Tourism Day Eight: Skagway and the White Pass Rail

Monday, 2 June, 2014: a day I had been anticipating for months and months – ever since my seester had sent me enough money for my birthday to pay for a train trip. It was, in fact, the one thing she informed me I must not miss.

There had been two separate excursions available – at 9:30, and then again, at 11:45-ish. Knowing how likely it was that I'd be up late every night, I didn't think it wise to book the earlier trip, so I'd booked the lunchtime run up the hills. That gave me plenty of time, once I woke at an indecently early hour, to have a leisurely-paced and luxurious breakfast with a view of the train I would be taking,

My chariot awaits

followed by an easy fifteen-minute stroll from the pier to the town of Skagway.

I really did feel welcomed

Well, easy for most people. For me, it was a challenge, especially as it was sort of drizzling, making the footing faintly slick. But, since it was cool and damp, I was in heaven.

Along the path beside the road, the city had posted a sign encouraging people to enjoy everything Nature has to offer, there. I had to take a pic…mostly for the spelling error (or, was it deliberate?).

Pedal/peddle… It's nice to see that they encourage 
salesmanship over bicycling

I walked past most of the little shops, but I did, actually, stop in to see what postcards they had at the WP&YR book store and gift shop…besides post cards.

They had quite a bit of history

I found a book for Pop, a set of magnets for The Bat, and a couple of other items (plus, of course, some post cards), and, having had a pleasant chat with the store manager, I took my bag and wandered out to see the town.

I guess the early-20th-century architecture didn't really blow me away, and they had yet to open, that morning, the Red Onion Saloon and Bordello (which the boys were bound and determined to visit), I didn't take pics of the town itself. Well, not the buildings. Just the stuff which piqued my interest:

You know you're in trouble when this is your snowplow

I confess to being a foamer. Of sorts. I can't afford to follow my impulses very often, but give me the opportunity to put my grubby paws on a locomotive, or spend a night in a caboose, and you have me at "choo."

Seriously, cut through your snow in Virginia or Texas with this. Ha!

Well, after all, isn't the big draw for tourism today in Skagway that they have this rail excursion? The ships can't all be coming for the Red Onion…

Okay, well, maybe the scenery has a little to do with it.

Which is my other reason for booking the rail excursion. Besides being a train ride.

It wasn't cheap – it ran to $129 per person, when I booked. And, for a three-hour tour (a three hour tour!) that seemed a bit steep, initially. But my seester had told me it was a can't-miss, and she had paid for it, so, there I was, biding my time, hoping the weather cleared up enough to warrant the trip. After all, if the clouds are low and dropping drizzle the entire way up the slope, blocking my view of the landscape, there isn't much point to following my seester's instructions. 

But I was hoping I wouldn't need a refund. I wanted to brown-bag my lunch and see more of Alaska. 

And I wanted to ride that train.

Into the heart of town I went, to window shop some more, and to pick up the freebies and otherwise affordable items I could find for presents, now that the stores were finally opening for the day.  For the record, the people who work in those gift stores are well-informed, well-trained, very friendly, and, in a couple of cases, from Illinois. It was a lot of fun chatting with them, although I'm sure it would have been more fun for them if I'd brought them some hefty commissions. Instead, I brought home about $30 in stuff, not including the postcards and gear I'd picked up for the parents.

By 10 a.m., the clouds seemed to be breaking up, but so did much of my energy. I was shopped out, and needed to get back to the pier, to catch that train. I stopped in at the office of tourism and asked about procedures and costs for the local buses. The ride around town and to the end of the pier was a couple of dollars, easily accessible right out the front door to the office, there, and, at that hour, all mine. A few people were riding inbound, but most were still just strolling into town. I chatted with the young woman who drove the bus – she, too, had come up from the lower 48, for a summer job, and had been considering staying to become a permanent resident.

Small towns, no matter where they are, have a certain appeal.

Now we're rolling

Well, I made it back to the ship in time to get a little lunch at the buffet, then catch my train. The next three hours were a magical ride, punctuated by narration from the loudspeaker, giving snippets of history of Skagway, the Alaska/Yukon gold rush, the trail, the rail, and the geology. (Click on any picture to embiggen.)

