Alaska via Georgia, Arizona, & California 2001-02
Hi!
We've been having good weather, although today it
is supposed to rain.
It was a fast trip down to Atlanta, GA for
Thanksgiving with Dan and friends, but we did find time to
see some things on the way down. Of special note is
a new museum just south of Richmond, VA,
Pamplin Historical Park & The National Museum of the
Civil War Soldier. At first glance, we thought it might
be some partisan tourist trap, but the apolitical exhibits explain that life for
both Union and Confederate soldiers was about the same.
Modern exhibits and dioramas are enhanced by the use
of personal CD players which are included with
the admission. A second, and slightly older, museum in the park describes
the siege of Richmond and is constructed to resemble a section of the Confederate
defensive walls. Lee surrendered not far away about a week after Richmond's fall. Also in the
park is a home which was used as army headquarters and an 'encampment.' Costumed guides demonstrate various activities of Civil War soldier life.
In Atlanta, we visited the small Fernbank Science Center which is operated by the DeKalb County Board of Education. The evening planetarium show [only $2.00] was one of the best that we've seen.
While in Atlanta, and not at the farm [more about
that later], we stayed at Stone Mountain Park Stone Mountain is
a granite pluton onto which some people thought it was a good idea to carve pictures. Vice
president Spiro Agnew participated in the unveiling ceremonies in 1970. With modern environmental concerns, this kind of monument would never be
built. Gutzon Borglum, of Mt. Rushmore (another act of vandalism) fame
started the work here, but all of his work was erased (blasted off) by a replacement designer.
We spent the Thanksgiving weekend with Dan at a former Georgia Tech classmate's home. The
family has a few dozen cattle on a small farm which is kept as a family hobby. We had a good time using farm equipment such as tractors and a bulldozer to do chores. We fed
cows and moved dirt. We also visited the dairy farms of two of their relatives.
We decided to take the Natchez Trace Parkway to Natchez, which was our first scheduled stop after Atlanta. It is in Natchez that we plan to pick-up the southern part of our tour from the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience that we started last March.
On the way to pick-up the 'Trace' at Tupelo, MS, we stopped at the Anniston (AL) Museum of Natural History. This museum is home to a historic collection of 1800 ornithological specimens which were collected and mounted in the 19th century. The museum also has the largest collection of African animals in a diorama than we have ever seen. Although some of
the animals are behind a low rail, only signage keeps people from touching and ruining the display.
In nearby Birmingham is the Birmingham (AL) Museum of Art. Not only is there no admission
charge at this, the largest municipally owned art museum in the southern U.S., but parking is free,too. The museum houses the largest collection of Wedgwood outside of England.
Before starting our trip south on the Natchez Trace Parkway, we visited Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo, MS, TVA's first city. The parkway follows the Natchez Trace, a path from Natchez (MS), on the Mississippi River, to Nashville (TN) on the
Cumberland River. Bargemen brought their goods down the Mississippi, sold their goods and barge (for lumber) and walked back to Kentucky along this old 450 mile Indian trail. Sections of the original 'trace' can still be seen worn into the earth.
The NPSmaintains three 'no charge' campgrounds along the 'trace.' We stayed several days. Along the 'trace' are various exhibits of Indian culture, including an 8 acre burial mound, and pioneer life.
The Natchez Trace Parkway is similar to the Blue Ridge Parkway in design, a long, skinny park. The slower-paced drive is scenic as well as historic. It was a welcomed change from the interstate.
Just off the 'trace' we visited Kosciuko, MS, the only town in the U.S. named for this Revolutionary War hero, the architect of West Point. It is the birthplace of Oprah Winfrey.
We have found a lot of concern for the tragedy at the World Trade Center everywhere that we have been: Store windows with signs, displays of children's drawings, lots of flags, and donation boxes, etc.
From here we plan to go to Baton Rouge, then head west on I-10.
Best wishes for a happy holiday.
Hope to here from you soon to keep us abreast of what's go in your part of the world.
Allen & Sarah
Apache Junction, AZ
December 16, 2001
Hi!
It's amazing that just a few days ago we were using the air conditioner and now
we've got the heat going to keep the 20 degree temperature at bay.
We are now in south central Arizona.. It was a fast drive from Mississippi through
Louisiana and Texas to get here. Texas alone makes up about one third of the distance from the Atlantic to the Pacific along I-10.
Our destination in Texas was San Solomon Spring in Balmorhea State Park east of El Paso. The temperature was snuggling the thermometer around the 60 degree
mark as we donned our wet suits to go scuba diving in the 72 degree warm spring.
The spring has lots of small fish, many large cat fish
and several [we saw three] soft-shell turtles. The turtles are unusual in they
have a grey shell and a snorkel-like head and neck. With a depth of only 25
feet, we were easilydown to the bottom to see where the warm water bubbles
through the substrate into the spring.
Coming out of the pool was like stepping into a freezer as the 60 degree
wind and dry air sucked the heat out of what flesh was not
covered by our wet suits. Sarah was wearing a shortie, I had on Farmer Johns under
my shortie. Even so, diving back into the water felt like splashing into a cauldron of soup.
Turtle/fish rather than chicken, of course.
We got to Balmorhea just in time. The spring was closing the following week
for three months of restoration. As it was the 'slow season,' we had to get the
dive shop owner from her home to rent us the equipment
that we needed. This year we decided to leave our wet suits at home to save
precious space in the van and rent as we needed. Often, the rental suits are ratty,
but it's a choice.
Here at Desert Divers, they recently replaced all of their
equipment, so we got lightly-used suits and the new style weight belts
and regulators.
We ran into a snow storm as we left New Mexico heading west into Arizona on I-10.
The high desert in snow is a sight that we haven't seen before and it look
beautiful. We have been hanging out in Apache Junction, about 20 miles east
of Phoenix in the Valley of the Sun. The temperatures
have been running about 15 degrees below normal so nights here have been
dropping into the 20s and daytime highs don't reach 60. Today things are supposed to
get back to normal. At least our new electric heater is doing a yeoman's job
keeping the sub-freezing temperature at bay. We had to use to propane
furnace only once: In a place thatcharged extra for using electric heat. We filled
our 5 gallon propane tank to keep on the safe side of heat. I last filled it in 1998;
we don't use much propane. As it was, I still had a gallon left, nut Sarah didn't
want to be caught short. Actually, she is short, but didn't want to be caught
short and frozen.
We are waiting here for Dan to fly into Phoenix [Wednesday] and spend about
two weeks with us.
Before we left Mississippi we visited Natchez on our tour route from the
Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience The synagogue there is still active but only has about 20 members. It is a huge stone building that was constructed in the late 1800s.
From there we went to Wilkinson, MS. The town's
Historical Society Museum has photographs of the old synagogue which was
converted to a movie theater in the 1930s after the Jews left.
It had been a thriving Jewish community starting in the middle 1800s and most of
the important business people of the 1800s shown in the museum were German-Jewish
immigrants. Known in the past as
'Little Jerusalem,' but today only the cemetery remains. The last internment
was in 1958. The Historical Society maintains the cemetery.
In St. Francisville, LA, on the way to Baton Rouge, we saw the late 1800's
wooden synagogue that was moved across town from its original location in 1901 and
served as the Presbyterian church. It is currently
undergoing renovations.
The decline in the Jewish population in these and other southern towns has
been a trend over the past 70 or so years as people moved to the bigger cities.
Regards,
A&S
Las Vegas, NV
Hi!
Still in Las Vegas. The weather is good: Sunny, low 60s. We plan to leave
today and spend some time unwinding in the desert as we have been winding up
in the dessert too often while staying here: Buffets and all that.
Actually, this is the first time we have had to relax since we left home.
