September '04 Newsletter
September '04 Newsletter |
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Bob's back improved steadily on the June Idaho trips and by the time we were back he was in good enough shape to dig trenches for a sprinkler system for the three big pine trees and solitary lemon tree on our lot. The pines looked pretty frazzled when we returned, needles were dropping in bunches from a couple and even the live needles were turning brown. The desert vegetation was also turning brown and with a plan to be in Alaska for six weeks, our expectation was we might return to find all vegetation dead around the house. The timed sprinkler system was a great improvement and when we returned from Alaska all of the trees were thriving. The desert vegetation we left on its own seems to not be hurting.
The abundant summer monsoon projected by the weather gurus never materialized. This was excellent news as far as cooling our house during 100-degree summer days. A hot and dry desert is much easier to live in than a hot and humid one. The evaporative cooler chilled the house down to the 60's at night for much of July and we didn't have to run that darn expensive heat pump until the week before we left for Alaska. Violent summer storms north of us caused the Agua Fria River to flash a couple of times. Parts of Phoenix had monsoons roll down into the valley from the Mogollon Rim but we've only had a few tenths of an inch of rain here this summer.
In early July an Arizona river running friend turned up with her daughter, and some friends she was traveling with, to see our house and have dinner. Michelle has been living in Massachusetts for years now and it was good to spend some time with her. Both of us have known her since the early 80's, Bob as a fellow river runner and Susan as a roommate with whom she used to occasionally hike. The size of her daughter made it evident much time had passed since they had last been in town.
The third week of July Susan went back to see her family and friends in Minnesota. She didn't tell anyone she was coming until she got there. Fortunately her sister Joy was available to pick her up in Duluth. Her parents were surprised and delighted to see her. A few days later brother Kevin drove in from Nevada. Sister Laurie and her family showed up with dog and camper and parked in her folks' back yard. Sister Twila and her husband drove up from the cities for a Sunday dinner with the family. Susan spent one night out at Rhonda's house on Lake Vermilion. After an amazing sour kraut pizza at a local lodge, they hot tubbed and skinny dipped in the lake, watched the northern lights and listened to the loons' eerie calls. Rhonda and Marty were off for a boat trip in the Boundary Waters early the next morning. Just as Susan was preparing to leave her old high school buddy Ed called and came over for coffee and a quick visit.
Back in town, Water Carnival had started, running from Friday through Sunday. They have a beer garden and a live band for all three days. Different forms of entertainment from softball tournaments to a 5 K fun run to fireman Olympics to lumberjack contests to boat races to water skiing shows kept the kids of all ages involved. Susan and her dad even watched some of the heats of the turtle races as they walked home from the downtown area. Susan has reacquainted herself with the hokey pokey the past two years with the nephew and nieces. The parade is pretty darn good for a small town event. If our trips time out right next summer, Susan is hoping to clown in the parade.
Six days after she returned we were packed and off to Seattle to pick up our truck and continue north on the Alaska Ferry. Darla got us some budget America West tickets that required us to fly standby, a truly great deal which we really appreciated. When we came home from Seattle at the end of June, America West got us on a flight almost instantly. But going back to Seattle on standby was not quite that easy. All of the airlines are in financial trouble and seem to be trying to fly full; even canceling some flights to ensure others will be full. Open seats on flights to Seattle out of Phoenix were problematic to say the least.
Unfortunately while we were in Alaska Susan broke her arm. This resulted in us being home early to enjoy the dog days of September to the fullest. The blazing sun, temperatures well over 100 degrees, and high humidity have given us an advanced case of cabin fever. However the inactivity is allowing Susan's arm time to heal. It is fairly common for this type of fracture to slip, requiring a plate to hold the bones in place. She was fortunate that this did not happen with hers. The Juneau doc who set it did a great job and it seems to be rapidly healing. A week or so after we arrived home, the hand surgeon put a rigid cast on it, covering from the knuckles at the base of her fingers to halfway up her upper arm. She can wiggle and work her fingers and thumb and has been rotating her shoulder to keep it from stiffening up. In a few days she will have this long cast removed, new x-rays taken, and possibly a shorter cast installed. She is looking forward to being able to bend her elbow and rotate her forearm. It is humbling at 50 years old to have to have someone tie your shoes and cut your meat. If this ever happens to you she suggests rotating your bags of frozen peas so you don't get overly attached to any one bag, it makes it easier for you to eat them later.
