If this isn’t a typical looking country inn of England, then I don’t know what is! Our flight was very nice – oh that first class stuff is something else. We both slept about 4-5 hours on the way over, arriving several hours late (took off 2 1/2 hrs late from LA too). I won’t tell you about the ticket snafu. Let’s just say we arrived fine, rented our car, and started driving. It always takes me an hour or so to adjust to driving on the other side of the road, but no mishaps so far. We arrived at this inn above, at Waddesdon, called the Five Arrows. We arrived late, but kindly they still were willing to feed us dinner. Delicious it was, too. We both had pork belly and I ordered the oh-so-lovely summer pud (layered bread in a small bowl with oodles of fresh berries and clotted cream. Off we went to bed.

The next morning we tried to tour the actual Weddesdon Manor, a National Trust home, but found it was closed on Mondays. Too bad! So we drove a ways and visited Claydon House (another National Trust house) instead. Lovely.

Then we zipped up the motorway and arrived near Nottingham about 4:30 pm. Our dear friend Dinny was expecting us. We went out to dinner that night to a lovely country inn called Langer Hall. Yesterday we spent hours and hours visiting, going into downtown Nottingham to buy a new battery for my camera (can’t believe I went off from home with it charging away in the kitchen near our all-packed bags). We visited Marks & Spencers too (Dave always buys his knickers at Marks & Sparks – he’s owned nothing but M&Ss knickers for about 28 years.) Bet you didn’t know that the Queen wears Marks & Spencer’s knickers. They are extremely well made – Dave still has the ones he bought 30 years ago and they’re holding up, albeit a little thin.

As I’m writing this we’ve driven north into Yorkshire. Maybe tomorrow I’ll share more photos of the Dales. We’re having fun. As I type, my DH is watching Robin Hood on television (how appropriate since we just left Nottingham). We’re about to go to dinner.

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No, I didn’t take that photo. Found it on the internet somewhere. But hopefully that’s about the same view I had today as my DH and I winged ourselves across the pond, as the saying goes, to Britain. On Sunday morning when this will appear, we’ll be  there. We will have left Los Angeles yesterday if all went well. We’re going specifically to visit two friends of ours: one who lives in Nottingham (north central); the other in Cheltenham (west, near the Cotswolds).

Most of the B&Bs will have wi-fi, so once I figure out how to hook up my mini-laptop, using the proper cables, voltage converter (110 to 220) and wall plug, and log onto the wi-fi, I’ll be able to post while we’re away. How often, I don’t know. We’re going to be gone about 2 1/2 weeks, so I hope to give you some photos here and there. Our touring destinations include the Yorkshire Dales (James Harriott country), the Lake District (Beatrix Potter country) and Wales (where we’re going to one town called Hay-on-Wye which has no less than 32 used and antiquarian book stores). With the two visits to friends along the way. And hopefully one other visit to a blogging friend, which I’ll share about when I get there. We have reservations for dinner in London on our last night, at one of Jamie Oliver’s restaurants. We’re not staying in London at all this trip – we’ll stay our last night at a hotel at Heathrow and will take the train into the city for dinner. We have an early-morning departure, so we wanted to be close by and not have to fret about returning the car or having a foul-up with getting to the airport in a timely manner for our early morning flight. Anyway, our dinner in London hopefully will be good food – and fun. We’re looking forward to the entire trip, but also to the weather. The forecast is for highs about 70°, lows about 51°. Oh yes, and there will be rain.

