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Glenda Cook
Glenda Cook

Glenda Cook

traveled in 69 countries Read more🇺🇸Asheboro
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  • Monet to Morocco

    The Music Man

    November 12, 2024 in France ⋅ ⛅ 52 °F

    When I was about 12 years old, I happened to be watching one of the young people‘s concerts which Leonard Bernstein hosted with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The piece they played was the symphony in D minor by the French composer César Franck. I listened to all three movements of this piece and I was electrified. That piece captivated me as a young teenager and it still grabs my heart every time I hear it. Later in life I discovered his tone poem, “Les Eolides (The Breezes),” one of the most beautiful orchestral pieces I’ve ever heard.

    Cesar Frank was the professor of composition and harmony at the Conservatoire Nacional a few blocks northeast of where I sit. All of his students appreciated his fatherly kindness, which, according to students, many of Franck’s colleagues lacked. Not only was he a teacher, he was also a church organist, and he wrote some of the most expressive organ pieces ever composed. He played the organ every Sunday at the church I have entered, the Basilica of Ste. Clothilde.

    We walked here from the University, and I was transfixed when I pushed against an ancient oak door and found that it gave way to allow me to enter the sanctum. We crept in and found one woman sitting and praying. We entered silently and took our seats halfway down the nave. We waited until the woman left, and then I turned around to photograph the organ. It is essentially the same instrument that Franck played, although it has been refurbished and enlarged twice since he died in 1890. We left this beautiful basilica feeling as though we had been in a holy place. I know it was for me.    Read more

  • Monet to Morocco
    Maison Thevinin
    Home of Camille Saint-SaensHome of Julia and Paul ChildMaison Thevinen

    Bon appétit

    November 12, 2024 in France ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F

    As we left the University of Paris we passed a large apartment building with a historical marker embedded in the wall telling us that this was the home of composer Camille Saint-Saens. Then we crossed a street called the Rue de l’Université that ends at the University of Paris. I mentioned to Glenda that we were on the street where Julia Child lived. She got excited. I explained that while he was in the U. S. diplomatic service after World War 2, Paul Child and his wife Julia were stationed in Paris. Not knowing what to do with her life, Julia enrolled at a cooking school, and, as they say, the rest is history. Glenda wanted to see the house they rented, and I led her to a comfortable mansion at 81 Rue de l’Université where we snapped a photo.

    Although we had already eaten lunch, I said, “All this talk about Julia Child makes me hungry. Let’s stop at the next coffee shop and get coffee and a croissant.” She agreed, but the next place we passed that looked as though it might have coffee was the Maison Thevinin, a noted patisserie that has won the Paris prize for being the best pastry shop in Paris for several of the last ten years. We ordered coffee and Glenda got a rocher that we split. I thought that I had died and gone to heaven. I take my espresso straight, but the sweetness of the dessert and the hot coffee while sitting outside at a sidewalk table in 42° chill was something I will never forget.    Read more

  • Monet to Morocco

    An Invented Religion

    November 12, 2024 in France ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F

    I have always wanted to visit the Pantheon. It is a large beautiful building in which the nation of France honors its fallen war heroes. Monuments inside remember all of those who have fallen in battle for the country, and other notable Frenchman, such as Voltaire and Rousseau, are entombed here.

    As we walked into the magnificent rotunda, choral music much like one would hear in a church echoed off gilded marble walls. The building is laid out like a church, but up at the front instead of an altar stands a statue commemorating the French Revolution. What I took away from this opulent beauty is the observation that if one nation abolishes a church, they will soon have to invent something very much like a church to fill its place.

    The French revolutionaries prided themselves on their rationalism. They did away with God, the church and priests. Yet in this building, they have made a cathedral as opulent as any I have ever seen. The ideas here are transcendent, though they may not deal with subjects generally considered religious. I do not want to take away from the glory of the fallen, nor the unutterable beauty of this building, but the message that it shouts to me is that when one does away with God, one must replace him with some sort of substitute.    Read more

  • Monet to Morocco

    The Cluny Miracle

    November 12, 2024 in France ⋅ ☁️ 50 °F

    I know my own tastes may be a wee bit idiosyncratic. One of the things we wanted to do on this trip to Paris was to be completely on our own. The major reason we wanted to do this was so that we could follow our own schedule, see the places we love, and spend as much time doing the things we want to do as we like.