Here are a few impressions from the ride:

There were many, many locomotives built, used, and, occasionally, lost on this rail run. Some of the best, classic ones have been rescued, and are either already restored or are in the process of being restored. # 52 was in progress as a restoration project.

Steam Engine 73 had already been run, this particular morning, and was cooling down in the yard as we went past.

Yonder lie locomotive parts. You may detect a trend, here

Just a reminder: my locomotive had a diesel engine. It's slightly less sooty.

We started our ride at sea level, where the stream widens out

gradually climbing

and climbing…

Well, that escalated quickly…we're nearing the mules' & horses' point of no return.
When they fell off the higher trails, there was no rescuing them.

Oh, good. A trestle bridge. That looks sturdy.
Unless Clint Eastwood is nearby with Eli Wallach.
And a lit cigar.
Please don't let me fall please don't let me fall…

And how darling! it comes with a tunnel!

Yippee. Another, bigger trestle bridge. 

Gulch. No foolin'. But that bridge…it's literally 100 years old!

Yeh, we're not crossing that.

We get another, newer bridge. And, oh, joy! another tunnel. 

We're nearing the top.

Small glacial lake. Rumor is, some tour guides skinny dip here in August.
I'm betting they don't have kids in May. Unless they're Scotsmen.

The pass narrows

Finally at the end of the line. White Pass station. Technically still in US, but semi-functioning RCMP/customs station.

The train's locomotive disconnected at the end of this line, turned around, and reattached at the other end of the train, so it could lead us back downhill (brakes on the front end! I like the logic of that!). We were given instructions on how to flip the backs of our seats, so that we could reverse our own positions, and still be facing the direction the train was heading, instead of being left to Look Back in Anger (see what I did there?).

At the same time, the pair of docents switched positions, too, so that the young woman who had been taking tickets and handing out leaflets on the way up, did the narration over the public address system on the way back down. Meanwhile, the young man who'd been talking all the way up, was now offering free bottled water and selling video, hats, and other souvenirs on the way downhill. I wouldn't have minded being able to get video or hat – or both – but I was saving my money for tea and memorabilia at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, come Thursday.

So I just continued to enjoy the view and take my own pictures.

Looking back downhill…

Heading back downhill…

Getting back downhill…

No horses or mules buried in the old city cemetery…
but maybe a coupla dawgs (wink wink)

Bit of the best graffiti…
there was plenty to see, near the shoreline

When I got back to the ship, there was enough time for me to get to my cabin & dress for dinner, but not much time to stretch out on the bed and relax…well, I'd have had to move this little guy that Adi left for me, anyway.

I moved it eventually. 

We set sail again from Skagway around 6 p.m., and we moved outward until sometime just after dark (somewhat past midnight), when we turned up into Tracy Arm Fjord, heading for a glacier.

Geology lesson: the round-topped mountains were
severely eroded away by glaciation.

The pointy-topped (sawtooth) were too tall from their uplift
for the glaciers build up enough to scrape them down.
Or so I'm told.

I was asleep for that turn. But I'd set my phone alarm clock to wake me by 5 a.m., so I could be up topside when we arrived at our great honkin' slab of ice. 

I was a little excited, so my sleep was fitful.

A little more Fra Hubbard on Unions...

As I posted yesterday, I bought a lovely pamphlet at auction. The document is a century old, and, startlingly enough, the more things change over such time, the more they stay the same... Elbert Hubbard had quite a moment expressing himself on the subject of labor union demands.

I posted the first section of that pamphlet on my Friday's Klips blog.

I have now posted part two of that same document, here, at Friday's Klips.

Here's another sample, to whet your appetite:

We long ago decided not to be ruled by a person in England, or a man in Italy. The Anglo-Saxon is a transplanted Teuton, with a dash of hardy Norse in his fiber that makes slavery for him out of the question. In every land upon which he has placed his foot, he has found either a throne or a grave. ¶ When those Norsemen with their yellow hair flying in the breeze sailed up the Seine, the people on the shore called to them in amazement and asked, "Where are you from and who are your masters?"