If you’re a techie, in this high-tech day and age, it’s a feat to pack all the right cables, wires, plugs, adapters or converters for international destinations. In addition to my mini-laptop (with mouse and bulky power cable), I take my iPod too with earphones. My iPod puts me to sleep every night as I listen to podcasts that last about 15-30 minutes; I’d hate to be without it. It needs charging with its apple charging cable every 3-5 days. My Kindle will go with me too. I have about 30+ books loaded on it, so obviously I won’t be running out of reading material. But it needs a different kind of charging cable, required about once a week. And I’ll take the little light that attaches to the Kindle case so I can read at night when I’m wide awake with jet lag. I’m also taking my iphone (it’s a 3G with GSM, so it does work in Europe). I don’t plan to use my phone much at all, so it seems kind of senseless to take it, yet it would be very helpful if we need to make last-minute phone calls, or for family to reach us in an emergency. My AT&T calling plan doesn’t include England, of course, and the phone charges will be costly. I’ve been doing some reading online about international travel with an iphone, so I know as soon as we leave Los Angeles I need to turn off “data roaming,” otherwise my iphone will continue to ping for mail continuously (with fees). But if I’m connected to free wi-fi at our hotels, there won’t be any fees. Hopefully I’ll only use the phone once or twice. I have a regular plug charging cable, and I have one that will charge in the cigarette lighter in the car. I don’t want to take both. What a pain! And most of that won’t work unless you plug it into a British wall adapter (they use a bulky 3-prong plug) and the converter. Last trip I finally figured out I needed to use a stack of books to prop up the connecting pieces, otherwise they seem to fall off/out of the plug or out of the wall. And I don’t know about you, but sometimes in older hotels or B&Bs I’m crawling all over the floor trying to FIND the wall plugs. Usually they’re hiding behind furniture, behind desks, dressers, bedside tables. That happens here in the U.S. too, but it’s worse in most other foreign countries. All of that stuff will go with me in my rolling carry-on.

Then I’ll be taking my DSLR camera. It has a different connecting USB cable to plug into the mini-laptop so I can download pictures to it. And then the battery charger for the camera too. I may take my small point-and-shoot camera too. I can use the same download cable, but I must take a different battery charger. If I want to take photos in restaurants I’m embarrassed to whip out my big DSLR, but I can take pictures somewhat unobtrusively with the small one. We’re renting a car with a GPS. Even though I’m very good at directions, and have always adapted well to driving on the other side of the road (I’ll likely do most of the driving), a GPS is such an easier way to get places.  Oh my.

So, here’s what’s going in my carry-on. I’m packed and ready to go, so thought you’d get a kick  out of seeing what’s going with me – or you’re shaking your head now, knowing I’ve gone off the deep end.

The only things NOT in this picture are my iphone and my DSLR camera which I used, of course, to take the picture! Am I crazy, or what?

About six years ago we bought a new BMW (for me) and we picked it up at the factory in Munich. What a fun experience that was. And the guy who gave us the lecture about all the car’s features, programmed into the GPS our first night’s hotel in Austria and our last night’s lodging in Amsterdam, AND, the location where we had to leave the car for shipping across the sea. Anyway, we had such fun with the GPS. After a couple of nights in Austria, we went over the snow-covered pass to Italy for a couple of weeks. I cannot begin to tell you how great that GPS was for getting around on small country roads or big cities in Italy. We did have to buy the European GPS DVD, though. Because we bought the car in Germany we named the GPS woman’s voice, Trudi. And oh, did Trudi ever save us many times. Every time we’ve traveled since, we either drive my car, or we rent a GPS to go with the rental car.

I feel like half my bag will be filled with tech stuff. When we travel, we travel light. Our idea of good, efficient packing is one roll-aboard each (27 inches), although ours are too wide to fit under the seats. But they’re much smaller than most people use. And I also take a carry-on that happens to be a rolling/pulling type. That’s where all that gear up above will go.

My DH, meanwhile, isn’t taking his phone. Or a computer. Or an iPod. Or a camera. He doesn’t use any other electronic devices. He rarely even looks at his email when we’re home and he has his own computer. Maybe I’ll be able to con him into storing all of the cables and chargers. Do you think? Probably not. Dave’s suitcase is always much lighter than mine. I’m the one who does all the travel planning, gathering all the documents we need. Sometimes I can get him to pack the maps. But I carry on my package of data with all the supporting documents for our flights, our hotel reservations, directions where I thought we might need them. I am taking one book, a tour book – a new one I bought – even though we’ve been to England about 10 times. I also carry more toiletries than he does, including cuticle scissors, regular small fold-up scissors, my hair dryer, curling iron and one pair of extra shoes. Maybe two this time.