    Since reading Beowulf in high school, I have been interested in medieval history. There is a wonderful museum here off the beaten path on the edge of the campus of the university of Paris. No organized tour group would ever take tourists to such place. I have been to museums here and there that may have an artifact or two from the Middle Ages, but today at the Cluny Museum I hit the jackpot.

    Georges-Eugene Haussmann was the civil engineer who rebuilt Paris between 1853 and 1870. To impose his “rational design” for the city, unfortunately many old buildings going back to the medieval period had to be demolished. Even so, their destruction unearthed a treasure trove of artifacts that told more about the history of this place than had previously been known. From Roman records scholars knew that on the Ile de la Cité, where Notre Dame now presides, stood a pre-Christian shrine. We knew that on this island the Romans found a primitive tribe known as the Parisi. We did not know, though, that on the same site archaeologists would find artifacts going back thousands of years.

    Some of these found their way into other museums in the city specializing in those pre-Christian periods. The artifacts from the medieval period that were unearthed, as well as many that came from the destruction of churches in the French Revolution and in Haussmann’s urban renewal, made their way to the Cluny Museum.

    This museum is also of interest because it occupies a site that held a monastery in the late classical period that was instrumental in reforming the Catholic Church. From 950 to 1130 A.D. the monastery at Cluny was one of the most important institutions in the whole of Christendom. Few protestants today know, or even care, that the Church had a reformation before the Reformation. It started here.

    Almost all of the pieces we saw on display today were examples of ecclesiastical art. Altar pieces, reliquaries, croziers, episcopal rings, statues, columns and other items all speak of the church. They do more than this, however. They show the transition from the classical art as perfected by the Greeks and Romans into the art forms that became known as Gothic. The church art of the eleventh and twelfth century absorbed not only the so-called Romanesque forms, the also borrowed from Celtic, Germanic, Frankish, and even Byzantine traditions.

    What became known as Gothic was not primitive art. It was, rather, an advanced art form that deliberately synthesized several different antecedents. Their art works were so expressive that Gothic art and architecture continue to be used in ecclesiastical and civic buildings up to the present day.

    And, oh yes, they invented stained glass. The earliest reference we have to the stuff is a report that in 675 A. D. English bishop Benedict Biscop imported a gang of French workers to install some stained glass in the monastery of St. Peter, which he was building in Monkswearmouth. The first church to be completely glazed in stained glass is over on the north side of town in the church of St. Denis.

    The photos here barely scratch the surface of all that we saw here today. If you come to Paris I hope you can visit this wonderful museum. No doubt it will enrich your understanding of art, and it may even enrich your faith.    Read more

  • Monet to Morocco

    A Salute to My Hero

    November 12, 2024 in France ⋅ ☁️ 50 °F

    We have been to Padua, Salamanca and Paris. Each of these towns claims to have the oldest university in the western world. Each has a claim to that title.

    While students gathered first and hired their own professors in Padua, they had to rent rooms and lecture halls. Students in Salamanca had an informal arrangement with Jews and Muslims, returning from the Crusades. They paid the foreigners to teach them Hebrew, medicine and philosophy. The University of Paris claims to be the oldest because it was the first institution of higher learning to have a proper campus, that is, not only did the students pay the salaries for the teachers, they also bought property in which to hold classes.

    The campus of the University of Paris hardly looks like UNC at Chapel Hill. It is downtown with major streets with heavy traffic running through it. It looks more like NC State. Nevertheless, one can still find a few green spaces, some fountains and many statues and monuments to its graduates who changed the world.

    The person who drew me to the university today was Peter Abelard (1079-1142), one of my favorite scholars. At a time when the church dominated society, Abelard had the courage, if not to flout the church’s authority, certainly to question it. The title of his book, “Sic et Non,” translates to “Yes and No.” In it he considers such Biblical themes as the seven-day creation of the world and the account of the great fish swallowing Jonah. Without directly refuting these stories, Abelard essentially says, “Yes the Bible says it, so we must not reject it. However, here are some problems with the stories that one may want to consider.” His position was radical when he wrote, but just short of heresy.

    As a philosopher he provided a resolution to the conflict between nominalism and universalism, and did much to foster the idea of human individuality. This work eventually developed into the notion of individual rights and responsibilities, which later formed the basis for Western law.