First was the rush to get to Georgia to have Thanksgiving with Dan, Carrie, and Carrie's
family, then we kind of rushed [about two weeks] to Phoenix
to meet Dan and Carrie and show them Arizona. After that, it was another
rush {over-night} to get to Las Vegas to meet up with friends from NY who would be
in LV for only a few days. Our next deadline is several
months away: Passover in San Francisco,at the end of March.
A place of particular interest that we visited last month that most people
miss is Bisbee, Arizona. This late 19th century
mining town produced millions of tons of ore, has 2,000 miles of
underground tunnels, a huge open-pit mine, and narrow streets that wind up
the sides of the surrounding mountains. It has become an artists' community.
Although near the Mexican border, its altitude makes it cold, especially at night. You should have seen Sarah clutching the dashboard of the van as we drove up the hillside to see what 'suburban' Bisbee looked like.
Nearby is Tombstone, 'The Town Too Tough To Die.'
The movie "Tombstone," not too long ago, breathed new life into this old town,
however, on the day we were there, the costumed characters
urging tourists or see shows at the O.K. Corral, Birdcage Saloon, and other
places, outnumbered the tourists.
Regards,
A&S
------------
Colorado River
Jan 14, 2002
Hi!
Nothing much happening. We're veg-ing-out beside the Colorado River just
south of Lake Havasu. Lake Havasu City [home of the London
Bridge since 1971] has grown exponentially since we were first here about 25
years ago. The factor behind the great growth was McCulloch, of the chain-saw
company, who bought property along the lake, created in 1938 to supply water to southern
California. Mr.. McCulloch had the idea to bring the London Bridge here and it is
now Arizona's second most popular tourist attraction [after the Grand Canyon].
Tens of thousands of people now live in this part of the western Arizona desert,
adjacent to California.
It is sunny and warm daily. It doesn't rain.
There is so little to do here, the county park campground has 50 channel
cable. We can watch Law & Order all night.
Of course, the river is available for water sports and we are across the
road from Emerald Canyon, a lush green golf course in the barren wastes. There is a
weekly swap-meet where money is exchanged for goods. For excitement, $1.00 buys a
round trip bus to Laughlin, Nevada for gaming. [Buffet lunch included.] We are
only about 6 miles from the Colorado Indian Tribe's casino.
We're in town [Parker] because we ran out of groceries. We also took thetime to
do laundry and go to the library.
In Las Vegas, since Sept. 11, for security reasons, the library requires a photo ID
and records the information in their computer along with the number of the
computer that one is using. In nearby Lake Havasu City and Parker, no ID is
necessary. Names are asked only for timing purposes. It was
interesting to note that at the time we were providing NYS Driver Licenses to the
Las Vegas library, the Las Vegas police found hundreds of phony photo IDs [including
driver licenses] for sale in a store a few block from the library. So much for
security! Their security is only for honest people
Regards,
A&S
Hi!
After soaking in the hot mineral springs of the Palm Springs area for two weeks, we
looked like stewed prunes. We spent several days in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
to dry out.
http://theabf.org
We're in dispersed camping [out in the wildnerness without water, electric hook-ups or
sanitary facilities {we have our own, of course}. The last time we were here,
there was a $10/3 day fee. This year the fee was eliminated.
We lucked out and saw a small herd of the big horn sheep that the park is named for [borrego=sheep].
We decided to take a vacation from camping and are currently in a hotel in
San Diego, CA. We have been very busy here doing urban stuff.
The grounds and buildings which were constructed for the 1915 international
exposition, and reused in 1936 for another exposition are still in use. The
area, Balboa Park, is a center of museums, gardens and
other cultural activities. The Spanish Baroque & Moorish style buildings in a tropical
setting are of interest by themselves. They now house a variety of museums.
We visited the Museum of Man which had a special exhibit of bones and their use in
forensics and anthropology and a Voodoo exhibit.
Several art musuems that we visited include the San Diego Museum of Art, the Mingei International Museum which has an eclectic collection of modern and ancient
objects, including furniture. The Timken [of the Timken Roller Bearing Co.] houses a private collection of European art. We we pleased to see an original Hyronoemus {?} Bosch trypich. Very elaborate and typical of his work. The detail is incredible.
The Museum of Natural History is in a new building
attached to the original building which is being redone on the inside. The new building
only has a few displays; most are still in storage. While there we saw an IMAX film:
'Ocean Oasis' which is about the great diversity of
Life in the Sea of Cortez and Baja area. http://www.oceanoasis.org Basically, the
admission fee to the
museum is only for the film, since there is little else on display. Good thing we haven't
had to pay for any of the admissions due to our memberships in affiliated organizations.
Also on the science theme, we visited the Ruben H. Fleet Science Center which is across the walk from the SDMHN
Of particular interest was the Auto Museum which had a special exhibit of motorcycles
through the ages and a specially adapted Cadillac & trailer which was driven
non-stop across the US and back to California in 7 days. Oil was changed automatically
and tires could be replaced while still in motion. It was refueled three times during the trip,
also while still in motion.
With full days of museum going, we took a break at the Japanese Friendship Garden, also in Balboa Park.
Since San Diego is a small city, it is easy to get to places in a short time.
Balboa Park, with the museums is a short drive from both the Seaport Village, Old Town, and the Gas Lamp Historic District with its shops and restaurants.
There are many things to do here, so we plan to stay a while longer. There is a 'package
deal' for museum admissions, but our memberships have seen us through
without incurring any admission expenses.
We will not be going to 'World-Famous San Diego Zoo.' World-Famous is actually
part of their name. They charge about three times more than the Bronx Zoo and they
are only 1/5 the size. They do, however, have naked mole rats. We've been to the
zoo here in the past and have not been impressed, except by the price. The WFSDZ
was a pioneer in open enclosures, but they have fallen behind many modern
zoos in animal displays.
Regards,
A&S
March 26, 2001
We are now in San Francisco. We followed Hwy #1 along the Pacific coast to get
here from Los Angeles. The western shore of the U.S. varies from sandy beaches to rocky cliffs. In between are jagged rocks in the waters not far from shore.
Along the drive, we saw dozens of elephant seals sunning on the beach. Only the
big males and a single nursing female and this year's pups [only three months old
and already 350+ pounds] were left; the females headed out to their north Pacific
summer areas a few weeks ago.
In the Big Sur- Monterey Bay area we saw sea otters, back from the brink of
extinction in the early 1900s, floating in the rough surf and crashing waves
of Point Lobos State Reserve. We saw a few more and some harbor seals and a
single sea lion from Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey.
While in Los Angeles we visited more than a dozen venues. The L.A. area covers a
lot of ground. In order to see it efficiently and using the least amount of gas on
the often crowded freeways, we changed locations three times: Anaheim in the south
east, Pasadena in the north east, and the beach at Playa del Rey on the west. We
spent about five days visiting the sites in each sector.
We visited the obligatory Getty Museum of Art [the building
itself is a work of art] and Simon Wiesenthal's Museum of Tolerance. Other museums
that we found of particular interest were the Gene Autry Museum of Western
Heritage, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
the Skirball Cultural Center, and the Norton Simon
Museum of Art (formerly the Pasadena Museum of Art).
We were disappointed with the Santa Monica Museum of Art which only has two
rooms and eight paintings. That would have come to almost $1.00 per painting if
we had each given the suggested donation. We were
particularly impressed with the quality of the paintings which Norton Simon had collected.