Dave, for those of you who are new readers, has two artificial legs (amputation below the knee on both legs from diabetes/poor circulation). Unless he must change shoes to dress up, or work on the boat, he wears the same shoes for weeks. The socks don’t smell since there’s a plastic/foam foot shape in the shoe. Obviously, his feet don’t sweat. He hates changing shoes because it takes a minimum of 20 minutes to do so. (I know, I can hear you say what? Yes, it’s true, it’s very time consuming to change shoes on an artificial leg, and he has two of them. Just trust me on this one.) Consequently he wears just one pair of shoes when we travel – a pair that can be both casual and a little bit dressier. Mostly it’s his boat loafers (Sperry’s) since my DH has been a life-long sailor. He doesn’t take a sport coat or suit, and may only take one jacket plus a rain jacket. He likes traveling in shorts because it’s far easier to fly – and perhaps take off his legs – if he wears shorts. We’re using up all of our old frequent flyer miles for this trip. We managed to book first class going over, but we didn’t have enough miles to do it both ways. We wanted coach both ways, but there were none to be had several months ago when we booked this trip. So that’s why we’re going over first class (with the seats that flatten out to sleep on). And we’ll be sardines on the return. I almost think it’s a mistake to ever fly first class, because then you want to fly that way every time. It spoils you, big time. So watch for scenes from merry olde England.

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The other day I posted a quick story about our one night at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. About getting upgraded, big time, to a gorgeous suite. But I didn’t include any photos. Here you go:

That’s half of the living room. The other half included a large credenza and a very large HDTV. Behind me was a guest half bath and a large entryway. And the room had automatic drapes (two sets, the sheers showing here) and attractive heavy ones over that to black out the room.

There’s the bedroom – large, roomy. Dave was just swinging my suitcase up on the luggage rack for me. This room had another large TV, and TWO bathrooms, a his and hers. Plus a large closet. The large windows were off to the left with another set of the push-button sheers and heavy blackout drapes. We left them open all night. We had dinner at Todd English’s Olives there in the Bellagio. I orderd steak (very pricey) and the rapini on the side was raw. Not good. I should have complained. Dave ordered crab-stuffed arctic char with an asparagus risotto. And we shared a really delicious Caesar salad. It was exceptional.

We considered having breakfast delivered to the room, but decided instead that we’d walk to one of the restaurants in the hotel. Good choice. The eggs Benedict were superb, we thought. The waitress was a delight and gave us good advice about the menu. Good coffee too. Then we were off after leisurely packing. We weren’t even there quite 24 hours, but it was lovely. Except for my side of the bed. This room supposedly goes for $450 a night (I think). If we’d paid $450 I’d have complained – on the far side there was a huge big butt-dent in the mattress. It was bad enough that I had to use a pillow on the outside edge to keep me from nearly rolling out of the bed. I let the check-out folks know about it. But other than that, the stay was superb. Here’s a photo of the view out our window:

So now we’re in Palm Desert, at our 2nd home there. We rented our house for 3 months, and the nice couple (who also rented from us last year) just left, so we’re going to try to get in a bit of time here before it gets too hot. We had to replace one of the two air conditioners here, so that just got done yesterday. Only $3300. Sigh.  And that was the smaller of the two systems. When the 2nd one goes, it’ll be even more! We’re driving home this evening after dinner (when the traffic has slowed down). We’ve had a great trip. But, you know, it’s always good to get home. I have some great recipes to share (from a dinner I did just before we left home) so look for recipes starting tomorrow.

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A year ago: Glover’s Mixture (a beef skillet dish)

Two years ago: Warm Honey Gingerbread

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We spent a night in Flagstaff, just because it was on the way between Sedona and Grand Canyon. Staying at the available hotels in Grand Canyon didn’t appeal. I’d wanted to stay at the El Tovar, but it was totally booked.  So we stayed in a small cottage in Flagstaff – it was a complete little home (Comfi Cottages, in case you’re interested). Dinner that night, in Flagstaff, was at Brix – great meal from beginning to end. If you ever find yourself in Flagstaff, seek it out. We didn’t feel like buying breakfast food to cook in, so drove north. We ended up having breakfast at the El Tovar in the Park – and were very disappointed. We had a sullen waitress who kind of spoiled the mood. The restaurant is dark (as the entire hotel is, since it’s constructed of dark painted logs) and very expensive. Now I have no desire to stay there. But the scenery? Gorgeous. See below.

