shalmaneser

arches nat park and Grand canyon et al... read more

this is a catchup piece. have not had the opportunity to blog. ANCHORAGE Anchored down in ANCHORAGE indeed. Anchorage is largest city in Alaska. 500,000 in its conurbation. This is what we found out while in Anchorage. Little known facts about Alaska · You can get a pilot’s licence at 14 ½ yrs · An earthquake measuring 9.2 hit in 1964. Devastation galore. · Hunting season begins the Tuesday after labour day. That is known as “boys off sick today” day as they are all off hunting with their dads. · ½ all light planes in the US are in Alaska. · If you own a plane outright you don’t need to insure it. · Most Alaskan planes are more than 30 years old. New planes need to conform to new safety standards. · Up to ... read more

Ketchikan JEWELLERY STORES!!!! Industrial quantities. In 1993 cruise ships started coming in large numbers to Alaska. Fishing villages and mining towns and administrative centres suddenly had up to 10,000 people in town on the one day. The cruise lines set up jewellery stores and souvenir shops in these towns. The tourist season goes from May – September. At the end of September the jewellery stores pack up and transfer to the Caribbean where the cruise ships ply their (northern) winter trade. Alaska shuts down between October and May, college students and mavericks such as Brian, our driver yesterday (retired civil engineer from Atlanta, single, adventurer, spends winter in Breckenridge driving people to Denver airport), come up here and live for 6 months and the towns shut down. In Ketchikan we had David, our Tlingit guide and ... read more

I begin this journal somewhere north east of Lord Howe Island. We have just had what is euphemistically described as a snack – chilli chicken and rice, green salad with vinaigrette, cheese and bikie and a TIM TAM. The lovely Hawaiian airlines stewardesses’ each with industrial quantities of frangipanis in their hair, have come along and collected the scraps and our serving tray, their plastic gloved hands a testament to risk management 101. We head for Hawaii and thence on to Seattle, Vancouver, Alaska and thence to the east, a trip 12 months in the planning. It wasn’t meant to be this way. It was supposed to be central Europe: Croatia, Slovak Republic, a possible return to Greece and Turkey. Liz remarked in passing that she would like to do an Alaskan cruise, to experience a ... read more

The abandoned skeletons of half finished houses litter the west coast of Ireland. They sit alongside hundreds of for sale signs, fire sale signs might be more appropriate. Each one a memorial to the great Irish experiment now lying in ruins like the occasional old abandoned castle you pass on the side of the road. 30 years ago Ireland began a bold experiment. It made a conscious commitment as a nation to invest in education. When Ireland joined the EEC, it had this ready-made workforce of highly educated young people. IT and other innovative companies and drug manufacturers set up or moved their European operations to Ireland. All looked rosy. UNTIL the financial spivs and the desk jockeys moved in. Average punters were encouraged to borrow beyond their capacity to repay on the promise of ever ... read more