Back from the bush!
July 04, 2008
Filed in: Alaska
Okay, technically it’s not the bush we’re back from. The bush is interior Alaska, and we have been in (and are still in!) exterior Alaska, the coast, Kachemak Bay, but for the rest of the world in the lower 48, it counts as the bush, so I’m stealing it unfairly as my blog post title.
Too overwhelmed to tell it all—also a few scant hours of sleep/non-sleep away from our big bear/tiny plane adventure (gulp, yeah, we’re going forward with it, fears and economy be damned), but here are some bullet points for random digestion in the meantime:
* If there’s a state population center more generic than Anchorage, Alaska, with a spectacular mountainous getaway region closer than the Kenai peninsula, I’d like to hear about it. I’m being unfair, because we stayed in a disgusting airport motel south of the city and left from there, but everything I’ve read tells me we missed very little and perhaps nothing by skipping Anchorage. But either way, it’s almost impossible to describe how quickly the city and indeed all civilization falls away and you are driving through some of the most amazing terrain of your life. Snow-capped mountains, trecherous turns, staggering vistas, it’s all there, 30 mins or less from the city.
* Off the grid with the teen and tween: On the one hand, yeah, we were faking it, we had cabins with hard wooden planks rather than, say, a tent and the cabin had propane heat, so it barely counts. On the other hand, we were at the ends (or one end, anyway) of the world, Internet-free, electricity-free, people-free, noise-free, medical-help-free (see below) and C was only able to pull up one or two bars of service on his iPhone, and that was sitting on the railing of his cabin, hanging out by a hair’s breadth off the cliffs and into Kachemak Bay. Does that count as “off the grid”? I’m gonna give it to us, even if we were cheating a bit.
* Stuff we did that i was afraid/psyched to do: You guys, I hiked 2 miles into the Alaskan wilderness, put on the most unbelievable amount of gear (rain paints (!), polypro inner layer, North Face jacket, wool sox, hiking boots, rubber overboots, armpit-high waders, Patagonia rain jacket, rubber gloves, floatation device [has anyone else noticed they no longer call them “life preservers”?]) and flobbered into an inflatable kayak and paddled past these huge floating chunks of glacier to the face of an active glacier. It was what counts in Alaska as a boiling hot day and every now and then there’d be a huge sharp crack echoing through the otherwise complete silence, some chunk of ice calving off of some bigger piece. The newly calved pieces are so so blue, this strange almost threateningly beautiful kind of blue that doesn’t otherwise occur in nature. Mesmerizing. After awhile you have to look away, for fear you will abandon your suburban life for something altogether wilder. Anyhow, we survived: no one drowned, no one was eathen by bears.
* Wildlife we have seen thus far: Bald eagles (tons! they never lose their amazingness, every single one is a thrill, in fact I’m embarrassed to admit they make me feel like bursting into tears. Does this make me a patriot?), spruce grouse (and chicks!), arctic terns (actually trying to peck us to death as we inadvertently walked over their nesting grounds), sea otters, western jays, tufted puffins, horned puffins, harbor seals, pigeon guillemots (sp?), and these little western shrew thingies that are pretty much more common than mosquitoes but 2,000 times cuter. They look like every PetCo in America released all its hamsters into the wilderness at the same moment, only they’re even cuter than that.
* The bad news: SOMEbody, the same somebody who dragged everyone out of his wilderness cabin this morning for a way-too-early un-guide-assisted hike, busted up her knee big-time, causing us to hobble down the sheer cliff-face one painful misstep at a time in the rain (I would love to write “pouring rain” to make it even more dramatic, but in fact it was only a drizzle.) We weren’t in any actual danger of the life-threatening variety, but we felt that way a little bit for the two hours we were out there, ranger-free and wounded in the wilderness. Now we’re in some cruddy roadside motel in Homer AK and the feeling of remoteness and danger are both receding, even in the stabbing pain in our middle-aged kneecap is not.
More later. Must arise in 6 hours to mount the tiny plane to view the vicious bears at close range. What’s scarier, that or taking a newly reconnected teenager away once again from his wi-fi?
Comment
Heading out …
June 30, 2008
Filed in: Alaska
Hokay! We made it as far as Anchorage (as C said, fine, can we turn around and go home now?) Answer: no.
