I am writing this on Thursday, 9/26. There are no pics.

This is a short post. We are leaving tomorrow morning to visit The Reeds in NC. We will return sometime Monday afternoon. My next post will be sometime next week, and it just *might* have a few pics.

Last week I wrote about the steepest hill I know how to ride — when the road is dry, and how I don’t know how to ride it when the road is wet. That created a cloud in my mind. Today, I rode the hill (on dry roads). End of cloud.

Bud set his moving day. He will move on November 7. He his the furniture layout for his apartment. He knows what he’s taking and what he’s not. The planning people were incredibly helpful, but emotionally, it was a tough day for Bud. Having made these decisions makes the whole thing much more real.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Sunday, 9/22. There are no pics this week.

We’re in the second half of a rare 4-day weekend. We started the extravaganza with an adventure that was a mixed experience. We decided to see a play called “Bell” at the National Geographic theater in DC. Tickets included free parking (always a big selling point for me). Danita was working at Godard Thursday, which is near Greenbelt. Danita and I arranged to meet at the New Deal Restaurant in Roosevelt Plaza (the Greenbelt central plaza) after work. Danita had a hard time finding the place and ended up visiting the less desirable areas of Greenbelt. It turns out that Roosevelt Plaza isn’t the best area. In spite of great reviews, New Deal turned out to be a dump. The food was OK, but the dinner was a definite dud. After dinner, I drove us through downtown DC. I found the traffic to be about what I expected. One could call it invigorating. Danita called it something less complimentary. Fortunately, the play itself was excellent. It was a one-man show which illuminated many facets of Alexander Graham’s life that aren’t generally known. The ride home was every bit as eventful as the ride in, but we managed to avoid any physical modifications to the car.

Friday we went back to DC to visit Hillwood, one of Marjorie Merriweather Post’s houses. She moved into this house in her early 70s, and knew she wanted to make it a museum after her death. The house is amazingly open. When walking into the house, one encounters two Louis XVI desks, each worth millions of dollars. They just sit out in the open, not even behind a rope. Being worth about $5 billion allowed her to make a pretty nice museum. When she renovated the house before moving in, she raised the roof and added a 3rd story. This level was dedicated to storing her clothes. Once a week, her personal maid would review her calendar and bring a selection of appropriate clothes downstairs for her to select from when she dressed. She owned the world’s largest yacht, the Sea Cloud, a tall ship. According to our docent, she was very approachable, had her own eye for art, and had a wonderful sense of humor. After we got home I looked her up and learned she was also hell on husbands, having married and divorced 4. We brought a picnic lunch to avoid the ridiculously expensive cafe. However, I couldn’t avoid having a cup of Postum while I was there. They serve it as a latte. This makes it very palatable. It tastes like warm milk, which makes me wonder why one would bother adding the Postum powder.

Saturday I went on a Columbia Bike-About. Every year, they mark out two routes through the extensive Columbia trail system — one about 10 miles and one much shorter. They put up information about interesting historical sights and generally encourage bikers to have a good time. For those who are more into walking, they also have a heart-walk nearby. This year the Bike-About started at Elkhorn Lake, just 5 miles from our house. So I rode to the Bike-About, rode the 10-mile course, and then rode home. I also picked up a T-shirt, a map of the Columbia trails, and a Columbia trail mapping app, all of which were way cool. The beginning of the ride was a disaster. Huge crowds clustered around the historic information. When the route encountered the first hill, people went off the trail and into the woods in all sorts of directions as riders in front came to a grinding halt and basically fell down while riders behind them tried to avoid accidents. But before long the short and long routes separated. Most of the people who selected the long route were able to ride their bikes, even when going up hill. I met a man who was hauling his 5-year old son in a bike trailer. His ability to climb hills was awesome, considering the extra weight he was towing. I also met a man riding a unicycle. Unicycles don’t have brakes and can’t coast downhill. Mounting and dismounting requires a good amount of space and planning. He was having an exceptionally tough time in the beginning of the ride with all the amateur riders around. But the course was well marked. The historical stops were interesting. The weather was good. It was a good time.

