Overnight Open Thread - 09/04/2024
[Roger Ball]

“YO-HO!”, HORDE! (More about the “YO-HO!”” later.) The experienced traveling Horde will immediately recognize the banner pic as Denali/Mount McKinley. What makes that picture unique among countless pictures of that famous mountain is that I took that picture with my Galaxy S23+ (not a promo). Unknown to me at the time, that placed my wife and me in the “10% Club”. It was a great experience, and I counted us extremely lucky with the weather, having only one objectionable day out of 12 between Denali and Vancouver, Canada. This is a travelog of sorts. It will be short, I promise.

The short stay in Anchorage brought us to the 49th State Brewing Company since, literally, anyone we asked said we had to go eat there. I don’t think legal action would have ensued if we had not gone, but everyone was fairly adamant. I don’t get many fish dishes where I am for several reasons, so I jumped at the signature halibut and chips. Sure enough, if you get to Anchorage, you absolutely must go eat at the 49th (to avoid possible legal issues).

After Anchorage and Denali, it was a 9-hour train ride to Whittier for the boat. (Apologies to the Horde. I’m a Naval aviator so even a 105-thousand-ton aircraft carrier is still a “boat”. We do it just to annoy the Black Shoes. (Apologies to the Black Shoe Horde.))

It was our first time on the Grand Princess. It is one of the older boats in their fleet but it was still clean and sparkly and the crew was outstanding. Of course, the whole point of cruising from Anchorage to Vancouver through the Inland Passage is to see glaciers and wildlife. We didn't see much wildlife, although we didn't take any excursions, so we didn't really try very hard. But the glaciers...what I didn't realize until seeing them up close is how loud they are, especially when they calve. We just saw a few smaller ice calves, but they were still thunderous. Here's a You Tube vid from eleven years ago from a Greenland glacier, but you'll get the idea. Volume up to get the deep cracking and rumbling sound.

At 3:22 the narrator notes that they were “just observers, two little dots on the side of a mountain.” Speaking of little dots, checkout the little boat.

What then do I hear? (Random aviation plug.) Why, those are T56s attached to a Coast Guard C-130. Must be a heck of a view!

Everyone knows about the airplane “black box” data recorders that are, of course, not black. But the teleprompter readers are too stupid to know anything useful, so they just call them “black boxes”. Sorry…that is a little opinion that slipped in there and got me off point. I never thought of a ship data recorder until the SS Dali hit the FSK Bridge. But, on one of my many tours of the deck, there was the Grand Princess’s voyage recorder.

Passenger ships and ships other than passenger ships of 3000 gross tonnage and upwards constructed on or after 1 July 2002 [the Grand Princess is 107,517 tons] must carry voyage data recorders (VDRs) to assist in accident investigations, under regulations adopted in 2000, which entered into force on 1 July 2002…Like the black boxes carried on aircraft, VDRs enable accident investigators to review procedures and instructions in the moments before an incident and help to identify the cause of any accident.

The cruise docked at the usual suspe…err…ports. Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan. Many of the horde have no doubt visited them so I will keep comments to a minimum. Skagway was interesting. I didn’t know it was part of the parks system. I also didn’t know the ”Alaska gold rush” was two separate events that took place around Dawson, Canada and Nome, Alaska.

The Klondike Gold Rush slowed by the end of 1898 as word got out there was little gold left to be had. Countless miners had already left Yukon Territory penniless, leaving gold-mining cities such as Dawson and Skagway rapidly declining.

The Klondike Gold Rush ended in 1899 with the discovery of gold in Nome, Alaska. The find reignited the pipe dreams of many dejected miners who quickly forgot the hardships they’d just endured and couldn’t wait to set out on a new adventure.

Juneau was not very fun as it was the one cold, windy and rainy day of the trip. Nice picture at the Whale Project sculpture though.

Ketchikan was very fun, watching the parade of seaplanes pass by our balcony was fun (for me, at least). And, now for the “YO-HO” part: The Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. It is a little corny but fun and the audience is expected to yell, cheer, boo and scream “YO-HO!” on demand. Tricked out, dueling chainsaws…how can you not love those?

Finally, early dockside in Vancouver. I had laid over there several times, but the wife had never been. We paid big bucks for the Marriott Bayshore with an additional goal of redeeming a birthday present from the kids: a seaplane ride. The 20-minute tour around the city in a Harbour Air DHC2 Beaver with a purring P&W R985 was better than I expected. Plus, I got a .2 PIC out of the deal!

If you’re not familiar with de Havilland Canada airplanes, the company has produced some of the best backwoods, bush airplanes in the world (out of necessity, I might add. Have you been to Canada?) The Beaver was designed and built shortly after WW2. 1600 airframes later, it is still one of the premier workhorses for bush and water flying. You can read more in this great article.

Officially known as the de Havilland Canada DHC-2 MkI Beaver, the aircraft was meticulously designed as a purpose-built bush airplane capable of carrying heavy loads into confined, and sometimes rough, areas. Conceived and built in Downsview, Ontario, Canada, much of the Beaver’s early flight testing was done on floats…The Beaver made its initial flight in August 1947, and the first production Beaver was delivered soon thereafter, in early 1948. By the time production ended in 1967, approximately 1,650 Mk.I Beavers has been built, in addition to a single Mk.II prototype with a 500-hp Alvis Leonides engine, and 60 Mk.III turbo Beavers.

In Anchorage, Rust’s Aviation has been flying from Lake Hood for decades, but you’d better book early. In Vancouver it’s Harbour Air or Sea Air. You really must take a scenic flight. In fact, if you are in a Pacific coast city, you will likely have a choice of air tour operators. (Pro tip: choose the radial engine Beaver.)

Vancouver was/is spectacular, the weather was perfect, and the city was sparkling*. If you have never been, you simply must go (to avoid possible legal issues).

*It’s not all fun and games, even in that beautiful city. We inadvertently blundered into the drug and homeless district on East Hastings Street. No legal issues there. Tolerance is the name of the game with predictable results. At least it was daytime, and it introduced the wife to open meth cooking, fentanyl zombies and unusual odors.

Here’s a post from two years ago that explains it all much better than I can. My tour of Vancouver’s depressing, horrifying Downtown Eastside.

Imagine drug addicts clustered together on the sidewalk under make-shift lean-tos of tarps and rope surrounded by filth, empty food containers, clothes, shoes, garbage bags and bottles…Think of trying to manoeuvre public sidewalks that have been taken over pretty much entirely for blocks by those makeshift lean-tos, scores of bikes, walkers, wheelchairs, wagons, shopping carts and of course the addicts…The stench of urine, feces and pot is everywhere and at certain points along the street on the sunny afternoon, goods (perhaps stolen?) for sale were laid out on blankets.

That’s a heck of a way to end a travel log, eh? So, here are a couple of random but positive items for your enjoyment. The new Chick-fil-A concept is exclusively drive thru. There are two lanes for mobile orders and two for drive up. It looks like an office building to me, but Chick-fil-A usually puts a fair amount of thought into any new project. Fortunately, a #1 with a vanilla shake (cherry, no whip) is just as good as Truett’s Not fancy, just consistent.

And as Professor Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) informed us in Jurassic Park, “life finds a way”.

So, here’s to uncontained life, oh great Horde! Be careful out there!

posted by Open Blogger at 10:25 PM

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