    He is also noted for the beautiful love letters and poetry exchanged between him and his lover, the brilliant Heloise of Argenteuil. When both were young adults they were secretly married. To punish Peter Abelard, Heloise’s uncle and guardian sent thugs to give Peter a severe beating and to castrate him, thus rendering him ineligible for ordination. Without being formally consecrated, Heloise lived the rest of her life as a nun. Yet they continued to share their forbidden love for the remainder of their lives in letters and poetry that survive to this day. Ultimately their bodies were exhumed and their remains were interred together in the same coffin in Pere Lachaise Cemetery on the east side of Paris.

    So I got the opportunity to salute my hero today on the campus of the university he helped to make one of the leading colleges in the world. I have often wanted to go to the cemetery to see his grave, but somehow being where he taught, wrote and lectured while still living seems a better tribute.    Read more

  • Monet to Morocco
    Glenda Sneaked a Photo

    Shakespeare and Company

    Nov 12–17, 2024 in France ⋅ ☁️ 50 °F

    Sometimes the most unpretentious among us are the people who change the world. In Paris there is a bookstore called Shakespeare & Company. Its owner changed the world. We visited it today, but I have to back up.

    Sylvia Beach was the quiet daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman in Baltimore. He took advantage of an interdenominational, international exchange program to become the assistant pastor of the American congregation in Paris about the time of World War I. His bookish daughter began to do research in Paris, and made the acquaintance of Adrienne Monnier, who had followed the unusual path of becoming one of the few women proprietors of a bookstore.

    Upon returning to America, Sylvia Beach opened her own bookstore, but as the Great War ended, she realized that rents were much cheaper in postwar Paris. With Monnier’s blessing, Sylvia opened her own bookstore in Paris at 8 Rue Depuyten (we saw the site today) and called it Shakespeare & Company. Her business flourished, and a few years later she moved. Then she moved again to a place that became a haven for the writers of the Lost Generation—Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Edna St. Vincent Millay, James Thurber, Thomas Wolfe, and the list goes on. When starving writers could not pay the rent, she let them flop in the bookstore in exchange for their unpacking, shelving and clerking in the bookstore. When no publisher would touch James Joyce’s Ulysses, Sylvia published it at her own expense.

    Shakespeare & Company had a reading room where anyone who wished to read a book could sit and do so for as long as they liked.
    There is still a reading room with the same rules at Shakespeare & Company. Although it is located in a different building now, the owner tries to follow the same gentle, humane rules that Sylvia Beach began. The current business has no direct connection with Sylvia’s enterprise, except for the name. The owner, however, like Sylvia Beach is an avid reader and a more avid dreamer. He admires Sylvia Beach and attempts to run the bookstore as she would have done were she still alive.

    Unfortunately, the company does not allow photographs inside the bookstore, but I can tell my colleagues who graduated from the Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest exactly how it looks and smells. When I went to seminary in 1975 Dick Stevens had a bookstore at the corner of North Main Street and Stadium Drive. There were about four rooms crowded, indeed packed with books from floor to ceiling. God is the only one who understood Dick’s method of filing books, but if you asked him for a book, even one out of print, Dick could take you right to it. He would let you sit and read for hours, even if you never bought the book. Thank God for the gentle spirits who open bookstores.

    We felt at home inside Shakespeare & Company today. If you feel at home inside a good book, you would like this place too. If you would like more information about this remarkable woman you can find it at the following link:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Beach    Read more

  • Monet to Morocco
    My Lady in Front of Our LadyMy Namesake--Charles

    The Old Girl Is Back

    November 12, 2024 in France ⋅ ☁️ 50 °F

    It was 2018 when we first visited Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Some of the woodwork was remarkable. In addition to the indescribable stonework, there were wood carvings of Jesus and the apostles that were almost lifelike, though the style showed that they had been done almost 1000 years ago.

    And then tragedy struck. We all saw the television pictures of Notre Dame Cathedral, burning, with hot lead from the roof melting and pouring into the nave below. When I saw those pictures on television, my heart sank. Of course, burned stone can be cleaned and re-used. How I hoped that all of those wood carvings survived! I am sure they could never be replaced.

