Road Trip to Homer

 From my house, Homer, Alaska, is but 130 miles down the Sterling highway, at the end of the Kenai Peninsula.   You pass through a few small towns on the way down.

We had a couple errands to tend to in Soldotna, the first town of any size, and the next stop was the village of Ninilchik.  During the fishing season, Ninilchik is a popular place to launch boats into Cook Inlet for salmon and halibut fishing.   The boats are set into the sea with huge rubber-tired tractors that back the boat and trailer into the water at high tide.

IF you're just passing by on the highway, this is the most photographed building in Ninilchik.   It's a Russian Orthodox Church that sits on a bluff overlooking the village and boat launch.

Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord Chapel, built in 1901

Today, however, fishing season isn't open and the creek that flows through the village is still frozen.   We drove around and stopped at an old cabin.

As soon as we got out of the truck, Leilani heard a song sparrow.   Sure enough, a couple of these little birds were singing their beautiful songs from the spruce tree next to the cabin.

I wonder if that's an outhouse just a few steps from the cabin door?

I can't tell you how good it was to hear these songs that promised spring after a long and harsh winter with lots of snow.   That snow, by the way, is still there in eight-to-ten feet deep  piles in places around my yard.

From the wood shed to the fence line at right, snow is stacked in a 40-Ft deep by 50-ft across area.

For size comparison, the orange pylons are 42" high.

"I wish the song sparrow would land on the cabin, "Leilani said.   And it did.  Right where she wanted it.

We continued a short distance down this road and found a couple more buildings to photograph.

This cabin has Cook Inlet in the background.

A new RV trailer parked in front of a beautiful old barn.

A detail of the loft door and its richly-colored lumber.

With no other old buildings accessible, we headed up the hill and back to the Sterling highway.   Just up the hill is a view that most people recognize as Ninilchik.   It's a Russian Orthodox Church that sits on a bluff overlooking the valley.

This photo was taken a a couple years ago.

A few miles down the road, we saw our first moose, this one a cow.

She would not be our last!

A First Recording Sighting on the Kenai Peninsula and We Risked our Health and Safety Searching for It!

I was so deep into my reclusive winter hibernation that I almost declined when my birding pal Leilani Devries called to suggest we make a trip to Homer to find the first recorded sighting of an Evening Grosbeak on the Kenai Peninsula. I didn't even set aside the winter doldrums, but packed them up in the small container with my travel laptop and assorted paraphernalia required to go on a photo trip.

(You have to read this story to appreciate the photo I'm posting with it.)

It was only by the graciousness of others that we were given permission to seek out the bird on private property. First, we drove a long way to the end of a particular road and parked at the top of a long, semi-icy driveway because there wasn't room to turn around at the bottom, we were told.

Pine Siskin

Once at the cabin where the evening grosbeak was said to be visiting the bird feeder, we had to negotiate a treacherous trail around to the far side of the house. Treacherous for two seniors on a trail packed only by a dog! Leilani fell knee-deep into snow and I had to help her get out.

We chose a spot where the light was best and waited. Very soon the birds returned to the feeder--chickadees, siskin, pine grosbeaks, crossbills, redpolls, and a Downy woodpecker.

Then we spotted it --the bright yellow and black of an evening grosbeak. I aimed my heavy camera and lens, all while trying not to fall into the dog house that was a couple feet downhill and under the house. There would be no escaping that trap.

I got a bunch of shots, but almost all of them have the bird facing me and its large pink bill is most prominent.

Here, however, is one that's okay. After all, it's the first one seen on the peninsula.

Evening Grosbeak

And then it was negotiating the dog trail back to semi-solid ground and the long 1/3rd of a mile hike back uphill, all while lugging heavy cameras and lenses!

Common Redpoll

The range of the Evening Grosbeak.   Cornell Labs diagram

To be continued.

When Does It Get Easier?

 I  borrowed the title of this post from a friend named Cap.   It's one of his favorite laments.

I bought a new home indoor/outdoor weather station after my old one displayed the exterior temperature as 47 degrees F for more than a week.   After I put new lithium batteries ($26.00 for eight!! and very hard to find) in the outdoor sensor, it locked up at 26 degrees.

Today, after stalling around for a couple weeks because of deep snow on my back deck and cold winds, I decided to install the outdoor part.   First, I had to shovel a path to one, then  I unscrewed five tiny screws in the mounting plate of the old one by hand.   It wasn't exactly easy because a few of them were covered in ice.

