We just got back from CA, where my parents threw us a delayed wedding reception (we got married last year, but it was a surprise). The party was great, the company was fantastic, and even the weather was 100% perfect. My parents sure know how to throw a party!
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Mom & Dad: don't they look great?
We just got back from CA, where my parents threw us a delayed wedding reception (we got married last year, but it was a surprise). The party was great, the company was fantastic, and even the weather was 100% perfect. My parents sure know how to throw a party!
Too cute!
Nothing like borrowing a baby to make yourselves look better... and far easier than having your own.
Good Blackmail Material
Jennifer & Anu: sorry if you were ever planning on running for office. hahaha.
Spectacular Sunsets
The sunsets in Tahoe were really only second to the sunsets in Ketchikan. Maybe from now on that will be how we choose our travel destinations: only places that have great sunsets over the water.
Tahoe
I could never get tired of this place. We did plenty of hiking; some day I'd like to try to hike the entire Tahoe Rim Trail. I think that would take about 7-10 days. Anyone interested?
More big fish.
Tom never got tired of fishing. He speculates that he threw back about 200 pounds of salmon. If we go back next year I suspect we'll be shipping salmon back to Phoenix... or wherever we get orders from!
Waterfront living
Living right on the water had a lot of perks. There were tidepools full of life, whales cruising the shores, and plenty of fishing for Tom. He even caught a shark! (But of course he threw it back.)
Pictures from Alaska
Can you see the eagle in this photo? In the picture it looks quite small, but in real life they are HUGE! I'd guess their wing span is at least 10 feet across. They were everywhere in Ketchikan, which was really quite a treat.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Setting up the blog...
Hello! We are hoping that this will help us to keep in touch with people -- to share our adventures as we travel & play. Please feel free to email us at any time. We will try our best to keep the pictures updated!
Addendum:
I was sorting through some old email, and found these journals about Alaska. Since that trip inspired us to start the blog, I thought I'd include those entries:
Hello all,
We are alive and well, and loving Alaska! It didn't take long for me to be impressed: when we flew into Ketchikan, we flew over an enormous school of whales -- from then on I've been hooked.
Our first evening here we took a long walk -- not surprisingly, it is extremely GREEN here. We walked until about 9p -- we had plenty of daylight since the sun doesn't set here 'til around 10:30 or 11pm. Our first night we feasted on shrimp and crab -- the largest crab claws I've ever seen.
The following day we walked around town -- the majority of the 'downtown' is 100% tourist trap. On the one hand, there is some very nice art & jewelry; on the other hand it is obscenely expensive. The cruise ships dock in succession every day: there are 2 or 3 ships which dock on the morning, and then 2 or 3 more in the afternoon. Cruise ships are not allowed to let their travelers stay anywhere overnight; then they would have to pay an additional tax for being considered "transportation." If all of the travelers actually sleep on the ship, then the cruise ship is only "luxury housing." So every night the town is nearly a ghost town, and every day the population of the town literally doubles.
Our B&B hostess has lived here for 27 years. She says that long ago, the town was all bars & brothels, who catered to the loggers & fisherman. Nothing like today's swanky/tourist shops. Our B&B is like a little piece of heaven: we have what amounts to a very small 1-BR apartment about 5 miles south of town, with an enormous picture-window which looks out onto the water. In the morning you can see the whales, and all day long you can see bald eagles plucking salmon out of the water and flying over our house carrying the still-flopping fish in their talons.
Ketchikan is actually a small part of an island; the majority of the island is "protected" land -- either owned by native tribes (but as far as I can tell, not really incorporated into reservations, per se) or owned by the national forrest service. This means that all of Ketchikan which can be developed has been developed. I have no idea what housing prices are, but lots of other prices are very expensive -- everything from gas to a gallon of milk. Fruits and vegetables are VERY expensive.