    We went to see the old girl again today, and she is coming back, though she's not quite there yet. I understand that some people are being allowed into the nave to see the restored cathedral. Today, however, workers were still hard at work, the first floor was closed, and the bells were being installed in the belfry. Construction vehicles are all around the church, and no one could go inside. Plans are in the works for a carillon concert on Friday. Several of the old bells that were destroyed by the fire have been recast. All of the old bells that survived the fire are in place again. Three new bells, including one made, especially for the Paris Olympics, have been installed. And all of them will be sounding off Friday.

    I just hope we'll be able to come back and see the inside sometime soon. The last time we saw it, it was spectacular. How wonderful it will be to see a medieval cathedral all cleaned up and shiny. It will be magnificent!    Read more

  • Monet to Morocco
    1
    Lobby of Hotel du ContinentThe Miraculous Miss Annie

    The Parade That Wasn’t

    November 11, 2024 in France ⋅ ☁️ 55 °F

    Chuck’s version of our first day in Paris

    We arrived at the Hotel du Continent at around 9 am and the legendary Annie, a short, dark-haired young woman from India, checked us in and locked our luggage in a secure room. She said our room would not be ready for an hour. Of course, I was not disappointed, because we knew that the normal check-in time is 4:00 pm.

    I had thought we would take the 40 minute walk up the Champs Élysée to the Arc de Triomph for the Armistice Day ceremonies. I knew one must be a dignitary to be admitted inside the building, but afterward there was to be a parade down the Champs Élysée I wanted to see.

    When we got to the foot of the avenue we found that it was closed not just to vehicles, but also to pedestrians. We had to detour and take the path along the Seine, before cutting a path northwest back toward the monument. That deviation was not a total loss, however. The place where we turned was also the entrance to the underpass where Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed met their death in a tragic automobile accident. Including this detour, what should have been a 2 mile walk had doubled in length.

    At the Champs Élysée barriers kept us off the famous street and a quarter mile away from the Arc de Triomph, where we heard military music in the distance. Starting at about 10 am we began waiting. The temperature was in the high 40’s (F). I had heard that a parade would follow the speechifying up at the Arc de Triomph so we continued waiting even when light rain started. I had asked several policemen lining the route about when the parade would begin. Several didn’t know, but one said vaguely, “Sometime after 10:00 am, maybe in an hour or so. I knew that the Armistice ending World War I had been signed at 11 am on November 11 (11-11-11), so I suspected that something would happen at 11 o’clock. As time passed, however, the rain got heavier and we both needed to find a toilet.

    As we walked to find a shop where we could buy a cup of coffee that would get us access to a bathroom, most were blocked by the police barriers or closed for the holiday. We finally found a little restaurant called Le Deauville. As we finished a hot bowl of onion soup and a cup of coffee that warmed our souls as well as our bodies, two horse troops came prancing by to the sound of a military drum and bugle corps. The Presidential limousine rolled between the two. That was it. That was the parade. But still we got to spend a wonderful morning seeing a big part of this magical city up close and on foot.

    Glenda’s version of our first day in Paris:

    We arrived at our hotel and had to check our luggage. Chuck said “ let’s take a little walk to see the parade. It shouldn’t be long and then we’ll come back and check into the hotel. It will be fun, I promise.” So off we go, with me wearing my slip-on airport shoes, my very lightweight, travel jacket, and no umbrella. It was cold and windy, but walking helped keep me a little warm. It started to mist, and then it started to rain and it didn’t stop raining for about an hour. We waited and waited and waited for the parade, but it seemed as though nothing was going to happen. At that point, we both needed to use the restroom so we started trying to find a restaurant. It seemed as though most of the restaurants were on the opposite side of the street, but there were barricades so we could not cross the street. Finally, we found a restaurant where we ordered some French onion soup and coffee. We then headed back toward the hotel. We arrived at the hotel five hours and 8.4 miles after we left . But guess what …….Chuck was right; it was fun and we have lots of memories of our first rainy day in Paris. Adventure is out there even if it is different from what you expect.    Read more

  • Monet to Morocco

    On to Paris

    November 10, 2024 in the United States ⋅ 🌙 54 °F

    We are in two center seats in a Boeing 777 with no windows nearby so we have no idea what’s going on outside. We just stepped into this palace, and when we step out again we will be in Paris.

