So we took Doug to Anchorage's quintessential Alaska kitsch restaurant and cholesterol center - Gwennie's - for breakfast, which he seemed to enjoy. That should tide him over til about Iceland on his way to Frankfurt and then London. The web says the Lufthansa strike was settled, so he should have few worries. If anyone finds Doug's Nikon coolpix digital camera, which he lost on the Coastal trail bike trip a week ago, please let me know. My craigslist lost and found* ad got no responses.
Today is one of the most beautiful days of his visit. Blue skies with thunderheads massing over the Chugach.
On the way home stopped at Cuddy Midtown Park for a picture and found the geese and the daisies also enjoying the sunshine.
Now that I'm back from my two week Alaska vacation - without having to fly anywhere - I've got lots to catch up with. But it was a great trip. In hindsight I realize what a disaster it could be to invite someone you haven't seen in 38 years to spend two weeks with you, but it turned out fine. Doug is one of those people who knows me from a different time and different place and we were back into our friendly US-Brit bantering almost immediately. And Doug has a perspective on me that few if any others have and I need time to digest his friendly digs.
He got us out in this rainy summer when we might otherwise have hunkered down inside. I got lots of exercise to counter all the foods I normally wouldn't have eaten. Thanks Doug, hope the flight home is an easy one. You've had enough adventure for this month.
*So where would you advertise a lost camera in Anchorage? The ADN has practically nothing any more. Doug thought we should report it to the police, but that seemed strange to me. When I finally checked the APD lost and found online, it had three cameras since April. Can't imagine that's all the cameras people found. Craigslist had the most, even a digital camera, but not Doug's.
Do put an address label or some other name and email address on your cameras, computers, and other loseables so someone finding your lost things doesn't have to work so hard. And if you have done that already, check to see that the letters haven't worn off like they have on my binoculars.
There are some people who you can be apart from for years and yet when you get together it is like nothing has changed. Those are the people you are SO blessed to have. They are few and far between.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff.
The reconnection was an experience which might as well have been made after a gap of 38 weeks rather than years. The differences in outlook you refer to, Steve which provoked the "banter" and my "digs", were as you no doubt realised, primarily intended to provoke a response. Invariably they did-and it was always an informed and articulate one. The differences and the exchanges were all there all those years ago. Such exchanges when based on mutual respect can be do a a great way of developing understanding. I learned a lot about Alaska, America, how values can be applied in daily life and much more in the two weeks I spent with you and Joan.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry if I teased you about the time you spent on the computer. This is so much a part of the person you now are, Steve, an application of those positive liberal and humanitarian values already present in you all those year ago, and clearly makes an important contribution to discussion of the contemporary issues affecting lives in Alaska and beyond.
I'd like to think that I was "teasing out" your thoughts rather than just "teasing", but my experience of exploring issues in discussion owing much to the robust exchanges in British pubs (bars)may have come across more as "digs" than I intended.
So keep going with the blog, Steve.It's doing a fantastic job. I appreciate the time you took out from it during my visit, and the way you used that to show me not only the obvious sights, but facets of Alaska I could never have seen on my own.
Once again, I can only say thanks for everything, the experiences, the ideas and people I met when with you, and the wonderful hospitality of you and Joan
Doug, you were more than polite. Any digs or teasing was well within the limits of friendly banter.
ReplyDeleteAnd any partner of a blogger is more than happy to have others question how much time we spend at our computers.