Our B&B hostess tells us that she and her husband have been working on renovating this place for years. (They started out living in a small cabin on Prince of Wales Island, where 'back in the day' they had no phone, no TV; and their kids started their schooling in a one-room schoolhouse.) Now we have DSL for our internet access and pergo floors. Of course, everything has its price: our hostess also tells us that they go to Seattle once every month to go shopping -- meaning that every month they pay to fill a container which is sent up here on a cargo ship filled with all of their purchases from places like Home Depot and Sears. Everything from furniture to sheetrock or wood needs to be shipped up here... and if you've ever seen a container on a big freight ship, it boggles my mind that you could fill one of those every month.
I have only worked one full day at my job. The office is filled with wonderfully helpful & friendly staff, and the hospital is SMALL. I have tremendous respect for the people who stay here full time and do absolutely everything you can imagine for their patients up here. Primary care doctors up here do things that in Phoenix even the Intesive Care specialists would not begin to attempt, and here they do it daily (if necessary) and from what I can tell they do it well. Up here you need to learn fast and read avidly -- if you stay here long enough, I expect you'd see everything. Among other things, when you don't know what ails a patient, you have nowhere else to turn -- so you have to keep reading & trying. It is both exciting and lonely, I think.
As for the weather, my Alaskan Curse has continued. This is to say that they had sunshine and "high temperatures" until just prior to 4th of July weekend, and ever since there it's been raining & grey. I'm still waiting to see the sun. At least this time I have a real place to dry off & warm up, so I'm not worried about hypothermia... Leo -- you can go ahead & laugh if you want! Something I found fascinating about the water, though: they don't actually have reservoirs up here; people catch the rain water for their drinking water. So during times of "drought" (meaning no rain for maybe more than a week) people have to pay through the nose for water, too. Seems unbelievable in a rain forrest, but true...
Today Tom tried ocean fishing from the shore -- he decided that since all of the sport-fishing boats take everyone out along "our backyard" that he may as well fish from here and keep the $250-500 that they charge for these trips... The only problem was that he didn't bring line that was heavy enough, so by early afternoon all of the big salmon had eaten all of his lures (translated: they bit his lures, but then swam away/broke his lines, so he ran out of tackle). So tomorrow we will buy some heavier fishing line and new tackle, and by the end of this weekend I am confident that I will be eating VERY fresh salmon. Sometimes you can see them jumping out of the water: they are at least 2 feet long (and many of them much bigger).
So that's about all for now -- hopefully we will get a break in the weather this weekend, and do some hiking & kayaking. We are also living very close to Totem Bight Park, which I would like to explore.
(and later in that journal entry)
First -- I just wanted to clarify -- we didn't move to Alaska! We were just there temporarily, and in fact we are now on our way to Lake Tahoe for different gig. We'll be there for 2 weeks, then back to AZ. Also, I'm still working out the kinks in the emailing system; I hope you are able to open these photo attachments. (If I send the original photos, I'm afraid I'd take up about 10MB of space in your mailboxes.)
I also wanted to send along another batch of photos. It was so hard to choose; we have so many great pictures! And never fear: once Tom got the proper tackle, he caught more fish than you can imagine. We only kept one big one (which fed us for the rest of the week), and he probably threw back about 100 pounds of salmon. (Not exaggerating, either.) He also caught a shark, as well as some nice trout. He said once he got a system down, he could get a salmon about once in every 5 casts. He became so successful that he actually got sore a sore arm from pulling in big fish.
The first photos I attached are from one of our hikes. I was VERY impressed with the trail maintenance in AK. I've been to lots of national parks over the years, and I must admit that the National Forrest Service up here maintains trails far better than any I've ever seen. Many of the trails are built up with what seems like miles of redwood planks. Of course, it's always raining or damp -- so the wood gets pretty slick. I don't know if you can see in the pictures, but the way that they combat this problem is to staple down a thick plastic mesh on top of the wood so that you have traction when you walk along. The hillside trails have complete staircases built into them -- rarely did we find "just" some logs pounded into the ground to make a makeshift staircase. There often were "observation decks" along the route -- these decks were large, beautifully built, and often built over a river so that you could get a great view (and have good fishing, too). There were plenty of benches -- even big picnic benches -- maintained MILES out along the trail. It was gorgeous; I'm glad I wasn't the one hauling miles of heavy lumber off into the forrest to build these things!