In the early morning, we've been hiking in the canyons out back, but have had to stay on roads and good trails for a while as another fall could be really nasty. No hand and toe climbing up dry waterfalls. Like Bob's mother, his aunts in Canada are getting into their late 80's, one is even 93, and their health is failing so it seemed like a good time to go back there for a visit. Fall can be wonderful in southern Ontario. The maples should be turning and the weather will seem delightfully cool. Should be a real break from this killer heat. Even better, when we get back that cooling off that we mentioned in the last quarterly newsletter should actually be happening.
Alaska Marine Ferry Trip (8/2/04-8/16/04):
Unable to get a stand-by flight from Phoenix to Seattle, we hopped a flight to Las Vegas and spent most of the night in the Vegas airport hoping for better luck. Eventually reaching our destination in the wee hours of the morning, we crashing in the Seattle airport until the shuttles began running to Gig Harbor. Lorie had planted our truck and a map at the shuttle drop off point the night before and hung a distinctive 'Suz' sign at every turn on the way to her house. There was no missing the duct tape but just to be sure, she arrived in her truck to pilot us into her driveway. After a few minutes of chit chat and introductions to her menagerie, Lorie was off to work and we lazed around getting acquainted with the dogs and birds. Later in the day we met old friends Mark & Joyce Jennings in Tacoma for dinner and a few hours of pleasant conversation.
Our inland waterway voyage began on the recently renovated Columbia, the largest of the Alaska Marine Ferry's vessels. There were two car decks with a lift; smaller vehicles were arranged on the top and the larger ones on the bottom. We saw everything from bicycles to 18-wheelers loaded. The cabins were small but functional and Susan immediately claimed the top bunk. We had always thought we would sleep on deck but opted for the extravagance of a room. There were indeed two areas on different levels of the back deck where many had erected their tents, duct taping the corners to the deck. They didn't allow tents in the Solarium, an open end room with heat lamps and lounge chairs where many elect to sleep.
The many levels of the ship housed a dining room, a cafeteria, a cocktail lounge, a gift shop, an arcade with five machines, a recliner lounge for movie viewing, and an enclosed upper forward deck with large sight seeing windows. Near the purser's counter there was a large map and GPS system so people could keep track of their progress. The Tongass National Forest has a ranger on each vessel conducting informative topical programs and answering questions. We were on this ship for three days so we were delighted to have an entertaining, knowledgeable naturalist aboard. She told us to expect Orca sightings in the early morning but we slept in a bit too late to see them and never had a second opportunity. Some of the kids saw them and were excited about it for at least a day. Apparently, 25% of the ferry passengers are children and our ranger did a great job handling them.
The coastline of the inland waterway is rugged and sparsely populated. We saw porpoises and dolphins quite close to the ship. They seem to like playing in the bow wave. Our initial ride had been fairly smooth but when we emerged from the Queen Charlotte Island area and entered the open sea, it got a bit rough and rolling, sending Susan to the cabin for a mid day nap. We both began reading at a ferocious rate and made daily visits to the ship's book exchange to trade for new reading material.
We were up early for the views of culturally diverse Ketchikan, a colorful city above the bay on hillsides and stilts. We only had two hours in port, unfortunately not really enough time to see the totem poles for which Ketchikan is famous. A double deck tourist bus met the ferry for a whirlwind tour but we didn't feel like being cooped up and shuffled around. We wished we had arranged to stay a day there but there is always next time. So we took a quick look around and walked a mile or so to the grocery store. Bob was astounded to discover at the counter that the cost of a day old Seattle Intelligencer was marked up nine times. Contrary to our expectations, groceries and run of the mill things didn't seem to be more expensive than California and certainly cheaper than Hawaii.