Saturday evening we went to the SOCA volunteer dinner. This dinner is free, and it has fewer attendees than many of the other neighborhood activities. Danita and I were taken by how conforming the crowd was. The majority of our neighborhood is White, but we have a large number of Indians, Orientals, and Blacks. Everybody at the volunteer dinner was White except for one Black couple.

Today we are looking foward to a BSO concert followed by dinner at Pierpont Restaurant in Baltimore. (Did you notice how Danita cleverly arranged the activities to avoid cooking?)

Monday will be the last day of our weekend. Bud signed a contract on a condo. Danita will spend the day at Bud’s house. A woman from the condo will stop by in the afternoon to measure furniture and suggest a layout. A lot of stuff has to happen between now and when Bud moves. His goal is to move by early October. One of the very nice things the condo (and other Erickson communities) have done is to arrange things so folks can move before they sell their house. They recommend that new residents live in their new condos for a couple of weeks before listing their house. It makes it very easy to make adjustments in what furniture and other things stay or go, and reduces the stress of the move quite a bit.

That’s a lot of news for one week. For those who are not in the loop, Mom reports that Glenn is making a tremendous recovery in rehab. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Sunday, 9/15. There are no pics this week.

This was a busy week for our neighborhood IT-wise.  Our social director was having problems with her Email password. Her assistant resigned and a temporary starts Monday. These sound like they should be simple issues, but the Email is through our web site which is managed by another guy. Decisions have to be approved by a nebulous group of people. Between traveling and other commitments, it can take some time to get everybody to investigate their part, make suggestions, get approval, and things done. Then there are the emergencies. I made an appointment to work on one of the computers at 9:30 Thursday morning. When I arrived, I found that one of the residents lost her internet connection and needed the computer to work on the neighborhood newsletter. In the mean time, her husband was trying to connect to the internet using the clubhouse Wi-Fi, to prove the problem wasn’t with their computer. Unfortunately, our Wi-Fi wasn’t working, but I couldn’t fix that because it would have disrupted the wife. Never the less, it looks like everything will be squared away as soon as I can get in the club house tomorrow morning to wrap up some loose ends.

It was good to get back into bike riding this week. I decided to take my hill-training 60-some mile ride around Liberty Reservoir Friday. We had a good rain Thursday night. The forecast was for great weather Friday — clearing in the morning with the sun coming out in the afternoon and temperatures rising to the low 70s. Shortly after I started the ride, there was some light showers before the sky finally cleared. My favorite hill is at mile 13. It’s not long, but it’s steep. It’s so steep that I have to focus on keeping my front wheel on the ground. Unfortunately, I failed to fully consider the effects of a damp road. I was pushing up the steepest part of the hill when all of a sudden, my wheels broke loose, and down I went. That’s how it happened that at mile 13 on Friday the 13th, I got a boo-boo. I’ve heard of people falling down while riding too fast downhill, but I never heard of anybody falling down riding uphill before. Fortunately, the only damage was a few abrasions. My first aid kit was up to the job, and I was able to finish the ride. While I was taking care of my business, a car came buy. I noticed the driver had problems with his wheels slipping as he drove up the hill, so I didn’t feel quite so bad.

We took Mark out to breakfast this morning. We tried a new restaurant. It had very good food, but small portions. That’s fine for Danita and me, but Mark went home to eat something afterwards. We’ll finish up our weekend with a neighborhood party this evening.

Danita and I are pleased to hear the Glenn got out of the hospital in less than a week. He’s now in rehab. I talked to him very briefly today. He seems to be focused on how much is left to do in his recovery, but I think that getting out of the hospital is a major step forward and worthy of celebration.

The rehab center has an excellent reputation and is only 10 miles from their home. These people practice tough love. As Mom says, “No more sitting around in a hospital gown and being served meals in bed. Everyone there dresses in regular clothes and has to go to the dining room or the cafeteria for their meals.”

I hope Glenn continues his excellent progress and that this finds everybody else doing well.

