Cottage Party at the East Side Club

Sorry I didn’t write yesterday. I was at a cottage party at the East Side Club with Travalon, Richard Bonomo, Cecil Markovitch, and OK Cap. Travalon and I came together, of course, and the other three said they would be a little late, but they each arrived in rapid succession just before our table (which happened to be the last one) went up to get food. For dinner we had lettuce salad, fruit salad, tenderloin wrapped in bacon, a baked potato, and a dinner roll. They have a full bar there, and then after dinner they had a special treat of either a grasshopper or what they called a Blizzard, which was an ice cream drink with Bailey’s and brandy. It sounded wonderful, but Travalon, Cecil, and I stuck with the classic grasshopper, and neither Rich nor OK Cap indulged. I was hoping afterwards they would set up bocce ball on the lawn like after the cottage party last year, but alas, bocce ball did not materialize. Cecil headed home, and Rich got pulled away by work concerns, so Travalon, OK Cap, and I sat down by the lake, gazing at downtown. OK Cap and I went for a vigorous walk, but suddenly there seemed to be a lot of still-distant lightning, so we decided to head back before the storm hit. As Travalon and I were driving home, the storm hit with full force, and he wondered if every time we go to a party at the East Side Club there will be a storm. We’ll have to go to RibFest next month and see if it happens again…

Famous Hat

Chicago Concert

Last night Travalon and I went to see the band Chicago perform at the Overture Center. I was one of the younger people in the audience, which makes sense since I was a young teen when Chicago were already a well-established band, so their fan base would be mostly people who were young adults when I was a toddler. We sat way up in the nosebleed seats, but we still had a fine view of the band members playing and even dancing onstage. Chicago is all about the brass, and the three horn players sometimes would dance like backup singers do in salsa bands. I really love their jazzier numbers, but of course they had to play their sappier numbers too, since those were their biggest hits. By the end of the night, the audience was up on their feet, and for an encore the band played “25 or 6 to 4,” which is one of their most rousing numbers. Several of the members were original and are pushing 70, but they had a younger guy to replace Peter Cetera, who for whatever reason will not get back together with the band. This guy kind of sounded like Cetera, except on one song Travalon thought he didn’t sound that much like him. My favorite part was the long drum solo in “I’m a Man.” Of course we got home late, and this morning I overslept and barely had time to get out the door to work. But it was worth it!

Famous Hat

How the Mallards' Season Ended

Last night Travalon and I went to the Mallards’ first playoff game, just like we did last year. Again there were a sixth of the usual number of people there, and a lot less food selection. I kind of enjoy the smaller crowd, although maybe the players don’t like playing in front of a sparser crowd. One player, Josh Stowers, who is a freshman from Louisville, got two home runs in a row! So then of course every time he was up at bat, the crowd went nuts. Unfortunately the Battle Creek Bombers had some home runs too, and they were leading by several runs in the bottom of the ninth, but one guy got a home run and scored two runs, so then the Mallards were just down by one. And then two Bombers infielders ran into each other and fell down, and one of them could not get back up so they brought out a cart to take him off of the field. Not good! Finally the game resumed, and there was a guy on base so the next guy up could get us a walk-off homer… and then we saw it was Josh Stowers! The crowd went nuts!! But the Bombers pitcher was taking no chances and walked him, and then the next guy got on base so I thought maybe we’d win with a grand slam! But alas, there were already two outs and the next batter struck out, so the Mallards’ season ended by the barest of margins. Perhaps if they hadn’t had so many defensive goofs earlier in the game, they could have won easily. Anyway, it was another great season, and I am not ready to think about football yet!

Famous Hat

Travalon's Alaska Photos

Today Travalon and I slept late, so we went to 11 am Mass and then brunch at the Crema Cafe. Then we went for a very buggy hike at Festge Park, and I saw an Indian pipe, which I will post a photo of at some point. We went for a hike around Salmo Pond and another around Stricker Pond, and then we ate dinner outside at the Nau-Ti-Gal. It seemed really hot to us after Alaska, even though it didn't reach 80 degrees today. Soon we will reacclimatize...

Here are some photos Travalon took with his camera, which takes better long-distance shots than my iPhone camera. First are some pictures of plants in Alaska.

Fireweed

Devil's Club

a very cute mushroom

Sign at Rochelle's Ice Cream Shop

Famous Hat and Travalon at Eklutna Lake

Moose in Denali National Park

Ready with the bear spray!

Travalon and Famous Hat in front of Denali (behind the clouds)

Caribou

first grizzly bear

I just love this shot of me in Denali National Park

caribou

second grizzly

Don't I look happy to be fishing?

See what I mean?

sea otter

mountain goat

He had a better picture of the sea lions, and a picture of the Dahl sheep we saw in Denali, but for some reason those didn't upload to my computer. I will see if I can get them onto this blog somehow.

Famous Hat

Wildlife Cruise in the Fjords

Travalon and I are back home now. I forgot to mention, for all my religious readers, that the Mass in Anchorage was at a Dominican parish, and since it was the Feast of St. Dominic, they really did things up and had the Mass parts in Latin. Also, the warmest, sunniest place we visited was Fairbanks, even though it was the furthest north. And - true confession - I have had so much trouble trying to schedule the hot air balloon ride for my 40th birthday that I used the money for it on this trip. At least I did go on that helicopter ride over Kauai, which cost the same amount as the balloon rides used to cost. Now that same guy doesn't even do them anymore. We'll see if that dream of mine ever comes true...

