Jehoshaphat

It’s a day’s journey from Seattle to the Chatham Straits, the waterway that leads into Alaska’s interior. So for the first day of the cruise, all we really did was have fun together on the boat. But when we wake up on day two, we saw a completely different world. No more open ocean, now the mountains were right there, traveling up channels and straits no more than a couple miles wide and as narrow as a half mile wide. It was truly incredible.

Here’s a pretty good map of Southeast Alaska to better understand the coast line.

So like I said, mountains are all around, huge mountain ranges off to the north that marked the border with Canada. And beyond those mountains, giant ice fields, left over reminders of what formed this amazing coast line, Glaciers. All of this coast line was formed when the glaciers of the last Ice Age began to retreat. I was in complete awe of the landscape and really looking forward to see a couple of these glaciers up close.

The view from the back of the ship as we enter into the Chatham Straits -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000239

A humpback whale as its pod passed the ship -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000250

Truly, Truly impressive Coastal Mountain range -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000272

As we traveled north up the strait we reached Juneau. A small town of about 30,000 people. The most amazing thing about Juneau, beyond the fact that city sits in the shadow of Mount Juneau, is that the only way to get to Juneau is either by air or water. There are no roads connecting Juneau with the rest of the world. Juneau was founded in 1880 after gold was discovered in the hills and mountains around the city. Some of the mines would keep producing until World War 2. When Alaska became a state, Juneau’s wealth allowed it become the state capital.

Juneau and Mount Juneau -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000299

Entering Juneau Harbor -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000295

We took a combined tour in Juneau, the first part of the tour was a garden tour and the second part was a stop at the Mendenhall Glacier. The gardens were very beautiful. I was surpised to see such color in a place I imagined as cold and hostile. Instead what I found were beautiful flowers, the most green trees you could imagine, and amazing views. The highlight of the gardens were downed trees, which happens alot since the soil is only 1 to 5 feet deep, turned upside down and their root system used as planters.

The upside down trees that were used as planters -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000302
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A downed tree is used by nature to rebuild the forest -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000341

Amazing colors on truly beautiful flowers -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000345
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A view of the Juneau valley from about 500 feet up a mountain -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000318

The second stop on the tour really was going to be a highlight of the trip for me. I wanted to see the Mendenhall for awhile. My mother visited it a couple years back and told me about how incredible it was. And I wasnt let down at all. The Mendenhall glacier is fed from the Juneau Icefield, one of the largest icefields in the world. The ice can as much as a mile thick in place…amazing really. Snow fall at the base of the Mendenhall glacier takes 80 years to reach the water. But here the truly incredible/stupid fact about the glacier, the locals swim in the water. That’s right, we saw local people swimming in the water that is fed from the glacier………cold?

Mendenhall glacier…amazing really - (The last two pictures look strange. What we figured was that the ice was pure in color, a blue/white color, that the color had a hard time processing the picture.)
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000361
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000362
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Incredible color on the ice bergs in the river -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000360
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000375
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The waterfall is actually from the snow melts on the mountains surrounding the glacier, not from the glacier itself -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000372

So…alittle brief background before we start. Valerie and I were headed to Southeast Alaska, the panhandle of the state. Southeast Alaska is famous for a couple things, first the gold rush that opened the state in 1880’s, second the Tongass National Forest which is the nation’s largest forest and one of the largest temperate rain forest in the world, and third the mountains and glaciers left over from the last ice age. This area is home to an amazing amount of wildlife and plant species. We had hoped to catch a glimpse of these on our trip, but first we had to make to Seattle.

After a long, long, long, long flight from Jacksonville to Seattle, with a stop over in St. Louis, we collected ourselves at the hotel in SeaTac. From SeaTac we headed to downtown Seattle to check out some of the local highlights. First stop was the underground and Pioneer Square. Bascially, Seattle was founded on a tidal flat. When the tide was low, everything was lovely, when the tide was high, the city flooded. After a fire destroyed much of downtown, the city decide to raise the streets without raising the sidewalks…thats right, the sidewalks were 9 feet below the street. So long story, short, the city built covered sidewalks at street level, connecting the street with the second story of all the buildings, which in turn created the underground.