The 4:30 AM wakeup call was like a blast of ice water in the face and we struggled to gather up our junk and move it down to the car dock. We had arrived at Auke Bay, as close as the Alaska Marine Ferry comes to the city of Juneau. We rapidly located the Mendenhall Glacier Campground and settled in for another couple of hours of badly needed sleep before we started exploring. The Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center is perfectly located above the lake and affords great views of the glacier, moraine and silty blue waters. We took a few short hikes along the lake and from some of the bridges had birds' eye views of enormous sockeye salmon thrashing their way up shallow creek beds to spawn. They change color when making their journey and were brilliant burgundy with emerald green heads and tails. The Juneau library housed a breathtaking stained glass window of the spawning salmon. We later took a walking tour around Juneau looking at the historic buildings. Juneau was not one of our favorite places. Huge cruise ships park right down town and disgorge thousands of well-heeled tourists onto their kitschy waterfront. It could have easily been mistaken for La Jolla, Lahaina, or Key West. By this time the crack in our radiator had stretched to about 8 inches long. No one in Juneau had a T-100 radiator. We visited every hardware store, marine supply, and auto parts place and returned to our camp with several potential solutions to the problem. That night we tried the epoxy patch, which lasted all of about ten minutes the following day.
Our second day in and around Juneau we visited the Alaska State Museum, the fish hatchery, and the ruins of the Treadwell Mine. The museum was worth the time we spent there. The fish hatchery featured a fish ladder with a large Plexiglas viewing window where we could see enormous salmon fighting there way upstream. Once at the top, they were sorted by type into holding ponds. Ultimately they were harvested for their eggs and milt, which was carried off in 5 gallon buckets to the fishy fertility clinic. It was pretty fascinating and some of the King Salmon weighed 45-50 pounds. The Treadwell Mine was quite a large operation at one time. We hiked along the beach to reach the ruins of it. Much had been obscured by forest, dissolved by salt and weather, or replaced with beach houses. Later in the afternoon, we made another visit to all of the hardware stores loaded up our next potential radiator patch, fiberglass. The lighting was better at the Mendelhall Glacier that afternoon and Bob was hoping for some better pictures of the salmon but when we reached the trail we had hiked so casually the previous day, we found it closed. "Trail Closed - Brown Bear Exhibiting Aggressive Behavior" was enough to turn us around. Back at camp, we installed our fiberglass patch, hoping for the best. The weather changed and it rained steadily throughout the night.
The next morning dawned cloudy and sprinkling but warm enough with patches of occasional sun in the afternoon. Our fiberglass patch held no better than the first one, so we were off to Juneau to hunt down a radiator. The Toyota dealer ordered one for us from Seattle to be shipped to Juneau, then on to Skagway where we would be by that time it arrived. By this time we were close to out of ideas to patch the crack and were getting concerned that we would find ourselves adding water every 20 miles on the trip home, waiting for the top to eventually blow off. While waiting for the Ferry, we had lunch at Auke Bay Recreation area, a seacoast park with a nice little campground and picnic facilities. Susan's favorite part might have been the abundance of ripe thimbleberries. The Alaska Ferry to Haines took about 4 hours and got into town late, so we crashed in the back of the truck until it got light enough to find our way around.
