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We stood in the middle of the main plaza of Prague. A small jazz ensemble began playing the Louis Armstrong favorite “What a Wonderful World.” Suddenly we deeply understood that this world is wonderful, and we are happy to share it with you. Leia mais Asheboro, United States
  • Angelaska
    Dia 13

    Home

    26 de maio, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☀️ 86 °F

    We just arrived home and it feels more wonderful than I can possibly imagine. All four of us had a bad cold by the end of the trip and now we simply need to rest. It was a great trip, a memorable adventure, but it is still very good to be home.Leia mais

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  • Angelaska
    Dia 12

    The 49th Parallel

    25 de maio, Canadá ⋅ ☁️ 48 °F

    After checking out all of the coffee shops in the area on the Internet, I decided to visit a coffee shop called the 49th Parallel. It happened to be located on the block adjacent to the Hyatt Regency, where we are staying. I ordered a cup of filter coffee and a cruller just for the fun of it, and also ordered a single shot espresso to check out their barista skills. Both cups of coffee were perfect. They had the same kind of fruitiness that I experienced in the coffee at Bold coffee shop in Asheboro. I think I have tasted enough different kinds of coffee now so that I can detect the difference between the kind of fruity coffee preferred by millennials. Generally people my age prefer a more robust coffee, one whose taste is described as chocolatey or nutty. I suppose one’s preferences are largely influenced by the type of coffee one tastes early in life. It was a beautiful coffee shop and it filled up very quickly. In fact, finding a seat was challenging when I got there, and by the time I finished my coffee finding a seat was impossible. I got my coffee and saw that no table was vacant, though some had empty chairs. I saw a two-seater with a young woman sitting alone, an empty chair across from her. I’m guessing she was a young professional woman on her way to work. I politely asked if I might use the unused chair. She unglued her nose from her phone to say quickly, “Certainly,” as though sitting across from strangers is common at the 49th Parallel. We shared not another word, and I saw this process repeated with every customer who was served after me. Soon my neighbor finished her brew and wordlessly got up to leave. By the time I left every chair in the place was taken, mostly by strangers sitting across from strangers. The next time I visit Vancouver I want to come here again. These baristas are seriously good.

    The staff of the Hyatt Regency has been excellent. They never miss a detail. They extended our checkout time to 1 PM, and then allowed us to stow our baggage in a locked room while we went out to visit Vancouver a second day. Because we had a flight that left in the evening we came back to the hotel and got our luggage for transportation to the airport. I don’t know how the people at the Hyatt Regency in Vancouver could’ve been more accommodating or hospitable. It’s a wonderful place to stay.    Leia mais

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  • Angelaska
    Dia 11

    Dinner at the Mosaic Restaurant

    24 de maio, Canadá ⋅ ☁️ 54 °F

    Because it is still raining outside, we decided to have dinner at the Mosaic Restaurant on the second level of our hotel. Randy and I had a delicious chicken-chili quesadilla, but more important than the dinner was the conversation we had with our server. I’ll call her Sophia to protect her privacy. She is from Greece, but because jobs are so scarce there, she came to Canada to work. She gets back home to Athens about four times a year. She has three children and a husband, but for the last four-and-a-half years she has been away from home. Her oldest girl is about to enter first grade, and Sophia is fighting to get her second child into pre-school. Her youngest daughter is only a year old, and she has already been rejected for preschool. The government policies relating to preschool education are tough in Canada. Sophia hopes to return to Greece to be reunited with her family soon.

    As beautiful as the natural wonders of Alaska may be, the things we love and remember about our travels are the wonderful people we meet--a Greek waitress in Canada struggling to support her family back home; a parent whose son was cured of a tragic disease. These are the things we remember.
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  • Angelaska
    Dia 11

    Visiting Vancouver

    24 de maio, Canadá ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F

    Moving from the ship through Canadian customs to the Hyatt Regency in Vancouver was remarkably easy. Because the Hallmans had some checked luggage, we took a taxi cab the three blocks from the port to the hotel.