I'm glad Tom took the Totem Pole pictures -- I saw plenty of totems around town, but never actually made it out to the totem pole park. Tom went one day while I was at work, and came home with a bunch of cool pictures.
Fortunately, we have TONS of pictures of beautful sunsets. I attached only one; Tom took these photos from our deck.
Chapter 2 will be coming from Tahoe. We are looking forward to some sunshine -- Alaska only gave us two really sunny days, and one of those was the day we were leaving! So although I got a nice job offer while I was up there, I don't think we'll be moving to Ketchikan any time soon. It was certainly a beautful place for a visit, though....
Addendum:
I was sorting through some old email, and found these journals about Alaska. Since that trip inspired us to start the blog, I thought I'd include those entries:
Hello all,
We are alive and well, and loving Alaska! It didn't take long for me to be impressed: when we flew into Ketchikan, we flew over an enormous school of whales -- from then on I've been hooked.
Our first evening here we took a long walk -- not surprisingly, it is extremely GREEN here. We walked until about 9p -- we had plenty of daylight since the sun doesn't set here 'til around 10:30 or 11pm. Our first night we feasted on shrimp and crab -- the largest crab claws I've ever seen.
The following day we walked around town -- the majority of the 'downtown' is 100% tourist trap. On the one hand, there is some very nice art & jewelry; on the other hand it is obscenely expensive. The cruise ships dock in succession every day: there are 2 or 3 ships which dock on the morning, and then 2 or 3 more in the afternoon. Cruise ships are not allowed to let their travelers stay anywhere overnight; then they would have to pay an additional tax for being considered "transportation." If all of the travelers actually sleep on the ship, then the cruise ship is only "luxury housing." So every night the town is nearly a ghost town, and every day the population of the town literally doubles.
Our B&B hostess has lived here for 27 years. She says that long ago, the town was all bars & brothels, who catered to the loggers & fisherman. Nothing like today's swanky/tourist shops. Our B&B is like a little piece of heaven: we have what amounts to a very small 1-BR apartment about 5 miles south of town, with an enormous picture-window which looks out onto the water. In the morning you can see the whales, and all day long you can see bald eagles plucking salmon out of the water and flying over our house carrying the still-flopping fish in their talons.
Ketchikan is actually a small part of an island; the majority of the island is "protected" land -- either owned by native tribes (but as far as I can tell, not really incorporated into reservations, per se) or owned by the national forrest service. This means that all of Ketchikan which can be developed has been developed. I have no idea what housing prices are, but lots of other prices are very expensive -- everything from gas to a gallon of milk. Fruits and vegetables are VERY expensive.
Our B&B hostess tells us that she and her husband have been working on renovating this place for years. (They started out living in a small cabin on Prince of Wales Island, where 'back in the day' they had no phone, no TV; and their kids started their schooling in a one-room schoolhouse.) Now we have DSL for our internet access and pergo floors. Of course, everything has its price: our hostess also tells us that they go to Seattle once every month to go shopping -- meaning that every month they pay to fill a container which is sent up here on a cargo ship filled with all of their purchases from places like Home Depot and Sears. Everything from furniture to sheetrock or wood needs to be shipped up here... and if you've ever seen a container on a big freight ship, it boggles my mind that you could fill one of those every month.
I have only worked one full day at my job. The office is filled with wonderfully helpful & friendly staff, and the hospital is SMALL. I have tremendous respect for the people who stay here full time and do absolutely everything you can imagine for their patients up here. Primary care doctors up here do things that in Phoenix even the Intesive Care specialists would not begin to attempt, and here they do it daily (if necessary) and from what I can tell they do it well. Up here you need to learn fast and read avidly -- if you stay here long enough, I expect you'd see everything. Among other things, when you don't know what ails a patient, you have nowhere else to turn -- so you have to keep reading & trying. It is both exciting and lonely, I think.