And the defiant answer rang out over the waters, "We are from round the world, and we call no man master !"

To these men we trace a pedigree. And think you we are to trade the freedom for which we have fought, for the rule of a Business Agent graduated from a cigar factory?

Excuse this smile––I really can't help it.

Scientists find "fossil sneeze": octopus w/ink & suckers

No bones, no hard tissue, octopi are not the likeliest candidates for fossilization, and yet, some scientists from Berlin claim they have found the complete rock-hard remains of one. Complete. With ink and suckers. My initial response was, "Am I to be one of those suckers?" But they seem to have persuaded others in their field that their discovery is legit.

What most surprised Fuchs and his colleagues Giacomo Bracchi and Robert Weis was how similar the specimens are to modern octopus. "These things are 95 million years old, yet one of the fossils is almost indistinguishable from living species," Fuchs said.

So, what does one call an octopus that has gone beyond ossification, how does one label a cephalopod of stone? Fossipus? Octopossil? Cephalopossil? Rock of Inkjets?

Any way you look at this, it's cool as Cthulhu.

Al I want for Christmas

It's well outside my price range (as is Kool-aid, at this point), but Oh! how I covet this nifty spiffy item: the Sarah-cuda bow from Lakota Industries of Ohio. Not that I'm into pink, or anything (ecch), but it would set the hackles up on a few folks around here, and it looks like a very practical tool, also. With my eyesight, my shooting is not so hotsy-totsy, but, given practice, I can still hit a target, I think. And it would be not only fun to take this thing out of its case, but it might be groovy to contribute to a worthy cause at the same time:

Lakota Industries, Inc. has designed this magnificent bow to show our appreciation and to recognize Sarah Palin and her historic achievement. It is also a tribute to America's hard working women and to further promote the attitude and philosophy that Sarah Palin has demonstrated throughout her life. Lakota Industries will donate 10% of the proceeds from the sale of these beautifully handcrafted bows to the National Association for Down Syndrome.

So, if you love me... well, let's not go there. If you want to make a middle-aged, slightly gimpy crazy cat-lady happy, you know where to shop, and for what. hint. hint.

What's not to like?

Puff-publication Parade Magazine has a spiffy little interview, today, with Justice Antonin Scalia.

As I sat here with my lap full of equipment, the Bat read to me from her hard copy:

Is there a role for politics in our judicial system?
None whatever. The absolute worst violation of the judge’s oath is to decide a case based on a partisan political or philosophical basis, rather than what the law requires.

I think my mom might be developing a little crush on somebody....

Amelia Peabody would like this

Many mystery readers have come to know and love Amelia Peabody. I, for one, liked the books not merely for the suspense, but, more importantly, for the archaeological background and sly references to some heroes of the business (when I was young and innocent, I thought being an archaeologist would be a swell way for a girl who was afraid of heights, claustrophobic, and allergic to dust, mold, insect bites, and her own sweat to make a living).

And now, I see that someone has developed a true working model of Amelia's weapon of choice for self-defense. I dare say, it is the most civilized thing I have seen in the industry thus far.


(HT: Instapundit)

Buy me a drink, sailor?

For the first time since college, I'm seriously considering buying a bottle of vodka.

No, it's not that electioneering is driving me to drink (although give me a few more weeks of this interminable campaign, and maybe we'll have to reconsider). It's this really neat answer to a really stupid advertisement:

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican-America War (1846-1848). With the signing of this treaty, the United States gained control of what was to become the Golden West, including California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and parts of Colorado and New Mexico. Today, SKYY® Vodka, the number-one vodka produced in the United States, spoke out against suggestions by Absolut® Vodka to disregard that treaty, as well as the joining of Texas to the Union in 1845, as depicted in Absolut’s recent advertising.