    It was interesting that as we boarded the airplane, we never had to show a boarding pass. They use a photometric process. As a passenger steps through the door they photograph his face. That’s it. They made an announcement beforehand saying that if anyone did not want to be photographed, let them know and they would set up an interview, but apparently the airlines have photographs of all of our faces on file. Brave new world.Read more

  • Monet to Morocco

    CLT

    November 10, 2024 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 61 °F

    As I came through TSA in Charlotte the gate attendant asked for my passport. I reached into my jacket, and she said, “Wow! What kind of a jacket is that?” I told her. “It’s a Scott-E-Jacket, with about 25 pockets, each designated to hold a particular item. I always wear it when I travel. When you’re on a trip you never lose things, since you never take them out of their assigned pocket.” She had never seen one and was really impressed. “I gotta get me one of those things,” she said. It was a great way to begin an effortless pass through TSA.

    The similarity between the airports of the world is really remarkable. They all look alike, feel alike, sound alike and smell alike. We started today in Charlotte, my hometown. Whenever your airplane takes off from runway 36L, its wheels leave ground that was my great grandfather’s farm. I grew up less than a mile from here, and if you know where to look, you can see my high school from the end of D Concourse. But the airport hardly feels like the place in which I grew up. I was mindlessly walking to our gate, noticing that this place feels like every other airport in the world, with the same kind of trendy pretentiousness and local civic promotion. Then I had a pleasant surprise. The Charlotte airport is trying to do a few things to remind people that this ain’t New York. For example, we waited for a couple hours for our flight, but instead of going to the gate, we availed ourselves of a couple of rocking chairs. They are placed in a long row lining the windows along the hallway so that you can see out onto the airport. They are not crowded so we will just stay here and rock leisurely as though we were on great grandma‘s front porch until the airplane boards. Great grandpa would be pleased.    Read more

  • Angelaska

    The 49th Parallel

    May 25, 2024 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 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.    Read more

  • Angelaska

    Dinner at the Mosaic Restaurant

    May 24, 2024 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 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.
        Read more

  • Angelaska
    View from Our Window
    The Butterfly Building, Home of a New FazioliThe DropHyatt Regency, Vancouver

    Visiting Vancouver

    May 24, 2024 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 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.    Read more

  • Angelaska

    Ship to Shore

    May 24, 2024 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 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.Read more

  • Angelaska
    11111

    Misty Fjords Magic

    May 22, 2024 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 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.”
        Read more

  • Angelaska
    1

    Thirty Whales an Hour

    May 21, 2024 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 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.Read more

  • Angelaska
    Frozen FjordThe Only Bear Angela Will ApproachOur Dining Hall

    White Pass Railroad

    May 20, 2024 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 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.
        Read more

  • Angelaska

    Mendenhall Glacier

    May 19, 2024 in the United States ⋅ 🌧 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.Read more

  • Angelaska

    Thar She Blows

    May 19, 2024 in the United States ⋅ 🌧 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.Read more

  • Angelaska
    Angela Finally Makes it to the Retreat

    Hubbard Glacier

    May 18, 2024 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 41 °F

    We became acquainted with the Hubbard Glacier several years ago when we first traveled to Alaska. Today she was out in all of her beautiful splendor. I’m glad it is an overcast day, because on cloudy days one can see that beautiful sapphire blue in the crevices of the face of the glacier. That color is not nearly so prominent on a sunny day. Today our captain took his time and worked his way through a field of growlers to approach the glacier more closely than he had been able to do so in the last few cruises. He rotated the ship 360° so everybody was able to get a good shot. We got several pictures of Angela and Randy on deck with the glacier in the background. The wonderful crew of Celebrity Summit were around with hot coffee, hot chocolate, and other beverages for those of us who were chilled up on the sun deck, taking pictures of the icy monster in front of us.Read more

  • Angelaska
    I just caught a fish THIS BIG.Feeling a Sea UrchinServicing the TanksRandy, Thoughtfully Considering Entering the Seward Axe Throwing CompetitionMonument to the Start of the Serum RunFirst Sight of Celebrity SummitWaiting in a Bakery to Board the Ship

    Preparing to Board the Ship

    May 17, 2024 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 41 °F

    We came into the town of Seward early enough today to have breakfast at Zudy’s, a restaurant that is housed in the old train station . Then we walked next door to spend an hour at the Seward Sea Life Center. This research facility takes care of injured animals found in the bays and inlets nearby. It’s also a center for research. Marine biologists and oceanographers from all of the world come here to study the unique maritime environment around Seward.