Once I got the screws out without stripping the heads, I installed the mountain plate for the new sensor.   With a battery-powered Makita driver.

Then came the indoor monitor/readout display.

Simple, right?

Nope, not at all.   The booklet that came with the weather station is 52 pages long, of which 20 are dedicated to installation and the balance to programming the monitor!!!

Plus there's a separate 24 page booklet of instructions for setting up the WI-FI  so the monitor can tell my phone what's going on weather-wise.

I DO NOT NEED OR WANT THAT!

All I want is the outdoor temperature, the date, and the time.   I got the outdoor temperature as soon as the sensor cooled to the correct one.

Setting the date and time???    Not one of the buttons I push to try to do that act like they are supposed to,

So, to quote Cap, again, "When does it get easier?"

The 2023 Brazil Journals, Chapter Thirty-Six

(To view photos at their best, click on one and scroll through the film strip that opens.)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Getting around Customer No-Service

 

 

An employee’s obligation is to follow the rules;

A manager’s job is to consider the situation.

—A Gullible Original

 

 

 

I kept my foot on the gas for a long, long time on a chilly day in Anchorage, hoping the truck’s battery was charging.

 

Carefully, I put the truck in gear and headed a mile down the road to Costco.   I parked and turned off the ignition, fingers crossed.

 

Nope.   Not gonna start.   Instead of the main store, I went to the tire shop where Costco stocks batteries.

Chestnut-eared aracari

I was tired.  I wanted to get my grocery shopping over with and head south a hundred miles to home.   I wanted to take some cold medicine and sleep all night.

 

That would be delayed.

 

I waited for the next employee to be free and explained my situation:   I need a new battery;  I have no tools; I cannot lift the battery high enough to clear the truck fenders without a ladder.

 

She kindly explained that they would be happy to sell me a new battery once I brought in the old one as a core.   And, she said, that would make sure they got the right new battery.

 

Once again:   I have no tools and I can’t lift the battery high enough to clear the fenders.

 

We can’t loan you tools, she added.   We went over the above several times.   She was following Costco policy and I understood that and why it was.

One of six giant anteaters we saw.

 

I’ll make this short.   I asked to see the manager.   She went into the shop and returned with a handful of tools.  

 

I tried all of them and none worked, so I headed back past the shop to the sales office.

Black-capped Donocobious

Giant river otters.

 

On a hunch, I walked into the shop and asked for the manager.  I explained my problem.

 

“No problem,” he said.   And gathering some tools, we went to the truck.  “I can’t do this for you,” he explained, “but I can instruct you.”

 

He gave me the proper tool to loosen the hold downs and undo the cables and he  lifted  the battery from the compartment.  

 

We went back to the sales office where I purchased a new battery.   I waved at the manager and together we installed the battery.

 

Then I could relax, do my shopping, and make the long drive home.

A capybara family cooling off in the mud.

 

I really, really could have done without all that, being in the chilly weather and all.   But, I was saved by a kind young man who understood that while company rules are made to limit liability,  ensure the safety of employees, and are to be followed, sometimes the situation also needs to be taken into consideration.

Macaw

 

After that, the only drama came when I was unpacking the next day.   I could not find the folding comb/brush that my friend Marg gave me after another trip.   It is perfect.

 

Finally, finally, I found it tucked away on my luggage.

Now, it was time to download all the thousands of photos and to begin writing the Brazil Journals.

Yes, this is the final chapter of my journey to Brazil and the Pantanal of Brazil.   Wonderful trip, great companions, and an excellent guide. 

Thanks for following along.

Leap Year Day 2024

 Today, Leap Year day, is often mistakenly thought of as Sadie Hawkin's Day, which actually is in November.

Sadie was a character in Al Capp's  comic strip L'il Abner, who enlarged upon the idea of women asking men for marriage.

From Wikipedia:  Inspired by Capp's satiric race in which eligible women chase down terrified bachelors for the purposes of wedlock, the event reverses the cultural norms of men as the romantic pursuers. Arthur Berger says that the day "represents a fertility rite and awakens an awareness of the relationship between men and women."