“Like SKYY Vodka, the residents of states like California, Texas and Arizona are exceptionally proud of the fact that they are from the United States of America,” said Dave Karraker, SKYY Vodka. “To imply that they might be interested in changing their mailing addresses, as our competitor seems to be suggesting in their advertising, is a bit presumptuous.”

In the ad, an “Absolut World” is depicted where the map of North America is re-drawn with Mexico claiming much of the Western United States, negating the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, as well as the Gadsden Purchase (1853), and the independence of Texas (1836).

“Don’t get me started on the Gadsden Purchase,” continues Karraker. “I think the folks in Tucson and Yuma would be rubbed the wrong way if they hear this landmark deal was somehow nullified as suggested by Absolut, a Swedish-owned brand.”

SKYY Vodka was founded in San Francisco in 1992 and continues to be produced in the United States. Premium SKYY Vodka is made from American grain carefully selected from the Midwest and 100% pure filtered water. SKYY’s proprietary four-column distillation and three-step filtration process consistently ensures exceptional quality. SKYY Vodka products include luxury SKYY90® and new SKYY Infusions™, a unique, all-natural infused experience made with premium SKYY Vodka and succulent real fruit.

Honestly, I'm not a big drinker, and, when pressed, I'd prefer a nice, smoky, single-malt Scotch whisky (Scotch is for sipping in good company. Vodka, in my experience, is for getting plastered and doing stuff you don't want your family to know about) , but these guys are smart as whips on this. On this one, Absolut stepped in political dog doo with both feet, and SKYY bent them over and rubbed their noses in it.

They may or may not produce all that impressive a potable, but their admen sure have huevos. I haven't laughed so hard over a press release since ... um ... the purely political stuff, I guess.

(HT: Kathryn Jean Lopez)

A funny thing happened

On my way through impersonal corporate rejection, I was actually recognized by face and name, by an insurance agent I see maybe twice a year... and what's more, he was able to help me.

It all started out with a windstorm... the pictures of the pickup truck with the tree resting oh-so-gently upon it are from directly in front of my house. But that wasn't the only tree branch damage. In my back yard, I had a rather substantial shade tree, as well. I'm told it was a slippery elm, but I don't know trees except deciduous and evergreen. This one was deciduous (other trees drop leaves in the fall -- mine drop large branches), and about 45-50 feet tall, with a crotch about 7 feet off the ground starting to split (I've heard of split-crotch panties, but probably not in this size), and with a smaller tree trying to take root in the divide. At any rate, while this large tree in the back had not, as yet, split asunder and landed upon my garage, the neighbors' garages, and the neighbor's house, it was only a matter of time.

As a matter of fact, it decided, during this summer's storm, to drop a 16-inch diameter major branch onto my garage roof -- my pretty corrugated fiberglass garage roof, which Pop just finished three summers ago! I called the insurance office (State Farm) and asked if there were any point to filing a claim -- would somebody like to come look at it and give me a reasonable assessment, or was that a stupid thing to do? Mostly, I was trying to keep Pop from doing himself grievous bodily harm in the few days before his 50th-anniversary-gift trip with Mom to Alaska. If left to his own devices, he'd have climbed up ladders, tossed a couple of ropes about, and wrenched his back trying to remove the giant tree limb from the garage roof. Then where would his trip have gone? No train, no ferry, no Alaska -- just to bed and Grumbleburg!

At any rate, the insurance company sent an adjuster out, filed a claim for me to the tune of $33 above my deductible. Apparently, just phoning them constitutes filing a claim (I did not know this -- I thought one could ask without committing to an actual claim. Isn't that what some company's ads say you can do?) A few weeks later, I got a check in the mail for $33. Whoopee.

Next thing I know, though, I'm getting a letter informing me that, because I've had three claims in six years, they're canceling my policy, as of the first of the year. Over a $33 check! (exclamation point!!!!)

So right before Thanksgiving (a few days after having received the notice), Mom and I (Mom and Pop are part-owners of my house) went down to the agent's office, and asked if we could get a little help. The assistants said the boss, Jon Ferguson, was out sick, then took our names & number, said she'd have him call us when he got back to work.

