Tag: Alaska

We were told that Sitka gets about 90 inches of rain a year but no snow.  In fact, it doesn’t storm there.  That is, they don’t get the thunder storms with high winds, hail, drenching downpours and worse that we’re used to, or so we’re told.  No, that 90 inches comes in the form of drizzle.  Apparently we were lucky the day we were there  was dry.  It was still cloudy but it didn’t drizzle.  Our guide/bus driver was Anna, a transplanted Texan married to a Tlingit fellow.  She took us to a bear preserve.  Brown bears are present on the island and there was the occasional sign reminding people of that fact.  Anna told about several encounters some member of her family had had with bears in town, none resulting in harm but exciting nonetheless.  It was the standard practice to shoot orphan cubs, orphaned because the mother had been shot usually, because there was no way to care for them.  A man and his wife decided a few years ago to do something about that.  They acquired a couple of wood pulp vats a paper company had stopped using and made them into bear sanctuaries.  The vats are made of masonry, have walls maybe 12 feet high and enclose about three fourths of an acre each.  Water was diverted from a nearby stream and voila, they had bear enclosures.  It took them years of jumping through hoops to get the state approval for their project but within weeks of getting that approval they rescued their first bear cubs.  They are huge adult bears now and I think there were five of them, or maybe six.  They are two groups of siblings, a group in each vat.  Recently they built a corridor between the two vats which are only twenty feet or so apart and they allow the bears to visit each other from time to time.  They opened the corridor while we were there and there is a definite protocol the bears observe in passing from one vat to the other.  As I said these guys are huge and some are huger than others.  Those got to cross first.   I don’t know how they get the bears to go back to their own vat after one of these visits. Continue reading “Sitka” →

Our ship sailed in the early evening Saturday and Sunday was spent at sea headed for Juneau.  This was a National Review cruise so much of our time when we weren’t in port was taken up with NR activities.  There was a reception Sunday evening and then dinner.   While we ate in the main dining room the NR cruisers were grouped together.  Each night we were assigned a different table so we met different people each evening.  I gotta tell ya, Joyce and I enjoyed being around like-minded people (conservatives).  Everyone enjoyed roundly cussing the libs.  Naturally people talked about who they hoped would be the Republican nominee.  Joyce and I are backing Ted Cruz and he was well-regarded in the conversations we had, as were Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina and Scott Walker.  Several dinners included one of the NR writers.  We drew Pat Cadell (not an NR writer but a recognizable figure), James Lielaks, Ramesh Panuru and Jillian Milchoir.  At one of the receptions I introduced myself to Kevin D. Williamson.  I admire his writing and had read that he was born in Amarillo and grew up in Lubbock.  We had a brief but pleasant chat.  Nice fellow. Continue reading “Juneau” →

We arrived in Seattle two days before our cruise ship embarked.  We wanted a little time to see the town and, since we didn’t go through the cruise authority, we were on our own as far as being in Seattle to board the ship on time.  We spent the day prowling the water front.  It was within walking distance from our hotel downtown.  A seatmate on the plane recommended a ferry ride so we rode the ferry to Bainbridge Island and poked around a little there.  After lunch on the island, we rode the ferry back to the mainland where we intended to visit Pike Place Market, also recommended by the man on the plane.  Unfortunately we petered out and just went back to our hotel to crash until dinnertime.   The evening before we ate at Zeek’s Pizza, which we stumbled on after arriving at the hotel and went out looking for a place to eat.  The pizza and craft beer was so good we thought, “Well, shoot.  We’ll just go back there,” so we did. Continue reading “Seattle” →

Southeast Alaska’s typical weather finally caught up with us in Kechikan.  A light rain fell while we were in port, dampening our enthusiasm for visiting the town.  I finally decided to wander around a little but got pretty damp for my trouble.  It would probably be a nice place to poke around in if it weren’t raining but judging from the covered golf carts which pass for public transportation there, I think, and from the locals in their color-coordinated rain gear, that doesn’t happen often. Continue reading “Ketchikan” →