Now we’re heading the 255-something miles down to Homer, then across Kachemak Bay to our wilderness lodge. Emphasis on wilderness. That means right now we’re sitting in our pitly hotel room next to the airport (emphasis on pit) charging every electronic device we own. Imagine venturing far enough off the grid that your cabin has no outlets to charge your MacBook. Horrors.
Also, kinda rethinking/getting cold feet about the whole bear-viewing trip. Check out these two headlines in this morning’s Anchorage Daily News:
and
Pilot trying to land dies in crash
Comment
Almost there—Napa to Anchorage today
June 29, 2008
Filed in: Alaska, The Way We Live Now
First can I say that C pulled up the seven-day forecast for Homer, Alaska on his iPhone yesterday afternoon as we were being driven to the most awesomest wedding ever in the history of nuptials and that we’re in for one entire week of straight rain?
Seriously, seven little crying cloud icons down the entire screen, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… every single day is rain. And cold. 50s, low 60s and rain.
I just want to cry. T just wants to stay in Napa, his emotional home on planet earth, and listen to the grapes quietly ripen in their skins. Who would know if we actually went or not? Download a few pics of, say, bears or moose or glacial whatever, something that looks sufficiently Alaska-like, and we’re home free.
I did truly think of canceling our trip for an hour or so, then got distracted from my worries by my 10th glass of chardonnay, so we’re going whether we like it or not. It rains on all our vacations, how should this be different?
Other random bits: it’s a pretty big coincidence we’re going to Homer just a few days after the Supreme Court knocked down the punitive damages related to the Exxon-Valdez spill. Hard to believe that was so long ago, and I hadn’t really ever thought about how much it must have—and obviously still does, if this piece from the Times is any indication—impacted the very area we’re traveling to. We are going to be one big chunk of land over from Price William Sound, but yeah, of course, it’s water (and oil) and it’s all the same big soup; it doesn’t make a distinction which side of the peninsula it’s on.
In all that I’ve read about the Kenai, I haven’t seen so much as a single syllable that mentioned the Exxon-Valdez, but duh, I’ve been reading travel stuff and even the good, supposedly unbiased guidebooks or whatever have no need or desire to get into either the politics or the potentially-tourist-offputting physical aftermath of the spill.
More randoms: I stumbled across the fishing forecast for the Homer area. I have a fondness for language related to things I know nothing about. I have absolutely no idea what this report is saying, I just love the words:
Homer Spit (15)
King salmon
Bobber with eggs, herring and No. 5 blue Vibrax spinners best on the incoming tide. King salmon fishing at the Nick Dudiak Fishing Lagoon should be fair this weekend. Remember, anglers may no longer fish with weights or bobbers beyond the hook or hooks.
Got that everyone? NO BOBBERS beyond the hooks! Don’t make me have to come down there …
Comment
Fear Factor
June 25, 2008
Filed in: Alaska, The Home Front, The Middle Ages
I’m not really thinking of what’s happening tomorrow morning as a vacation. Adventure, yes. Trip-of-a-lifetime, yes. But vacation?
To our little family, vacation means plunking down a hunk of money for a house somewhere nice, then parking our butts in front of whatever nicest body of water is close by.
If you’re one of the parents of this group, you read till you start to get a slight headache, at which point you take a little swim, after which you think you might be hungry so you wander back up to the house and eat a bit of this and that from the fridge, during which time you realize you’re feeling a little woozy from all your time in the sun and it really would be best if you snuck off for a quick nap, after which you look up at the sky and wonder if the sun hasn’t crossed the yardarm and if it isn’t in fact time for happy hour.
That’s vacation. What we’re doing starting tomorrow is thrilling, exciting, complicated, and expensive, but no, not vacation.
It is odd to be taking a trip with a little pile of fears also waiting to be packed, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit there are a few anxieties floating freely through the sparkly air of Swellville this morning:
Some of us are worried we’ll be attacked by bears on our flightseeing trip next Friday.
Some of us are afraid of the 5-seater plane that takes us to the bears, the one that lands on the hard-packed sands during low tide (yeah, that’s right, there’s no asphalt at all).
Some of us are worried we’re not up to kayaking around the glacial ponds or lakes or whatever they are. We know what it feels like to be paddling and paddling but not really getting anywhere, how suddenly far away the rest of the group can appear, how alone we can feel in our boat, our arms tired. Some of us are thinking about that.
Some of us are wondering just how much experience our guides have and how good they are at fetching medical assistance from the mainland if we need it. We’re out of 911 territory for at least three of the days; if that bear gets you, it’s 45 minutes minimum for some kind of airborne triage to get to you.