Well, a month went by. We didn't see Ferguson's name in the obits, so we went by his office again last week, assuming that our note simply got lost in the stacks of messages (it's been a busy year around here). He was in... and mostly recovered. We told him of my plight, he called the main office in Bloomington, IL, and managed to get a reversal of the decision to cancel -- and he even had my payments reduced, with a little restructuring. He said to the person on the phone, after all, our family had been steady customers of his since we returned to this community, and had been with State Farm since... I dunno, since time immemorial, I guess, and it seemed sorta problematic to lose a customer over a $33 check, anyway (that should have never been submitted as a claim, said he, and should be considered an "office error"), especially since the offending trees have now been removed at chainsaw-point, so there's no further risk of tree damage to the house or garage (unless one of the neighbor's trees gets picked up and blown over one of their houses and into mine). He drove over by my house, took a photo or two to e-mail to the main office, as evidence of tree absence.

I received a "disregard previous letter" letter yesterday, in my mailbox.

I genuinely appreciate doing business with Jon Ferguson -- he's what an insurance agent ought to be: friendly, professional, swift and helpful. He treated Mom and me as human beings, and kept me from getting lost in the big, bad system.

And I love living in a small town, where people know each other and actually care!

(BTW -- a friend of mine has been doing the basic emergency repairs. The down side to living here is, we have so few reliable contractors available to do "small jobs." Many of us have had to learn to do our own simple tasks, like roofing, plumbing, wiring, and such, or depend upon the kindness of neighbors.)

Week in the Desert, part 5

Where were we? Ah, yes. Halloween afternoon. I was wearing the socks with the glow-in-the-dark "BOO!" printed all over them. We had seen the Liberace Museum, picked up my brother-in-law, and headed for

The Valley of Fire.

It's a bit of a drive up the interstate from Las Vegas... but Interstate HWY 15 is smooth and clear, once you leave Las Vegas city limits, and it's really only about an hour, at most -- less than a third, I think, of the journey required to reach Zion National Park (we didn't have the time for that, this trip).

Basically, from North Las Vegas to Nellis AFB, I15 was relatively clear, and then beyond that, cars were few and far between. It was early afternoon, so we were heading out after the noon rush and before the big evening rush hour(s). The desert scenery looks pretty soft,

click any image for larger view

but even there, it's unforgiving (and they'll tell you so, in the tv shows set in Lost Wages). And the geologic uplift appears fairly gentle and orderly, until

you head eastward-ish, on the Valley of Fire Highway, past those rolling, gently erose hills and tumble into the sharp-and-pointyland which marks the edge of Valley of Fire State Park.

The VoF Highway was freshly paved and so smooth I think even grocery carts wouldn't shimmy on it. It was the only smooth thing for miles.

The brush is prickly, the sand is rocky, and the hills... well, the hills are

crisp, to say the least.

As we approached the park, we passed at least six stretch limousines and one standard limo, all exiting the park. We asked later at the park's visitor center what the story was, and the woman at the counter said "Halloween Wedding." I'm thinking it was an awesome place to hold a party, but by the look of things, these folks had more money than sense. Nonetheless, they (and we) weren't the only people coming through the park that afternoon. I had to wait a long, long time to get pictures of some of these places without a couple of cars smack dab in the center of the scenic vistas... In particular, the Beehives had one jack.... um... oblivious soul park right next to the biggest outcropping take a few pictures, and then stand outside his car talking first to somebody on his cell phone, and then with somebody in a car which stopped on the highway directly in front of him.

These stones, "the Beehives," stand between one and two stories high. I didn't get a chance at the bigger ones, though (see above).

Still near the Beehives, just looking south-ish.

Same general vicinity.

We went from there to Atlatl Rock, where my camera batteries quit working. So I depend upon my seester's camera for evidence that I thumbed my nose at (a) my fear of heights and (b) my fear of pain coming down stairs, and climbed the steps to the observation platform. I'm thinking it was about 50-60 feet up (in the range of 15-18 m.). My imagination may have altered dimensions, but I don't think too substantially.

