its beauty. I will work on it. I am not ready at present to deal with the contrast. We are at a hotel in Edmonton. Flush toilets and hot showers are nice. The cell phone works. I can get on the internet. We may order a pizza and watch television. Civilization.

Adios Alaska

2006-08-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

We Packed yesterday and are leaving Anchorage this the morning. We are lighter. We shipped the backpacks back to Texas by UPS and bought box wine. It also seems that we have much more room in the car. Probably forgot to pack the tent or something. We will find out tomorrow night in Tok. Yes we are going back through Tok, and the weather is about the same as it was in May. But after Tok we are headed north to Chicken and then across the border to Dawson City, the Yukon home of Jack London and Robert Service. We even plan to camp Thursday night on the “marge of Lake Lebarge” where Sam finally got warm. After that, who knows?

Cross Canada if we can afford the gas and arrive in Brunswick, Maine about September 2. I filled up today at Carrs for $2.63 a gallon. We will not see a price like that for a long time.

We will post when possible.

Adios Alaska

2006-08-14T20:46:00.000-07:00

We Packed today and are leaving Anchorage in the morning. We are lighter. We shipped the backpacks back to Texas by UPS and bought box wine. It also seems that we have much more room in the car. Probably forgot to pack the tent or something. We will find out tomorrow night in Tok. Yes we are going back through Tok, and the weather is about the same as it was in May. But after Tok we are headed north to Chicken and then across the border to Dawson City, the Yukon home of Jack London and Robert Service. We even plan to camp Thursday night on the “marge of Lake Lebarge” where Sam finally got warm. After that, who knows?

Cross Canada if we can afford the gas and arrive in Brunswick, Maine about September 2. I filled up today at Carrs for $2.63 a gallon. We will not see a price like that for a long time.

We will post when possible.

Adios Alaska

2006-08-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

Cross Canada if we can afford the gas and arrive in Brunswick, Maine about September 2. I filled up today at Carrs for $2.63 a gallon. We will not see a price like that for a long time.

We will post when possible.

Alaska Top Ten

2006-08-14T14:08:00.000-07:00

Coming up with a top 10 for this adventure in Alaska was difficult. Fortunately I had good help from Annie and Elmo. Annie also wanted me to assure you that her ankle is not on the list. She is saving that for another list. Elmo provided great philosophical assistance even though he did not get to go on all the trips. So here they are:

Number 10. Recognizing locals and being recognized while walking the boardwalk in Halibut Cove. We lived only three days at Halibut Cove. This experience reminds us that beyond the busy streets of Anchorage, Alaska is still wilderness, and not many humans are out there.

Number 9. Riding Anchorage’s bike trails. Annie and Elmo let me put this in. The reason bike trails made the list is obvious, or not, depending.

Number 8. Climbing through the rain forest in the rain near Seldovia. We were fascinated with the layers of abundant life and the gentle sounds of the rain forest.

Number 7. Watching from the top of Crow Pass; the hikers far below coming up the trail we had just climbed, the naked mountains hunkered on each side of Crow Creek making the hikers look like toys, The glacier mountains closer to Valdez than Crow Pass, and Elmo and Annie sitting on a rock watching. Nature’s power fills this space.

Number 6. Riding the fast ferry across Prince William Sound from Whittier to Cordova reminds us that we are part of God’s creation and that we must be a responsible part. We have read, heard and thought about Prince William Sound, its beauty and the troubles we humans have caused it and it’s non-human residents. It was good to be there and see what all the fuss is about, and to know that it is worth the fuss.

Number 5. Watching Childs glacier calve great chunks of blue ice into the Copper River. Glacier calving is a multi sensory experience. Cold air leaks from the 300 foot tall wall of ice across the river; the glacier sings its song with creaks, cracks, roars, swooshes, splashes and explosions: it shoves waves across the river: and it waits, milking the tension, until it is ready to berth.

Number 4. Kayaking around Halibut Cove with the Sunshines, we saw starfish and reflections in the water; felt like part of the ocean; felt the freedom, gentleness, silence, and beauty of this ancient means of transportation.

Number 3. Hearing and watching eagles fight over a scrap of fish. We sat on the beach in Kasitna Bay waiting on Mako the water taxi watching grandson’s play, and the eagles flew over screaming, diving and tumbling.

Number 2. Sitting on the porch of the cabin above Halibut cove and seeing the menke whale spout next to the dock where the red, yellow, and blue kayaks were stacked. She hung around for forty-five minutes and we sipped our coffee and Steve and Martha timed the menke’s breaths. (Picture by Steve or Martha)

Number 1. Walking toward the rocks of Hook Point along the sun glistened beach on Hitchenbrook Island with children and grandchildren making tracks in the sand, and the Gulf of Alaska rolling in and out. We had found the rhythm of the wilderness, and it filled us like the final stages of a meditation, and we were accompanied on the journey by those we love.

And of course the real Number 1 is hugs from our grandsons, Birch and Cole. Our grandchildren all live so far away. Getting to know them is best.

Changes

2006-08-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

Birch is changing also.

Baneberry
Elderberry
Devil's club

August 7, 2006

Things are changing. I guess nature is always changing. But where I live in Texas, nature changes slowly. I wake up some morning in December and realize that it is not summer anymore, and that the only leaves left on the trees are the dirty brown ones on the blackjack that will hang their crackling in the wind until the buds push them off next March. Some how I missed fall. It came and went like my children grew up. Where was I? How did I miss the change?

In Alaska nature must change quickly. Even humans notice. If some living thing fails to change quickly it will go the way of the boat people (Princess customers).

Things are changing. We have night. I get up to go to the bathroom and run into the half closed door, invisible in the dark, just like Texas. On June 21, we had nineteen hours and twenty-two minutes of sunshine and the rest was twilight. Yesterday we had sixteen hours and thirty-five minutes of sunlight, over three hours less, and we will loose five minutes and twenty-four seconds of sunlight today and even more tomorrow. Darkness rushes down hill toward December 21 like a soap box derby racer.

Things are changing. Two weeks ago dwarf dogwood blooms were sprinkled across the forest floor like giant flakes of snow. Today each plant is crowned with seven red berries. Clusters of red berries cover elderberry bushes, and red berry spikes top devil’s club. But the brightest, most beautiful red is reserved for the deadly baneberry; maybe a warning to bears and other berry eaters. The blueberries, salmonberries, crowberries, currents, low bush and high bush cranberries, bearberries, serviceberries and strawberries are ripe and ready to be picked. And the raspberries, uummmm, are at the edge.

Things are changing. The fireweed is in full bloom. Grass florescence spreads, shimmers, floats above yellowing stems and drops seeds. The cow parsnip leaves yellow around brown splotches and a thousand toothed seed packets top the stems where a thousand tiny white flowers had recently perched.

Things are changing. The average temperature graph has peaked and is following the light.

Things are changing. Next Tuesday Elmo, Annie, and I will load the Highlander and take off across Canada for Maine.

Hiking the Girl Scout Trail

2006-08-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

Annie sent the following note to her backpacking buddies. I am going to make a few editorial comments as she goes along. Here is Annie’s report.