    We still had lots of time on our hands so we walked to Iditarod mile zero where the original serum run began. Seward was the closest ice-free port to Nome, where diphtheria broke out among the children in 1925. Vaccination serum was brought here by ship and was taken to Nome by mushers on dog sleds. The modern Iditerod dog sled race was first run in 1973, yet it incorporates sections of the original serum run route. We wandered down the lovely path leading to the ship terminal where Chris met us in the hotel van with our luggage. Our in processing on the ship went smoothly and now we are all learning our way around.    Read more

  • Angelaska

    Mud Hut

    May 17, 2024 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 37 °F

    Glenda and I wanted coffee this morning so I decided I would just venture out walking and try to get some. I walked to a busy intersection not far from our hotel and found a little coffee shop called the Mud Hut. Four cars were lined up on one side and three cars were lined up on the other. I saw a door so I went inside and asked if is it were possible to get service inside or must one line up with the cars outside.

    The barista said, “You’ve got to lineup in your car.”

    I told the guy, “I just walked from the Spruce Lodge. I don’t have a car. Should I just stand behind these cars that are waiting, or can you serve me here?”

    He said “Stand behind the cars.”

    One vehicle moved about every five minutes, so there were seven cars all sitting there with their motors running. I stood there for over 20 minutes without reaching the window. The carbon monoxide started to get to me so finally I just decided I had enough and I walked back to the hotel.    Read more

  • Angelaska
    Recycled Train Car Serves as Coffee ShopAngela and Randy2Orca with Babies1Spire Cove1We Four at Holgate GlacierMountain MenBreakfast at Resurrection Road House

    Hunting the Holgate

    May 16, 2024, Gulf of Alaska ⋅ 🌫 37 °F

    After a good night’s sleep at the Spruce Lodge, we all got up and packed our luggage for a transfer to Celebrity Summit to occur later in the day. The Spruce Lodge Shuttle took us a quarter mile down the road to the beautiful Resurrection Road House for a hearty breakfast. We were their first customers in the new season. On the way to the restaurant we passed a moose grazing on the side of the road. When breakfast was over we returned to the Spruce Lodge to load our luggage into the shuttle. The staff agreed to allow it to remain locked in the van until our pickup after lunch to take us to the ship. The shuttle dropped us into town around 10 am for our glacier and whale watching adventure starting at 11:15.

    As we were waiting to board the boat on which Major Marine Tours would take us on a fascinating tour of Resurrection Bay, Angela and I grabbed a delicious cup of espresso from a railroad car converted into a coffee shop. We climbed aboard the Spirit of Matushka and had good luck to start with as we encountered several pods of orcas. The so-called killer whales are not whales at all, but actually dolphins—the largest of the porpoises. They are extremely intelligent, hunting in packs and devising elaborate and inescapable strategies for securing food. Orcas are the alpha predators over a greater part of the surface of the earth than any other species. They are such good hunters that cetologists have documented several instances of animals of different species bonding temporarily to prevent orcas from attacking their young. The killers were out in force today guarding their own babies and teaching them orca ways. We also passed seals, sea otters and several bald eagles.

    The high point of our trip today came when we reached the beautiful Holgate glacier. This gleaming white tidewater glacier was showing off its iridescent blue crevices on this overcast day. Our thoughtful skipper turned off the boat’s motor for more than 5 minutes as we floated silently in front of the timeless behemoth. Soon we tourists stopped our chatter and we simply basked in the wordless glory of the artistry of the glacier and its Creator.

    After returning to Seward we scoped out several restaurants and decided to go back to Ray’s. I had sable fish in a Japanese miso sauce, and Glenda had a macadamia encrusted halibut garnished with a Thai red curry sauce. When dessert came, we all enjoyed a part of a piece of macadamia and coconut chocolate torte served with vanilla ice cream. Glenda insisted on paying for the meal. So did Angela. I suggested we settle it by a game of rock-paper-scissors. After our laughter about the childish game, I suggested that tomorrow night we could decide by a round of thumb wrestling. It turned out that Angela had never played the game before. I told her that Randy and I would show her how it was done. Only then did I glance at Glenda’s brother’s hands and discovered that they are huge. I swallowed hard, we locked fingers, and he had my thumb pinned in less than 5 seconds. Angela laughed hysterically.