There were big names (van Gogh, Picasso, Degas, Monet, etc.) in this formerly
private collection which he donated to the city of Pasadena [hence the name change]. I
guess that it's true: Whether you're rich or poor, it's good to have money. [And a
tax write-off, too]
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has its collection
in several buildings, some of which are connected. We particularly liked the building
devoted to Japanese art with a large netsuki collection. We spent almost the
entire day at the LACMA, ducking out only for lunch and a brief visit to the La
Brea Tar Pits and its Page Museum (a division of the Museum of
Natural History of Los Angeles County) which adjoins the LACMA and the Craft
Museum which is across the street. We visited the Natural History Museum of Los
Angeles County twice. A special exhibit told the story of theViking
invasions of Europe. We learned a lot about Viking culture through the dioramas,
artifacts and photographs. Much of what we had previously learned about the
Norse and their interactions with other Europeans came
largely from the stories of their victims. This exhibit help put several pieces of
information that we had known about European history into a new perspective.
At the Museum of Contemporary Art, we saw many dramatic pieces of modern
'art.' Following our visit to this museum, we wandered the
plazas and parks which were nearby. I especially liked the Farmer's Market with its
variety of ethnic aromas and tastes. Bakeries, produce stands, fish, meat, etc. and
small restaurants were packed into a permanent building.
So far in San Francisco, we have only visited the California Academy of Sciences, a
museum, aquarium, and planetarium in one. We have been spending our time buying groceries for the two dinners which Sarah will be preparing this week for family (Jennifer, Beryl, and
Mark have tickets to be here for the holiday) and friends in the area. Today
Sarah bought more than $200 in perishable groceries: All this considering she had
already dropped off 25 pounds of matzoh, 30 pound of gefilte fish and other
non-perishables. I suspect that there will be enough left-overs to take us most of the way
across the country. If only I had space in the van's refrigerator...
Regards for a good holiday,
Allen & Sarah
Hi!
We had a good time in San Francisco. The special treat was having
all of our children [+spouse and fiance] with us.
We got a chance to share with them some of the things we had been
doing. We went to the Palace of Fine Arts, which is a science
museum, and the Palace of the Legion of
Honor, which is a fine arts museum. The science museum, the
Exploratorium, is the best hands-on science museum that we have ever
visited; the art museum has pictures and other stuff. The California Academy opened
an exhibit, Skulls, that we made a special trip to see; it was not as good as we had
expected. In general, the 'Skeleton' exhibit in
the Museum of Man in San Diego was much better, but it only dealt with humans.
We took a day to drive down to Big Sur visiting Point Lobos State Reserve, Pigeon Point
Lighthouse, and seeing sea otters, seals, and sea lions as well as the scenery of
California's middle coast.
The hills of San Francisco took its toll on our driving by reducing our gas milage to 7.5
mph and probably wore the brakes down some.
Fisherman's Wharf was interesting. From there we visited the Hyde Street Pier and
Alcatraz, both operated by the National Parks Service. The former has historic ships to
tour, the other was a prison which held a lot of really bad guys.
Being a port city, San Francisco has a lot of good and varied restaurants. We had a brief
time after the holiday to try some out with the family, and, of course, a visit to several of
Napa Valley's wineries and took the Jelly Belly factory tour. Over the holidays, we put
on some additional weight because Sarah cooked many wonderful meals at Dan's house.
Sarah now has a thin woman inside of her screaming to get out; Sarah keeps her sedated
with chocolate.
On the way north we stopped at Point Reyes National Seashore and drove through the
San Andreas Fault. After being in the van with Sarah for the past six months, it was
good to be somewhere where everything wasn't My Fault.
Further north was Fort Ross [1812-1841], the southern-most area under the control of
Russia. The Russian Navy and the Russia-America Company built the
redwood fort for fur hunters and to raise crops for their colonies in Alaska. Never
showing a profit or producing enough crops, the fort was sold to John Sutter in 1841.
It was interesting to see that the Spanish were not the only group taking advantage of the
Indians on the west coast. The Russians, however, allowed the Indians to hunt on their
own when not working for the company, but could only sell their pelts to the company.
We are now touring California's north coast which is even more scenic than the middle
coast. We suppose that the middle coast gets more visitors because
it is between San Francisco and Los Angeles; tourists fly into one and out of the other.
We are in Mendocino County. We visited the Medocino Coast Botanical
Gardens for a pleasant walk through the flowers and sunshine: lots of rhododendrons were in bloom along with many annuals. The historic villages of Mendocino and Fort Bragg now have lots of up-scale shops and eateries.
From here we head for the Avenue of the Giants at Redwoods State Park.
Regards,
Allen & Sarah
Hi!
We turned left at Ft. Bragg on the Mendocino coast and headed
inland to Willets via a scenic highway. We have joined with highway 101
which is faster and straighter than Highway 1 [the coast road]. There are
fewer sharp curves and steep drops on 101. As the crow flies, the
distance from here to San Francisco is the same by either highway. If the
crow were to be driving a fully loaded camper van, Highway 101 would take
half the time. To adjust for all of the inlets, there are sharp descents
followed by steep ascents; between the downs and ups are hairpin turns.
Willets boasts the oldest continuously held rodeo in California AND the
arch which originally stood on the main street in Reno, NV proclaiming
Reno to be the 'Biggest Little City in the World" from 1937 to 1987. Now
the arch says 'Willets' 'Gateway to the Redwoods.'
Traveling north we visited the Avenue of the Giants and several other
redwood state and national parks. They are really big and really old
trees. The drive-thru trees do not accommodate the height of our van, but we entered
several trees that have been used as dwellings. In a museum, we saw a
tree section that was hollowed and mounted on a flat-bed truck andturned into a camper similar
to ours except our wood paneling isn't red. This camper was made before WW I.
We continued along the coast into Oregon and turned inland to visit Crater
Lake National Park. We were surprised to find ten feet of snow still on
the ground. Driving through the park is like driving through a narrow
white-walled canyon. Only the road to the rim parking lot is open. The
north entrance doesn't open until mid May and the campground doesn't open until late June.
The rim road around the lake [elevation 6,000+'] is not cleared of snow
until early July and is not open at this time. In order to see the lake,
one enters an eight foot diameter steel tube that pierces the snow bank
from the road [which is plowed daily] to the edge of the steep slope into
the crater. There is a door on one end of the tube and a window on the other.
We woke this morning to find several inched of wet snow on the ground. We
would have stayed in the campground [where we have electric and 50
channels of cable T.V.], but we had an appointment in town for van
repairs. This caps a week of repairs [thermostat (Coos Bay), catalytic
converter (Eugene), and radiator (Klamath Falls), all in Oregon which has
no sales tax; at least a little savings.
We've seen many elk on this leg of the trip [Roosevelt Elk in the redwoods
and Tule Elk in our current campground). We've also seen more seals and
sea lions along the coast. In one place, we saw a mixed colony of both
seals and sea lions which included many pups.
We are in a lull on the whale migration route from the Baja to Alaska.
Mid-March is the migration peak of the males and solitary females;
May-June is the peak for nursing females and their calves. Peak means
about 15 whale sightings per hour. We'll try to get back to the coast for that.
For the time being, we plan to hang around in the southern Oregon-northern
California area until it warms up some more north of here. One surprise snowfall was enough!
Our next planned stop is Lava Beds National Monument in northern California which is about 30 miles from here. There are numerous lava tube caves there which we plan to explore. Sarah
has been hesitant to go into caves. She says that she is uncomfortable about having creepy things touch her in the dark [about the same as what happens in the back of the
van at night, I guess] Just last night I had to get rid of two spiders.
We're still eating leftovers from our Passover shopping.
Regards,
A&S
Oroville, CA
May 15, 2002
Klamath Falls, OR We'd been in Klamath Falls before. I was disappointed to learn of the
closing of the Royal Fork Buffet, an establishment which provided me with
much food on past visits. I soothed my disappointment with a visit to
Red's Backwoods BBQ's all-you-can-eat beef ribs and put a dent into Red's quarterly profits.