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Streams speak to me. The rushing sound of water over rocks, just the movement as the water quietly propels itself down. Out. Over. Under. Wider. Narrower. Bubbling. Burbling. Gushing. Quietly pondering. The stream-speaking thing dates back to my childhood when my family went camping (tent type) for our annual summer vacations in the California Sierra Mountains. Often we set up the tent within a dozen feet of a stream, and it lulled me to sleep at night and gently awakened me in the mornings. Often I would grab a book and take a walk – some location where I could read peacefully and listen to the water.

I feel like I’m in contact with God when I have the ability to sit in silence by a stream and open my ears to God talking to me. I wish I could say I made time to do that on this trip – at this place. No. If I’d asked Dave if he’d mind sitting in the car reading, he’d probably have said sure. I didn’t think to do it then, but as I look at the photo, I wish I had. Even for just a few minutes. My DH has no affinity for the sounds of rivers or streams. He’s a sailor, so only the sound of the ocean sends him off to another sphere. He’d tell you about how he comes face-to-face with God every time he sails at night, when he’s sailing to Catalina island and as he watches the waves, is blinded by the brightness of the night stars and the moon, he knows there’s a God and that he’s watching over him. The little bobbing boat out in the middle of the ocean. As he words it, he knows then that God makes the water blue and the grass green. And that he (God) is in charge.

Back to Arizona . . . after we left Sedona, we drove north through Oak Creek Canyon. I posted a photo I took with my iphone when we reached the northern edge of this canyon. If you’ve never been to Oak Creek, you’ve missed some awesome beauty. In the summer the river is fully enclosed in leafy trees, and it’s harder to see the river.

Way back a long time ago I stayed at a rustic resort in Oak Creek Canyon – we drove into it on this trip but the sign warned visitors that you needed to be a guest to drive on through, so we didn’t continue. But in order to reach Garland’s Oak Creek Lodge, you have to ford the river (or stream, depending on the time of year). My DH was petrified when we crossed over – I was driving, you see – he worried that the water level was too high. But having been there before, I knew that lots of people, without SUVs surely had forded the stream without a problem. The water was about 10-12 inches deep, I would guess, at the deepest. The river bed is lined in cement so there’s no chance of getting stuck. The photo below was taken just before we  made the return trip. FYI: if you ever want to go there, reserve well in advance (it was mostly full the days we wanted to be here, so we stayed at another place instead). The resort is made up of a bunch of adorable, but rustic cabins. A couple of them very close to the creek. And if you stay at Garland’s, dinner and breakfast are included.

Garland’s Oak Creek Lodge
8067 N State Route 89A
Sedona, AZ 86336-9696 (located several miles up highway 89A from Sedona, very secluded)

Where we stayed, near Sedona:
Canyon Villa B&B
40 Canyon Circle Dr
Sedona, AZ 86351 (in the Village of Oak Creek, south of Sedona)
The Canyon Villa is a modern B&B, with gorgeous views of the red rocks of Sedona. It’s lovely, and the owners are very gracious. The rooms are beautiful. Romantic. Canyon Villa is not in the busy, touristy part of town. We drove through that part, but didn’t stop except to see another resort (read below).  There are plenty of good restaurants in town. Trails to hike upon. And Navajo rug stores. And trinket shops with questionable “authentic” Indian jewelry. But it’s peaceful there. The stars are close enough you think you can touch them. We had dinner one night at Fork in the Road. I didn’t take any photos, but I’d highly recommend it. Not cheap. But delicious food.

There’s also another gorgeous place to stay in Sedona. I’ve never stayed there, but an email from Gloria, a new reader of my blog, told me we just had to stop there. L’Auberge de Sedona is within close walking distance of downtown Sedona, but you’d hardly know it since it’s down below town, right on the river’s edge. It’s lush. Expensive. But breathtakingly beautiful.

We’d just had breakfast at our B&B, otherwise we’d have taken my reader’s advice and enjoyed breakfast within a few feet of the rushing stream. I took several pictures there, but these two are representative of the beauty. Just behind where I was standing (the photo below) are numerous wrought-iron tables for dining.

The resort has cabins and rooms, plus first class dining. It would be very nice to stay here. I don’t think I’d ever leave, but rest most hours in that chair with my book at hand. And I’d allow God to speak to me.