Annie: Last Friday Tim, Elmo and I set out on a 26 mile hike from Crow Pass to Eagle River to be completed by Sunday. The first day was just the most perfect hike I have ever taken and I could not stop thinking of you all and trying to figure out how I could get all of you here.

Editors Note: Crow Pass trail was originally the Iditarod Trail. It was developed by a couple of college football defensive line coaches in the late 1800’s to provide a quick way for the prospectors to get from Turnagain Arm to Kinik Arm. After a short period of time it was abandoned in favor of the less dangerous Trail From Hell over Bird Pass. Crow pass trail disappeared. Then in the 1970’s the Girl Scouts (I am not kidding) reestablished the Crow Pass trail. How difficult could a trail be that the Girl Scouts built? Hey wait a minute…(ab)We can handle that.

Annie:

In AK one reaches timber line at about 2200 ft. We started at 2000 ft. so quickly we were hiking above the trees in this glorious area of huge mountains. We went up 2000 ft in 3.5 miles but since the altitude is so low it does not suck the wind from your lungs. At 4000 ft. we looked across at Raven Glacier with its icy blue tones surrounded by a vast landscape of tundra and flowers. After crossing one snow field with Elmo on a leash I quickly decided that the leash law was for someone else. Elmo loved the snow and the remainder of the trail sans leash. There were so many wonderful places to "smirf" ski that I felt like I should have at least tried, but sadly, I did not.

Editor’s Note: Today the trail runs from Girdwood, Anchorage’s downhill ski area, to the Eagle River Nature Center. Every July the Alaskans have a race over the Crow Pass Trail. The winner finishes in around three hours. We were going to take Three days. How difficult could that be? Annie didn’t mention that the snow fields we crossed would have been a little easier to cross with crampons and ice ax.

Annie:

We continued on to a camp site at about mile 6 and stopped for the night a little tired and not knowing just how tired one could be.

Editor’s Note: We had to ford Clear Creek, which dumped into Raven Creek and which is nothing like the Clear Creek at the end of Hartlee Field Road. This was Elmo’s first chance to cross a roaring glacial stream. He didn’t want to go, but as soon as Annie was on the other bank, there was no holding him back. High on the mountain across Raven Creek, Surprise Creek tumbled in a quadruple fall down a cliff. We found our campsite just on the other side of the footbridge that crosses Raven Gorge. We sipped Scotch and had a dinner of smoked salmon and couscous and watched the light move slowly up the mountain. Four sheep climbed to a ledge near the top of the mountain across Raven Creek and bedded down for the night. The creek roaring down the gorge lulled us to sleep. Life is good.

Annie:

The next day at about mile 9 (17 miles left to walk), while looking at flowers, I turned my ankle and fell flat. All I could do was cry, but Elmo kissed my tears away. Since I didn't really have a big choice, I took a bunch of ibuprofen, unloaded some weight to Tim, and moved on very slowly.

Editor’s Note: She crushed her ankle. Look at the pictures. If it had been me I would still be lying up there on the mountain crying. Annie is a tough lady. But why worry? The Girl Scouts built this trail, and a few days earlier a couple hundred idiots ran the whole trail in hours. We can make it. The flowers Annie was looking at when her ankle went out were spectacular. The trail was a twelve inch rocky dirt groove between two five foot walls of grass, cow parsnip, goat’s beard, yellow fleabane, and larkspur. Sometimes the trail passed over a rocky place (like where Annie fell) covered in the shorter flowers; dwarf fireweed, yellow paintbrush, death camas, moss champion, wild geranium, pink asters, spring beauty, marsh marigolds, and many more. It is easy to understand Annie’s distraction.

Why didn’t we go back; only nine miles that way? Good question. We felt the trail was too difficult that direction and that it would be easier to walk down hill on an easy trail more miles than go back up a difficult trail. How little we knew.

Annie:

At about mile 14 we came to the glacier melt river that had to be crossed by wadding. This actually felt great to the ole foot since by the time I reached the other side my legs and feet were completely numb

Editor’s Note: Eagle River flows from a glacial lake formed by the massive Eagle Glacier. The Glacier and the lake were just above the ford. The temperature of the water is just a little warmer than the glacier ice, and the river at the ford is a little over 100 yards wide. It rushes over a rocky bed that you cannot see because of the milky color of the glacial river, and it is thigh deep most of the way. This was Elmo’s first glacial river crossing and I tried to help him. He should have been helping me. He is unbelievably powerful. I ended up using most of my energy trying to keep him from turning back to be with Annie.

Annie had some difficulty when she first started but quickly found a technique that adjusted for her ankle. While we were resting at the ford with about 13 miles left to walk, a group of day hikers/runners came through. They were out for a Saturday walk and many of them had their dogs with them. These folks were not youth; maybe not quite as old as me, but close. The trail now led along the bank of the Eagle River, gently down hill to the Nature Center. The day hikers were laughing and playing as they took off down the trail.

Annie:

OK so now we had completed the big challenge and were on to the remainder of the trip. Within about two miles we came to another creek crossing which was by log with a rope tied to trees above for holding. This was easy for humans but Elmo didn't exactly like the raging water below. Tim tried to pick him up but he really panicked then. We ended up with me on the other side at waters edge and Tim with Elmo at the beginning edge. With a little encouragement from me, Elmo swam across. OK should be a piece of cake from now on. We started climbing and climbing and came to an area that looked like a giant dirt slide with a rope to hang to while going down. Going down was the biggest challenge for the foot. After getting to the bottom we then got to a wooden ladder which we had to negotiate up a rock cliff. Elmo has not climbed many ladders in his day so Tim ends up picking him up and hoisting him up far enough that he can get to the rock. Now I am even wondering about writing about all this cause it is starting to not even sound real but I really could not make this up. Oh yes, and there was the rock ledge with a rope attached to the top that we had to use to pull ourselves up. Rapelling has not been in my list of adventures to complete. Any way we hiked on until 6 PM and decided that we really could not go on any further for the night. We quickly got out the Scotch and thought seriously about just going to bed but we actually cooked and ate. At this moment I decided that this might not be such a great trip for our group after all.

Editor’s Note: Our map showed the trail following the relatively flat area near the river. However the map had a contour interval of 100 feet. That means that ridge lines and cliffs 99 feet high would not show on the map. The terrain the trail covered from Thunder Gorge where Elmo swam the thundering creek to Twin Falls where we camped the second night was a series of ridges coming down the mountains to the river, one ridge after the other. We climbed one ridge, slipped and stumbled down the other side and then did the same on the next ridge and the next and then the next and then the next. They wouldn’t stop coming. It was like a boxer that jabs constantly and gets stronger round after round. The first two hundred jabs are blocked or don’t hurt. Then you miss one or two. Then they begin to hurt, and you wonder if they will ever stop.