One [expletive deleted] strode right past the "PLEASE DO NOT CLIMB" sign and went up the rock face to where the petroglyphs were, and then had to climb the fence to get onto the platform where his wife and tween-aged daughter waited for him. Lovely addition to the erosion of the site and its artifacts... Guess what? He spoke French.

Anyway, another couple of people showed up, obeyed the rules regarding stair usage, and even very kindly took a picture of my seester and me at the landing, midpoint on my climb back down, while I was resting my [insert swear-word here] knee.

From Atlatl Rock, it was off to the Visitor Center, so I could buy batteries and... post cards.

Outside the center, the desert was in bloom:

We took advantage of the clean facilities (wondering why they didn't have those water-saving commodes) then left the center, headed down to Seven Sisters. Here are two of them, with one seester.

one seester in the shadow of a Sister...

And the Sister which cast that shadow on the seester.

Soon after, exhaustion set in. Heck, we'd been on our feet since 6 a.m. local time, and it was fast approaching 5 p.m., with only a light lunch. So we headed in the direction of

Lake Mead Drive (or is it Road -- or Boulevard?)

and then back down to the city of sin, for supper around Fremont Street, in time to catch the Experience, complete with VIVA VISION (they spell it with all caps). I bought myself some postcards (surprise!) and a tacky little glitter-globe magnet for Mom, since she collects magnets.

We didn't misbehave too badly during the show or at the "Lucky 7" $7.77 buffet in whichever casino/hotel we wandered into (by then I was too tired to tell one casino from the next). But I did have some soft-serve frozen dairy product, in a cone, for dessert, with insufficient lactase tablets to counter its effects. Don't tell anybody. I only regretted it a little, in the wee hours.

We got back to our rooms in Primm around 10 p.m. local time. We had to be up and moving the next morning by 5:30, for more steak-and-eggs breakfast and more car stuff, at NACE.

Week in the Desert, part 4

By the dawn of Day two (or, should I count the 30% day Monday, and call this day three?), I was still not impressed with my room, because (a) this was my view -- and the interior was even less scenic --
and (b) we couldn't make our cell phones work inside the rooms.

Still, we managed to get ourselves together, and after another great steak-and-eggs breakfast, we made our way to the Sands Expo Center, for AAPEX.

I had a lot of fun collecting pelf and ideas, but by noon, my seester and I had pretty much reached saturation looking at tools and car parts, and were discussing where to go next. The decision was made... the Liberace Museum. It took a little digging around on her "brick," the handheld government-issue blackberry equivalent, but we found directions, and ended up at the first of the two buildings which make up the museum proper.
That front part housed Liberace's collection of cars

(I posted a pic of one, already, didn't I?)

and Pianos, fortepianos, and other keyboard-and-string instruments,

including this spiffy little feller:

which we were hoping to convince my brother-in-law my seester had ordered for delivery at their home for Christmas. Because everybody needs a little night music.

The second part of the museum is at the back end of the parking lot, and is the recognizable landmark piece of architecture shown at their website. That's the part that shows the more...personal stuff.

Like his costumes,

some of the furnishings he lived/worked with, and


some of the gifts he received from his fans

For all the camp Liberace presented on stage, he had a conscience, as well, establishing the Liberace Foundation to fund music education for others. This I had not known until I was preparing for my trip.

But, besides all that, I got the impression he really wanted to see that everybody had a good time... and he seemed not at all unwilling to get silly to make that happen. I can not imagine anybody else, especially in this day and age, who would be willing to wear a rhinestone-and-sequin affair weighing 200 pounds, above platform shoes, while playing a mirror-bedecked piano night after night...

And he was genuinely, sweetly funny.

Maybe that's why the young couple, who arrived at the museum a few minutes after my seester and I did, were so respectful, even though they were far too young to have seen him perform.

Anyway, the museum visit doesn't have to take very long, if your legs are going all wobbly from walking around a trade show, and you can still take in an awful lot of smiles.

We had plenty of time, that afternoon, to pick up my BIL and go see another wonder Nevada has to offer: the Valley of Fire.

I'll post on that, I hope, tomorrow.