The underground was the orignal sidewalk covered over by the new sidewalk, a floor above. It housed shops and bars, really anything and everything. It really was incredible to go down there and see all of this, under the street.

Next we went to Pike Place Market to check out the local fish markets and then it was off the cruise ship.

Seattle’s Underground -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000191
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Pike’s Place Market, those are some giant salmon, they look really, really, really good -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000228

Foreshadowing things to come and my fight with nature -
http://www.ijsmp.com/gallery/album14/P1000234

Tomorrow, the inside passage and the capital city of Alaska, Juneau.

So instead of listening to everyone and take the sane, rational path to healthiness, I decided to forgo seeing a doctor today. Fuck you modern medicine! Actually more than anything, I’m just lazy, so lazy in fact I’d rather go to work instead of the doctor. Ha….arrggghhhh. Oh well.

Weekend at a glance. Football/Soccer and work. I did get in some quality time with the 360 and Oblivion, but Kameo just keeps calling my name and I usually end the night with a session of that. I patched CoD last night and played some before bedtime. In the short time I played I didnt notice any changes but again I only played two maps. Also, I’m downloading Jedi Academy over bittorrent, for some reason I want to be a Jedi…is that so wrong? Still no desire to fire up WoW. I think when I’m sick, I really value short gameplay experiences. I dont want to be sucked into 4 to 8 hour raids, hell even the MC runs which I really, really, really enjoyed have turned into a 5 to 7 hour one day nightmare run. But I hear 1.12 is going to be a PvP patch, so maybe I’m not done yet.

So later today I’m going to start posting about my travels. I finally have all the pictures in good order and I’ll see if I cant break free from smashing my head on the keyboard to post something worth while.

I think my status is around 75% of 60%. Being sick sucks, cause it sucks out all the desire and energy you would normally have. I want to try out the new patch in WoW and see the world events but I have no desire to A) turn on my computer B) spend hours patching the game or C) to play any game for a couple hours.

So I’ve turned to the Xbox 360 for gaming needs. I chill out on the couch, rest and relax, moan and complain about not feeling good, and I can enjoy it all in HD goodness. I’ve almost completed GRAW and I have a new desire to fire up a new character in Oblivion. I also used my Xbox Live coupon to pick up Kameo, which is a very FUN game. Its a great platform game and the visual are truly stunning. It’s alot of fun so far.

So hopefully, this weekend I can show some pictures of the vacation.

Well, I thought if I’d got some sleep last night, everything would be better. And of course, just my luck, I couldnt sleep again. Just more coughing and getting sick…So hopefully tomorrow will bring relief or a trip to the doctor is in order.

I wanted to post about my trip to the great white north and show a bunch of pictures of one of the most incredible place I’ve ever been to. But as usually, my body just doesnt want to keep up. I caught some weird, random flu bug either in Seattle or on the way back from Seattle. Because for the last 3 days I’ve been very, very sick. Good news for today though, I can actually eat solid food again…that’s always a plus.

Anyway, tomorrow or Thursday I should have a bunch of pictures upload and I can start the tour of South-East Alaska.

Dont know if I’ll complete reset the blog, but this link is more than worth posting.

I HATE BILL O’REILLY. He is a hack, a liar, a moron, and worst of all a hypocrite. Also he works for the remembrance of yellow journalism, Foxnews. Here’s the proof…

O’Reilly is a Moron - Countdown
Background Video of O’Reilly running his mouth

My grandfather, and lot of people’s grandfathers, fought in the Battle of Bulge. And to have this fucking moron justify our Marines action by saying it’s happened in the past, oh and it happened in World War 2, is a fucking joke. It pisses me off. SS troops overrun hundreds of Allied position. SS troops gunned down hundreds of prisoners. SS troops committed war crimes. War crimes are actions against innocent people. War is socially justified murder, but we have come to accept and expect civilians and those unarmed prisoner be treated with respect. What we havent defined is can war crimes occur in the heat of battle, the subject of this movie is exactly that decision. If US Marines murder civilians then covered up the crimes, they are guilty of war crimes.

But to have this fucking moron and liar O’Reilly justify that killing by saying it happens in all wars, no worries and then fasle agruement to prove his point. Well he can go fuck himself…

Keith O and Countdown is a great show btw.