(Note: Clicking on pictures will bring up a bigger version)
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Home again, home again!
After a long day of flying, I finally made it back to town about 9pm last night, and home by 10pm. Fortunately, all the flights were on time. That always makes it easier!
I got the wand treatment when going through security at Winnipeg, plus had my laptop checked for chemical residue. Maybe they think frumpy grandmother types are now making explosives in their basement? If that wasn’t enough, my luggage also got a sniff-over by a dog – quite a nice looking black lab. I don’t know if they were looking for drugs or more explosives or what, but the only thing the dog sniffed out was some leftover chicken salad.
It's good to be safely home, but after this latest trip, I’ve come to the following conclusion: I believe it's a point of honor with airlines that whatever gate you come in on, your next departure will be at a gate as far away as possible. Even in Memphis, which isn’t the biggest airport going, I ended up going from the end of one concourse, around the bend and to the opposite end of a different concourse. I seem to do a lot of walking in airports.
This is the field behind the kids house in Manitoba. As you can see, even though the weather has warmed up in the last few days, there is still patches of snow here and there. Last year they grew canola in the field. In past years, they have also had potatoes there, and wheat. It will be interesting to see what they plant this year.
We're starting to take pictures for next year's fund-raising calendar for Ellie. The calendar pages start with shots like these: I'll take this photo and build a picture around it with a "Little Red Riding Hood Theme".
We've also taken some shots of Ellie with a Winnie the Pooh outfit on, and will take more pictures tomorrow and Monday.
All did not go according to plan with my flights, but I figure it could have been a lot worse. I had to change gates 3 times in Atlanta, which isn't so unusual, even if they were on 3 different concourses. Minneapolis/St. Paul was the problem. The weather was getting bad with rain and sleet by the time I flew in, and by the time I left it was worse with snow and ice. The weatherman was predicting between 4-8" of snow!
We were an hour late boarding the plane, and sat on it another hour waiting our turn to have the plane de-iced before we could take off. I was way over two hours late getting to Winnipeg, but considering some of the recent traveling messes, and some of our past travel glitches, I figure that was pretty tame.
Yesterday we were kind of laid back, and I recovered somewhat from a long day of flights and sitting in airports. I read an entire book before I even got to Minneapolis (452 pages!), so I had time to people watch. Airports are even better than malls for people watching. At malls you have mostly an indigenous population, but in airports the people are literally from all over the world. Different languages, shoes, clothing, luggage... it's interesting to sit and watch all the people rushing by.
My favorite was a young man with a foot high Mohawk died several different colors. Wish I'd had my camera available! It reminded me of the joke about the old dude watching this young fellow with a multi-colored Mohawk. The young guy spouted off, "What's the matter old man, you never seen anything like me before?" To which the elderly gentleman replied... "Well actually, I fooled around once with a peacock when I was younger, and I was just wondering if you were my son."
Which reminds me of the old saying: OLD AGE AND TREACHERY ALWAYS TRIUMPH OVER YOUTH AND BEAUTY!
I'm leaving shortly to head for the airport. It's going to be a long day of travel, trying to get from the southeast to the Canadian province of Manitoba. IF, and these days that seems to be a BIG if, all goes well with my flights, I should be there by 9:30pm.
I have too many irons in the fire right now, and besides trying to get ready for a trip to visit my son, his wife and our 3-year old granddaughter, I've been working on getting supplies to remodel one of our bathrooms.
In the meantime, farm chores continue. For some time I was milking Cinnamon, a little less each day, as her prodigious milk supply gradually dries up.
If you're of the praying persuasion, please pray I have safe trips today, no cancellations, no delays... just easy flights from here to there!
We're staying in a nice motel close to a lake. Here on the grounds, they have the makings for a tropical fruit salad. They have grapefruit trees and orange trees. There are also banana trees:
And just to make things a little more interesting, after we make our fruit salad, we could watch the birds at the lake, like this one resting on one of the pilings near the shoreline. This is a great place!
First, a little history -- the first known people in the Cades Cove area were Cherokee. They called it Tsiyahi, meaning otter place. They used the Cove to gather food and hunt. Later, pioneers from Virginia and North Carolina settled in the Cove.
Gristmills became the first industry there, followed by blacksmith shops, wood workers, storekeepers and distillers. By the 1850’s, Cades Cove supported about 132 families or 685 people.
Most of the buildings that are now in the Cable Mill Historic Area were moved there from other locations in the Cove with the exception of the blacksmith shop and the gristmill. The John P. Cable Gristmill still operates today, grinding flour and corn weekdays 9am-5pm.
