Anchorage - Vancouver Day 3

We're stopped at Skeena Bakery in Hazelton, BC where we could get wifi.  It's a fanastic little spot with wifi in a beautiful town.  I think I could live here. 

Anyway, here are pictures from yesterday.  The fall colors were more than my camera and my modest skills could even hope to capture.  These are maybe 10% of how spectacular it was. 

Sunrise at our campground at Boya Lake. 

Boya Lake

The campsite.

Through the crystal clear water.

A short hike around part of the lake.

And lots of rosehips to nibble on.

J in the birches

Along the road.  Last time we were here this was all mud

A sign said, "Watch for Wildlife" and two minutes later we saw these sheep.  We had three separate black bear sightings.  Two were mom's with cubs.  But they all happened too quickly to take pictures.

Then a sign said "Watch for horses" and two minutes later there it was

These pictures. . . These are tiny faded images of what it was really like.  It was Transcendental.

 

 

 We stopped for gas at Dease Lake.  This was the second gas station that was full of these cards - I don't know if it's lottery or rippies, but I watched people spend a $15 - $40 worth.  I also had to call Visa to tell them to unblock our card.  They watch carefully when you get out of your area.  But it took about three or four gas charges before they stopped it.

 

These two (above and below) were where we had lunch.

And there were a few places we had to stop and wait a bit. 

Anchorage-Vancouver Day 2.5

After lunch in Whitehorse, we drove down through Teslin (the bridge below).

Then to the Cassiar Highway where we turned right. It was getting tight - we've been trying to not drive in the dark - but it was totally clear and a huge full moon was rising and the twilight lasted long enough until we pulled into Boya Lake Campground, a place we've been before and really like. Here are a few pictures of that afternoon.

Riding the Alcan With Vampires

Caribou antler Chandelier Tok

Old and New Bridges

 It doesn’t matter how beautiful it is, if you are driving much of the day for four or five days, it’s a long drive.  So I stopped at Loussac to find some tapes to listen to on our trip.  It’s nice to have something deep, if it isn’t too long.  We listened once to lectures on philosophy while driving cross continent, but we could listen to one or two of those and then something else. 

Deadman's Lake Tetlin

I couldn’t find anything like that at Loussac, so went for things that would pass the time.  I hesitated over Interview with a Vampire.  Vampires don’t excite me, but since so many people have read this and with so many vampire themed books, movies, and tv shows, I thought we might try it.

Me at Deadman's Lake

More Deadman's Lake

I was ready to pack it in after the first tape.  The reader is excellent, but I wasn’t getting it.  I tried to think about it as science fiction.  Good science fiction makes you think about your world differently, or stretches your imagination.  But it didn’t work. 

Waiting for Road Repairs

There were a few times when I thought, well, there might be something interesting here, but not enough so that I can remember any.  Well, there’s one -  what’s the difference between morality and aesthetics?

                  

Approaching US Customs

The vampire claimed them to be one and the same.  But I don’t think that conceit lasts long under scrutiny.  We’ve heard five of the ten tapes.  I’m not sure why we keep listening.

I also don't know how the vampire could talk to the interviewer so long without dawn forcing him to climb into his coffin.

More repairs on the road

I guess we’re hoping something will actually happen to redeem all the time we’ve spent on this.  They’re about to sail to France, except the young musician has shown up, thinner and paler than he had been.

Waiting again, but the weather's great

Koidern River Lodge Yukon

I wrote most of this at the campsite at Lake Kluane, but I've had more thoughts since then. 

Lake in the Yukon

Partly this is a story of a special needs vampire, one that is stuck in his human mind state, and still has a conscience about killing humans, at least ones he knows. 

Destruction Bay, Yukon

We woke up to the sunrise on the lake coming into the camper this morning.  It was 8:15am Yukon time.  As I walked along the rocky beach, there were grey clouds on the northern edge of the horizon.  In two hours, 3/4 of the sky was clouded. 

Destruction Bay, pop. 48 on Lake Kluane

But as we drove on, we got back into mostly clear skies. 

Camped on shore of Kluane

Here's 30 meters from our campground last night. 

