There are no pics this week. It was an easy week.

Our neighborhood is doing some repairs on our houses. They found that a board outside and above the sliding doors to the deck is not weathering well. They tend to collect water and rot. They had a work crew go around and cover these with metal. Ours was covered today. The workmen did a wonderful job.

You will remember we re-did our deck. The rest of the neighborhood decided the problems with our decks can’t be ignored any longer. Their repair is not nearly as nice as what we did. And I have no idea what it will look like in several years. But it should solve the problem. *My* problem is to make sure the workmen don’t accidently “fix” our deck. I have signs up in English and Spanish reminding them not to fix or paint our deck. It looks like they will be done this week. Then I’ll be able to remove the signs and clean the back porch.

We had some terrific weather last week. I rode every day through Thursday. We had our normal dinner out Thursday evening. Friday was cloudy and threatening rain. Danita stayed home to get some medical tests done. We took advantage of a lazy day and had breakfast out.

Saturday was the Columbia “Bike About”. They lay out a 20 mile route, mostly on paved trails. They have stops at points of interest. Tons of volunteers direct traffic, lay out the route, and in general make sure everything goes smoothly. The weather cleared enough to make rain unlikely. The ride was a lot of fun.

Today, after our normal Church and breakfast, we went to a BSO concert. After the concert, we took a second dinner out. Life is hard!

I mentioned earlier that my laptop was broken. The case had come apart. The top and bottom units were separated. I was able to prop the display up and use the laptop while we were in Alaska. When we got back, I contacted HP. They agreed to fix the laptop for free. I’ve had several problems with this computer over the last 16 months. I decided to get a new Dell Latitude and E-bay the HP. The new Dell is great. I don’t know what I’ll get for the HP. Apparently I’m not the only one who has had problems with this HP model. But there’s already been two bids. So it will definitely be sold at 2:00 Saturday afternoon.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

No Door Knobs!

Is this true or is it fabricated? I don’t know for sure, but it’s my memory and I’m sticking to it. When I was young, the world was so simple that parents didn’t have enough to worry about. That’s why they made stuff up. For example, the schools asked children to draw a picture of a house. Then they reported psychological profiles back to the parents. The worst thing a child could do was to leave the door knob off the door. This more-or-less implied the child was in danger of becoming the uni-bomber. I remember this because that’s exactly what I did. After *that* lecture, I made sure to always put a doorknob on the doors of my houses. But what if an architect built houses without doorknobs .. or even front doors? What does that mean? This is a picture of the *fronts* of houses in a development I rode through this week. There’s an alley between the garages. I suppose there might be a door at the back of the alley, but you sure can’t see it from the street. I have to admit, it looks unfriendly.

This was not a laid-back week for us. Besides escaping from uni-bomber neighborhoods, I cleaned the deck and garage and Bruced the floors. I still have the porch under the deck to go. Danita did a major food shopping trip and a cooking marathon. (We still had almost no food in the house from our cruise and my shortened trip to NY.) We helped out at a Church dinner to raise funds for our sister parish in Haiti Friday night. We had a neighborhood Caribbean Night at the clubhouse Saturday night. And Sunday was a money counting day for me at our Church. It’s a good thing I came back from NY early. There were only three of us available to count. That’s the minimum size crew. If I hadn’t shown up, they wouldn’t have been able to count. In addition to all that, I moved a copy of our website to my laptop. Now I can experiment with new features without disturbing the public website. And I am getting a daily backup of our website.

The food at the Caribbean night was quite good. The highlight was skewers with spicy pineapple and shrimp. The live music was provided by a one man band. From very black skin to dreadlocks, he certainly looked the part of a Caribbean steel drum musician. He sang, played the steel drum, and had a recording for backup music. He did all the famous Caribbean songs and it all meshed perfectly. The music was quite good. He performed for two hours without a break.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Lake Luzerne Motel

After a long but uneventful drive, I arrived in Lake Luzerne. I got a hotel room at the first place I tried. $80 / night includes access to this lake, including the boats. This is definitely an old vacation stay place. The room is quite basic. But it’s clean and dry.

Driving up I couldn’t help notice that I went right by New Paltz. That’s where I holed up in a hostel for 3 rainy days on my “Baltimore to Bangor” ride. It’s beautiful country here.

Lake Luzerne Motel

After a long but uneventful drive, I arrived in Lake Luzerne. I got a hotel room at the first place I tried. $80 / night includes access to this lake, including the boats. This is definitely an old vacation stay place. The room is quite basic. But it’s clean and dry.

Driving up I couldn’t help notice that I went right by New Paltz. That’s where I holed up in a hostel for 3 rainy days on my “Baltimore to Bangor” ride. It’s beautiful country here.