The vegetation was alders, white spruce, cottonwoods, head high grass, cow parsnip, devil’s club and hundreds of other species. Each species fought for space to grow and space to reproduce, and the only space left was the trail. At times you felt that if you stopped the plants would grow right over you. The trail is maintained primarily by feet. Feet never get rid of rocks or roots. When the trail begins to slide toward the river, feet help the slide. The slide stops when the feet hit another rock or root. Hiking this part of the trail is much like a four mile long obstacle course; roots like jungle jims, rocks like climbing walls and super slides, dirt like pound cake left in the sun for several days or like chocolate pudding. Then throw in skinny logs over creeks and mud bogs, ladders up cliffs, repelling ropes down dirt banks and up slick rocks. And when the trail is flat and straight, cover it with roots, slick like popsicles, and rocks with sharp edges ready to turn the already weak ankle. Every step must be carefully placed. Concentration on each step becomes more difficult as one becomes more fatigued. Sooner or later a mistake made. We stopped in time.

Annie:

It rained all night but stopped by the time we got up the next day - a nice thing to happen. The trail, however, was a trail through alders and cow parsnip that were about 6 feet tall and totally wet. We just thought can there be any more challenging things and then the bear poop started showing up every few feet. Tim was singing and I was praying. We actually made pretty good time despite the fact that I was hobbling along up and down the cliffs and arrived at the trail end about 3:30 PM. In retrospect, it was a fabulous trip and will provide years of tales.

Editor’s Note: We have been back in “civilization” for three days. Annie’s doctor (Joey) has required her to stay off her feet for a week. That is like telling a frog not to croak. The blue part of her foot is now spreading up her leg. I think we may have to amputate. I am more and more impressed that she finished that trail and that she did so with such a wonderful attitude. We both feel that this trail was a special experience, and that we are happy to have had the chance. There are not many places as beautiful and as demanding. I have tried to think of an analogy that would help explain our feeling about this experience. This is the best I can do so far: Hiking the Crow Pass Trail is like having a girlfriend who is a Miss Universe and a masochist. She was great to look at, but the relationship was painful. We are glad we did it and glad it is over. Thanks to the Girl Scouts.

Elmo Report

2006-07-26T21:16:00.000-07:00

Elmo did not get to go on the last two trips. He was baby sitting with Jeff and Tammy and their kids. He likes it there but still misses Annie. Tammy says that Elmo is emotionally aware. I have been watching him since she said that. A few nights ago he knew Annie was chapped about something. I should have been more emotionally aware; or at least been aware of the signals Elmo was giving me. If I had I might not have been smarting off when I should have been backing off.

Going is still Elmo's favorite activity; going for a walk, going for a ride in the car; going on a hike. For Elmo, going always beats staying. I have been reading Martie Marie's book, Two In The Far North, which I highly recommend. She talks about how the sled dogs are never happier than when they are pulling the sled. I guess Elmo has a little sled dog in him. I think Annie may also. She sure likes to go.

Around Hinchinbrook

2006-07-21T16:18:00.000-07:00

July 13, 2006

With a little practice one can accept the rhythm of the wilderness easily. I have had a good deal of practice lately. Why not watch the sky molt or the grandkids become moles in the sand? Why not feel the air caress the hair on my arm? Why not swing? Why not lie in the hammock? Why not bathe in the little pool below the falls? Why not listen to gulls and eagles talk about food? Why not laugh at the silly plover dancing and scolding my approach? Why not marvel at the brown bear tracks next to mine in the sand?

David and I went clamming. We looked for little pock marks in the wet sand and dug deep under the pock with a clamming spade. Mr. Sunshine and I had watched an old man in Ninilchk clean clams. I told David what I could remember and David figured out the rest. We had fabulous clam chowder for lunch.

The whole family hiked North along the beach. We walked past the gull swimming hole where our creek made its own immature delta and dumped into the Gulf of Alaska and eavesdropped on gull gossip. We trudged next to the sand cliff where swallows dug their nests. We climbed over the log bone yard where the sand trapped a bleached forest; tangled, twisted, piled and scattered like tinker toys after the masterpiece is crashed. We hiked north all the way to the whale colored rocks stacked like a string of dominos the size of ships that had fallen, each domino leaning on the other. One end of the string splashed in the waves and squeezed shoots of spray into the air. The other end balanced great spruce above the beach like circus trees on a high wire.

The rock, exposed to the full fury of the Gulf of Alaska, flaunted miracles. Hair bells in full bloom, grew in tiny clumps on baby ledges. Queens crown clung to a chip of rock above the hair bell; higher still a yellow blooming flower and a white blooming flower. And why, I wonder, can’t I be like those flowers; that strong, that tenacious, that gentle, that accepting, that beautiful.

Next day we hiked south along the beach around Hook Point. The beach around the point is a boulder beach. Rounded boulders like giant gravel covered the beach. I felt like an ant traversing a pile of rocks. My mind was full of questions. How did all these boulders get here? Why this beach and not the one around the point where the sand is like face powder? Why so many different kinds of rock? Why can’t I remember how to identify the different kinds of rock? Where is Reid (my geologist neighbor) when you need him?

We were looking for an old ship wreck. Boulder beach was a series of points. I am sure that I turned back one point too soon. The wreck would have been around the next point; but the tide was calling me. “I’m coming, Tim. I’m running for the rocks at Hook Point.”

I think I was hearing things. By the time we got back to Hook Point the tide was still far below the rocks, so Birch (grandson) and I sat on the rocks next to tide pools and watched the fascinating universe of tiny fish, hermit crabs in borrowed shells the size of peas, miniature jellies and slimy green sea weed waiving and shimmering. The tide did come. We moved back to the beach for a picnic, and Burch and Cole skinny-dipped in big tide pool.

Earlier that day when we left the campsite, David noticed movement far down beach toward Hook Point. Binoculars revealed bears, brown bears. Brown bears are Alaskan grizzlies. David at first thought there were three bears, a sow and two cubs. They smelled us or heard us (we were not a quiet clan) and rumbled off the beach into the forest.

When we got to their tracks, we found the outline of a sea lion in the sand and bloody drag marks where the sow had dragged the carcass into the high grass. David studied the marks and told us the story. “The sea lion probably died in the ocean and washed up on the beach. The bears found the carcass and we interrupted their breakfast. What I thought was three bears was really two with the sow dragging the carcass. She is unbelievably powerful. That carcass could have weighed 400 pounds and she was running.”

I walked along the trail studying the tracks and taking pictures. “I wouldn’t go too far that way, dad,” David said.

wilderness Rhythm

2006-07-19T23:01:00.000-07:00

July 11, 2006

Wilderness makes life better. Experiencing wilderness helps complete a person. I have believed this for a long time. I am still being completed.

Hinchinbrook Island is wilderness. Hook Point where we camped is wilderness, and wilderness demands its rhythm. We must be aware of the tide; land the plane at low tide; make sure we are around Hook Point before high tide; look for clams at low tide; keep the toys above the high tide line. Clouds, wind, rain, sun and bugs determine fashion, change plans, schedule activities, and ignore our desires and hopes. We have no computer access. Cell phones do not work; no TV, no electricity, no restaurants, no grocery stores; none of the “necessities” of western lifestyle. Our feet transport us.

We have no choice. We must accept the tempo of the wilderness. And that tempo is in part responsible for the impact of wilderness on the human. We are reminded of what is important in life and what is not. We are reminded of what gives us joy and how absurd are most irritations and frustrations. We realize how little we really control and how little difference that lack of control makes. Wilderness is where beauty lives, beauty that thrills and fills our souls with joy.