As for the weather, my Alaskan Curse has continued. This is to say that they had sunshine and "high temperatures" until just prior to 4th of July weekend, and ever since there it's been raining & grey. I'm still waiting to see the sun. At least this time I have a real place to dry off & warm up, so I'm not worried about hypothermia... Leo -- you can go ahead & laugh if you want! Something I found fascinating about the water, though: they don't actually have reservoirs up here; people catch the rain water for their drinking water. So during times of "drought" (meaning no rain for maybe more than a week) people have to pay through the nose for water, too. Seems unbelievable in a rain forrest, but true...
Today Tom tried ocean fishing from the shore -- he decided that since all of the sport-fishing boats take everyone out along "our backyard" that he may as well fish from here and keep the $250-500 that they charge for these trips... The only problem was that he didn't bring line that was heavy enough, so by early afternoon all of the big salmon had eaten all of his lures (translated: they bit his lures, but then swam away/broke his lines, so he ran out of tackle). So tomorrow we will buy some heavier fishing line and new tackle, and by the end of this weekend I am confident that I will be eating VERY fresh salmon. Sometimes you can see them jumping out of the water: they are at least 2 feet long (and many of them much bigger).
So that's about all for now -- hopefully we will get a break in the weather this weekend, and do some hiking & kayaking. We are also living very close to Totem Bight Park, which I would like to explore.
(and later in that journal entry)
First -- I just wanted to clarify -- we didn't move to Alaska! We were just there temporarily, and in fact we are now on our way to Lake Tahoe for different gig. We'll be there for 2 weeks, then back to AZ. Also, I'm still working out the kinks in the emailing system; I hope you are able to open these photo attachments. (If I send the original photos, I'm afraid I'd take up about 10MB of space in your mailboxes.)
I also wanted to send along another batch of photos. It was so hard to choose; we have so many great pictures! And never fear: once Tom got the proper tackle, he caught more fish than you can imagine. We only kept one big one (which fed us for the rest of the week), and he probably threw back about 100 pounds of salmon. (Not exaggerating, either.) He also caught a shark, as well as some nice trout. He said once he got a system down, he could get a salmon about once in every 5 casts. He became so successful that he actually got sore a sore arm from pulling in big fish.
The first photos I attached are from one of our hikes. I was VERY impressed with the trail maintenance in AK. I've been to lots of national parks over the years, and I must admit that the National Forrest Service up here maintains trails far better than any I've ever seen. Many of the trails are built up with what seems like miles of redwood planks. Of course, it's always raining or damp -- so the wood gets pretty slick. I don't know if you can see in the pictures, but the way that they combat this problem is to staple down a thick plastic mesh on top of the wood so that you have traction when you walk along. The hillside trails have complete staircases built into them -- rarely did we find "just" some logs pounded into the ground to make a makeshift staircase. There often were "observation decks" along the route -- these decks were large, beautifully built, and often built over a river so that you could get a great view (and have good fishing, too). There were plenty of benches -- even big picnic benches -- maintained MILES out along the trail. It was gorgeous; I'm glad I wasn't the one hauling miles of heavy lumber off into the forrest to build these things!
I'm glad Tom took the Totem Pole pictures -- I saw plenty of totems around town, but never actually made it out to the totem pole park. Tom went one day while I was at work, and came home with a bunch of cool pictures.
Fortunately, we have TONS of pictures of beautful sunsets. I attached only one; Tom took these photos from our deck.
Chapter 2 will be coming from Tahoe. We are looking forward to some sunshine -- Alaska only gave us two really sunny days, and one of those was the day we were leaving! So although I got a nice job offer while I was up there, I don't think we'll be moving to Ketchikan any time soon. It was certainly a beautful place for a visit, though....
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