Father's Day, Zen, Juneteenth Part 1

Fortunately, no one bought me one of these. (I took the picture later in the day at Costco) But I did get a card with an Alaska State Parks sticker for the car (yes we do still have two) We didn't get passes earlier because we were gone.


The other pass is a National Parks Golden Pass that they had wanted to get me, but I had to do that in person. We stopped by the Lands Office downtown later and got it there. What a great deal! If your 62 or older, for $10 you get a lifetime pass for all US National Parks, including the people in the car with you. And a call from my daughter. A phone message from J in Singapore was there when we got home. Thanks both of you



I'd been wanting to go to hear Koun Franz again since we'd seen him at the reading of Mark Twain's The War Prayer. I've been seeing notices that the public was welcome to come to the Anchorage Zen Community Sunday mornings. The paper said 10:25 am, so we went. As we walked up, a moose went by in the next door yard - the center is in a house in midtown.

We walked into a room with about a dozen people sitting on cushions on the floor listening to someone - not Koun Franz - talking about the life of a Chinese monk who was an important link to Zen Buddhism. It was quiet, calm, and took me to another place. We learned later that Koun Franz is in Japan for six weeks or so. There are so many worlds in Anchorage!



We drove downtown and parked near the Parkstrip. (I didn't post about J's bike pedal falling off while she was riding and her falling. Lots of people came to see if she was ok. She couldn't get the pedal back on and walked the bike home a couple miles. Then rode it (I got the pedal back in enough, but the threads weren't right) to REI where they fixed it for free (it is just barely a year old) and she rode back home. But the next day she got a pain in her side.



She can walk, she can sit, she can lie. But moving from one of those positions to the other hurts. And the bike is on hold till she feels better.) We were hoping to take in the Juneteenth Celebrations. We passed the Veteran's memorial.



But things weren't really happening yet. It was about 11am.



So we wandered on into downtown past the Martin Luther King Memorial headed for the Snow City Cafe for breakfast. But it was packed with lots of people waiting.