We drove to Lava Beds National Monument in northern California and
explored the lava tube caves [some more than a mile in length]. Lava
tubes form when molten lava flows from a volcano in a narrow stream. The
outer surface of the flow cools and hardens while the interior remains
liquid. When the volcano stops emitting lava, the liquid drains from the
hardened shell and leaves a tube, which is, by definition, hollow.
The park provides lanterns and sells souvenir helmets. We used our bicycle
helmets to protect ourselves from the low ceilings and sharp projections.
The floors of the caves are uneven, as are the roofs. With only the
flashlight we must watch the floor, ceiling, and sides. It makes for slow
going. We did not trip or slam the ceiling. Even in the pitch dark,
creepy things did not bother Sarah [I kept my
hands to myself]. There are turns and side tubes. One can get lost if you
miss a turn or mistake a side cave for the route out.
The temperature in the tubes is about 55 year-'round, about the same as
the air temperature that day, so we didn't have to put on or take off
clothing each time we explored another cave. The ceiling of some of the
tubes appear to be chocolate frosting with peaks and swirls in shades of
brown. Some of the ceilings have collapsed [Not our fault! It happened
hundreds of years ago] and this makes 'sky lights' in some of the caves,
but most have no light coming in from the outside. The was hardly anyone
else in the park that day and we were alone in all of the caves that we visited.
Sacramento Valley
We left the snows of south central Oregon for the warmth of the Sacramento
Valley. The interior of California is a series of valleys between the
coastal mountains and the Cascade range. Here along the Sacramento River
it is warm [80s] and sunny. We stayed a week along a creek, biking up
hill into town and nearby attractions daily. Some of the up hills were
steep, but one dries and cools off nicely on the way back.
We are now in Lake Oroville State Recreation area which has boating,
fishing and a 44 mile single track bike trail which goes through meadows,
forest and rolling hills. A steep section was part of the 1996 California
downhill bike races and features a drop of 750 feet over a mile course
with about three dozen turns [not a chance].
We are back near earthquake territory. We passed through tsunami
territory and spent some time in volcano territory before returning to
here. Back home, we risk the chance of being mugged by people, here
nature is the offender.
Regards,
A&S
Oroville, CA
May, 2002
Hi!,
We spent more than a week on Oroville. We moved from the state recreation area to a private campground, along the 44 mile bike trail,which has full hook-ups including cable TV (which came in handy during the several days of rain).
We biked the part of the trail that was along the Feather River. With temperatures close to 90 and bright sunshine, we ended our riding drenched with sweat. Using the trail, we got lots of aerobic exercise and practiced eye-hand coordination, while avoiding getting involved with automobile traffic (most of the way). [In Lewiston, when we biked we had to share the road with cars and trucks carrying massive pine tree trunks to the lumber mills. In one steep downhill section, the road narrowed to a single two-direction lane around a blind curve. We had the exhilaration of shooting down hill with the excitement of the possibility of becoming a hood ornament on a logging truck.]
We lucked out on Saturday, May 18. In was an annual 'free day' at Oroville's half dozen museums. Although each was small and took only about half an hour to see, saving two bucks per person at each covered our day's lodging and meals.
Of particular interest was the Chinese Temple which served the 10,000+ Chinese miners from the 1850s until the 1930. We had visited the Chinese Temple in Weaverville, about 100 miles north of here earlier this month. Oroville was a larger community and had the Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucian temples in a single complex. The complex here is larger that at Weaverville, but the Taoist temple was more elaborate in Weaverville.
The Spanish missions in California get a lot of attention, and they were here earlier, but there was also a series of Chinese temples, some of which are still in use. The Chinese, of course, did not try to change anyone else's beliefs or cultures.
A FISH STORY
While in Lewiston earlier this month [between Weaverville & I-5] we biked to the fish hatchery at the foot of the Lewiston Dam. The Lewiston Dam on the Trinity River blocks more than 100 miles of gravel spawning grounds from the Pacific Salmon and reduced the salmon output of the river by 90%. California built what is the largest fish hatchery that we have ever seen to hatch and raise salmon and steelhead trout. When the salmon are a year old, they are dumped by truck into the Trinity River in the spring and enter the Pacific via the Klamath River north of here.
The Oroville Dam, at nearly 800 feet, is the largest earthen dam in the U.S. It blocks salmon from the Feather River. We visited the fish hatchery [which is along the bike trail]. It has the longest fish ladder that we have ever seen. It moves the salmon nearly half a mile where they are killed by hatchery employees and have their sex cells [eggs & milt] removed. The eggs and milt are combined and are placed into incubating trays. The salmon carcasses are distributed to organizations which provide food to Indians and the needy, we were told. The year-old salmon are returned to Feather River and enter the Pacific via the Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay.
At the fish ladder on the Sacramento River in Red Bluff just northwest of here, we got a private tour by and Fish and Wildlife employee. The salmon here get the opportunity to spawn the old-fashion way in local creeks. Fish and Wildlife employees collect the dead salmon [Pacific salmon die after breeding; Atlantic salmon live for several breeding seasons], cut their heads off and send the heads to labs where the 1/32 of an inch wires (which have digital coding and were inserted into the fry when only a few weeks old) are dissected from their snouts and read in order to trace salmon migration patterns.
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We spent Memorial Day weekend with our San Francisco family at Pinnacles National Monument hiking and rock climbing. Although our hiking route covered only six miles, the altitude change during the hike was the same as walking up twice the height of the Empire State Building. I ended up with a blister big enough to be considered a sixth toe. It made it difficult to continue the rock climbing, since the toes play a big part in gaining a foothold and climbing shoes are tight. Dan does rock climbing on a regular basis; I used his equipment, including the tight shoes.
Regards,
A&S
Hi!
If we don't get out of California within the next few weeks, we'll have to
start paying taxes, so we're on the move.
The rock climbing that I did in Pinnacles turned out to be a lot of fun. We
were able to have the opportunity because Dan does rock climbing and has
the necessary equipment [ropes, harnesses, shoes, carabineers, etc.] and we're about the same
size, foot-wise. No special training is required for rock climbing, any fool can do it. Dan, however, is trained and certified to hold the end of the safety rope [the belay person]. It is a
special rope that has some give so that if/when one falls, one is not brought to a jarring,
injury-causing, stop.
Since the safety rope runs through a carabineer and is, in effect, a simple pulley, Since I out-weigh Dan, I don't understand why, if I were to fall, I wouldn't end up on the ground and Dan in the air. I didn't fall, but I did rappelle down.
Rock climbing, as is biking, scuba, and hiking, is primarily lower body
exercise, just not aerobic. We seem to be getting a lot of lower body exercises, but not enough upper body exercises. Carrying air tanks and moving the bikes off and on the van
don't count.
After Memorial Day we returned the California's central valley, but the
temperatures started to get above 100 degrees and, hearing that Lassen
Volcanic National Park had opened ten days earlier, we felt that we could
beat the heat and do some hiking there. Yes and No!
We were able to beat the heat by going to Mt. Lassen.
It was only 100 miles, but almost all of it was straight up. Actually,
we only got to a little more than 8,000 feet in altitude. When they said that the park was open,
they meant that the road through the park was open; the trails were still
under too much snow to hike, biking was restricted to the road [not that
we would do much biking at that altitude], and one of the two open
campgrounds had the restroom under snow. Not wanting to camp in a 'yellow
snow' area, we stayed at the lower elevation [5,400'] campground and
enjoyed the mild days and cool nights.
A short trail was open there and we saw numerous 'snow flowers.' These
bright crimson stalks resemble hyacinths, except that they are entirely
red. We has thought that they were the fleshy fruiting bodies of a fungus
and asked a ranger. The ranger gave us the name, but wasn't sure of what
it was. When she told us that it didn't have chlorophyll, it answered out question.