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A year ago: Bittersweet Choc Chip Cookies
Two years ago: Chicken Breasts with Spinach and Gorgonzola

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Certainly I knew about Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous American architect. And have, all my life, admired some of the homes he designed. There’s one in Pasadena, I believe, but it’s privately owned. Most of his early life he lived near Oak Park, Illinois. And several homes there were designed by him.

But it wasn’t until I read the book, Loving Frank: A Novel, that I learned more about his life. I wrote about it here on my blog at the time. The book is a history of his love affair with Mamah Cheney. Considering the time (around 1905) it must have been titillating conversation amongst all of the upper crust society. Wright was married and the father of several children. Cheney, also married, had two young children at the time, and she basically abandoned them to be with Wright. The two of them lived together in Europe for awhile, then they returned to the Illinois area and eventually moved to the hinterlands in Wisconsin because it was private and was fenced to keep out tourists and curiosity-seekers. Unfortunately, in the middle of building Taliesin (the one in Wisconsin) there was an horrific fire and murders – in which Mamah and her two children were murdered along with 5 others, by a deranged employee (a kind of butler, or handyman). Wright was devastated, but he never lived long without a woman beside him. He and Mamah were never married, but he did eventually divorce his first wife, Catherine. He married again, was divorced within a short time, and married for the 3rd time to Olgivanna (his last) in 1928. They were married for 31 years.

Suffering from lung issues, he was advised to move to warmer climates, so he began looking, and settled on a large piece of property outside Phoenix, east of Scottsdale. It was several hundred acres, far from civilization at the time (this was the late 1930’s), without power and water as well.

Taliesin (pronounced tal-ee-ess-in, from a Welsh word – Wright was half Welsh) West started out (and still is) an architectural school where Wright convinced promising young students to help him build a magnificent home. He utilized many ideas that were ones he’d mulled in his mind for most of his life. With his apprentices working by day – remember, no electricity –  the home was visualized and constructed over the course of many years. It was mostly open to the air, year ‘round (since his death in 1959 air conditioning was installed). He utilized a kind of white canvas as a roof, which provided diffused light and cover. The main living room has the canvas covers (but has some kind of clear roofing over it) which did provide a warm, soft light.

The house had spacious living areas, all utilizing quartzite stone and cement, redwood (which all had to be replaced eventually since redwood does not survive in dry climates). The bedrooms were quite small. There were two theaters, and a huge workroom that is still used for the current architecture students (we saw most of them working when we visited). Wright’s old Steinway piano still sits in the living room (and one of the people on our tour actually sat down and played it, which was very special). The home is very much lived-in. The architecture students have their own little cabin type rooms that dot the landscape – all of these small utilitarian structures were designed and built by students, over the years. Each one is unique. There is a communal dining room (large) and kitchen (where cooking duties are shared by the students on a rotating basis). Wright’s office, a separate structure, was the first room we visited and the guide gave us a good overview of Wright’s life and the kind of work he did there. Almost all of Taliesin West is built on a triangular design – with roof lines that matched the nearby mountain peaks. Everything about Wright’s designs there incorporate nature, the soil, the rocks, with particular attention paid to enhancing the views (which are magnificent from the home).

Photos, clockwise from top left: the main view of Taliesin from one end of the long building (notice the unusual shapes to the roofline); A pond just outside the back of the living quarters; the view from the breezeway that separates the main living quarters on the left and the communal dining room, kitchen and the workrooms toward the right; one of the many petro glyphs unearthed during the construction of Taliesin.

Photographs aren’t permitted in the living room and bedrooms, so I snapped some photos around the grounds, which you can see above.

Photo at right is a sculpture on the grounds (not Wright’s work, but done by a full-time artist-in-residence sculptor at Taliesin.) Our guide was superlative at giving us an in-depth explanation about the man and his life. Very impressive, I thought. During the tour itself the guide did not mention Mamah Cheney, but when someone asked where Wright is buried, she told the story. (And by the way, the book, Loving Frank, was not apparent anywhere in the Taliesin bookstore.) What was interesting, is that after Wright died in 1959, his request was that he be buried next to Mamah Cheney (remember, he had been married for more than 30 years to Olgivanna) in Illinois. And he was. BUT, some time later when Olgivanna was very old (and living at Taliesin) and in failing health, she told her minions to unearth Frank Lloyd Wright from his grave in Illinois and bring his body to Arizona. Nobody was consulted, and it sounded like the act was done in dark of night within hours of Olgivanna’s request. Following her death, at her request, their bodies were both cremated, the ashes comingled and the ashes were buried in some unknown place at Taliesin West. Our guide said that she thought someone knew (someone who is part of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, the entity that runs both Taliesins and the architectural school), but it’s kept top secret.