We are not in charge of wilderness. We have only two choices; protect it or destroy it. Humans are in fact wilderness. When we destroy wilderness, we destroy ourselves.

Cordova, Gail and the Beaver

2006-07-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

The family on Hinchinbrook
Hauling gear
Gail leaving
Gail
Chenega
Hook Point------Don't ask me how these got on here twice.
This is Gail
The Chenega
Hook Point

July 10, 2006

Gail runs a flying service out of Cordova, Alaska called Fishing and Flying. She has to be close to my age. She came to Alaska with her three year old son in 1965, the year after the earthquake and the year after Arkansas was national champions (which was also a form of earthquake), to teach school. A few years later she was a bush pilot.

We came to Cordova from Whittier across the entire length of Prince William Sound on Chenega, the fast ferry. We passed glaciers, waterfalls and rocky islands; saw porpoises, sea otters, glaucous-winged gulls, and a tufted puffin; and, far away next to a blue glacier, a white twelve story Princes Cruise Liner. Near Bligh Reef, the place where the Exxon Valdez ran aground, we crossed the oil tanker super highway; the course the Exxon Valdez would have taken had humans not made another tragic mistake.

Chenega makes the trip in a little over three hours. The slow ferry takes almost fifteen hours. Chenega carried not only the four Banks adults and two grandkids, but also David’s Honda Pilot crammed with everything necessary and desirable for several days of luxury wilderness camping. We brought David’s car because the stuff wouldn’t all fit in my Highlander.

Gail got all the gear in the back of a Beaver, the workhorse of the Alaska bush pilots, and still had room for the family. They haven’t made Beavers since 1956. Gail got her Beaver for a great price after a former owner crashed it into the side of an icy mountain. Gail, her son and her “mechanic” (husband) rebuilt the plane so she could fly us and others into wilderness.

We flew low, low enough to stay under sagging clouds and low enough to see a brown bear and her cub. We were also low enough to see the rotting boats next to the crumbling fish processing plant in the Copper River Delta. The plant went out of business after the earthquake lifted the ground under the plant six feet. The sea moved several miles in the direction of Hawaii, changing all the channels in the delta, trapping the boats at the plant, and denying future access to the plant by the big fishing boats.

We flew over the Copper River Delta, across a sliver of Prince William Sound, around the rocks piled on Hook Point, and along a beach on the west side of Hinchinbrook Island. Gail pointed to a sign in the trees on the far side of a sandy beach that had to be as wide as the mall in DC. “That is where your cabin is,” she said. I couldn’t see anything indicating the presence of humans; no trails, no beach umbrellas, no reindeer hot dog stands, and no sign or cabin.

Gail made a low turn over the white foaming surf wallowing onto a beach as flat as snow on a frozen lake. The water pushing the surf onto that beach is called the Gulf of Alaska, which is connected to the Pacific. If we flew out to sea and had enough gas, a co-pilot, some wine and a place to go to the bathroom, the first land we would reach would be Hawaii.

Gail put the Beaver on the beach with out waking Cole and with out jiggling the fat around my middle. We unloaded, said good-by and Gail and her Beaver floated off into the thick salty mist. We were alone with the eagles, gulls, deer (Sitka black tail), bear, plovers and a pile of gear that had to be hauled to the little A-frame Forest Service cabin sitting back in the spruce trees over a half mile across the sand. The kids were already digging in the soft sand.

Off to Cordova

2006-07-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

The Sunshines are back in Texas. We are leaving today with David, Joey and the kids for an island in Prince William Sound, not to far from Cordova. I will be without computer access for a week. I will give you a full report when we return.

When the Sunshines were here we went to Seward and stayed in a log cabin on a cliff overlooking Resurrection Bay. There was a small boat harbor just below the cabin. Off to the right was an RV harbor. We went to the sealife center and learned about changes in the northern seas.
Later we went to Exit Glacier outside of Seward. Signs were posted on the way in showing where the glacier terminated in years past. Some were on the road; 1900, 1932, 1950, The rest were on the hike to the edge of the glacier; 1960, 1975, still walking, 1980, still walking, on and on. We finally got to 2006. A beautiful glacier.

I think about the drivers and passengers in the RV's. Most are conservative. They come here for the beauty, the animals, the fish. If asked, they would all say they are pro-earth. I'm also pro-earth. All us pro-earth folks, conservatives, liberals, whatever, should get together and save the beauty, save the air, save the water, save the earth. Our children and grandchildren are worth it.

Mr. Sunshine Speaks

2006-07-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Halibut Cove

Halibut Cove, Wednesday, June 28, 2006

As Tim and I were sitting on the porch of our cabin drinking coffee and solving the problems of the world while looking down at the water of Halibut Cove sometime around low tide, Tim said, “I saw something out there and I think it was a whale.” To which I replied “your crazy, why would a whale come up into this little cove at low tide”. We began to watch. Sure enough a few minutes later we hear the unmistakable sound of a whale spouting. Now if I have learned anything from hanging around Tim it is that if you are outside and he says he sees or hears something you can bet on it. Now, I had never heard the sound of a whale spouting live before but I had never heard the sound of a rattlesnake either until I almost stepped on one at Perdonales falls last year and believe me you will know it when you hear it. This was unmistakable. Sure enough there was a whale just across the cove. We called Martha and Anne. After observing it for a while we determined that it surfaced about every 5-6 minutes and so we went about cooking a breakfast of sausages, scrambled eggs, and bagels and returned in time to see it again. Tim and I surmised that the only reason a whale would come up there would be sex or food (about the only true reason for doing anything, assuming wine is a food) and since there was only one whale it must have been eating. The whale hung around for about an hour or so but left before Martha and I could have our first kayaking lessons and go join it. The rest of the day it was the talk on the town. There were those that saw the whale and those that didn’t. And we had. The locals said that it was the first time that they had seen one come up in Halibut cove in 10 years. It was a Minkey whale, which we later learned is a smaller whale that tends to be solitary in nature.

While in Halibut Cove we saw many sea birds. The most interesting to me was the Common Muir, which is one of only a few birds that can fly in the air and the water. We watched them feeding at the Sea Life Center in Seward and they actually do fly in water. They can dive to 600 feet. We also saw eagles. On Thursday morning there was a harbor seal sleeping on our dock. We learned he had a name, Spot 99, and was rescued from the Exxon Valdez oil spill and lived in Halibut Cove now. He had recently become a widower and did seem sad. When we were Kayaking on Wednesday we saw Star Fish, Jellyfish, Sea Urchins and Otters. This was the best trip ever (so far).

Steve.

kayaks and Whales

2006-07-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

Some pictures taken by Stevwe or Martha
The Sunshines on the high sea

June 28, 2006

This was the second day in a row of bright sunshine, something the locals say rarely happens here in June. Of course they didn’t know about Mr. and Mrs. Sunshine. We drank coffee on our porch and watched the cove.

There are few places on earth that are as much fun to photograph as Halibut Cove. There are few places where nature and human occupation makes both more beautiful. And it is best on a morning like this; bright sun, blue sky, flat water. There are two of everything running in opposite directions and just touching at the water’s surface: the kayaks, red, yellow, blue stacked on the dock next to the white house, and their picture perfectly painted just below; The red house hanging up and down on black pilings; The white gull flying by screeching, its image following in the water; and the silver and blue boat growling slowly along at the front of the ripple arrows, dragging its likeness.