I am writing this on Tuesday, 9/10.

We spent a day and a half of our vacation in Anchorage. Some of the things we would like to have seen were closed. Saturday, we saw the Anchorage Museum. It’s a combination art museum, Native American culture museum, and science center. The Native American exhibit was done in conjunction with the Smithsonian. The quality, quantity, and general tenor of the exhibit were all excellent. The science center section had some really fun toys. There weren’t a lot of people there. We weren’t the only adults playing with the exhibits.

We stayed at a most unusual B & B Saturday evening. The owners had added on to their house to create several suites. We had a complete private suite with bedroom, bath, living room, kitchen, and eating area. The furnishings were high quality. The breakfast was good. We took advantage of the DVDs offered by the host couple to watch a movie in our room Saturday evening. It was nice having a relaxing evening.

View from Kincaid Park

Sunday we visited the air museum. A couple of the bush pilot exhibits showed promise, but overall the museum was underwhelming. The museum had write-ups on several of the more famous bush pilots. It seems that being a bush pilot was kind of like being a red-shirt in Star Trek. They all died young in airplane accidents. The rain stopped, so we finished our vacation with a hike in Kincaid Park.

The overnight flight home was broken into three segments of 3 to 4 hours. Danita was able to sleep quite a bit. I took several cat naps. Our vacation was blessed with untroubled travel. No flights were delayed. No baggage was lost. Danita lost one very inexpensive earring. I lost a pair of flip-flops. We had one issue with the rental car which could have been serious but wasn’t. The oil warning light turned on on our drive back from Denali State Park. I haven’t seen an oil light turn on in many years. There wasn’t room to get off the road, but I pulled over, turned the engine off, then turned it on again. The light stayed off. Fortunately, we weren’t far from a gas station. (That’s not always true in Alaska). The oil was a quart low. I was quite surprised because our car had only 10,000 miles on it. It made me wonder how much maintenance these rental cars received.

We got home about Noon Monday. Danita was tired and I was exhausted. I kept on falling asleep. We got everything squared away Monday afternoon and enjoyed a good night’s sleep last night. Everything is back to normal. This was an excellent vacation which we won’t soon forget.

This is our last day in Talkeetna. Usually on a day like today, I feel like I had a really great time but it’s time to move on. This time, I feel like I’m going to miss Talkeetna. It was raining when we woke. It rained most the day, but cleared up a little bit after dinner. We started our day with a yoga class. This was by the same woman, but instead of being in the yurt, it was in the community center. The yurt was a better place for yoga.

On the Hurricane Turn Train

We didn’t want to hike this afternoon. We had done a good amount of hiking, and the rain was showing no signs of letting up. We decided to ride the Hurricane Turn Train. It offers an old, but not historic train. It has no food and no beverages. It takes 6 hours to go to nowhere and back. And it is a total blast. There are fewer regulations than we expected. Passengers are free to bring lunch or snacks, and as the ticket seller coyly stated, “any beverage you want”. There is a time and a place for cheap red wine and plastic glasses.

Twisted Creek

Of course there’s the beautiful country, and crazy Alaskans, and tourists in the mood to have a good time. But this is also a working train. It is the last flag stop train service in the US. The people that live out in this area have no roads and rely on the train for transportation. It runs daily during the summer. In the winter, it runs once a month Thursday – Sunday. Most residents come in to town Thursday, do their shopping, then return Saturday or Sunday. Today one of our flags was from a couple of hunters at Twisted Creek that couldn’t start a fire, got water logged, and decided to return early. The area was so pretty, most of the passengers decided to get off and look around. The train waited until we were ready to move on.

Mayor of Gold Creek with Wife and Daughter

The train publishes a schedule with names like Chase (12:27), Curry (12:50), and 5 more “towns”. In fact, none of these are towns. Curry is a ghost town. Most of the rest are a house or two. The few that are a village can’t be seen from the tracks. In a couple of places, somebody put up a shed to use as shelter while waiting for the train. There are no stops at any of these places unless somebody flags the train down. Gold Creek normally has a population of 2. Today their daughter is visiting, increasing the population 50%.