Yesterday Travalon and I woke up refreshed after our night in the loft in our small cabin in Seward, then we went to a restaurant called Barn Apetit where a real Frenchman handmade crepes. We shared a table with a family from Germany, including a school-aged daughter, and they told us it really isn't hard to drive up to the Arctic Circle from Fairbanks. They had photos of the sign, and their dusty car after the ride. Then Travalon and I had to drive the scary road almost two miles back to the fishing place to get our fish from the night before. This road isn't quite as scary as the one in Denali, but it is narrow and unpaved with a drop-off to the water. We took our fish to a place to have them frozen and shipped to us, and then we went on a boat trip out in the fjords. This was a much larger boat with lots of people on it, and they fed us lunch. We saw a glacier as well as puffins (they look like a cross between a penguin and a toucan), sea lions, sea otters, and a humpback whale that came up right by our boat. The park ranger who told us all about the sea life was one we had met at Exit Glacier the day before, and she remembered us. After the cruise, we drove back to Anchorage, stopping at a stream to watch salmon swimming to their spawning areas. We flew out a little after midnight and landed in Chicago just after nine am our time. Then we took the bus back to Madison.

beautiful Seward Harbor

sea lions on the rocks

mountains on the Kenai Peninsula

weird plant on the path to the salmon stream

the view from the restaurant where we had dinner

waterfall in McHugh Creek

Finally, here are two videos of the salmon swimming upriver to spawn. The first one shows a salmon swimming against the current, and the second one shows some salmon closer up.

 

Famous Hat

I Caught a Salmon in Alaska

Today was my favorite day of the trip so far. Travalon and I had breakfast at the charming bed and breakfast with a couple from Fairbanks, and the husband told us he is a dentist who regularly travels to small villages above the Arctic Circle to see patients. Then Travalon and I drove the Seward Highway down the Kenai Peninsula to Seward, along the Turnagain Arm, a body of water full of beluga whales and surrounded by mist-covered mountains. The whole landscape looked enchanted because of the mountains rising out of the mist. Outside of Seward we hiked through the rainforest to the Exit Glacier, and then we took a fishing excursion out into the fjords. Our first boat's motor died (we're familiar with that issue!) so we took a smaller boat along with our captain and a family consisting of Mom, Dad, and a teenage daughter. She proved to be the most adept fisher of the group, but I did pretty well myself, catching a number of rockfish and one beautiful 10-pound silver salmon. Travalon caught some rockfish too, and several pollock, which he threw back. He also caught a colorful fish that escaped from the captain, but they aren't good for eating anyway. We got back very late and had dinner at a surprisingly busy place called Thorn's.

The Turnagain Arm is very scenic

Travalon at the Exit Glacier

I caught this salmon!

Here are all the fish we caught among the five of us

After all that time in the ocean spray, my hair looked blonder and curlier than usual. Here is a selfie I took to show you.

Famous Hat

One Hundred Miles from the Arctic Circle

Yesterday Travalon and I had to get going really early to catch our shuttle bus in Denali National Park, but fortunately they have coffee at the visitor center. Cars are not allowed to drive very far into the park, and after this trip we could see why! The bus drivers have to have nerves of steel to drive the road, which has a sheer drop-off on the driver's side on the way out... and of course that was the side I had heard you should sit on, so I spent most of the ride being terrified. Also fascinated, because the scenery is beautiful (a lot of taiga, or scrubby spruce forest, besides the mountains), and we saw several moose, a grizzly bear, lots of caribou, and a bunch of Dahl sheep that were far away on the face of the mountain. Unfortunately Denali was shrouded in clouds, but we went for a lovely hike at Wonder Lake, sampling the fresh blueberries along the trail. Because I was so terrified of being eaten by a grizzly, we hiked with another couple who were from Houston. On the way back, we had a very knowledgeable guide who told us stories about the wolves in the park, and then we saw a grizzly right by the bus! It ran across the road and slid down the hill on the other side. It takes hours to get through the park, so by the time we got done, it was dinnertime. We went to Prospectors Historic Pizzeria and Alehouse and had an elk pizza - delicious! Then we went to our hotel, a charming place called the White Moose Lodge deep in the taiga, and we waited to see if the sky would ever grow dark so we could see the stars and maybe Northern Lights. However, by a quarter to midnight it was still not that dark yet, so we just went to bed.

This morning we got on the road to Fairbanks and got there around noon. We took a walk along the Chena River and went to the Visitors Center, where some musicians were playing what sounded like Cajun music as Native people did traditional dances. We were only 100 miles from the Arctic Circle, so we found information about visiting it, but it takes too much time and money for this trip. Maybe in the future... We were delayed almost an hour by road construction, then we went to the McKinley View Lodge for dinner, but we still couldn't see Denali. The waitress told us it has barely been visible for the last few weeks. This would have been the place to stay - $79 per night with views of the mountain! We stopped in Wasilla to take a walk by Wasilla Lake and through the underpass to Lake Lucille, which was painted with a colorful mural. In the lake we saw salmon swimming around with their dorsal fins sticking up like tiny shark fins. Now we are staying at a charming bed and breakfast.

Here are photos. Travalon has better shots of all the animals.

 Caribou

Famous Hat at Denali National Park

Travalon at Denali National Park

This is the wildlife I got the best shot of - a ground squirrel!

 Delicious blueberries on the trail

Grizzly in the upper lefthand corner

Antler chandelier at the Prospectors Pizzeria

View across from the pizzeria

Photo of a photo of a white moose

The White Moose Lodge at almost midnight - notice the sky isn't dark yet

Scene from the White Moose Lodge

Travalon at the Antler Arch in Fairbanks

Historic Immaculate Conception Church in Fairbanks

Wasilla Lake

Mural on the underpass in Wasilla

And finally, here is a short movie of the salmon swimming in Wasilla Lake. Their dorsal fins look like tiny shark fins.

Famous Hat