The cove seems to just be waking. Sounds float crisp in the morning air. Gulls screech, someone down the cove laughs, the blue and silver boat groans into the distance, chickadees squeal, thrushes sing, and the whale spouts—WHAT? A whale? Whales don’t come into coves like this. But there it was, surfacing first to exhale a spout of misty breath and then rolling slowly to take in a breath of clean cove air. Steve timed the breaths; six minutes between inhale and exhale. Carl later told us that she (?) was a menke and that today was the first time that a whale had been in the cove in over ten years. Two days of sunshine and a whale—wow. We watched the whale most of the morning while getting ready to kayak. By the time we finally got into our boats, the tide was almost out and the whale had gone with the tide.

We paddled in the cove so that Steve and Martha could learn their boat. By afternoon the Sunshine’s had it mastered and we paddled over the bar that high tide had submerged and along the coast of Ismailof looking at star fish, jelly fish, and colorful houses built along the rocks. We made it all the way to Susan’s dock. It didn’t look any easier from the water.

This evening we walked the boardwalk to the Saltry for dinner. We recognized the locals and most of them recognized us. It is possible to meet almost everyone in Halibut Cove within twenty-four hours; with the possible exception of the folks renewing their creativity across the cove at the Creative Renewal Center. Most of the other tourists stay for a couple of hours, eat at the Saltry and go back on the evening run of the Danny J. We scooted our chairs closer to the fire and had another cup of coffee.

Spot 99

2006-07-06T18:15:00.000-07:00

I didn't get a picture of the Danny J, so I borrowed this from an advertisement

June 29, 2006

The Sunshines power over clouds and rain finally showed some weakness. We road the lovely Danny J back across the bay under low overcast skies and into to the face of a cold wet wind. Annie, Martha and I hid in the cabin. Steve toughed it out on the foredeck with the other locals. Of course most of the locals were just wearing t-shirts and Steve had on at least five layers of fleece under his rain jacket. His bottom lip was blue when we got to Homer, but he was still smiling.

Earlier that morning, Steve took some bags down the steep ramp (tide’s out) to our dock and almost stumbled over a harbor seal that had climbed on to the weathered wood to take a nap. At first Steve and I thought it was sick. It totally ignored us no matter how close we got. Then Katy, a young lady wearing Tough Skins (the rubber boot brand of choice for Alaskans) who cleans cabins for Tammy when she is not running her commercial salmon fishing business and who carried the heavier bags down the ramp said, “Oh that is Spot 99. He’s just taking a nap.” This dock had been his favorite place to sleep since his girlfriend died of unknown causes a couple of weeks ago. Spot 99 and his friend came to the cove right after the Valdez oil spill, probably looking for food not seasoned by oil. They were lucky. Some of the Halibut Cove people cleaned the oil off both. They ate salmon from the nets around Halibut cove and sunned on the floating boat docks.

Carl came in his boat to take us over to the Danny J, and we said good-by to the seal, and good-by to Katy, and Carl’s son, and the whale, and the folks with their creatives renewed who were standing on the high deck next to the little cabin across the way, and good-by to Halibut Cove.

Halibut Cove

2006-07-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

Picture by Steve or maybe Martha

The Stormbird took us across the bay to Halibut Cove. The Danny J that usually makes the fairy run from Homer to Halibut Cove had a slow leak and was parked for repairs on the gravel next to the Saltry Restaurant in Halibut Cove. The Danny J is a beautiful boat. If the Danny J was Brad Pitt, the Stormbird would be Brodrick Crawford. I know; he is dead. Mara, the Danny J captain, told me that when the weather is too bad for the Danny J to make the run, The Stormbird can always make it.

The lady who owns the Danny J and the Saltry Resturant is the daughter of Clem and Diane Tillion, the patron and the grand dame of Halibut Cove. The daughter was the first female in Kachemak Bay to get her one ton Captain’s license. She captained the Danny J for many years. When she retired, she decided that the Danny J should always have a female crew. Mara is now the captain.

Clem, the patron, homesteaded Halibut Cove right after WWII. He got there by walking from the rail line that runs between Seward and Anchorage. He was looking for the perfect place to settle. When he found Halibut Cove, he knew he had found it.

Ismailof Island forms one side of Halibut Cove and the mainland of the Kenai Peninsula is across the cove. Little houses and some not so little are scattered along the edge of the cove and over the hills of Ismailof. Many of the houses along the cove are built on pilings; above the water at high tide and over the rocks and gravel at low tide. Close to the Saltry and to the Tillion’s mansion and Diane’s gallery, the buildings are connected by boardwalks.

If you look at the real estate records for Halibut Cove, you will find The Tillion name somewhere in the history of most. We stayed on the island in a cabin on a bluff overlooking the Cove. Our hosts, Tammy and Carl, had lived on the island most of their lives. Carl’s parents bought the land from Clem in the early fifties when Carl was three years old. Only eleven people live in Halibut Cove during the winter. Clem and Dianne, now in their eighties, are two of them. Tammy and Carl still have one child in school and live in Homer in the winter. Tammy says they will stay year around as soon as the last child graduates.

We took a hike in the jungle. It is really rain forest, but that name doesn’t give the feel of what we walked through. Think of old Tarzan movies with someone at the front of the line with a machete. Maybe not that bad. We were looking for the property of a friend, Susan, who is building a house on the island. She gave us four typed pages of instructions on how to get through the “jungle” to her place. And we made it. There is no road. In fact there are really no roads anywhere in Halibut Cove. There is at least one wide trail where bikes and four wheel mules can run. The rest are for walking or maybe for a four leg mule. The folks building Susan’s house bring the construction materials in the easy way, by sea at high tide and up an eighty foot cliff by pulling it up an incredibly steep ramp from the little dock in a big wooden wagon with fat rubber tires.

Halibut Cove is a wonderfully different world.

Pro-earth

2006-07-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

Dixon Glacier
Looking across at Bear Cove

June 26, 2006

In Homer with the Sunshines at a B&B about fourteen miles out East End Road. Steve’s GPS says we are about 1400 feet above the surface of Kachemek Bay. I wonder if that is at high tide or low tide. Today the difference between high and low tides in this bay is over twenty-two feet. Steve’s book says that Kachemek Bay has the second highest tidal change in North America.

It rained on us on the drive to Homer, but Steve and Martha Sunshine came through. We are sitting on the deck looking across the bay in the direction of Bear Cove. The glacier behind Bear Cove is Dixon and the glacier to the right of Dixon is Portlock. The tops of both glaciers above the cloud whisps just blazed white, reflecting the sunshine.

Don, the B&B owner who is from Syracuse, N.Y., stopped by to bad mouth “wacky environmentalists” that believe global warming might be melting some glaciers. He probably didn’t know what my kids do. Also I didn’t like the name he chose. I prefer to think that there are only three kinds of people; those who are pro-earth, those who are anti-earth, and who don’t care. We need more pro-earth people.