We're having lunch in Whitehorse now and headed further down.  So I can't write much more.  It's sunny but cool.  We had some frost again this morning.  But we're headed south so maybe . . .

We've got miles to go, can't spend more time here typing.

Anchorage to Tok

We're having breakfast at Fast Eddy's in Tok. The Griz, where we've eaten before and is homier, is moving and is closed today. The sky's been clear and the fall scenery beautiful.

Mile 72 out of Anchorage Sunday afternoon.  (We finally got on the road about 2pm.)

 

Sun on the Matanuska River.

Looking at the river in the other 

 direction

 

The windshield's starting to get dirty.

Mt. Sanford in the late afternoon sun.

Moon rising behind Mt. Sanford.

I almost forgot these mooncakes Des sent for the Mid-Autumn Festival.  I had one before bed.  MMMMMMMMMM!

We'd been aiming for Porcupine Campground between Glenallen and Tok.  We got there about 8:15 last night at dusk.  But it was closed.  Here's a picture this morning of us parked by the closed gate of the campground.  Even though it was in the 60s yesterday, it must have been in the 20's this morning.  We did hear an owl (Great Horned, I think) during the night.

The sun was up as we pulled out around 8 this morning and drove the next 60 miles to Tok.

And it was sublimely beautiful.

I think the omelet was made by a serious carnivore.  The vegetables were essentially raw and thrown into the egg.  No seasoning whatsoever.  It wasn't till I got some tabasco that it any taste. 

Murkowski Courts Jewish Voters on Yom Kippur

Lisa Murkowski stopped by at Temple Beth Sholom at the end of services today as people were breaking the fast.  I took advantage of her presence to talk to her about how US embassies mistreat people applying for visas.  I'd written her a letter about this about five years ago after observing how callously Chinese visa seekers were treated in Beijing.  And two weeks ago the New York Times had a piece about German Opera and Theater director Peter Stein who canceled his planned work on Boris Godunov at New York's Metropolitan Opera because of how he was treated by the US consular officials in Berlin.   As he explained it:

In June he went to the consulate in Berlin for a work visa for the Met job and was forced, he said, to stand for hours in a stifling room with 50 other visa applicants. When he finally reached the consular official, “He said to me, ‘Why don’t you laugh?’ ” Mr. Stein recounted. “I said, ‘I stay here for two and a half hours standing and I am an old man.’ ”

The officer replied, “ ‘In this case you will not have a visa,’ and sent me away,” Mr. Stein said. Mr. Stein said the experience left him humiliated and deeply offended.

The same sort of treatment went on in Beijing - elderly folks had to stand for hours waiting to get visas.   And the officials have this same sort of arbitrary power to capriciously turn people down like this.

Murkowski agreed strongly that this was not a good way to win the hearts and minds of people around the world. 

The people I asked thought it was a little tacky to campaign at the synagogue on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, but thought it was normal for American politics.  They also pointed out that Scott McAdams was there ten days ago for Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the High Holy Days, which I hadn't noticed.

NOTE:  I did not have my camera with me during services.  It was out in the car though and I got it after services when I found out Murkowski was there.  Maybe this blogging thing is getting to be too much.

It's Yom Kippur - Time to Reflect and Ask For and Give Forgiveness

I've been pretty busy with Tim Wise here this week, plus we're taking off Sunday (if we can get our stuff together), and I've a backlog of potential posts to work on, so I really haven't had any time to write up anything even moderately decent about Yom Kippur which makes Saturday a do-no-work at all day.  So, with the benefit of Blogger's ability to schedule posts, I'm going to suggest you check out a post I did in 2007 about Yom Kippur.  It begins like this:

Yom Kippur Thoughts

So exactly why does a skeptical agnostic spend most of his day in the synagogue, fasting and praying? Several things come to mind.

1. It's good to have some days where you check out of life as usual and sit and reflect on how you are living your life.
2. The Jewish High Holy Days structure that sort of meditation. Thousands of years of collected wisdom have been invested into this. A lot of the stuff makes good sense in very modern and practical ways. . .  [The rest is here.]