It was a fascinating tour, but even more so because I’d read the book about Wright and Mamah Cheney. I’d highly recommend you do so also, and then go visit one or more of Wright’s homes or buildings. And if you’re ever in the Scottsdale area, you should visit Taliesin West.

A year ago: Margaritas
Two years ago: Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Dried Cherries and Oatmeal

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We’re on our way home. The car’s nose is headed south, like she knows where she’s going. We got on the 5 fwy and have been on it for two days. And we’re still only in southern Oregon as I write this. Here are some photos I’ve snapped along the way. Above is a small lake just below the Olympia (Oregon) State Capitol building. We had dinner at a restaurant almost in its shadow.

The Peace Arch at the U.S. – Canada border. We sat in line for about an hour to get back onto U.S. soil and during one of the long wait periods I hopped out of the car and took this picture. There were hundreds of people having family picnics near here. It’s a lovely park. Just not much fun when you’re waiting. And waiting. The cars are at a dead stop. They allow cars through in groups of about 40-50, then you crawl forward car by car.

See the small Canadian flag done in flowers over on the right side?

 We spent the night in Olympia at a fairly nondescript B&B. Not memorable enough to even mention. But they recommended dinner at the Waterstreet Cafe. Very nice food. I had a bread salad (picture right). And I had a glass of delish prosecco (sparkling Italian wine).

This morning we headed out to visit friends of ours who own a winery near Salem. Stay tuned for more info and photos about that. We have been in solid rain all day, but will be breaking out into the hot California sunshine tomorrow.

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It’s a cloudy, overcast and foggy day. But no rain. We’ve had phenomenal weather on this 7-day cruise. Can’t complain about that one bit. Today we’re at sea all day, between Ketchikan and Vancouver, to arrive tomorrow morning (Saturday). At the moment it’s cool outside, probably about 55 or 60 degrees. I snapped several pix this morning as we cruised by some islands in the Inland Passage.

I was enamored with the little topknot on that one pine tree. These islands are just barely above sea level, all covered in trees.

Here was another little bitty island. Cute as a bug, eh? I thought so. There are some homes (few and far between) on an island or two – much bigger islands than this one. All accessed by boat since we’d see a tiny dock and one or possibly two small boats with outboards. One with a small wind machine. There has been zero wind today

Tomorrow morning we get off the ship early. Very early, actually. We have to put our suitcases outside our stateroom door by 1 am. We exit the ship at about 7:30 am, then will take a little minibus to where our car has been parked all week (a short distance, maybe not more than a couple of blocks, actually) and off we go. Hoping the waiting line at the U.S. border crossing will be short.

So I’ve written up a blog post about all the books I’ve read these past 7 days. Many more than usual. Tomorrow we’re driving south and I will likely write up something about it the next day. We’re headed towards home, but won’t get there for a few more days yet. Thanks for coming along on the photo ride with me.

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This is the Margerie Glacier, deep in Glacier Bay National Park, as far into the Tarr Inlet as you can go, with Mt. Quincy Adams (13,650 feet) and Mt. Salisbury (12,000 feet) in the center distance. In the foreground is the face of the Margerie Glacier, but it continues up with the river of ice through the center of the picture. The temp was about 50 most of the day, but very pleasant sitting in the sunshine.

When we took this cruise last time, years ago, we didn’t have a whole day in Glacier Bay. We came into the Bay during the night, woke up to the massive face of one of the glaciers (not sure which one), hung around for a couple of hours waiting for the glacier to calve. It didn’t, even though the captain sounded the ship’s horn, which sometimes will cause one (and likely the Park officials have laid down the law about trying to cause calving anymore, because the glaciers are receding at such a rapid rate). Back then, we saw some of the whale breeding grounds and did see whales off at a long distance, then we left in order to reach Sitka by early afternoon.