Salmon and Sunshine

2006-07-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Sunshine, Annie and Elmo
Salmon art in down town Anchorage (photo by Martha)
Combat fishing on the Kenai River

June 25, 2006

It is Sunday, and the sun was shining on the volcanoes across Cook Inlet when we got up, and still shining when Martha had “church” on the steep trail from Eklutna Lake up to Twin Peaks. We didn’t go all the way. A young guy in shorts and a t-shirt zipped by. He said he was going to the top and expected to be back by around 10:00 P.M. We might have made it by 10:00 tomorrow morning.

When we got back to Anchorage, we stopped by New Sagaya, a really good specialty grocery store and bought salmon and veggies for dinner. When we got home Annie told grandson Birch, who is three years old, where we had been. “What kind of salmon did you get?” he said.

We have learned that in Alaska, salmon is not salmon. It is king salmon, red salmon, silver salmon, dog salmon, pinks, Chinook, sockeye, chum, humpies, coho, and even kokenai and char. In the restaurant, they even brag about the river where it was caught. “We feature Copper River reds on the menu tonight.”

David, after eight years experience, now believes that the name of the salmon and where it was caught is less important than how long the fish has been out of the water. The reds we got at New Sagaya had not been out of the water long, and Steve cooked them perfectly on the grill. Drizzled with a sauce of simmered garlic, shallots, white wine, grapefruit juice, and thick cream; accompanied by a half pound of good wine and the Sunshines, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Sunshine Report

2006-07-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

June 24, 2006

Steve and Martha “Sunshine” from Denton came to Alaska. They brought 3 home grown Texas tomatoes and sunshine. They got here around 9:00 last night with the sun still two hands off the horizon. We took them out to eat, but it was difficult to find a place that was not filled with tourists. We finally got our food around 10:30, ate and made it back to the house in time to watch the end of a beautiful sunset around midnight.

Steve and I road trails today in Kincaid park. The hills almost killed both of us; then we road the coastal trail into town and met Annie and Martha for gourmet reindeer dogs at MA’s in front of the Federal building on Fourth Street. Later Annie took us to the fair at the Anchorage Botanical Garden. I was sleepy; not used to going to bed at midnight; and didn’t really want to go.

Annie was right as usual. I felt much better after the flowers, butterflies, red lichen on a birch tree, music floating through the woods, weird homemade garden stuff, a girl selling herbs and wearing a UNT sweatshirt who is going to school at North Texas in the fall, and t-shirts covered in prints of Alaskan flowers.

I think the flowers are what surprises most first timers to Alaska. Streets in town are lined with lilies, dahlias, geraniums, tuberous begonias, lobeilia, orange globe, petunias, delphiniums, and hundreds of others; all in full bloom. The roads are lined with wild daises, wild roses, forget-me-nots, and lupines; fields of white like bleached linen, splashes of pink like a baby girl’s pajamas, clumps of sweet blue like movie star eyes, and strips of faded purple like mountains just after sunset. Later in the summer the fire weed will blaze twice, once when it blooms and again when cold fall nights suck the fire into its leaves. Alaska has a short growing season, but long days of light that squeeze blooms from all the flowers.

Daylight, Parks and Trails

2006-06-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

June 22, 2006

We are staying at Jo’s house for the week, house sitting. Her house is one of the oldest in Anchorage, built shortly after I was born, and that is old. It is good to give the kids a break from parents and grandparents, although Birch and Cole did come to spend the night last night.

Yesterday was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. I got up this morning at 1:45 and twilight was hanging around outside. I don’t know whether it was sunset twilight or sunrise twilight. It may have been both. The paper said that that the sun rose yesterday at 4:20 A.M. and sat at 11:42 P.M., giving us 19 hours, 22 minutes, and 27 seconds of daylight. The sun never gets far below the horizon since it has to rise a little over four hours after it sets. David says that Alaskans celebrate the solstice and also morn it since it is all down hill from here. Today was six seconds less light, that much closer to December and the darkest day of the year. Happy birthday Cynthia.

Jo’s house is next to Chester Creek Park. This park starts on the west side of Anchorage near the hospital and the Chugach and runs along on both sides of Chester Creek all the way across Anchorage to Cook Inlet. A paved path runs along the creek; the perfect old man bike path. The trail passes Goose Lake, numerous playgrounds, ball fields, an extensive well used Frisbee golf course, and Chester Lagoon where the gulls fight with the bald eagles and Canada geese fly by squawking. At Chester Lagoon Chester Creek trail hooks into the Coastal Trail, also paved, which runs north into down town and south past the airport to Kincaid Park. Kincaid Park is honeycombed with wide unpaved trails up and down hills and in and out of creeks and gullies. One can ride a bike all the way across Anchorage from east to west and from north to south with out ever crossing a street.

I have ridden my bike on many of the paved trails. Annie and Elmo walk. Elmo has decided that everyone on the trail is his friend. He wants to give them a friendly greeting. Sometimes I walk with them. The trails are heavily used by walkers, riders, skateboarders, inline skaters, people using cross-country skis with little wheels on them, the United States Army for forced marches, red foxes looking for dinner and moose. The moose don’t go very fast and spend most of the time munching on the lush green stuff along the trails. However, it is still somewhat exciting to come flying around a corner and screech to a stop a few feet from a crowd of bikers, boarders, skaters and skiers snapping pictures of a seven foot tall bearded moose casually blocking the trail. Elmo has not yet met a moose. We will see what he thinks about friendship then.

I have also ridden my bike at Hillside, a park near David’s house designed specifically for walking, skiing, running and biking. The trails there are all dirt, and some of them narrow, steep, rocky and laced with roots. One of those trails and my stupidity caused my bike to spend almost a week in the bike shop near Carr’s. My body escaped the fate of my bicycle as a result of a combination of superior physical strength, phenomenal coordination, natural good looks and luck.

In the winter all of the trails are used for cross country skiing. All of the paved trails and many of the non-paved trails are lighted so that they can be used after work in December when the sun goes down at 3:30 in the afternoon.

I haven’t mentioned all the trails in the Chugach; or the trails at Girdwood/Aleyska, the downhill ski area; or the paved trails running along next to many of the highways. In Anchorage alone, there are over 400 miles of trails.

There is no road in Alaska to Juno, the state capital. One must fly, walk or go by boat. That’s ok; they have great trails.

Across The Bay

2006-06-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

June 18, 2006

We are riding one of Mako’s boats crossing Kachemak Bay. Mako is driving. He is a big man with a silver goatee and straight white teeth who smiles all the time even though it is almost seven o’clock in the evening and he worked all last night and all of today hauling people back and forth across the bay. David and grandson Birch stand on the deck in front of the little Cabin next to the red kayak watching the big ferry heading for Homer, probably from Kodiak. Birch thinks we are racing. The rest of us are in the cabin out of the cold wind. We are returning from Across the Bay Tent and Breakfast located on Kasitsna Bay about eight miles from Saldovia.

We stayed with Tony and Mary Jane and their youngest daughter at Across the Bay for two nights. Tony, formerly a college professor, came to Alaska in 1964. He bought the Across the Bay property about ten years later and board by board built the retreat. Guests stay in wall tents erected on wooden platforms hanging to the side of the mountain rising from the rocky beach. A creek tumbled and fell down the mountain next to the tent platforms. At the bottom of the hill next to the beach, was the main house where meals were served and where we could go to drink coffee or tea, read, write, and get warm. Close by was the shower house (hot water), and two outhouses, one a two holer.