From the ferry dock we drove out to Chillkoot Lake State Park, passing throngs of salmon fisherman in the river along the way. We breakfasted down by the lake in the swirling mist, a bit nervous since this was the area where brown bears were supposed to be feeding. Bald eagles were plentifully perched along the shoreline as we drove into Haines, which only accommodates one cruise ship at a time. We enjoyed the lack of tourists and commotion. Our camp that evening at Chilkat State Park was in a wooded area but the views from other areas of the park were phenomenal. Across the bay we had great views of the Davidson and Rainbow glaciers. The campground host had lots of bear stories to tell and seemed somewhat concerned about us being ripped out of the camper and devoured. Nary a bear visited us. That evening we tried our third and final radiator patch. We partially removed the radiator, banded it with wire to hold the crack tightly shut, plastered it with JB Weld and reinstalled it. The next morning we gave the patch time to heat cure by driving it around with no pressure (the Stanley Steamer mode of operation). Miracle of miracles, when we put the cap back on that afternoon, fully pressurizing the radiator, our patch held!
Haines has a very nice waterfront and the residents seem to pride themselves on their flower gardens. We took a walking tour of Fort Sheldon Square, a fort that was active in World War II. It was later bought by some of the men who had been stationed there and has been preserved both for residences and businesses. We photographed a Tlinglet long house and totem poles, explored an old cemetery and wound up our day in the Sheldon House Museum, an interesting blend of native culture/arts, and Haines history. For a change of pace, we camped that night at the Salmon Run Campground, (Ruth Ann Thompson, phone: 907-766-3240) a friendly place with a great view that has been discovered by Canadians. Our neighbors - two couples from Whitehorse invited us over to share their campfire, roasted marshmallows and mango tea. It was a Yukon three-day holiday weekend and they had driven over the pass from Whitehorse for the fishing. One of the guys was positive the locals were throwing old bedsprings into the river to snag lures. They'd noticed three trucks selling used fishing lures and felt certain the Alaskans were selling the Canadians back their own lures. We think they were jesting but who knows. Our newfound friends supplied us with lots of good Whitehorse shopping tips, information that was truly helpful preparing for the Tatshenshini trip. They also graciously offered us a place to stay and stage our packing effort if the weather was bad. An offer we didn't take advantage of but were touched to have received.
The SE Alaska State Fair was on in Haines and while we never ventured out to the fair, we couldn't fathom missing a small town parade. It lasted a total of about ten minutes on Main Street and every kid in town was either in it or watching it. They had an abundance of fire and emergency vehicles, lots of kids dressed alike in clown suits, lots of dogs showing off their obedience or lack of same, and one solitary Indian oops! I mean representative of the First Nations people, dressed in wolf skins and beaded attire. One must be PC about these things, especially it seems in Canada.
We were disappointed to have lost what must have been spectacular views of the mountains around town. Skagway's harbor sometimes boasts of 6-8 cruise ships a day. We were blessed that there were only two in port on Sunday. It was quite crowded and touristy enough, though we liked it better than Juneau. The National Park Service owns quite a number of historical buildings in the down town area. One of there rangers took us on an entertaining hour-long walking tour of the historical buildings along Broadway, the main street. At the NPS Visitor Center we saw Pierre Berton's 1957 documentary film about the gold rush. The Skagway Museum was worth an hour's look as was the Klondike Gold Dredge. With the views still obscured by smoke, we decided to depart Skagway after only one day and headed up over White Pass, through Canadian customs, and into the Yukon. We informally camped with a handful of RV'ers along the Windy Arm of Tagish Lake, a beautiful spot.
The next morning we took our time leaving and stopped at Carcross (short for caribou crossing) to look at a deep hull paddle wheeler that they had used for a break water when it was no longer useful on the lake. Their general store was up to date and selling the useful necessities but also had old tins, period products, and a cash register of historical significance. We arrived in Whitehorse early enough to set up at the Robert Service Campground before taking a tour of the SS Klondike, the fish hatchery and the visitor center. This campground is close to town and does a lot of walk-in business with the younger travelers. In retrospect we would have rather been up the hill where our friends Bill & Irene stayed at the Hi Country RV Park.
Although our radiator patch was still holding, we didn't want to tempt fate by driving back to Arizona after the Tatsheshini trip without installing our new radiator. Plus we were a bit tired of cuddling up to it in the camper at night. So we finally put it in, taking much longer than we had hoped. The bolts didn't exactly match up and the old radiator cap didn't fit but other than that it went pretty well and we were able to make it all work.