There were several buildings there, and it was quite an interesting place. I have several pictures - to check out the slide show, just click on the picture below, and it will open a new page. Click on the thumbnail-sized picture in the upper left corner, and that will start the slide show. I enjoy seeing how farmers lived in the past, and some things are still viable today, but I wouldn’t want to go back to such labor intensive work to do everything!
Traveling through Cades Cove - The Scenery & Wildlife
Late one afternoon of our trip to Gatlinburg, The Farmer asked if I wanted to go somewhere and take pictures, like up on top of Clingsmans Dome. I decided I’d rather take a drive through the Cades Cove area. I’d read somewhere it was only about an 11-mile loop, so figured we had plenty of time.
However, it was further away than I was thinking, so it took us somewhere between 30-45 minutes to even get there. We stopped at a station at the beginning of the loop, picked up some information, and got started.
My first inkling this was going to be a longer “project” than expected was when I read during the fall tourist season, traffic could be heavy and it could take 2-4 hours to complete the loop.
Uh-oh. Now whose bright idea was this? Oh yeah… mine…
The scenery was lovely, even though the leaves on the trees hadn't changed colors for the most part.
It didn’t take long to spot some deer.
In fact, we saw numerous deer at various spots throughout the drive.
We also saw wild turkey (picture in previous blog entry), but never saw any bears or foxes that were mentioned as possible wildlife sightings. Too bad, I’d love to see a bear in the wild.
It was a pretty drive, but it was busy, and with people stopping to look at the deer and stuff, it took a long time to travel those 11-miles.
There are also various old buildings, and we stopped and looked through the Cable Mill historic area, located about half-way through the loop. Stay tuned for a description and pictures, hopefully coming soon!
Today we headed east toward the Gatlinburg, TN, in the Smoky Mountains. It was a cloudy day, and we got into rain, so I didn’t really anticipate any picture taking today. However, when we got close to Gatlinburg, the traffic slowed way down. We soon discovered why - there was an elk grazing in a pasture by the road, and people were stopping to take pictures.
How could we resist? We slowed down long enough for me to snap a few shots too. It seems the Great Smoky Mountains National Park started re-introducing elk in the park here in 2001. When you look close, you can see he has a radio collar around his neck and a tag in his ear. What a regal looking animal!
Riding the Rails from Skagway to White Summit Pass
Day 5 of my Alaska trip found us in Skagway. We took a train trip on “The Railway Built of Gold.” Why is it called that? Well, a brief history lesson…
The discovery of gold in 1896 in the Klondike triggered a stampede of people hoping to get rich. Some thought the gold nuggets lay on the ground, ready to be picked up. An estimated 100,000 headed for the Klondike in such haste they earned the name, “The Stampeders.”
To reach the Klondike, Stampeders had two choices, the steeper Chilkoot Trail, or the longer, but less steep White Pass. (Trust me, the “less steep” part is relative!)
Many chose White Pass thinking pack animals could be used and make the trip easier. They were wrong. The trip was too arduous and the horses were generally in the hands of inexperienced owners. Before it was over 3,000 horses died. (Watch the slideshow for one of Dead Horse Gulch.)
In this era of railroading, it was natural to think of building a railroad over the pass, but it was a daunting task. Blasting through granite, plus dealing with the steep slopes and deep snow, made it almost impossible.
But they did it.
Because of the tight turns, a narrow gauge railway was built. The rails are just 3’ apart on a 10’ wide road bed, which also helped lower construction costs. Over 450 tons of explosives were used, mostly black powder.
The ten million dollar project was the product of British financing, American engineering and Canadian contracting. Tens of thousands of men worked, sometimes in shifts as short as an hour due to the extreme cold, to complete 110 miles of track with cliff hanging turns of 16 degrees, with two tunnels and numerous bridges and trestles.
The railway climbs from sea level at Skagway to almost 3,000 feet at the summit in just 20 miles and has grades of almost 3.9%. This is the northernmost railroad in the Western Hemisphere.
The White Pass & Yukon Route was designated an international Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1994. This honor is shared by only 36 civil engineering creations, such as the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty and the Panama Canal.
That’s the highlights of this railway’s rich history. It’s interesting to read about, and thrilling to ride. You can’t really relate to just how steep the railway is until you’re riding along and looking waaaaayyyyyyy down. A 10’ roadbed doesn’t seem very wide when a fall would be so far!
The scenery is dazzling, with evergreens, mountains, snow and rivers. Bridal Veil Falls tumbles down a mountain far way, the bridges and trestles are awesome, and there’s even visible remnants of the trail used by the Stampeders.
At the top, a little building is still there that was used by the mounted police. They turned back any Stampeder that didn’t have a ton of supplies, the amount deemed necessary to keep a man going for a year.
There was just a lot to see and learn about. It was a thrilling ride!
