THE PRINCESS RIDES INTO TOWN

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August 21

… let’s start with wednesday, the day marilyn arrived in anchorage

… abbey rode up with me and we found a tiara at a party store … we arrived at the appointed time and there she was, smiling and gorgeous … we …, rather she …, placed the tiara on her own head and wore it much of the rest of the day … rumor has it that the tiara was commissioned by elizabeth 1 and was found in the estate of catherine the great …

marilyn brought with her clear blue skies that are seldom seen in costal alaska … had the press known the true cause of the blue skies, marilyn would have made the front page of the anchorage newspaper …

… on the road down to seward we met greg and his sheep hunting companion, jake, coming out of the bush … wait until you see the video … two bedraggled bushies who had just spent three days clambering along steep mountain sides in search of a mature dall sheep … seems like they had richard luck as all the sheep they spotted were on the mountain side across from them … this was marilyn’s introduction to the real alaska … greg was soaked to the bone with the rains from the first two days of the hunt … seeing greg and jake was the first of the culture shocks of the day for my california sister …

… when we arrived at abbey’s cabin i pointed up the hill to the outhouse path … marilyn evidently thought we were kidding about the absence of plumbing … greg and jake arrived soon after we did and abbey started cooking bear for us all … yes, that’s black bear as in grrrrrrrr black bear … first the lack of flush toilet plumbing and drinking water from the spring and now black bear for supper … marilyn was a great sport about it all …, either that or my sister is an academy award winning actress …

…we took the port-a-potty out of the box and set it up in the aliner … will leave it to marilyn to write about that …

… everyone was exhausted and we all slept well … jeff didn’t arrive from his charter until after we were in bed …


… jeff and abbey left for the docks at 5 a.m. …

… thursday brought blue skies again, … marilyn and I drove out to exit galcier … the road is still closed so we came back to town and drove to the end of the road here in seward … we had lunch at the train wreck … we took showers at the camp using abbey’s card … I finished a long shower and started to get out … stepped back in and took another long shower again … showers are something we take for granted in the lower 48 …

we went to the aquarium here in seward and sadly had only an hour and a half before we had to be at the fish cleaning house … we could have spent most of the day there …

… we had supper with benjamin and melanie, his beloved, at christos in downtown seward … only later did I find out that marilyn doesn’t like pizza … we are taking Benjamin and melanie to the anchorage airport on the august 29 so we talked about the logistics of closing up their apartment and how we could share time on the way up to the airport … …jeff got off the boat a little early and so marilyn had a chance to meet abbey’s beloved … a little early meant he was home by 10 … he had supper and will leave for the boat at 5 … he was bone tired exhausted and could hardly stay awake … we made a hasty exist within a couple of minutes …

… friday morning, again produced bright blue skies and figured it would be an excellent day to take the kenai fiords national park boat tour … … we had already used it for the aquarium and saved 20 dollars … marilyn called the boat company and they said all the 2 for 1 slots were filled, however they generously offered us a 15 percent discount on two tickets … marilyn declined the offer … we figured if we showed up a half hour before the cruise with 139 dollars in hand and our coupon that they might take it rather than loose the money, especially if the boat wasn’t full …

… so at 10 I walked up the to ticket office, not knowing that it was a competitor’s office and the young man said they would be more than happy to redeem a competitor’s coupon so we saved 140 and boarded the ship … they had a salmon bake lunch for 25 dollars, which we declined … and had a cup of noodle soup for 3 dollars … it wasn’t the money for the lunch, rather I didn’t know what kind of seas we would encounter and I didn’t want to be one of those who ran for the rail … as it turned out, the open ocean was quite calm …

…but you want to know about the sights we saw … both of us saw orcas for the first time in the wild … I was standing on the stern when a large male orca passed not 50 feet behind the stern … took a couple of really good pictures … the scenery was spectacular … islands that rise vertically out of the sea … sea otters everywhere … seals … sea lions … 10’s of thousands of water birds … … no large whales …, however, the trip was beyond our greatest expectations even without a breaching whale …

the blues of the sky … … the blues of the sky and seas … the greens of the mountains … the greys and blacks of the basalt, a volcanic rock that was created underwater and then was pushed up because of the pacific tectonic plate colliding the the north american tectonic plate … … the visuals were beyond spectacular … beyond whatever superlative one wants to use to attempt to describe the land and sea scape …

… we cruised to within on quarter mile of a tide water glacier that has a breadth of three miles … when you hear the booming of the glacier, the calving has already taken place … …

… last night abbey said that they had only had 5 blue sky days since they arrived in seward in march and 3 of those were the 3 that marilyn brought from california ….

… we met abbey where she works and came out to the cabin … abbey baked both fresh caught ling cod and halibut last evening along with lightly cooked bok choi , and rice, marilyn added a lettuce salad … … we dined like royalty on abbey’s front porch …

… abbey once said that she wished she could go up to denali in the fall some year, and i broached the idea to marilyn that we wait to go north until after labor day weekend and take abbey and jeff with us up to denali and fairbanks … without hesitation marilyn enthusiastically agreed … i pointed out that that probably meant we wouldn’t go to Yellowstone on the way home and marily said for me to stop … that if the kids wanted to go and could go, that was what she wanted … so i suggested the idea to abbey last night … we’ll see what happens … spending a week with the kids would be great … from denali north we should see the ground covers in a pink purple that will last for about a week along with the aspens and the birch in hues of yellow …

… i apologize for plopping all these blogs on the net all at one time … it is difficult to find wi-fi and even more difficult to find the time to write … also there may be some pictures included if we can figure it out …

Saturday morning
… marilyn has finished her blog so we will head for the train wreck for breakfast and then hope the library wi-fi is working … we may pull out of seward today and head off for adventures unknown for the next couple of days … that’s what happens when indiana jones’s hats and tiaras are worn …

miracleshappenwhenyouactivelyexpectandlookforthemrichardandhistiaracrestedsister

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