Thursday, July 16, 2009

Juneau to Haines

Having a waffle and good coffee
Why is it that everywhere north of Seattle coffee is great?
Nothing to do here
boring
went into town near the ships (skipped the madhouse main street)
so many people doing the same things

the world is full of ordinary people
doing and saying ordinary things
ordinarily

went to mendenhall glacier
same thing
like ants
buses full of ants
I lasted 15 minutes there

in camp there is a an ongoing string of helicopters
carrying cruisers
to land on the glacier
and then back
in a string
movie
what was the name, now?
jeez!

yes this sounds gloomy
because it is
raining
because I am
glum

No places to drive high up into the mountains here... hike it or forget it.
RVing small has no benefit

Juneau I would probably skip next time.

Now headed out to hike a little in the rain

Just sayin

Raining off and on all day so I have spent a lot of time in the Waffle shop on the internet and looking over my shots.
A lot of students in here.
There is a campus up on the hill, University of Alaska, Southeast.
I got a good shot of Auke bay harbor this morning.


Maybe it shows the gloom of the day

Yesterday I drove down to the Safeway at Mendenall loop road.
I like this shot taken from Glacier Highway.



I got to the ferry terminal early (as usual) and just walked around here an there.
I met a group of four RVing small... actually RVIng and kayaking small around Alaska.
I wrote their names down but lost the paper.
Here is their rig.

When they drove into the ferry the angle was so acute that the back of their kayaks came within an inch of meeting their tent-trailer.

This ferry is the MV Malispina
408 ft long and 46 years old.



This is a sedate sail.
Nothing much happening so I just hung out talking to people.
There are four Harley riders going over to Haines.
They were going to ride into BC from there, not going to skagway.

Met a couple from Michigan.
He is a Community College technology instructor so we had lots to talk about.
We talked about our trips too.
They were heading to Anchorage from Haines.
I told them where I was going and when I said I was going to Bella Coola, she asked with just a hint of superciliousness "what's there?"
I responded mater of fact, earnest, and pedantically, "Bella Coola"

In the now famous words of Sandra Oh, "I should be spanked"

This camping thing
I don’t camp
Camping is roughing it
I don't do rough
My trailer is a motel on wheels
I have a diretiv dish
A refrigerator and freezer
Air conditioning
Marine toilet and shower
A gas stove and gas heater and a water heater too.
It is comfort
Not camping

And to hear people talk they think they cannot afford it.
It's cheap.
You can pickup a nice used Casita like mine for around $5000 or less.
A used Ford Ranger eight years old for what? $5000?

This in not an expensive way to travel and it gets you to the places you really want to go but you hate tents

Just sayin

Haines, the whole of it, is the most beautiful setting of them all.
The rising peaks and the ice fields and the contrasts.
Sailing into Haines, don't stay inside.
Come outside and see.
It is beautiful.

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