Some of us are worried about money.
Some of us—okay, the one who has already pretty much given up sleeping—is wondering if, spending 10 nights in a row with her entire family in the same room—she is going to sleep at all, a single wink, and if not, how will she be able to run from bears, save her children from kayak mishaps, and earn enough money to keep us from debtor’s prison.
Some of us are worried that one child, the one with the great big personality, will react to becoming untethered from his peer group for so long by idly attacking, berating, picking on, criticizing and generally bullying the other one, the one with the Buddha personality.
Some of us are worried that the tween in our group, who can sometimes be exquisitely sensitive and murderously intolerant of, say, teen brothers singing emo songs along to their iPods really loudly, will in fact be exquisitely sensitive and murderously intolerant the entire trip.
Some of us are wondering if the weird fear that’s been creeping up on us for a couple of years now, the thing that started out being about bridges, but is now about bridges and on-ramps and highways in general. That thing. Some of us are wondering how bad that thing will be and how much of the crazy mountainous 2-lane driving we’ll be able to handle.
Some of us are wondering if the body parts that have been bothering us—necks, backs, knees, that stuff—will act up while we’re trying to hike or kayak or beachcomb or run away from bears.
Some of us are wondering if this whole 50th State business isn’t just spoiled middle-aged indulgence that’s never going to amount to anything other than a pile of debt and a bunch of memories. (Heh, that’s a pretty good description of middle-class American life, pile of debt, bunch of memories.)
There is one more fear, but it’s private so I’m not going to write down here. (This may seem to be one of those blogs where I let it all hang out, but in reality I’m an uptight New Englander, and even uptight New Englanders with blogs keep things pretty buttoned-up.)
Also there’s the worry about the dog and the kennel and the constipation, but nobody needs to read about that either. Ew.
Comment
Yeah, we got baggage
June 22, 2008
Filed in: Alaska, The Home Front
Way back in February, when I was just beginning to contemplate the idea of tagging an Alaska trip onto the family wedding in Napa that’s now upcoming this very week, I mentioned the idea to my friend M.
M is perfect. Literally. She is a size zero, an understated-yet-stylish dresser, a mad shopper, a person who has decorated her large home in an important community (yeah, she actually fled Swellville for Evenswellerville) so beautifully and so thoroughly that she is now starting a business to help other slobs along the path to domestic enlightenment.
Her daughters are beautiful and accomplished; her husband is charming and funny and brings home a large paycheck. I have never one single time in my entire life seen so much as a speck of dirt in, on or anywhere near her house, person or offspring.
You would think I could stand to take some advice from someone like that. But nooooooo. M told me flat out I was nuts to think about combining trips. “There is no way you could pack for those together!” she exclaimed in true horror. “A wedding? And Alaska? You’re crazy. I would never do that, not in a million years.”
Poor M, I thought, nice gal, but you know, some people are so constrained by these petty practical concerns. M needs to lighten up. Sheesh.
Flash forward five months, and I am nearing apoplexy at the thought of all the packing that’s got to go on in the next 72 hours. Seriously, the left side of my face started twitching yesterday morning and hasn’t yet stopped. Something tells me it won’t till they seal the door on the plane, at which time it’s too late to do anything more.
Napa wedding means 2 dressy-yet-casual outfits (Californians are so annoying. I mean, is it dressy or isn’t it? Casual dressy is just…impossible) times 4 people, two of whom are growing so fast their dress clothes should really be rented rather than bought.
There are things to be picked up from the tailor and the dry cleaners. There are loafers to be dragged from the backs of closets and polished. Belts? Uh…yeah, belts. I’m sure I’ll get to that between now and Thursday morning at 2 a.m.
Then on the other hand, there’s Alaska. Hiking boots, I need to find 8 hiking boots that still fit and are properly waterproofed. Rain pants. Don’t get me started on rain pants. Who owns enough rain pants for everyone in the entire family? Everyone, it seems, except us.
Polypropylene, the wonder fabric that costs as much as spun gold? We all supposedly need entire outfits made of polypro. Then the little things, emergency whistles that tie onto our zipper pulls and compasses and binoculars and bug spray and bottles of contact lens solution small enough to avoid confiscation by security. Gum for the plane, batteries for our various electronic amusements, the list goes on and on.
In the face of this onslaught, all I can say is, M, you were so right! I apologize for being smug! Will you come help? M….? Are you there?