With the exception of a few brief periods, it drizzled on us the entire stay. I have to remind myself that this is the rain forest. It should not be difficult. A climb up the trail from the beach to the old lumber road that leads into Seldovia reminds me. Damp moss, thick and spongy, covers soil, fallen trees, stumps, and anything else on the forest floor that would stay in one spot for twenty four hours. Out of the moss the rain forest grows in thick layers: first, flowers in any spot where light squeezes through, starflower, dwarf dogwood, wild geranium, currents and false solomon seal; then ferns, fiddlehead and horsetail, waist high; next blueberries, elderberries, and the deadly baneberry; after that the ever present alders, devils club as big as small trees, and salmon berry in full bloom; and above it all the towering Sitka spruce and western hemlock. Around all is sound: the gentle sound of water dripping from leaves, needles and branches; the steady sound of the little creek tumbling over rocks; the beautiful song of the hermit thrush; the telephone ring of the varied thrush; the squeaking squawk whistle of the bald eagle, and out on the bay behind the trees the steady groan of the Tolman skiff running toward the log cabin at the end of the spit.

Most of the time we acted like it was not cold and drizzling. Annie and I (Elmo wanted to come but was prevented by jealously of the proprietors dog) put on fleece, rain suits, Eskimo bibs, and life jackets, got in the red kayak and paddled over the crystal clear water along the coast to Jakaloff Bay, then across to Cronin island. We watched giant starfish in the shallows near rocky cliffs, passed harbor seals and otters, chased a pigeon guillemot and a flock of marbled murrelets, and sat still in the middle of the bay watching raindrops pock the still waters.

Mako was two hours late coming to pick us up. Tony waited with us on the beach talking to David and Joey about Alaska issues. Birch played in the kayak pretending it was the biplane out of a sequel to the movie about Balto, the sled dog who saved Nome, and Cole had a great time trying to fill the kayak and the bailing pump with gravel. Annie watched the boys, and I sat on a log and watched the dance of the bay and the mountains and the clouds.

Not long before Mako arrived the eagles started fighting over the scraps of salmon Tony had dumped on the rocks where the creek runs into the bay. A full grown juvenile with motley feathers managed to grab a scrap and head for the top of the nearest spruce. He was chased by two other juveniles and at least one adult, all screeching. Before he reached the tree, the adult, white tail and head brilliant in the misty light, attacked from above, talons down. They tumbled screaming and falling until the juvenile dropped the scrap. The adult released the juvenile and recovered the scrap from the rocks, and we saw Mako’s boat coming across the bay.

Anchorage, on the edge

2006-06-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

My new job
The Chugach Mountains from downtown Anchorage
Annie's new job

June 15, 2006

A few mornings ago I was sitting in the car with Elmo in front of the little post office located between the Carr’s gas station and my bike repair shop (that is another story). Carr’s has the cheapest gas in town, $2.75 per gallon if you buy $50.00 or more of groceries (or wine) before each fill up. We only have to make sure that we eat or drink as much as we drive. No problem. We were waiting on Annie to mail a package back to the lower 48. That is one of the things they call ya’ll up here in the far north.

I was gazing to the east at the Chugach Mountains which were still draped with snowy shawls and sashes. What I was looking at is part of the 500,000 acre Chugach State Park, which hooks around the east and south sides of Anchorage and is a little like discovering Yosemite fifteen minutes from down town Los Angeles.

A guy in a rusted black van with an aluminum skiff tied to top rails with faded orange ski rope pulled into the parking space next to me. Elmo growled. “Susssh,” I said. The guy got out and slowly walked into the field in front of his van. He looked to the east, at the Chugach, raised his arms to the place where the sun probably was and dropped his head back onto the rolls of flesh squeezing out the top of his t-shirt which was decorated with a picture of what may have been a dead movie star that had been copied from one originally painted on the nose of a B-29.

“Gerrrr.”

“Ssssh.”

In the lower 48, Chugach State Park would be Chugach National Park and people would come from everywhere to climb its peaks, watch its rushing waters, and hike through its lush rain forests. Tourists here, while waiting for the train to Denali or for their zip-off leg hiking pants to come back from the cleaners, look out the window of their room in the Captain Cook Hotel and say, “Oh Alice isn’t that pretty.” That sometimes creates a problem when the guy’s wife is named Jane.

The young and sometimes not so young who live in Anchorage walk out their back doors and ski, hike or ride their bikes into the Chugach, into the wilderness.

I didn’t have to look at the guy’s license plate to know he was from Alaska. In addition to the t-shirt, the guy wore yurt size nylon swim trunks that, in some previous life, may have been blue. It was 56 degrees and clouds hung like feathered boas across the sashes and shawls running around and down the mountains in front of me; and I was wearing a lot of clothes and a fleece vest. I am becoming accustomed to Alaskans’ sense of summer. It is almost like being in Canada and having to convert kilometers and liters and Canadian dollars. Except that in Alaska one must convert the skin’s reaction to air temperature. I have decided that if you add twenty or twenty-five degrees to the current Alaskan temperature, a Texan will know approximately what the temperature feels like to an Alaskan.

Behind me and behind the Post Office and several blocks of stores and houses was Turnagain Arm, a wedge of ocean coming off Cook Inlet at Anchorage and squeezed between The Chugach and the top of the Kenai Peninsula and ending about 90 miles to the south just before it would have bumped into Portage Glacier. In fact, I would guess that Portage Glacier in a previous ice age (that would be pre-W) had something to do with the origin of Turnagain Arm.

The Alaskan in the cute shorts still had his hands raised to the heavens. I thought that he was probably Buddhist or an evangelical, or that he had forgotten to put on deodorant and was airing his pits; or possibly some combination of the foregoing. Isn’t that nice, I thought. What a wonderful view for a spiritual experience.

Behind Turnagain Arm and the top end of the Kenai is Cook Inlet, and on the far side of Cook Inlet are snow covered volcanoes. At David’s (my son’s) house located high up a hillside overlooking Turnagain arm, I get up every morning and look for the volcanoes; Spur, Redoubt, Iliamna, Augustine, Kukak and several others. Spur, closest to us, is 11,100 feet tall, and that is straight up from sea level. Most of the others are almost as tall as Spur. I look from the same spot at the same spot, but the view is new each day. The volcanoes change colors, blue like the Artic night, yellow like molten metal, white like the feathers of the tundra swan. They float in and out of clouds, disappear, move close to the deck where I watch, and drift away toward Russia.

The Alaskan closed his hands into fists, raised his face to the gray swirling clouds and then beat on his chest right on top of the dead movie star. He then screamed some words that I have elected not to print. I might just mention that it was not particularly spiritual. Elmo barked and I slumped down in the seat.

About that time a lady parked her Honda Pilot on the other side of me. She got out and went into the post office. Two little girls in soccer uniforms got out went into the field to kick their ball. The man looked at them, went back to his van, and drove off.