2004 Trip Reports:
Lorie's inviting home on the bay is lovely. Her porch opens up onto a secluded beach that she shares with just a handful of neighbors. She surrounds herself with beautiful flowers. We enjoyed her hospitality for the next few days while we sorted our gear, laundered our river clothes from the Idaho trips, and played with her Aussie's, Barney and Sheila. We soon discovered that Lorie is a fabulous cook and it didn't hurt that her folks had brought over fresh veggies from their truck garden. Our last day with her Barney kept us entertained. He broke into the cage of the little finch that Susan has named Frenchie and we returned from an errand to find Frenchie frantically circling the house trying to get back into his cage. Later in the same day, Barney captured a rat in the outdoor courtyard. Susan quickly trapped it under an empty flowerpot before Barney had an opportunity to turn it loose in the house. Sheila has been recently put on a diet but it is easy to see that she has a bit of a food obsession when she falls asleep with her face in her empty food bowl. She is very sweet and thankfully not as active as the rambunctious Barney.
It was hard to break away from Lorie's warm, comfortable home but it was time to begin our journey to Alaska. We left Gig Harbor early to miss the worst of the rush hour traffic and found ourselves at the Seattle REI with a little time to kill. We picked up some river boots for Susan and were off for Bellingham. The radiator crack that we had discovered the previous night was expanding and we stopped every twenty miles on the way to Bellingham to add water and check its progression. We had hoped to make it to Alaska and have it welded before heading home through the Yukon. At a Bellingham radiator shop we were amazed to discover that the crack was in a PLASTIC header and it wasn't going to be welded no way, no how. There was not a T-100 radiator to be found in Bellingham so we threw in more water, picked up a few groceries and were off for the ferry line-up. Explosive-sniffing dogs walked the line of vehicles and people waiting for the ferry. We were a bit late leaving port but entertained ourselves people watching, familiarizing ourselves with the ship, and settling into our cabin.
Our next stop was Wrangell and as we approached the dock we saw several mature bald eagles perched on pylons in the channel. Wrangell is known for its garnets embedded in schist and we were not disappointed. There were four young entrepreneurs set up along the ferry walkway. The garnet mining area was bequeathed to the children of Wrangell; their parents are allowed to mine them with hand tools only and the children sell them to tourists. They had a wide range of sizes and pieces from $1 to about $70. Our stop at the fishing village of Petersburg was very brief and other than people leaving or joining our cruise the only ones who walked around off the ship were those who had pets in their vehicles. It didn't look like Petersburg had much in the way of tourist amenities. Late in the evening in Frederick Channel we saw humpback whales surfacing and blowing.
Since we left the Juneau rainstorm the weather had been clear but there was a bluish haziness in the air, which we later learned was blown in from fires in the Yukon. Waiting in the ferry line was quite entertaining. A rather large group of recreational vehicles were being loaded on the ferry. Some were the longest rigs we'd ever seen and it appeared that many of the drivers had never backed their rigs before. Small wonder that we were a couple of hours late getting into Skagway. There were spouting whales off both the port and starboard sides of the Kennicott as we approached Skagway. We were thrilled to find our new radiator awaiting our arrival. Skagway's RV parks were overcrowded and unappealing tight on space, so we drove out to the old Dyea town site, near the start of the Chilkoot Trail. There wasn't a whole lot left of Dyea, most of the lumber had either rotted or been scavenged to erect other buildings. The forest service camp near Dyea was full so we utilized one of the many pull-offs along the road. There was little traffic and the views were great. During the night, the wind came up and blew the entire Skagway valley full of thick blue smoke from the Canadian fires.