    Miffed at my defeat, I told our waiter how we had decided about the bill, and he said, “Oh yeah, I know how to play that.”

    “Put out your hand,” I said as I grabbed his. He started this long litany about thumb wrestling as long as the Preamble to the Constitution. I had never heard it before. We sure didn’t use it when I was a kid on the west side of Charlotte. I didn’t know when the recitation would end, but as I sat there listening to him, the chant suddenly ended, and he instantly pinned my thumb.

    Oh, well. Dessert was delicious.    Read more

  • Angelaska

    Just for the Halibut

    May 15, 2024 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 48 °F

    Hunter, our guide, responded to our request for a recommendation by suggesting Ray’s Seafood in Seward. Glenda and I ordered the blackened halibut garnished with a cilantro, avocado and lime cream sauce and served over cilantro rice with steamed broccoli. The fish was cooked to perfection, and the spices offered a nice burst of flavor from this mild fish. Our server Anastasia from Novosibirsk was perfectly attentive without hovering as we engaged in gentle conversation. We finished off the meal with a chocolate macadamia pie served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The food was superb. After supper Spruce Lodge owner John picked us up in the shuttle and brought us back to our temporary home here in Seward .Read more

  • Angelaska
    1

    A Family of Champions

    May 15, 2024 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 48 °F

    Mitch Seavey has won the Iditerod Dog Sled Race three times. He graciously opens his kennels to tourists who come to learn about this amazing sport. His father Dan was a lawyer from the Midwest. As a child Dan enjoyed the TV exploits of Sergeant Preston of the Northwest Mounted Police and his lead sled dog, Yukon King. He loved the show so much that he moved to Alaska and lived out his dream of becoming a musher. Dan’s son Mitch began learning the sport as a child, and now, after finishing first in three Iditerod races, he is considered to be the best in the world. This year Mitch’s son Dallas entered the contest. When his lead dog became unable to compete, Mitch loaned Dallas his own lead dog, and Dallas won the 2024 Iditerod. This grueling race covers a distance equal to that between Miami and Washington, D.C. It is held in deep snow and temperatures that fall to -40° F. The Seaveys are a family of champions.

    Since we have visited the kennels of several of the Iditerod mushers on our visits to Alaska, we were shocked as we walked onto the grounds of the Seavey estate—shocked by its order and cleanliness. We saw a row of small wooden houses tall enough for a man to enter standing. Each one is equipped with water and electricity. These are the houses for Seavey’s dogs. Each dog has its own personality and preferences. The trainers know which dogs prefer to have a roommate and which prefer to be housed alone. The dogs receive the best possible care, but this doesn’t mean they are pampered. The skin of Alaskan huskies does better if it is never washed or brushed. The dogs often choose to sleep outside in the winter, because they prefer a temperature of about -10° F. They are athletes, and they are trained every day regardless of the weather. They receive a specially formulated high-protein diet and the most elaborate veterinary care.

    We got a glimpse inside this strange world of the Alaskan husky today, and as a part of their daily training, they pulled six of us tourists and a musher around a one-mile course. Hunter, our guide, gave us the most informative presentation about dog sled racing we have ever heard.

    We were honored today to visit with Seavey’s dogs. We got to pet them and thank them for the ride they gave us through a mysteriously beautiful Alaskan forest. We learned also that the real family of champions is not only the two-legged champions that drive the sled, but also the four-legged champions that pull it.    Read more

  • Angelaska

    Spruce Lodge

    May 15–17, 2024 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 46 °F

    For the next two nights our home will be the Spruce Lodge located just outside of Seward. Owners Brittney and John are native Alaskans who just bought this lovely hotel and have already begun expanding it. This rustic-looking exterior contains rooms that are simple, tasteful and very comfortable. Our room is a studio apartment complete with fridge and a little kitchenette. A second building is already going up, and a coffee shop on the premises has already been built. When we shared with Brittney a need for transportation on Friday, she was more than happy to assist us by offering a special run of the hotel’s shuttle into town. In addition to all of this, we have a wonderful view of spectacular Mount Baker through the window. I daresay that in the future when we come to Seward, one of our favorite places, we will certainly try to make the Spruce Lodge our home while we are here.Read more

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