Adirondack Park Loop

It’s time for an adventure! The map on the left was the original plan, when I was going to ride the loop on my bike. Now that I’ve added the aid of a car, I won’t do the bottom of the loop. I’ll stay in cities marked with a blue beds and hike trails marked with a brown “i” (for “information”). I’m leaving early tomorrow. There will likely be rain Sunday. I might use that day to scoot over to a museum. (It’s real easy with a car.)

Logistics are incredibly easier this way. I don’t have to worry about where I’ll have breakfast or dinner. Restaurants that are impossibly distant when on the bike are an easy drive. If one place is closed, or if a town doesn’t even have a place, I’ll just drive somewhere else. How easy can it get?

Tomorrow night, I should be in Lake Luzerne.

Bishop Mahaffey, having a good time

We’re back in the lower 48, spending a night at a hotel because the flight home is much cheaper if we didn’t fly on the holiday. The hotel is nothing great, but adequate. It is so pleasant to have Wi-Fi!

Icon

Friday we were in Sitka. This was my second favorite port (after Homer). We were quite lucky to find Bishop David Mahaffery in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. He was answering questions, offering commentary, and in general having a good time. We had a good time walking nature trails and visiting shops. We closed out our time in Sitka by walking up to the top of the hill where the Russian Fort isn’t. (It was there, when the Russians were fighting the Tlingit Indians, but it’s not there any more.) When we got back to the ship we had lunch, and were lucky to see whales right off our cruise ship.

Sitka

Ray and Bonnie at the Horticultural Center (and Japanese garden)

Saturday was an “at sea” day. Fortunately, the seas were calm. Sunday we stopped in Victoria, British Columbia. We arrived in port about an hour behind schedule because the Coast Guard asked us to do a search and rescue at 1 AM. Our ship found the distressed fishing boat and was able to rescue one of the crew. Unfortunately, 3 other crew didn’t survive. You can read about it here http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/tofino-fishing-boat-capsizes-1.3217622. We didn’t know about any of this until 10 AM, when the captain announced we would be docking late. Danita’s old boss, Ray, lives in Vancouver. He and his wife Bonnie showed us around. Victoria is a beautiful area, with amazing gardens and harbors everywhere.

Beacon Hill Peacock

We’ll be flying back on SW 2366, scheduled to leave Seattle at 12:45. We were thinking of going downtown to do a “Duck Tour” of Seattle. But I picked up a cold a few days ago. Danita got hers yesterday. I was feeling pretty bad for a day or so; Danita’s feeling pretty bad today. So we’ll just hang at our hotel and enjoy the free Wi-Fi.

La PerouseGlacier-Mt Fairweather

Hello from the Sitka public library. Dinner service can be quite slow most evenings. It normally takes us two hours to eat. This turned out to be a good thing Saturday as we left Juno. We went by the Glacier National Park, passing La Perouse Glacier and Mount Fairweather. Contrary to the name, this area is usually socked in. But this evening we had a beautiful view of the area in the late afternoon sunshine. It was a site to behold. Instead of sitting at our table waiting for food, I went outside to grab a few pictures of an amazing area.

Native Dancers at the Native Heritage Center

Sunday was an “at sea” day. We had rough winds (40 knots) and high seas. The crew closed all the outdoor areas and battened all the hatches. The reception desk was giving out Meclizine HCL like they were candy. Special bags were placed in all the public areas. Danita took the pills. I didn’t exactly get sick, but I didn’t want to eat a lot either. I decided that eating a little less would probably be good for me. But now whenever I go on land, I feel the buildings rocking under my feet.

Homer – Near Bishop’s Beach

Monday we arrived in Anchorage. We were in Anchorage just two years ago, and we saw almost everything we wanted to see. But we couldn’t see the Native Heritage Center because it closes on Labor Day for the season. So we had a great day in Anchorage, visiting the Native Heritage Center and avoiding President Obama.

Homer – Near Bishops Beach

Tuesday was Homer. We fell in love with this little city on the sea. It’s a wonderful little town, with amazing scenery and lots of interesting things to do. We spent the day in Homer and felt we could have easily spent a week.

Homer – Pratt Aquarium

Wednesday we visited Kodiak. We had more than enough time to visit the town, not nearly enough time to visit any of the wild areas. There isn’t much in the town. The most interesting thing is the Russian Orthodox Church. It had all the icons I expected. It looked to my untrained eye as if they were of the Byzantine style. But there was nobody to explain anything and no informational signs.

Thursday we visited the Hubbard Glacier. It’s a big glacier — some 300 feet tall and 10 miles wide. But we didn’t get a sense of its enormous size because we stayed so far away from it. We were 2 or 3 miles away from it at the closest. There was lots of “booms” and other noises as the ice in the Hubbard Glacier moved around. But we didn’t see any super-impressive calving. In truth, the other glaciers we saw left a larger impression. But don’t get me wrong. It’s an awesome sight. As you can see from our pics, we have enjoyed very good weather.

Hubbard Glacier

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