| Participants: | Susan Groth & Bob Marley |
| Participants: | Mike Coltrin, Bill Cooke, Irene Cooke, Darla Ekbom, Susan Groth (Suz), Bob Kerry, Neal Manning, Bob Marley, Julie, Weng-Gutierrez, Malachi Weng-Gutierrez & Mimi Yui. |
| Start | Finish | Trip Name | Group Size | Comments |
| 5/21/05 | 5/28/05 | Lake Powell Houseboat | 12 | Prior to the spring inflows from the Green and Colorado, we will be exploring the Lake's many arms at the lowest level in 30 years. The trip will originate at Wahweap Marina. |
| 6/?? /05 | 6/?? /05 | Idaho Raft Trips | 16 | If you wish to join this trip we'll need your help to obtain a Middle Fork permit. 10-15 days in Idaho on some of the world's best whitewater. Organized for individuals with rafts and some without. Possibility of flood flows. |
| 8/13/05 | 8/21/05 | Southeast Alaska | 16 | We'll meet in Juneau, camp at the Mendenhall Glacier while we are exploring the Juneau area, boat to the Tracy Arm to view glaciers, ride the Alaska Marine Ferry to Skagway through the breathtaking Lynn Canal, take the narrow gauge train over White Pass to Carcross after seeing the historic Skagway sites, day run the upper Tatshenshini after exploring Whitehorse in the Yukon, visit the Tlingit tribal culture centers in and around Haines, and return to Juneau on the high speed ferry. |
Notes:
We must receive your deposit and a completed Q/AR form, for you to be considered for inclusion on one of our trips. If you are planning to join a future trip and you haven't done this yet, please do it now. If a trip is popular enough to require a waitlist, we will use five criteria to determine who goes. Initial preference will be given to those who have a current mailing application on file, have paid any required trip deposit, and have promptly returned the necessary Q/AR. If this isn't sufficient, we then compare trip deposit dates and lastly Q/AR postmark dates.
We continue to send information to travel friends using email. If you want to be the first to know what's happening, be sure to send us your email address and keep it current. We'll also continue to communicate unique travel opportunities by 'special mailings' to those who travel with us frequently and who have a mailing application on file.
Best of luck in your adventures, whatever they are, and wherever they may be. We look forward to traveling with you sometime soon.
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Susan & Bob |
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Updated on Thursday, December 8, 2006 @ 4:30 MST © 1995-2006 by Robert R. Marley |
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The shopping went well though finding the icehouse was a bit of a challenge for Bob M. and Mike. They eventually located it in a residential area (Igloo Ice, 39 Hyland Crescent, 867-668-3683). The very nice owners had their ice house behind their home and had great quality ice (dense blocks in several sizes with little or no air). We did most of our perishable shopping at the Canadian Superstore. There were only a couple of items that we didn't find there. Darla, Neal, and Mike went searching for them later while they were looking for lunch. Meanwhile, back at our campsite, Bill, Irene, Bob M. and Suz repackaged the perishable food and packed the coolers. Bob M. swung by the airport to pick up Bob K. and ran into Neal, Darla, and Mike also waiting for him to arrive. Coincidentally he and Mimi were on the same flight from Vancouver, so we had located all but two of the group at that point. Back at the campsite, the gear was quickly sorted and loaded on to the big trailer. Everyone headed for their hotels and camps with a plan to meet back at our campsite to pick up the trailer and us at 7 AM.
Just as we were ready to launch, the sprinkling started and the skies became ominous. Many of us changed our minds about our river apparel and switched into dry suits. Suz got off the raft to take a quick toilet break before sealing herself into her suit. She never quite made it to the bushes. A rock rolled under her foot, which pitched her forward into the boat rope, which tripped her forward into the rocks where she smacked both knees, her chest, and attempted to brace with her left hand. She jammed her hand and then rolled over it breaking the end off of the radius and spraining all of her fingers. No bones came through the skin but it was crooked enough that we were certain it was broken. Julie and Malachi had recently taken a wilderness first responder course and quickly assessed her injury before going to work on it. Everyone pitched in and brought them first aid while helping Bob M. de-rig our boat and gear. It seemed evident that we weren't going downriver that day.