View from Baggage Car

There is a sign that passengers are not permitted in the baggage car, but nobody pays it any attention. The train got in trouble because the baggage doors were always open and it wasn’t safe, so they bought some netting and strung that across the doorway. Then they got in trouble because there weren’t any emergency exits. (This with an open baggage door on either side of the car.) The conductor has a coffee pot in the baggage car, and offers anybody a cup for $0.75, honor system.

Hanging in the Baggage Car

The baggage car is more popular with the guys. But just about everybody comes back when there’s something exciting to photograph or see — such as a stretch of river with at least 50 salmon visible. (This is no exaggeration, and I have the photo to prove it.) There was very little other game, because this is hunting season. Those animals aren’t dumb, after all. But if an interesting critter does show up, they stop the train until everybody is happy that they have their pictures. Heck, they’ll even back the train up if that’s what’s needed for a great picture.

Hurricane Gulch

The highlight of the trip is Hurricane Gulch. If the weather is good enough, they stop the train on the bridge and let people take pictures out the baggage car doors. When everybody is happy, the train reverses course to return to Talkeetna.

Tomorrow morning we’ll have our last Road House breakfast, then amble down to Anchorage.

I am writing about Thursday, 9/6

Fall Colors

I have to explain. There are two Denali Parks. The state park is to the south. It is only 30 miles from Talkeetna as the crow flies; 60 miles following the roads. To the north is the federal park It’s a 3-hour drive from our hotel. Today, when I say “Denali”, I mean the federal park. Three hours in, three hours out, plus time at the park makes for a long day. We decided that one long day was better than a hotel here plus a hotel there. With one day at Denali, we had to drive the miles in either case. Still, it was a long day. We got up at 4 and got to bed at 11.

Before we left on vacation, Mark wrote about how he saw 5 moose on his travels out west this summer, so that was the number to beat. Beat it we did, thanks to the excellent Denali buss drivers. So far on our trip we saw:

• 1 marmot
• 2 ground squirrels
• several salmon spawning
• 3 grouse
• several loons
• 2 golden eagles
• 3 willow ptarmigan (Alaska state bird)
• over a dozen Dale sheep
• 8 bears
• 5 caribou
• 6 moose

Bear

That’s quite a list. Everything from the eagles down we saw in one day at Denali. We had perfect weather when we wanted it. It rained on the drive out. It rained on the drive back. Once we arrived in Denali the weather was clearing up. It got sunny. The temperature rose to the mid-50s. And the weather stayed nice until we got in the car to go home. As an additional bonus, we were in Denali for the peak of the fall colors. It’s not fall foliage. Most of Denali is above the tree line. Those few areas that have trees are 90% evergreens. But the scrub (ground cover) has riot of reds, yellows, browns, and greens in the fall. The color change lasts only two weeks, and totally by accident we were right smack dab in the middle of it.

Moose

Private cars are banned from most of Denali. Most of our day was spent riding a tourist bus  to the Eielson visitor center. It’s about 60 miles. With the slow driving, stops for animal sightings, and rest stops it takes about 9 hours. Think  of a school bus, but with good heat. There’s no A/C for the summer time. But the scenery is fabulous and everybody is in a good mood (even the drivers).We got off the bus near the end of the day and did a little hiking. It just wouldn’t be possible to have a better day than this.

Hike

I am writing this on Wednesday, 9/4.

Yoga at the Yurt (Where’s my treat?)

We started the day out with a light breakfast. (Raspberry-chocolate chip scones. Yummy!) Then we went off to find the Yoga Yurt. They often don’t have addresses around here. They’ll say “Go to mile 10 of the Talkeetna Spur Road, turn onto Pow Wow Road. and go 1/4 mile. You can’t miss it.” We didn’t miss the yurt, but the dog sure did miss the treat we didn’t know to bring. It rained heavily all morning, but listening in the rain from inside the yurt while doing yoga was quite pleasant. After yoga, we took care of such prosaic business as grocery store food and gas for the car. By the time we got back, it was Noon.