On the way back to San Francisco from Lassen, we returned to Redding and
attended the members-only preview of the new museum complex. It has a
science, art, lumbering, and historical museum. The science deals primarily with the fish industry, the history is about the early European pioneers to northern California and the Wintu
Indians who inhabit the area and fished the salmon. Today they are after bigger fish: They operate the Win-River Casino. Pull-out cross sections of a model of the ground allows
visitors to see the plants and animals that live under the surface. We
have never seen such detailed exhibits of this kind before. Paul Bunyon
[The legend was created here] Forest Camp is a separate section which is
primarily an outdoor playground which teaches
about the lumber industry. There are few computers, but lots of volunteers to
explain the exhibits.
The museum seems to prefer the 'human touch,' something rare in museums
today. Unfortunately, as we have found in our travels, humans are often
less reliable than signs in providing accurate information.
We're back in San Francisco for Father's Day weekend and the adult Bat Mitzvah of Dan's
fiance Carrie at Temple Sherith Israel. From here, we plan to head north along the coast.
Hopefully, we will not hit snow this time.
Allen & Sarah
Hi!
While we were at Lassen Volcanic National Park, we saw the new [formed just
last year] thermal area. Some steaming and bubbling vent holes formed
across the road from 'The Sulphur Works,' a thermal area that has been there
for thousands of years and is thought to be the original vent of the now
exploded and missing Mount Tamaza. Being so close to the road saved the NPS
the costs of building a road to it; they just had to build a viewing
platform and put up warning signs telling people to stay away from the vents
due to loose soil and the possibility of sliding into near boiling mud and
water which, judging by the footprints in the sand, many people don't read.
[Or maybe can't read; both groups of people that we saw standing at the
crumbling edge of the fumarole were non-English speaking.]
Natural selection in action!
As we were approaching the area, the aroma of the fumaroles began seeping
into the van. At first, I thought the aroma was coming from Sarah [we had
been eating Mexican food]; I'm sure that she thought that it was coming from me.
On the way back to San Francisco from Mt. Lassen, we passed through some
thermal areas in northern California's Napa Valley. Near Calistoga, famous
for 'Old Faithful of California' geyser, we took a
tour of a geothermal electricity-generating plant [one of twenty in the area.]
We were the only visitors who showed up for the 10a.m. tour, so we had the
bus, driver, and an operating engineer to ourselves.
Each plant has its own steam field, wells that have been drilled into the
steam-producing strata several miles below ground. Each well costs about
$2,000,000 to drill. The steam comes from fossil water that is near the cooling magma far below the surface.
The generating plants are small [about 5 megawatts] and have only two
turbines and a small cooling array. They are relatively pollution free,
producing a small amount of sulfur residue which is removed, at no charge to
Cal Pine, by a trucking company which sells the sulfur to area vineyards for
soil augmentation.
In some of the plants, the hot condensate is used in secondary operations.
In the plant that we visited, most of the condensed steam is evaporated at
the cooling array, the rest is injected back into the water-bearing rock.
The fossil water which produces the steam is NOT replaced by rainfall and
began to be depleted about 15 years ago. A deal with the Santa Rosa sewage
treatment facility allows for more than 1,000,000 gallons per day for
treated water to be injected into the hot rock. This helps replenish the
water removed to operate the plant and helps Santa Rosa get rid of water
that they are not permitted, by law, to dump into the Russian River even
though it is cleaner than the river water.
For Father's Day, Dan took me to Mission Cliffs, a rock-climbing gym in San
Francisco's Mission District. The fun started as soon as we went in when
Dan was not charged for my admission or my rental shoes ["Your bringing your
father for Father's Day? No Charge!"].
The climbing walls are simulated stone with ersatz rock projections ranging in size
from about 1" to to almost 1' across and protruding 1" to about 6" from
the wall. The number of shapes seems to be infinite. There are several
dozen marked routes to the top which vary in height from 35' to 55'. Some of
the routes are horizontal and one has to hang from holds and mounted pitons.
Each route is labeled as to difficulty on a rock climbing standard. I tried
routes of varying difficulty, not just the 'bunny trail.'
Mission Cliffs was the site of the 2002 National Rock Climbing Championship.
I did not [Repeat: NOT] try that route. I had a lot of fun. Sarah took a
lot of pictures. This will be a Father's Day to remember.
Clinton, B.C.
7 July 02
We crossed into Canada on Friday after waiting about two hours to get to the
customs booth. We visited the science museum in Vancouver and, after
spending an extra hour getting back to the highway
because the exit road was not marked, left town in a huff [Actually, being
the weekend, it was more like an hour and a huff].
Science World, B.C. http://www.scienceworld.bc.ca is almost new and almost
all hands-on. Sarah and I had a lot of fun playing with the all of the science stuff.
On the way north we visited three zoos in three days. The Oregon Zoo in
Portland is new and good, but not very large. The oval route through the
zoo keeps one on track and reduces the chances of missing any of the exhibits.
The exhibits are naturalistic, but again, not large, except for the polar bears which have a good exhibit that was both indoors and out.
The Port Defiance Zoo and Aquarium had too few animals
for the cost. The maritime exhibits, however, were good. Sarah especially liked the baby
penguins, which, at three months, were already 2/3 adult size but still fuzzy
and dark grey. They won't get their tuxedos for a few years yet.
The Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle claims to be one of the
10 best in the world. We can certainly believe that. It is the best zoo that we've
seen outside NYC and, in some respects, is even better than the Bronx Zoo. It has won five awards for new exhibits. The pathway here is oval, but the
exhibits here are larger and more complex than in other zoos.
One feature that we liked was the signage. Signs were bilingual: English
and a language from the animal's homeland. This way, the animals can know
what is being said about them.
On the arts front:
The Portland Museum of Art has a special exhibit of artifacts from Imperial
Japan. At $13.00, it was the second most expensive public art museum that we
have visited [Ft. Lauderdale, FL was a few dollars more].
The Seattle Art Museum and its sister museum, the Seattle Asian Art Museum
were both good. The special exhibit at SAM
was from the Smith College collection. We had
seen the Smith College collection elsewhere, but each museum chooses
different works. Most of the works here we did not see before.
Also in Seattle we visited the Museum of Flight at Boeing's original plant. We had the opportunity to wander around the first Air Force 1 presidential jet used by Ike,
JFK, LBJ, and RMN.
In Seattle we got a chance to see a fish ladder in operation.
We watched salmon jump up and, through underwater
viewing windows, swim under the concrete baffles. Many salmon also go through the ship locks
and save their energy for other activities.
Sarah wanted you to know that Portland is the 'City of Roses.' Their public
gardens were in bloom and gorgeous. There were thousands of bushes of roses
as big as two fists and in colors that I didn't know roses could be.
Regards,
Sarah & Allen
and drove beside the
southern-most fjord in North
America and also saw lots of scenery.
There were a few things that I wanted to tell you
about in the last letter,
but was pressed for time.
The Smith College Collection was created by
purchasing unfinished works of
famous painters as a
cost-saving measure. In the Smith College
Collection at SAM a painting of
particular interest was a
work from 18th century France called "The Washing of
the Dead Girl" [It
sounds better in French, but
not much.] The painting shows the nude corpse of a
young woman seated in a
chair having its feet
washed and hair combed. When the painting failed to
sell at a gallery in
the early 1900s, the gallery
hired an artist to paint a white dress on the
corpse. The painting was then
retitled: "The Washing of
the Bride."
