Goldie Hawn, and Larry & John Muir

You may be wondering what these three people have in common. Not much! In fact, two of them aren't actually the correct names! They are, correct or not, the three most often mentioned people on our Alaskan trip.

I would have imagined that the first reference would have been obvious, but I realized after the fact that I had the name wrong! What I was imagining was the original Overboard movie, the part where the yacht turns around, and the actress, in her satin pajamas and sleep mask slides right out of bed. I thought it was Goldie Hawn, but the more I think about it, I think it was the actress that played her mother. I was TERRIFIED that this would happen during the night. Consequently I slept in a tight little ball, waiting to fall out of bed. As you may assume, I did not fall out, though I did talk about the possibility nearly nightly. I will say that the only two times that I really felt the ocean was at night. There's no one to confirm that because Louise sleeps like a rock, but I did hear people talking about it at breakfast the next morning (affirmation that I didn't make it up!).  ;)

The bottom line, is I didn't fall out of bed, nor did I need the plethora of sea-sickness items I brought with me. I had these fetching glasses with me, Bonine, Dramamine, ginger in two forms, and two prescriptions for anti-nausea. Don't you sort of wish that I had walked around the boat with these on everyday? It's okay to laugh right out loud... ;)

As you may have read in one of the other blogs, I was reading a lot about John Muir, and becoming reacquainted with him and his "work" with glaciers. And I was sharing all my information with my travel buddy.  Only here's the tricky part: my chemistry teacher in high school was named Larry Muir, and his name just kept rolling off my tongue!

I don't remember much about Larry, but one memory I will never forget. My high school had a Monday morning meeting where we sat by advisory. My advisor was adamant that we didn't get seated until everyone arrived. So we were late walking in, the announcements had begun, and the only seats left were on the top row. I went up first, and here's where this story starts.  The left two legs of my chair were not totally on the platform. And I fell. I think I screamed. I know I was wearing a dress. I know that because I will never forget when it fell over my face on the way down, blocking my view of my white Sam & Libby flats (LOL). But the embarrassing part came when I hit the floor. I landed on my lab partner, and broke his fingers or his hand or his something. Everything's blurry after that mortification. Cautionary tale, kids: sit with your advisory or you might be hit by falling people! And wear pants.  Always wear pants. The next morning as chemistry class began, Larry took a look around - I was limping in the door with a VERY swollen hip, and David showed up with a cast on. Larry gave a nervous laugh, and announced we should switch up the lab partners. LOL. So while Larry is forever ensconced in my memory, it's not for his knowledge of glaciers, though he got a lot of credit for them on this trip!

What fascinated me so much about John Muir was what he was able to deduce using maps, and his theories on how glaciers behaved. He had maps from when Vancouver went through (roughly 100 years prior), and compared those with what he was witnessing first hand. As early as the late 1800s, he was making a call for the conservation of our wild places. It's troubling that over 100 years later, we are still exploring this topic. But along with conservation, he was adamant that we get out and play in the dirt, that we connect with nature:

"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountain is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."

Happy Sigh.

So, travelers, that was our trip!  Every adventure and visit I've had to Alaska has been different, and all have been amazing. If you haven't been to Alaska, go! If you've been, go again; chances are there's something new to see. :)

"I have seen the sun rise over Paris, above the ruins of Machu Picchu, and on the horizon of an elephant-dotted African savanna, and none of them can equal the dawn breaking in Glacier Bay."
~Mark Adams, Tip of the Iceberg

That's (finally) it for us! Until next time...

💚

Skagway

Alaska has always called to me, as I think it does to other travelers. When landing in Anchorage, the Chugach mountains are always bigger than I had remembered, and the greenery more lush than I had imagined. I had only been to southeast Alaska once, in high school. We spent a week in Metlakatla for a church trip. In the history of my life, I have never gotten up on purpose just to be, except for that week. The church had a large set of stairs that I sat on each morning, just taking it all in. The scenery begs to be painted, climbed, written about, and explored.

This brings us to Skagway.

Skagway was borne of the Klondike Gold Rush. We've all heard of the Chilkoot Trail, right? Skagway is home to the sister trail, the White Pass Trail. Hundreds of thousands of hopeful gold seekers started their journey in Skagway. Well, I mean, they didn't start here, but here's where the real journey began.  Men would gather supplies, and haul them up the mountain, where they would build a boat and float down the Yukon to Dawson City, where the gold was supposedly to be found. Fun fact: most of the prospectors in the Klondike Gold Rush traveled there roughly two years after gold was originally found. By the time they got there, most of the creek claims had already been taken, leaving no place for the newcomers. Not so fun fact: the alternate name for this trail is "The Dead Horse Trail". Ew.  About 3,000 horses and other pack animals died along the trail, mostly from starvation. :(  You'll be happy to know that there is not a picture for that terrible fact!