To my left, north of Anchorage; beyond the Army base and the Air Force base; beyond Kinik Arm; beyond 200 miles of mountains, lakes, rivers, and forests is Denali, the mountain and the park. On a clear day, I can see Denali from David’s house.

For Isabella and Emma

2006-06-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

Fairy Houses
The Storm
The Waterfall

Special for Isabella and Emma

June 7, 2006

The Mist Fairies

By popi

Alice Preston lived with her mother, father and baby brother in a log cabin on the Athabasca River just outside the village of Jasper. They also had a dog named King. No other children lived near Alice, so most of each day Alice had to play by herself.

Fortunately Alice’s cabin was located just above a beautiful waterfall, and Alice liked to play along the trail that led down the mountain next to the falls. The trail twisted and turned down the mountain. She walked under spruce trees that were tall and green and under birch trees that had bark like pieces of paper. Robins sang and landed on the trail in front of her, and Alice stopped to smell the little blue bells and the wild pink roses.

Sometimes Alice would sit on a rock next to the falls listening to the roaring water and watching the rainbows form in the mist rising from the tumbling water. One day while watching a rainbow, Alice saw a tiny fairy flying in and out of the rainbow. At first she thought it was a dragonfly. But then Alice noticed that the fairy had short hair the color of sand and that she wore fairy clothes that looked like a field of wildflowers. The fairy also had a tiny pouch tied at her waist that she would put something into as she flew in and out of the rainbow.

Alice watched the fairy for a few minutes and then said, “Hello.” The little fairy stopped in mid air and looked at Alice with big wide eyes. Then she flew down and sat on Alice’s knee. The fairy folded her little wings behind her back, and Alice and the fairy smiled at each other.

Alice said, “My name is Alice. What is your name?”

The little fairy almost fell off Alice’s knee. She whirled her silver wings and held her hands over her tiny ears. Then the fairy’s mouth moved, and Alice heard squeaks and whistles so soft they were like sounds a baby bird would make in the top of a great cottonwood. But in Alice’s head or in her heart she heard the words that the squeaks and whistles said.

“My, my, don’t talk so loud, Alice,” the fairy said, folding her wings behind her once again. “You will knock me into the water.”

So Alice whispered. “What is your name?”

The soft squeaks and whistles came again, and Alice heard, “My name is Angel, and I am a Mist Fairy. What are you?”

Alice thought for a minute. She wasn’t sure what she was. She had never really thought about it before. “I guess I am a person,” she said. “Yes, of course, I am a human.” Alice looked closely at the fairy. “Why do you fly in the rainbow?” Alice said.

“Oh my, don’t you know? I am collecting pieces of rainbow.” Angle reached into her pouch and pulled out a tiny handful of red and yellow and green and blue and purple rainbow pieces. She held them up to Alice. Alice’s face became warm, and the air between Alice and Angle glowed in all the colors of the rainbow.

“They are so beautiful; what do you do with them?”

“I collect pieces of rainbow for all the fairies. The rainbow pieces keep our fairy houses warm and make them bright. Every fairy caries a little bit of rainbow with them all the time. When the storm comes, the rainbow pieces help us remember that the storm will pass.

Here, hold out your hands; these are for you.” Angle dropped the pieces of rainbow into Alice’s hands.

Alice felt the warmth in her hands and the colored lights flashed in her eyes.

She put the rainbow pieces in her pocket. “Thank you, Angel. I will keep these forever.”

Angel flew into the air. I have to go to the fairy houses,” she said. I have deliveries to make. With a zip and a whirl Angel disappeared in the rolling mist.

When Alice got back to the cabin it was almost dark. She climbed the ladder to her bed in the loft. There hanging on the wall behind her bed was a small leather pouch decorated with colorful beads that her father had given her after one of his trips. Alice took the pieces of rainbow from her pocket and poured a glowing stream of them out of her fingers into the little pouch. Then she hung the pouch around her neck.

The next day Alice and her father walked together down the trail by the waterfall. They sat on a rock and looked at the river flowing away below the falls. Alice’s father held her hand. “You seem bright and cheery today,” he said.

Alice smiled and touched the leather packet with the rainbow pieces in it. She heard soft squeaks and whistles and looked into a sky that looked like it was painted with bluebird feathers. Alice knew that storms would come, and that when they did, the pieces of rainbow that the Mist fairy had given her would remind her that the storm would pass.

They sat quietly for a while looking at the river. “Oh dad, look.” Alice pointed down the river. “Those rocks stacked up at the edge of the river look like fairy houses.

“Why they sure do Punkin. They sure do.”

2006-06-07T22:34:00.000-07:00

Fact Check #6

June 6, 2006

We have been playing in Anchorage and enjoying our grandchildren. Annie is getting her dirt fix. Elmo is learning to clean the floor under the dinner table and I look out the window a lot. Here are some final numbers on the Alaska leg of our adventure:

· 9 times we crossed the Continental Divide.

· Traveled across four time zones.

· Drove through or close by 153 cities, towns and villages (had to be able to see the water tower).

· Identified 104 flowering plants.

· Crossed 79 major rivers.

· Passed through 6 states and 3 Canadian Provinces.

· Camped in 10 campgrounds

· Toured 2 US National Parks and 4 Canadian National Parks.

· Drove 4,602 miles from driveway to driveway.

· Loaded and unloaded the car 33 times.

· Saw; 1 grizzly bear, 5 black bear, hundreds of elk, 52 buffalo, 4 prairie dogs, 32 pronghorn antelope, 7 moose, 1 live coyote, 1 weasel, 12 bighorn sheep, 3 stone sheep, 4 deer (not currently identified).

Elmo would also like to tell you that he saw many ground squirrels and chipmunks, but was unable to catch any. He also asked me to report that he was severely handicapped by the leash.

Elmo's log #7

2006-06-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

Elmo and Tim
Sunset from the deck in Anchorage, around 10:45 P.M.
The highway to the house above Turnagain Arm

Elmo’s Log # 7

May 31, 2006

Posting Note: The posting of Elmo’s Log #7 was delayed due to computer connection issues. Hopefully that has been resolved.

Once again, we broke camp this morning in the rain, but with much less annoyance; for tonight we would sleep in a bed in a warm house in Anchorage. I think that both Annie and I are ready for a short break from camping.

The Drive from Tok to Anchorage along Alaska Highway 1 may be the most beautiful of the entire trip. I know that the Wrangle Mountains were just to the east of our route and that we passed close by both the Nelchina Glacier and the Matanuska Glacier. Unfortunately we missed much of that beauty because of clouds snuggled in valleys and marching down mountain sides. Fortunately, the part of the trip from Glennallen to Anchorage we have traveled before when the weather was more suited to expansive vistas.

What we did see had beauty of its own, clouds breaking momentarily to reveal craggy peaks and massive glaciers, cloud tatters swirling up the side of an overhanging cliff, the Matanuska River roaring, spewing, and foaming beside the road snaking around the mountains, lake surface mingling with cloud surface, and waterfalls materializing out of hanging clouds. Our route today would have been a great set for one of the Lord of the Rings movies.

Then Anchorage appeared hugging the shore of Cook Inlet and Turnagain Arm. Across the Inlet a string of volcanoes, like ghosts, hung on the horizon. The end of the first leg of our journey.