    It’s good to be here where we have reliable Wi-Fi again. Many of the dictation errors in my previous posts have been due to the fact that inadequate Wi-Fi connections prevented us from going back and making corrections. I know that the Alaskan town on the west coast is “Nome” not “gnome,” but talk -to-text hasn’t figured it out yet.

    Both Angela and Randy were a bit under the weather, so Glenda and I decided to venture out on our own. I wanted to see a building for which a custom made Fazioli piano has been built. We were surprised to find, however, that the building is not yet finished and the piano has not yet been installed. Glenda and I decided we would just snoop around a bit and we look a coffee shop. We found an excellent place nearby called “Beyond Coffee.” We both teared up when we realized that “What a Wonderful World” was playing in the coffee shop. That song has appeared so many times in our travels in interesting places. We once heard it being played on the square in Prague. What memories it evokes! What a wonderful message it conveys! Here in Vancouver we sat down at a table and happened to be next to a Chinese-Canadian couple. The woman was crying and we were afraid something was wrong, so we asked whether everything was all right. She said, “These are tears of joy. Our son developed a very rare auto immune disease about the time he graduated from high school, and he just called to say that the doctors have finally succeeded in reversing the disease.” For several minutes we rejoiced with them.

    Our kinfolks like burgers. We found a Red Robin restaurant, so we called Angela and Randy and asked them if they wanted to meet us for lunch. They came down. We had a great burger, and then Glenda and I went our separate ways. Glenda went back to a skin care store she found on Robeson Street, and I went back down to Canada Place to photograph the port we have used so often. Our ship, the Celebrity Summit, was still in port there, taking on new passengers as excited about their trip to Alaska as we had been. Now we have just returned to the hotel and all of our rooms are ready. It feels good simply to put my feet up while sharing with my friends the wonderful experiences we are having in Alaska and Canada.    Leia mais

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  • Angelaska
    Dia 11

    Ship to Shore

    24 de maio, Canadá ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F

    The Port of Vancouver has the smoothest transition from ship to shore. Anywhere. As we stepped off the gangway, a customs official grabbed our declaration forms with no questions. Big signs directed passengers who needed to meet a bus to door A, a cab to door B, airport transportation to door C, Uber to door D. We went through door B hoping to find a taxi somewhere. Immediately a woman working for the port authority was right there asking me, “How many people are in your party?” I answered, “Four.” She asked, “Do you have luggage?” “Yes,” I said. “Go to station number 12,” she pointed. A cab was there to load us and our luggage and take us to the hotel.Leia mais

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  • Angelaska
    11111
    Dia 9

    Misty Fjords Magic

    22 de maio, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☁️ 59 °F

    Misty Fjords was named because there’s almost always a constant haziness over the mountains. This is our third visit to Misty Fjords and on every visit the sun has been shining and the air has been clear as crystal. What rare luck! On the way out we passed two pods of transient orcas. An active bald eagle nest held two adults and one juvenile. Fishermen waited for halibut. Steller Sea Lions played in the water. Dall’s porpoises scooted through the inlet at 30 mph.

    New Eddystone Rock received its name when it reminded George Vancouver, Captain James Cook’s navigator, of the New Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of Plymouth, England. When we were in that town we saw the foundation of that lighthouse. Its chiseled interlocking granite stones have been moved and reassembled in a traffic circle in front of the Plymouth Hotel. A historical marker relates its history.