XYZ Lake

Talkeetna has 3 lakes. Their names are “X”, “Y”, and “Z”. Nobody seems to know which lake has which name, but the lake in the center has a trail going around it. The rain had stopped, so we went out to walk around the lake. When we got there, the rain started up, then got quite heavy, and we went back to the car. Once we were in the car, the rain stopped and we decided to try the hike. Persistence pays. We did the hike with a minimum of rain.

A Pond near the Lake

We spent some time resting when we got back. Then it was off to the Wildflower Cafe for dinner. This restaurant is in downtown, which is to say it’s a reak short walk. Their chef is supposed to have been the chef for President Bush, Sr. Personally, I’m skeptical because he serves broccoli, and we all know what Bush thought about broccoli. Whatever the story about the chef, the food was excellent. It’s real good food in a real informal atmosphere. (Our water was served in real Ball jars.)

This evening, we are sequestered in our room, enjoying a bottle of genuine Alaska Strawberry Rhubarb wine and some Planter’s cashews. The wine is about as good as it sounds, but hey, we’re in Alaska. I guess if I had to live through winters where the temperature dipped to -30, I would come to think of this as good wine along with about everybody else around here.

Lake XYZ

While hiking around the lake, I was able to get most of the pictures I missed in our hike yesterday. They’re posted as small pics below because they are yesterday’s news. If you want to look at any of them, just click the pic to make it bigger.

1. Don’t eat the mushrooms with gills in the bottom. Eat the ones with a smooth bottom with dimples. 2.  This prickly plant has sharp spines on the bottom of the leaves. The spines are barbed. If you grab one, you will feel very uncomfortable until the spines drop out in about two weeks. 3. This plant contains silica and makes an excellent scrub pad for pots and pans. 4. Once a year this “pipe cleaner” plant grows a seed pod top which ignites very easily. Early photographers used these seed pods to create their flash.

Mushrooms

Prickly Plant

Scrub Brush Plant

Pipe Cleaner Plant

I’m writing about Tuesday, 9/3. (We got back late and I’m writing early Wed morning.)

Looks edible, but it’s not. (Check the bottom. Gills are bad.)

The forecast in this area is for rain. Every hour of every day. For as long as the forecast runs. But even when the forecast is not good, the weather is very unpredictable. The rain stopped and the sun came out most of the morning. We enjoyed walking around Talkeetna and visiting the shops. It’s not a big town, but it’s big on the tourist list. This is the shoulder season, but we saw 3 tour busses of people visiting. There’s a large ranger station here. Before climbing Mount McKinley, people must register at this ranger station and attend an orientation session. This station is the base for rangers who rotate working on the mountain, enforcing sanitation regulations and offering assistance to climbers in trouble. We visited the Talkeetna Historical Society’s museum. We saw all the shops and most of the art galleries. The Road House (where we’re staying) is quite popular for their food and bakery, both with the locals and with the tourists. There are plenty of people here all the time, and they’re always in good spirits.

Rose Hips, high in vitamins and good stuff. Can be made into wine!

This afternoon we had a hike in Denali State Park with a guide. Our guide was very knowledgeable and quite friendly. The rain started shortly after we started and lasted until we were almost done. We walked around Byers Lake. It’s not the usual route for this hike, but there’s been a lot of rain lately and the trails are muddy and slick, making the normal route undesirable. I got some pics on the first half of the hike. After that, things started getting pretty wet and I moved my camera to the depths of my pack, where it would be sure to stay dry.

Lichen looks like Spanish Moss, but it does not harm the trees

The Grizzly fur (circled) shows this tree was used as a scratching post

We We didn’t see any large mammals, But we saw plenty of evidence of them, including trees where Grizleys scratched themselves while fishing for salmon. Near the end of the hike, we saw salmon spawning.

This plant has neural toxins and is fatal if eaten. Just touching the leaves while eating berries can cause illness. 

The guide said this is a poisonous plant. We accepted her word on the point.