  

But according to Irish folklore, the tradition of women taking the initiative came about when St. Briged of Kildare complained to St. Patrick that women had to wait too long for men to propose.   St. Patrick then decreed that women could propose on Leap Year Day.

And from there the tradition traveled the world.

I was thinking about Sadie Hawkins and Leap Year  today, despite the mix up in dates, and recalled a story I'd written some years ago about a Sadie Hawkins Day dance I went to with my date.

The story is called Jimmy Loved Me when We were Seven.   Jimmy doesn't figure into this story but another boy does.

Here's that excerpt:

When I was in eighth grade at the old Central Junior High School on Sixth Avenue in Anchorage, we had a Sadie Hawkins Day dance.  The tradition was that girls asked boys for dates to this dance.

 

I asked a boy whose name, more than sixty years later,  I can’t remember  and I suspect that has a lot to do with the embarrassment I inflicted on him all due to the corsage my mother fixed up for him.   It was a small paper plate with two artificial sunny-side-up eggs and a fake rasher of bacon, all decorated with ribbon.

 

The boy and I “danced” once, then retreated to opposite sides of the gymnasium and became one with the walls. He ditched the corsage rather early after the eggs fell off, and avoided me afterward.   He did, however, have the courtesy to show me the broken corsage.

The 2023 Brazil Journals, Chapter Thirty-Five

 

Chapter Thirty-Five

Keeping My Foot on the Gas

 

My RAM (random access memory)

gets more random with every passing year.

—Gullible Original

 

 

  

Somewhere along the way, I acquire a sandwich wrapped in foil inside a white, plastic grocery bag.   I have no recollection of this sandwich and can’t tell what it is.   The time when the photo was taken is during the American Airlines flight, so either it was served or I bought it en route.

There is another possibility.  I might have purchased it in the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport before getting on my flight to Seattle, because I have another sandwich, too, that I bought along the way, but I have absolutely no memory of landing in D-FTW and changing planes there.   None.  I must have really been out of it.

 

Anyway, I got to Seattle, debarked, and took a hotel courtesty van to the hotel.

This bench where people wait for the hotel courtesy vans its HEATED 

Flowers outside the Coast Gateway hotel in Seattle.   Looks like impatiens and Dusty Miller.

 

My hotel, Coast Gateway, in Seattle, has a wonderful restaurant called Sharps that is right in the hotel parking lot.  They offer delicious pulled pork sandwiches and fries, and I have purchased them several times.   But, they are huge and I usually can’t finish them. 

 

 

There is also the price.   The sandwich itself is a fair price but the add-ons make it spendy.   Last year my  $16.50 pulled pork sandwich had these add-ons:  $0.82 to-go charge, $0.82 cook’s commission (like a tip to the kitchen), $1.82 sales tax, $3.30 tip, for a grand total of $23.26.    I paid with a VISA card and I’m surprised they didn’t charge extra for that.

 

This is not meant to dis Sharps.   It is a great restaurant.   But, I cannot eat the whole thing.  I have made two or three meals from it in the past.   When you consider that, the price is more than fair.

 

This year, still not feeling well and having little appetite, I picked up a boxed sandwich in some airport that cost around eight or nine dollars.  I made two meals out of it.

 

And my handy little folding scissors came to the rescue again to open the mayo package.

 

 

I went to bed in the late afternoon and slept until the next morning.   That went a long way in recovering from any jet lag.  

 

Raining in Seattle the next day when I boarded Alaska Airlines.   I always feel like I’m almost home when I reach this point in a trip.

This is what the luggage claim area in the Anchorage international airport looks like.   I have never seen this in any other airport.   There's always a gigantic scrum of people moving in  front of other people to wait for their luggage.

In Anchorage, everyone stands back three feet from the carousel.   That gives all a chance to spot their bag, and the owner steps forward to lift it off the carousel.

 

Everything went well.   I took a cab to the place where I left my truck.

 

AND THAT’S WHEN THE TROUBLE BEGAN!!!

 

My truck would not start.  The cabbie gave me a jump, which cost $20.

 

After the cab left, the truck died and wouldn’t start.   I called the cab company and another driver showed up and jumped the truck for $25.   Why the difference?   Because the first driver was right there and didn't have to travel.

I kept my foot on the accelerator to make sure it wouldn't die.   He kept telling me to let it up, but I didn't and I sat there for a long time, hoping the battery was charging enough to get me a mile down the road to Costco.