We are following the trail of the Cariboo Gold Rush
[1859] into Canada's
Cariboo Country. Today we
visited the remains of Barkerville, the site of the
richest gold mines in
Canada, once the largest city
north of San Francisco . The last year-'round
resident died in 1979 and it
is now a historic park under
ParksCanada. Many of the buildings are original,
some are restored, others
have been rebuilt from old
photographs.
Gas is more expensive here than in the U.S. [except for San Francisco], but
camping is less expensive. The exchange rate make many local items very reasonable. For
example, a loaf of specialty bakery bread is $2.50CDN, about the same
as in the U.S., but with an exchange rate of 66%, it only costs us about $1.70USD.
Regards,
A&S
Skagway, Alaska
Hi!
We have left British Columbia and are now in the Yukon.
This is the place to be to have lots to do during the day. The sun is in
the sky for 20 hours a day and is not far below the horizon [which is in the north] at
'night.' This area calls itself 'The Land of the
Midnight Twilight.' Since the curtains on the van are only for privacy, we
have to put cardboard between the curtains and the windows to make it dark
enough to sleep.
We took the western route to here from Prince George, the 'Capital ' of
Northern B.C. The western route is the Stewart-Cassiar Highway which has been
85% paved since we drove it last in 1986 when it was 85% dirt.
The road has a spur to Stewart. B.C. and neighboring Hyder, Alaska. We
drove the 40 mile spur and
stayed in Hyder. Hyder uses Canadian currency and
keeps Pacific Time.
[Alaska is on Yukon Time,
the Yukon and B.C., are on Pacific Time.]
The road to Stewart passes about 20 glaciers, most impressive is the Bear
Glacier which is blue. Many of the glaciers are hanging. Sarah said that some
of those were very well hung.
While in Hyder we spent about 3.5 hours at Fish Creek hoping to see grizzly
bear which frequent the area to feed on the spawning salmon. Expectation
plays a big role in excitement. Since we were here
to see grizzlies, we were dissapointed, after spending three hours watching
salmon spawn, a beaver swimming back and forth constructing a dam, a black
bear coming to the creekside to feed on berries,
and numerous bald eagles flying about. [One came within a dozen feet of us.]
We saw the eagle catch
a small furry thing and take it to a tree for dinner only to see another
eagle swoop down and steal it.
We were going to leave in disappointment at 10 p.m. when the grizzly
appeared and gave us a good show. He stalked around the creek for a few minutes
[coming as close to us as 15 feet], then started
to splash around in the foot-deep water eventually coming up with a salmon
in its jaws. Then we were happy!
After watching the salmon spawn for so long, it gave us ideas, so we went
back to the van an had caviar. {Which we bought in Bellingham, WA's
Russian immigrant community.}
Also at Hyder we drove 18 miles on a dirt road to the summit of a nearby
mountain {above the tree line, which is lower here than in the lower U.S.}
following the tongue of the Salmon Glacier. From the
summit, the view of the glacier is very impressive since the glacier makes a
90 degree directly below and one can see the stress folds and jags in the ice.
Between Hyder and the Yukon we saw another black bear, several moose and
ptarmigan [an arctic bird with feathers on its feet], and eagles
Regards to all,
A&S
July 18, 2002
Hi!
We joined with the Alaska Highway just west of Watson Lake, Yukon Territory
and headed west toward Alaska. Sarah refused to bike or hike while in
British Columbia or the Yukon because of bears. Although no tourists have
been killed by bears recently, unfortunately I cannot say the same for
locals. The latest word on dealing with bears is to be submissive, but if
the bear does not stop biting you after a few minutes, consider it an attack
and respond agressivly. [I have the pamphlet to document this advice.]
Wearing 'bear bells' to warn bears of your approach and using pepper spray
if the bear attacks are still advised, but we've heard that one can tell if
a bear is in the area by looking for its scat. Bear scat is about 1.5" in
diameter, about 6" long, has berry seeds, bells, and smells like pepper.
On the way to Skagway we passed through Carcross [originally Caribou
Crossing] which dates from the late 1800s. The town exists today on tourism
and as a bedroom community for Whitehorse, Yukon's capital [and very few
people do that since Whitehorse is 40 mles away]. Tourism is down sharply
since the 1950s when cruise ships to Skagway reduced
their layover time and people stopped taking the lake steamer from Carcross.
We are currently in Skagway {originally Skaguay}
Skagway is about four blocks wide and a mile long situated between two
mountains and White Horse pass. I had expected the streets to have name
reminicent of the 1897-98 gold rush, but they don't. The four major
streets are Alaska, State, Main and Broadway; the cross streets are First
through Twenty-third Avenues.
At the south end of town are the docks where several
cruise ships dock daily. When the ships are in, the town fills with people all the way up to
Seventh Avenue along Broadway which has shop after
shop of souveneirs , jewelry, food, etc. for tourists. Skagway also has a supermarket and a gas
station [$1.89.9/gal.: cheaper than in the Yukon].
Many of the bulidings date from the days of the Klondike gold ruch of
1897-98 and are under the auspicies of the National Parks Service, but are
rented to merchants. This rental arrangement provides funds for the
maintenance and repair of historic buildings.
During the gold rush, tens of thousands of stampeders came through Skagway,
landing on the dock and heading to the Klondike 600 miles away. Most of the
trip was by boat, but the 30-40 [depending which route] mile trip to Bennet
Lake and the Yukon River could take 40 days. {To prevent famine in Dawson
City and the Klondike, the Canadian government would not let anyone into the
Yukon unless that had a year's worth of food (about
1000 lbs.] and about 1,000lbs. of equipment. A stampeder had to move his
equipment and supplies in 50 lb. packs about ten miles, leave it, and go
back for more making about 40 ten mile round trips. {It took about 800 miles
of walking to move one's supplies the 40 miles to Bennet lake, then one had to build a boat.}].
The main reason that we came to Skagway was to see the Glaciers in Glacier
Bay. After several days of poor weather, we finally go some blue skies and
headed for the office of Skagway Air. Sarah, the
pilot and I headed over the mountains.
We went up and down the fjords following one glacier from the snowfields,
through the fjords to the bay and up other fjords following other glaciers
from their toe to the ice fields. I had planned to finish the roll of film
in the camera, but the scenery was so magnificent that I also finished a
second roll of film. The immensity of the snow and ice as seen from the air is awesome!
We watched the tiny [as they appeared from the air] cruise ships plying
Glacier Bay and watched for calving of the glaciers. The waters were
studded with pieces of glacial ice. At one point, when the pilot spotted
some mountain goats, he banked the plane and headed almost straight up the
side of the fjord so that Sarah & I could get a better look.
Having the plane to ourselves made me feel more comfortable. Since I easily
get sea sick, I was afraid of getting air sick. This way, I could turn
around and go back to Skagway without interfering or annoying others [Not
that there could be too many others in a four-seat plane]. I am pleased to
report that nothing untoward came out of any of my orifices [orifici?].
Regards to all,
A&S
Hi!
Alaska, the Yukon, and northern British Columbia each consider the mosquito to be
their official bird.
We found the mosquitoes in B.C. to be fierce. We hardly saw any in Skagway.
In the Yukon there was not a single mosquito: The were all married
with large families.
In the U.S., 'slapdash' refers to poor construction; here it describes a trip from
the R.V. to a building.
Some of the outhouses in the B.C. provincial parks have screens. The screens keep the mosquitoes trapped inside. Having mosquitoes trapped in the
outhouse in not a bad thing. It gives you something to
do while you're waiting to do something.
When we walked around, we often wore our mosquito-netting hats. Other
times, we wished that we were wearing our mosquito-netting hats.
Don't get us wrong, it's not that the places here a just filled with
mosquitoes, there are other flying insects as well. Also, the mosquito season is short;
then it is black fly season. Black flies don't puncture your skin; they bite out chunks.