This time we spent the entire day there, from early morning when we picked up some Park Rangers who gave us mini-lectures on the ship’s radio periodically during the day. We “hung out” at the Margerie Glacier (pictured above) for about an hour or so. During that time we could hear the glacier cracking – sounds like gunshots or as rumbly as thunder). An eerie sound. Then hung out a shorter time at the less attractive Grand Pacific Glacier.

This looks like a rock wall, but it’s all glacier. Just black because of all the dirt and rock the glacier picked up when it was growing. Now it’s receding, so it drops small chunks of ice, but when this one calves it looks the same, because it’s so full of dirt and gravel.

This was as close as we were allowed to go in the Johns Hopkins Inlet (Johns Hopkins Glacier is right there in the center as it meets the sea). Harbor seals give birth (the Park Rangers call it pupping) on small icebergs way back in there (the safest place they can birth because of land predators like bears). Except for the ship’s engines, it was ever so quiet.

The Park Rangers spent some time talking about the glaciers. Their makeup, their history, and about the known evolution of them. The map they gave us shows the glacier masses over the course of the last 100 years. They have ebbed and grown, both. But she said that the glaciers receded PRIOR TO the Industrial Revolution, too. That likely thousands of years ago the glaciers did the same thing – receded dramatically. Not that man (and the burning of fossil fuels) hasn’t contributed to it, but they do believe it’s a natural phenomena.

As I’m writing this we’ve actually just docked in Ketchikan (after a long 8 hours or so at sea, when my stomach was not happy because we were actually out in the open ocean). We did see a few killer whales cavorting just beside the ship last night as we were eating dinner. That was fun! But I didn’t have my camera with me. I was concentrating on keeping my stomach under control as we were lightly rolling. Seasickness is just a fact of life for me. Hard to believe I married a man who is a sailor. He’s incredibly patient and understanding with me, though. Even he gets seasick occasionally, although I’ve never seen it happen to him, and we’ve been married for 26 years.

It’s overcast, foggy and cold here in Ketchikan. So don’t know that I’ll have many photos. Stay tuned.

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Ohhh, is that a postcard picture, or what? I think that’s the best photo I’ve taken so far on this trip. That’s the Mendenhall Glacier – well, the glacier is below the trees. We were on a nature walk near there, and just beyond the flowers is the Mendenhall River (the runoff from the glacier). It was a picture perfect day too.

That’s the Mendenhall Glacier. Receding at startling rates, the experts say. We watched half a dozen calfing icebergs as we stood and watched. A young fellow waded out into the river (on the right side near the icebergs) and hugged one of the icebergs, then quickly (shall I say – very quickly) waded back out. He was in the water up to his waist. Brrrrr. The forest ranger said the water temp was about 50. The outside temp was about 83.

In this picture you can see beautiful downtown Juneau. Did you know that Juneau is only accessed by air or boat? There is some bit of town beyond that hill on the left (the road to the glacier), and residential areas across a bridge to the left. But really, that’s it. The governor’s official mansion is here, although I think most state business is conducted in Anchorage. The folks in Juneau were stunned by Sarah Palin’s resignation. Juneau boasts just one fast food restaurant (a McDonald’s), a Wal-Mart (where our guide says a dozen tortillas cost $10 – a form of highway robbery he thought, and he had a few words to say about Wal-Mart’s “discount” shopping vs. truth in advertising), and a Costco. Our guide, Patrick, a young native Californian, moved permanently to Juneau about 2 years ago (he’s a junior high history teacher) after having worked in Denali National Park for 2 years and deciding that the close proximity to nature was where he wanted to be. About the only thing he misses about the lower 48, he said, is Mexican food.

Before we reached Juneau yesterday we went into Tracy Arm, a fjord here in Alaska. This was new territory for us as we did not see it on our previous Alaska cruise. It was really beautiful. It didn’t hurt any that it was a sunny, clear day!

Some buttercups. At least that’s what other people said they were. I’ve never lived in buttercup country, so I wouldn’t know.

Some other people knew they recognized these flowers, but couldn’t name them. However, they said they were the biggest ones they’d ever seen. The picture covers about 18 inches, if want some perspective.

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