    Most days the visibility is less than 100 feet. Each year this place gets more than 13 feet of rainfall. Today it was spectacular. One can easily understand why naturalist John Muir said of this place, “Misty Fjords is the Yosemite of the North.”
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  • Angelaska
    1
    Dia 8

    Thirty Whales an Hour

    21 de maio, Estados Unidos ⋅ ⛅ 45 °F

    This morning as we sailed into Icy Strait Point we went out onto the veranda outside our stateroom and saw probably 30 whales. Our excursion this morning was a whale-watching expedition onboard a small boat that traversed the waters nearby. Out in the strait we saw at least another 30 whales—males, females, mothers and babies—all around us. It is difficult to photograph a whale because as soon as you hear her spout, she shows her dorsal fin, and you realize you just missed the best part of the show. However, I did get some videos where we were tracking some whales swimming by us and I will include those in this entry. We also saw sea otters, seals, a bear, sea lions and puffins. Two bald eagles sat in the top of the tree and they were eyeing us curiously. This has been a fantastic day for nature watching and I think maybe seeing all of these wonderful animals scratched Glenda‘s itch for whale watching—for a while at least.Leia mais

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  • Angelaska
    Dia 7

    White Pass Railroad

    20 de maio, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☁️ 34 °F

    After thousands of Stampeders had already died in the Alaska Gold Rush of 1896, a group of enterprising businessmen decided to build a railroad up to the Klondike. There were two possible trails. One route, less steep but much longer, went up through White Pass. The other was a shorter and much steeper route that went through the Chilkoot pass. The businessman chose the shallower grade, and by 1898 there was a railroad carrying gold prospectors up through the White Pass north as far as the town of Fraser. Today we were able to retrace the path of the Stampeders as we rode the White Pass Yukon Railroad up into Canada and into the Yukon territory. The scenery was spectacular as the snow began to fall. Many majestic views escaped our cameras because we were traveling in clouds. Nevertheless, what we saw was magnificent.

    At midday we stopped at a beautiful lodge made of logs. Its walls were made completely of glass, inviting the majestic snowcapped peaks into our dining room. Although the dining room was not heated, its walls shielded us from the wind at least, and our jackets kept us comfortable. Our hosts served us a wonderful bowl of hot bison chili covered with cheese and a bun as big as a softball. We washed it all down with steaming coffee. After lunch Randy and I walked across the suspension bridge hovering 200 feet above the creek below. Rushing down from glaciers forty miles away, its sub-zero blue water barely escaped freezing. On the other side of the creek, we saw more exhibits about how the Stampeders built log cabins, preserved their food and survived the chilling winters of the Yukon.

    I encourage you to read the rest of the story of the Alaska Stampeders of the Gold Rush years. When they reached the Yukon, they still had another 550 miles to go before they got to Dawson City, where the gold had actually been discovered. That final distance had to be traveled by water. Prospectors needed to hire leaky boats or to build makeshift rafts. A significant number of the fatalities of the Alaska Gold Rush occurred when boats sank or rafts disintegrated in rushing frigid waters. Though the scenery here is magnificent, as recorded by such writers as Robert Service, most of us tourists here today spent at least a few pensive moments considering the foolishness, greed, tenacity and tragedy of the Alaska Gold Rush.
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  • Angelaska
    Dia 6

    Mendenhall Glacier

    19 de maio, Estados Unidos ⋅ 🌧 39 °F

    The Mendenhall glacier has already receded several hundred yards since we were here in 2012. Climate change is causing the glacier to recede even faster now, though glaciologists say that it will begin to grow again in another 30 or 40 years. The Mendenhall icefield feeds some 30 glaciers in the area around Juneau. This city, the state capital of Alaska, is not accessible by highway. Everyone coming here and all of the supplies must be brought in by ship or by airplane. This is a beautiful place with many nature trails. While Glenda went to the visitor’s center, Randy and Angela took a hike to the falls by the glacier. When Angela saw a sign about bears, she said their hike became a power walk. The visitor’s center was also a good place for us to get out of the rain.Leia mais

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  • Angelaska
    Dia 6

    Thar She Blows

    19 de maio, Estados Unidos ⋅ 🌧 46 °F

    Our whale watching excursion was successful as we saw half a dozen adults and babies after leaving the dock near Juneau. I was especially pleased that I was able to get a video of a mother humpback whale and her baby as they went for a deep dive. As we were returning to the dock we saw a whale do a spy-hop. The only bad thing about today was the weather. The temperature was 42° F with driving rain and 15 mph winds.Leia mais

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