The major problem with mosquitoes in the van is that the walls and ceiling
of the van are covered withfabric. If we hit a mosquito anywhere but a cabinet
face, we get a blood spot that has to be washed out rather than wiped away.
We were given battery-powered devices which emit sounds that are supposed
to repel mosquitoes. By using these devices, we were able to determine
that the mosquitoes of the Pacific north are deaf.
We wandered the boards of Skagway's historic sidewalks for most of a week.
Sarah peeked into nearly every nook and cranny of most of the shops in
downtown. Downtown Skagway is Broadway
from the dock to Seventh Avenue. The area is filled with cruise ship
passengers by day and nearly deserted in the late afternoon {which runs until
about 11 p.m. when the sky starts to darken}. On
Friday there was only a single cruise ship at the dock [We were told that
there are often as many as six or seven, the most that we saw was four], therefore
the crowds were gone.
We enjoyed being in Skagway and visiting the historic buildings
and learning about the Klondike Gold Rush.
Not everything was enjoyable to learn. Most of the stampeders came away
with only enough for their fare back home, some didn't have that much, and some
didn't live through the experience. The pack animals fared poorly, to say the least. Three
thousand horses died in White Pass, supposedly the
wagon route, to get 5,000 men through the 40 miles to Bennett Lake and the
Yukon River. There were other sad stories as well. We visited the Gold Rush
Cemetery and saw the graves of some of the
young stampeders who never made it past Skagway. There was a lot of
organized thievery going on in Skagway, but on the trail there was little violence
or theft.
We especially enjoyed our flight over the fjords and glaciers of Glacier Bay National Park.
We took our tank full of cheap [by Yukon standards] American gasoline, gave
a hearty shout of "Let's head for home!" and high-tailed it to Whitehorse,
the capital of the Yukon, and our connection to the Alaska Highway.
We didn't realize how recently the Natives of this area were exposed to
Western culture. It was not until the early 1900s that there was any sizable
influx of Europeans. The pattern of disease transmission followed that of the Spanish
into South America with the Indian population being decimated by illness.
We visited several Tlingit villages on the way up. These villages proudly
display their totem poles which are not religious, but give clan
relationships. The Tlingit still fish the waters for salmon in the traditional fashion.
Wild salmon is for sale at good prices everywhere and smoked fish is very popular
and very tasty.
The spring thaw was late this year, so the rivers were running too fast for
the migrating salmon until about now. Those Canadians who took their vacations
in early July to do some salmon fishing weresorely disappointed. They have been grumbling about 'Global Cooling.'
The scenery has been enhanced by the unseasonally excessive runoff: There is more snow capping the peaks and cascades cover the steep slopes like a reticulum.
We visited the fish ladder in Whitehorse. They claim that it is the northern-most fish ladder in Canada and the longest in the world. We don't know about the former, but we think
that the ladder that we saw in Oroville, CA was longer. The Oroville ladder
is much newer, so the people in Whitehorse may not know about it yet. We'll have to check. Not too many salmon use this ladder. The annual number is 122 to 1500 chinook, but there are other fish. Since Whitehorse is 1800 miles from the Bering Sea, this is a very long migration route and salmon do not eat once they get into fresh water. Most of the
salmon that migrate up the Yukon River do their thing farther down stream.
Yesterday we went to the North West Territory. Most of the roads there are
unpaved. The scenery is much like that of the Yukon. As in the Yukon,
communities are few and far between. Nothing, except for the capital, comes close to being considered a village, much less a city.
Regards to all,
A&S
Dawson Creek, B.C.
July 25, 2002
Hi!
We're on our way home. Dawson Creek is 'Mile 0' of the 1523 mile Alaska
Highway which ends in Fairbanks, AK. It was constructed in 8 months in
1942. The Alaska Highway is listed as the 16th Engineering Wonder of the World. We don't know if there are 15 things more wonderful or 15 wonders that are older.
Looking back on the Alaska Highway from a summit one sees the ribbon of
highway cutting a swath through the spruce/poplar forests. There are no
secondary roads, fields, or villages to be seen; it's forest as far as the eye can see.
One of our last stops along the highway was Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park (BC). I walked
through the pool with my field thermometer. I stopped at 120 degrees, the
limit of my thermometer and my body; I figured that I wasn't going to get any
useful information past that point but 'ouch.' We
settled on the 106 degree area to sit for a while, with Sarah staying on the cooler side.
We only biked in the campground to get to the spring. The previous and last
time that we did any real biking since getting into the north country was in
Skagway. Skagway is compact with camping right in town. We left the van in the
campground and biked everywhere for the several days that we were there.
The biking in Skagway is as Sarah likes it: Paved, level, and bear-free.
We are out of the forest for the time being and the mosquitoes are gone. We
were able to sit out in the long evening and read with shorts on and netting off.
There are many fields here: They virtually glow with a bright yellow color.
The yellow fields contrast sharply with the dark green of the coniferous
borders. The crop is rape. The rape-seeds are pressed
to make cooking oil. Rape-seed oil is marketed as Canadian Oil, better
known as "Canola.' There is no plant called 'canola.'
Sarah's birthday is coming up. Not knowing if we would be in 'civilization'
when the event occured, I took her out to dinner in Ft. Liard, NWT's finest and most expensive restaurant. (Actually, the only restaurant.) Now she tells me that she wants a 'do-over'
the day of the event if we're in a 'good place.' I think that she will take 'any place.'
Regards,
A&S
Drumheller, Alberta
July 30, 2002
Hi!
For sheer majesty, the Icefields Highway from Jasper to Lake Louise in
western Alberta in the Canadian Rockies has to be the #1 scenic highway in North America. This well paved
road passed dozens of chiseled mountains
whose treeless slopes are dotted with snow and ice. Numerous icefields and
many glaciers can be seen from the 150 mile highway.
We stopped at the Athabasca Glacier, which we first visited in 1974. It was a longer walk and a
steeper climb to get onto the toe of the glacier than it was 28 years ago.
It's not just that we're almost twice as old as we were then; but the glacier has
receeded a considerable distance and the pile of debris [moraine] in front of the glacier is higher
than it was. Walking at 6,000+' doesn't help either.
Fed by the Columbia Icefield [which sits astride the Continental Divide of
three watersheds sending the melt waters to the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic
Oceans] it takes snowfall, compressed to ice, 150 years to reach the toe.
We were not near any restaurants for Sarah's birthday, but I went for the
extra bucks ($2)and got a site in a campground that had a flush toilet. The
next day she got her birthday luncheon.
We were in Lake Louise and we lunched at Chateau Lake Louise buffet. Lake
Louise is a turquoise-coloured lake nestled between steep mountains. Two
glaciers overhang thelake and provide the rock flour which gives it the color. Sitting at window
seats gave us a better appreciation of the meal.
At least for her birthday I was able to give Sarah her present, fudge that I had bought in Hyder,
Alaska. We kept the fudge in the refrigerator and Sarah didn't even sneak a
taste; she can deal with delayed gratification.
We are now in Drumheller which is in the triangle formed by Edmonton,
Calgary, and Medicine Hat. The area is technically known as 'The Middle of
Nowhere.' It is also the location of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palentology. Here in dinosaur country, the Tyrell has more complete dinosaur skeletons than any other museum. Built in 1984 (but it looks as if it opened yesterday), the trail through the museum followed the development of life on Earth from the Precambrian through the Ice Age. Most of the museum is devoted to the "big boys' of the animal kindom, the dinosaurs (many of which were found in this area).
We found the flow through the museum easy to follow and the exhibits were well presented and
designed to provoke interest, understanding and excitement [in addition to the excitement of walking through a landscape of giant lizard skeletons]. This is an excellent museum and one that should not be missed by those interested in dinosaurs.