These are unnamed foothills, since they were under the snow line of 8,000 feet

I am writing this on Monday, 9/2 (Labor Day).

That’s what the license plates say, and this trip has been a grand adventure so far. If you prefer a more cynical title, I suggest “Alaska: Beautiful Country, Ugly Houses”. As much fun as we are having visiting, I wouldn’t want to live here. We’ve been noodling this trip for many months. We certainly were not like the couple Danita saw at the Anchorage airport who were calling hotels: “Do you have a room? Do you have shuttle service to the airport?” We got settled in our hotel bed about Midnight AK time (that’s 3 AM EST).

These Anchorage Mountains were an Emergency

Cliff Ahead, Stay on Trail

The first order of business today was to pick up our rental car. When I made the reservation, I decided the only car to drive in Alaska is an SUV. Ours ended up being a perfectly adequate Subaru. On the shuttle from the hotel to the rental car agency, we got our first peak at the mountains just north of Anchorage. The way the mountains were playing hide and seek with the low-lying clouds was quite dramatic. Not long after we got on the road, the clouds suddenly changed and covered the mountains so thoroughly that one couldn’t tell the mountains were there. A few minutes later, the clouds had parted and the mountains were clearly visible. The signs said not to pull over except in case of emergency. This dramatic shift in scenery was an emergency to me. That’s how we got the pic above. The weather continued being incredibly changeable. About 15 minutes later, a very strong wind hit, nearly blowing us out of our late. A few minutes later, the wind died completely. And so it went.

Thunderbird Gorge

Not far out of Anchorage, we saw signs for Thunderbird Waterfall. We decided to walk the 1-mile trail to the falls. We found that Alaska has three tacks to get people to stay on the trail: 1) Authority – “Stay on Trail”. 2) Ecology – “Prevent Erosion, Stay on Trail”. 3) Safety – “Cliff Ahead, Stay on Trail.” None of these are particularly effective against Alaskans, as we learned when we took an unofficial but well worn side trail to a very dramatic and unprotected cliff. Most of the land between Danita and the edge of the cliff had been undercut! This is a beautiful area.

Mushroom

The species of trees and bushes is different than what one would find in the Appalachians, but the area has the same feel as any woodland area one might find on the east coast. This brightly-colored red mushroom was common in the area.

Su River

Our next destination was Hatcher Pass and the Independence Gold Mine. It took us quite a long time to get there, because we kept on stopping at pull-overs. This view of the Su river is typical of some of the dramatic scenery we saw. Finally, when we were close to Hatcher Pass, I said, “I’m not going to stop again until we reach Hatcher Pass”. Of course, I almost immediately saw an astounding view and I had to pull over and stop.

Hatcher Pass Lodge

Independence Gold Mine

Hatcher Pass lived up to its reputation. The scenery in this part if Alaska is astounding. The view at Hatcher Pass is stunning. The road to Hatcher Pass has one lane in each direction. They placed signs all along the road telling people not to stop. Never the less, when we first saw it, I had to slow down dramatically. I got the pic above from a pull-over a little further down the road. Independence Gold Mine is just behind the lodge.

Looking back through the Fireweed on Hatcher Pass

We weren’t the only ones to have a problem keeping our car moving at Hatcher Pass. We had lunch at the Hatcher Pass Lodge with another stunning view, this time looking back on the way we had come. After taking in the view for quite a while, we finally noticed that just about every car that came up the road either slowed dramatically or stopped all together. One man stopped, got out of his car, and walked around taking pictures. We were there on a cloudy day at the end of the season. This road must be a mess in the summer time.

We arrived at our final destination, the Talkeetna Road House, about 3:30. Danita was tired and I was exhausted. We rested until dinner and went across the street for some excellent calzone. We had been dodging the rain all day. We had been lucky in missing the rain while we were hiking around. But the rain became steady as we got to Talkeetna. My initial impression is that Talkeetna is the perfect hippy town. Well it’s time for me to visit the bakery at the front of our road house. It’s been many long years since I have seen rhubarb pie. Yum!