Nowadays, there's a train that goes up the mountain, parallel to the original trail. So many men, horses and wagons traveled the route, that the trail is clearly visible from the train. And it's a tiny trail. It's difficult to imagine a horse and wagon fitting on the trail, and nearly impossible to imagine two way traffic.

At the top of White Pass, it's only 3,000 feet in elevation, but it's a true alpine type ecosystem. The trees are shorter, the shrubs heartier, and there are lots of lush meadows. It's so beautiful. At the US/Canadian border, we left the train, and took a bus through the northern edge of British Columbia and into the Yukon Territory.

We doubled back on the same road and stopped at the Yukon Suspension Bridge which goes across the Tutshi Canyon.  Talk about magnificent! And a little terrifying. ;) It was extremely bouncy, and while there were tall fenced sides, there wasn't an actual handrail.  But again, it was so beautiful. T&L have been to a lot of amazing places in our lives, particularly this year. Who knew this was all but in our backyard?

On the way back, we saw people biking back down the South Klondike Highway. How much fun would that be? I'd also like to drive all the way to Whitehorse one day. And the bucket list grows.

Back at the ship, Thelma was sunburned and a little overheated, and she took a nap. Louise opted for her own adventure which included a walk around town and ice cream. Isn't vacationing grand?

Dawes Glacier and Juneau

This morning we got up at the crack of dawn to see Dawes Glacier. Well, it's Alaska in the summer, so it wasn't really the crack of dawn, but it was early for this girl!

We darted down the Endicott Arm Fjord (as much as a cruise ship can dart) just after 6am, arriving at Dawes Glacier around 7am. The crack of dawn these days in Alaska is about 3:30, so this was at least several hours later! One of us does early mornings, and the other need a reason to rise. ;) This was reason enough. The fjord is wide enough for a cruise ship, but not heavily traveled. There was a much smaller boat behind us, taking advantage of our iceberg-clear wake.

Something I didn't know about glacial silt is that it doesn't settle, but is suspended within the water, giving the water the milky depression glass look.  I'm sure there's more science behind it, but the bottom line is that the water is beautiful, and has this cloudy quality that is hard to describe. It makes you think the water is shallow since you can see the silt. Of course, if a cruise ship is coming through, it can't be that shallow! In addition to beautiful water, there were icebergs and plenty of harbor seal pups along the way.  The ship made many icebergs flip all the way over, dumping many a harbor seal in to the water!

At the end of the arm was Dawes Glacier. I have had many opportunities to teach about glaciers in the course of 21 years. Many of the demonstrations or experiments included rubbing ice cubes on gravel. As you can imagine, that did not increase much understanding. The book I'm currently reading (Tip of the Iceberg) discusses how John Muir hypothesized that glacier carving existed, and used changing maps to support his thinking. That coupled with seeing the paths of these glaciers is helping me have a whole new understanding. I'd love to tell you when this glacier surged, and how far it has receded, but Wikipedia is quiet, and TripAdvisor does not seem reliable for this kind of info. ;)  I think it can be assumed that the fjord was once a glacier, and that the water that exists there now is from the receding glacier path. Something else I learned was the the noise that the glaciers make is not always due to calving. Some of the noise is escaped oxygen, escaping sort of like a bubble as the pressure releases to the surface.

After viewing the glacier and fjord for a couple of hours, we had breakfast, and then I took a very lengthy nap. First, I was tired! And second, I was patched up for our later whale watching tour, and while the patch works (motion sickness), it makes me incredibly tired.

We pulled in to Juneau about noon, and we had a whale watching tour scheduled for 2pm. It was beautiful in Juneau today -- sparkling water, and almost 70 degrees. We took a whale watching tour that was a Citizen Science tour. What that means is that the tour company works with scientists who are researching specific phenomena, and provide data to them.

Our first science check was pulling up a crab pot. They are tracking an invasive species - the European Green Crab.  It first showed up in San Francisco in the 1980s, and has made it as far as British Columbia. So far, there has not been a presence detected in Alaska, but they check daily. We hauled up a crab pot, and found nothing but sculpin and starfish. The lady I was hauling the crab pot up with had never seen a starfish before in person. It was stuck to the outside of the pot, and the guide asked her to pick it up. She had no idea how to handle it; turns out we know stuff being Coasties!

Onward to the whale watching. It was a beautiful day, and the whales were out, and showing their tales! Remember that great science at Medina Elementary called "Voyage of the Mimi"? Okay, maybe you all didn't love it, but I did!  And just like those videos, we identified whales based on their flukes! It was amazing, and we saw these three whales up close and personal. Our captain was great -- giving us great views, and keeping a safe distance, but these whales were playing around! Got amazing shots, but also just got to experience these awesome creatures. They were all around, and the sounds of their breathing was magical (and at times startling!).

Well, the iLounge on the ship is right above tonight's live music. I think it's karaoke; mom thinks the band is just warming up. Either way, it's NOT Carrie Underwood down there! We have to be up early for our train out of Skagway, so we are happily going to call it a night.  More adventures tomorrow!