Back From The Frozen North
You know, it really isn't that frozen up there. I was in 5 different cities in Alaska and none of them were frozen. Oh sure, there were glaciers lying about in various stages of advancement or recession, but on the whole it was quite pleasant. If you figure I was coming from August in DC where the humidity is 300% and the temperature is 98 degrees to a comfy 60+ degrees with next to zero humidity. I even took a nap on the grass in the Anchorage town square for an hour or so. No coat, just a shirt and trousers, sacked out on the grass. It was great!
I was going to tell you about some events and junk, but I am certain you are all curious about my trip to Alaska so you will hear about that instead. Besides, there still isn't much going on in DC this week.
What I went on was an Alaskan cruise. If you have never been on a cruise before, let me explain it to you. You know those commercials where the Stooges are playing in the back ground and there are loads of beautiful people running and jumping around the boat swimming and climbing rock walls and enjoying beautiful food-stuffs presented to them by handsome waiters... Lies. Not all lies, but still a bit of a lie. I have described the cruise to everyone in the office to the point of nausea, so I will just talk about the cool things that happened.
We went on a 9 mile bike ride through twisty mountain roads, up and down some good hills ending at the beach where we walked out and took some photos. We then rode back to the outfitting station/garage/boat dock where we walked down another big hill and took more photos.
We took a lovely hike to a glacier through, what can only be described as "Endor"--I swear I saw a couple of ewoks. After we came down off the mountain, we went to a little stream that had a few salmon struggling to swim up it.
- A brief aside on Salmon. Their life has to suck. They are born, they hang out in a stream trying to not be eaten by bigger fish then make their way to the ocean where they try not to be eaten by whales and fish and seals. If they make it to the ocean, they have to dodge fishermen with nets, fishermen with poles, more fish, sharks, seals, whales and whatnot that are determined to eat them. At some point in their life, they get it in their head that they need to swim back to this stream they were born in and fight up river to get there. When they left, they were two to four inches long and the water was 4 inches deep, now they are 24 to 36 (some bigger) inches long and the water is still 4 inches deep. They have to scrape their bellies along the rocky bottom, get bruised up smashing into rocks, dodge bears who think it is fun to catch them as they jump up waterfalls and try not to eat the things that fishermen leave floating in their way thus ending up in an unflattering photo on the web. After all this struggle, their main goal is to get a little action from some hot salmon of the opposite sex so they can die in peace. Do we let them? No. Hell no. We watch them! We gawp at them as they attempt to get it on with the lady-fish, we photograph them in flagrante, we cheer when a bear come charging through the water and grabs up the little fish trying his best "come back to my place" line.--Okay, maybe we don't cheer for the bear. Long story short? Salmon have it tough. Next time you are complaining about your day, just think to yourself "Thank God I am not a salmon."
We also went zip lining. Going 35 miles an hour, 200 feet above the ground for 735 feet, that is some good times. There was also Rock climbing, formal dinners, numerous cocktails and a couple nights of rough seas with a tiny bit of puking involved.
I figure this is a good start on my last week, I will be back next week with actual things going on around the stores. September is going to be a good month for events and October is going to be even better. Until next week, I will be trying to catch up on winter requests, ordering books for the coming months and fielding the hundreds of phone calls and emails I get every day.
Thanks for reading!
I was going to tell you about some events and junk, but I am certain you are all curious about my trip to Alaska so you will hear about that instead. Besides, there still isn't much going on in DC this week.
What I went on was an Alaskan cruise. If you have never been on a cruise before, let me explain it to you. You know those commercials where the Stooges are playing in the back ground and there are loads of beautiful people running and jumping around the boat swimming and climbing rock walls and enjoying beautiful food-stuffs presented to them by handsome waiters... Lies. Not all lies, but still a bit of a lie. I have described the cruise to everyone in the office to the point of nausea, so I will just talk about the cool things that happened.
We went on a 9 mile bike ride through twisty mountain roads, up and down some good hills ending at the beach where we walked out and took some photos. We then rode back to the outfitting station/garage/boat dock where we walked down another big hill and took more photos.
We took a lovely hike to a glacier through, what can only be described as "Endor"--I swear I saw a couple of ewoks. After we came down off the mountain, we went to a little stream that had a few salmon struggling to swim up it.
- A brief aside on Salmon. Their life has to suck. They are born, they hang out in a stream trying to not be eaten by bigger fish then make their way to the ocean where they try not to be eaten by whales and fish and seals. If they make it to the ocean, they have to dodge fishermen with nets, fishermen with poles, more fish, sharks, seals, whales and whatnot that are determined to eat them. At some point in their life, they get it in their head that they need to swim back to this stream they were born in and fight up river to get there. When they left, they were two to four inches long and the water was 4 inches deep, now they are 24 to 36 (some bigger) inches long and the water is still 4 inches deep. They have to scrape their bellies along the rocky bottom, get bruised up smashing into rocks, dodge bears who think it is fun to catch them as they jump up waterfalls and try not to eat the things that fishermen leave floating in their way thus ending up in an unflattering photo on the web. After all this struggle, their main goal is to get a little action from some hot salmon of the opposite sex so they can die in peace. Do we let them? No. Hell no. We watch them! We gawp at them as they attempt to get it on with the lady-fish, we photograph them in flagrante, we cheer when a bear come charging through the water and grabs up the little fish trying his best "come back to my place" line.--Okay, maybe we don't cheer for the bear. Long story short? Salmon have it tough. Next time you are complaining about your day, just think to yourself "Thank God I am not a salmon."
We also went zip lining. Going 35 miles an hour, 200 feet above the ground for 735 feet, that is some good times. There was also Rock climbing, formal dinners, numerous cocktails and a couple nights of rough seas with a tiny bit of puking involved.
I figure this is a good start on my last week, I will be back next week with actual things going on around the stores. September is going to be a good month for events and October is going to be even better. Until next week, I will be trying to catch up on winter requests, ordering books for the coming months and fielding the hundreds of phone calls and emails I get every day.
Thanks for reading!
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