When comparing the Tyrrell to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC,
we felt that the AMNH provided more information about the dinosaurs
and their evolution, but the displays here were more dramatic and exciting.
A nice touch was a path through a lush greenhouse containing plants that were present
during the Age of Dinosaurs. Also, one could look through a glass wall and see palentologists at work on newly acquired fossils. Some of the items on display were so recent that they had not yet been named.
I was so impressed, I bought a t-shirt.
Regards,
A&S
Livingston, MT
Original Gateway to Yellowstone
Aug 3, 2002
Alberta was a lot of fun! So much so, that we would like to come back another year with the kids for one of our annual family vacations. Before leaving Alberta we visited Head Smashed In, an unusual name for a provincial park, but it is one; and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well.
For more than 6,000 years, northern plains Indians used this site [there are others but
this is the biggest] to stampede a small herd of bison over a cliff to kill them for a
season's worth food. The 'Buffalo Jump,' as it is known, was not used in every generation, and,
according to archeological evidence, was not used for one period of 1,000 years before being used again. The Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump Museum was
built in the late 1980s and its design follows the flow of the cliff. One starts at the top [elevators,
thanks] and walks down to different levels which explain, through the use of dioramas and some clever light-writing on stone, the culture of the Indians of the northern plains.
It is a museum worth visiting if you are in south western Alberta. It is between
Banff National Park and the U.S. border on a good road out of Calgary.
While in Calgary we visited the Calgary Museum of Science. Lots of hands-on stuff, but nothing of special interest. It was a good place to spend some time, however.
On the way here in Montana, we visited the new Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center in Great Falls. The bicentennial of the Corps of Discovery starts
next year and this museum covers the western portion of the trip with the use
of elaborate dioramas, one a full scale scene of the portage of a 20' cottonwood canoe pulled by five men up a steep incline. [This was the portage at Great Falls which was expected to take half a day but took a month (there were four more falls here)] This diorama extends over two floors of the museum.
The trail through the museum winds a lot and introduces the scenery and Indian tribes that Lewis & Clark encountered during their trip from St. Louis to the Pacific.
The time we were there coincided with the Harley HOG Riders trip from St.
Louis to Portland, OR following the L&C trail. One person that we met had
riden from California to begin the trip from St. Louis.
From here we plan to go further south to Yellowstone National Park, then
turn east and follow Hwy 20 through Wyoming and Nebraska.
Regards,
A&S
Lusk, Wyoming
August 5, 2002
Hi!
We entered Yellowstone Park through the north entrance; one that we've never
used before, but it made little difference since we exited through the
east entrance and drove to Cody, WY through scenic Shoshone Canyon. The multicolored red and ochre walls were spectacular at dusk.
We were disappointed by Mammoth Hot Springs. In the past, the terraces of
mineral deposits glistened with hot water dripping and flowing over the
surfaces and forming pools in flat spots rimmed with small
mineral dams. The northern plains is in the midst of a multi-year drought
and this seem to have affected Yellowstone as well. The terraces here were dry and looked like
plaster moulds.
Old Faithful, whose eruptions vary according to available underground water,
seemed to be running late. I had to buy Sarah a New York cheesecake
frozen yogurt to keep her occupied until the geyser went off.
The hit of the day was the Buffalo Bill Historic Center in Cody. We had visited this
museum several times over the years, but it was completely redone last year
with ultra modern dioramas. With five museums in one, the $15.00 admission isn't too bad, but if you aren't interested in some of the regions, you've paid for it anyway.
We especially like the new Draper Natural History wing. Being multi-tiered and somewhat circular, one can view the free-standing dioramas from all sides and above. Sounds
and smells are part of the dioramas, something that we've not seen before. Being open, the dioramas can be easily photographed with flash without flares in the photos.
The Plains Indians wing also had life-sized dioramas. One diorama was more
than fifty feet in length. Simulated Native Americans in the diorama discussed Indian life and the coming of the Europeans.
The Buffalo Bill wing displayed memorabilia from and about William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody, the
consummate showman. His boyhood home was moved here.
A wing displaying firearms and rodeo scenes had 1,500 weapons and a live cowboy from the Cody Rodeo. The cowboy gave Sarah, who was sitting on a 'training bull,' lessons
about how to ride a bull. A crowd gathered and people, as well as I, had their
cameras out waiting for Sarah to be 'thrown.' She wasn't! But I took some pictures anyway.
If you didn't get tired of looking at the 1,500 firearms in the exhibit, there were 1,200 more on display downstairs in the research library.
Also in this exhibit was an 'Adirondack Lodge' which contained mounted heads
and horns as well as some entire dead animals. Some held the world record for something or other. Some we had seen before in the Heads and Horns building of the Bronx Zoo many years ago [near the seal pond].
The Western Art wing had paintings. They say that it is the largest such collection in the U.S. Sarah is not surprised at this claim. She can't imagine why anyone would want a lot
of western paintings.
The miss of the day was the Historic Trails Interpretive Center
in Casper, WY. Casper was the crossroads of several historic trails. Unfortunately for us, the
'grand opening' of the museum was several days away and we didn't want to kill most of a week in Casper. We plan to see the
museum another year when we follow the Oregon Trail west. [Something that we
had already planned to do and for which we have been
gathering literature.]
We are currently in eastern Wyoming and hope to spend the
night in Ft. Robinson State Park in Nebraska, the home of the Nebraska State Park's buffalo herd.
We plan to follow US-20 through northern Nebraska.
Regards,
A&S
Liverpool. NY
August 12, 2002
Hi!
It was a rush to get this far east in so short a time.
We accomplished some of our goals. Ashfall, a fossil site from about 10
million years ago in north eastern Nebraska was a place that we had tried to
visit in 1999, but got there after the end of the season. They are located
six miles from the middle of nowhere and don't get too many visitors when it
is not the tourist season [They don't get too many tourists when it is the
tourist season, either.] They are one of the three divisions of the Nebraska State Museum.
What make Ashfall unusual is that a large amount of ash from a volcano in
S.W. Idaho buried a large number of mammals and other animals quickly.
Once buried, the bones were undistubed by scavangers, etc. The display has the fossils
[actual bone, not mineralized bones], in relief as they were found. It makes for an interesting site as the skeletons were found basically intact rather than a head here, a shoulder somewhere else.
We also had the opportunity to discuss the dig with the palentologist who has been working
here for twenty years. We also watched him uncase a rib that had been
wrapped in plaster since the original dig here in the 1970s as he explained the process to us.
A second Nebraska goal was the Dorley Zoo in Omaha. Several new and very
worth-seeing buildings have been constructed since our last visit. Opening
this year was the world's largest indoor desert. After reading the display
about deserts in the entrance and entering the exhibit, I forgot that I was
in a zoo; I thought that I was in a botanic garden,
then I started seeing the animals. The hyrax, for example, were scurrying around on the cliff
face without bars or fencing. Since these animals do not jump, they stay on the cliff runways; it looks very natural. In one place we saw drifting sand. On
close examination we found where the new sand is blown in and the old sand is sucked out.
A second new exhibit is the Leid Jungle; the world's largest indoor jungle.
We wandered through the canopy and later on the jungle floor joined by some
exotic birds. This exhibit was quite extensive.
The Scott Aquarium is also relatively new and claims the world's longest zig
zag tunnel which goes through the aquarium's large tank. We got the chance
to see fish from the bottom. It was the closest to seeing fish that we have
been without diving.
We made good time with Sarah at the wheel. She has been doing almost all of
the driving since Dawson's Creek, BC and has been doing a good job putting
hundreds of miles behind us almost daily.
We'll most likely be home in a few days.
Regards,
A&S
posted by Allen and Sarah at 7:13 AM