Probably the best day on our ramble through Alaska was the shore excursion to watch whales. Okay, it seems a little strange to call it a shore excursion when we went right back out to sea, but we did switch modes of transportation and got off the big ship and onto a much smaller waterjet-powered catamaran.
We started by disembarking at Juneau, and boarding a bus to head for Auke Bay. Our bus driver was chatty and full of all kinds of information about Alaska. He would have made a good advocate for the Chamber of Commerce. When he talked about the climate, which isn’t the glacial cold you’d expect due to the fact it’s a temperate rainforest along the shoreline, it made the area sound like a great place to live.
He mentioned the money every citizen gets each year from the revenue off the oil fields in Alaska. He mentioned all the wildlife to be found. He had good things to say about the area… until he mentioned some of the costs of living. Aye yi yi! So much is so expensive because it has to be shipped – housing, food, gas… the prices are exorbitant! Guess I’ll stay in the south instead of moving to the far north.
The catamaran we traveled on had two decks. The bottom and part of the top were enclosed, but for the really good pictures, you needed to be out on the open deck. Of course, it was COLD out there. I said it doesn’t get as cold as you’d expect, but that doesn’t mean it’s not downright chilly out on the water in September!
I went inside from time to time to check on Dad and get warm, but most of the time I was out there taking pictures of the wildlife and scenery. And such sights!
The flash slideshow software doesn’t leave a lot of room for captions, so I had to be quite succinct in my descriptions of the pictures!
We had barely left the dock until we had Orca Whales on both sides of the boat. The guide said it’s not as common to see them, so I guess we got lucky. Further out we saw lots of humpback whales, sometimes half a dozen at a time. It was AMAZING.
The only thing that could have made it better would have been a whale or two breaching, and even “more better” would have been getting a picture of it!
We also saw a lot of seals and eagles and other birds. And the scenery was breathtaking almost everywhere you looked.
Oh, and I also took a mini-movie of the Stellar Seals, just to have an idea of all the NOISE they were making.
I’m not an experienced movie maker, but that should at least give you an idea!
If you’re ever in Alaska, take every chance you get to check out the wildlife, and of course, the scenery too. It’s positively awe-inspiring.
I guess this is a little confusing, because while these were days 3 and 4 of my trip, it was actually only the first couple of full days we were on the ship.
We made it to Juneau, Alaska, on the 18th, a Tuesday. We had our first shore excursion there, worthy of a slideshow all by itself... coming next from Alaska, Whale & Wildlife Watching Excursion!
Here we are, another day's worth of pictures from the trip to Alaska. I visited the Space Needle and the Science Fiction Museum, then walked down to Pier 66 to board the Norwegian Pearl.
It takes a while to sort through pictures and make a slideshow, so continue to bear with me!
I'm working my way through the pictures I took on my trip to Alaska. I've been slowed down by a "filled-up" hard drive, and having to take time to clear some space. I think it's time for a memory upgrade for the computer - too bad I can't get one too!
Here's some more pictures from my flight out to Seattle, Washington. The pictures aren't as clear as I'd like, but remember, they were taken through two panes of glass in the airplane's window!
Stay tuned ... I'll get more pictures up as I have time!
Awe-inspiring. Stunning. Wondrous. Magnificent. There aren’t enough adjectives to describe Glacier Bay.
Did you know Glacier Bay is a national park? Further, it is a World Heritage Site, “the principal recognition given to natural and cultural areas of universal significance.” It can only be reached by boat or plane. When a cruise ship enters Glacier Bay they take on at least one Park Ranger, who gives a running commentary on what there is to see.
Obviously, there are glaciers. Since these touch water, they are all “Tidewater Glaciers.” The park includes around 12 that calve into the bay. Unfortunately, though we sat in front of a couple of them for half an hour or so, we didn’t get to see that spectacular phenomenon.
We saw birds and seals, but otherwise, it was a landscape on a grandiose scale. The mountains of the Fairweather Range are huge. It’s hard to get a perspective on how truly monumental they are. We got a clue when we got close to one glacier, saw a cruise ship that was still a mile away from the glacier and it looked dwarfed, and were told we were still 7 miles away.
Wow.
As you can see, it was a big ship. It just looked small next to the glacier.
Glacier Bay is truly natural beauty on an awe-inspiring scale.
Tuesday we went on a Whale Watching and Wildlife Quest. In a word, it was AWESOME.
We barely got out to see until there were Orca Whales diving around the boat. (Of course, we know Orca Whales are really dolphins, so why are they called whales?) The naturalist on board the boat declared they didn’t usually see Orcas, so we were quite fortunate.
Further out to sea, we saw humpback whales. LOTS of humpback whales. There is a big difference between low and high tide, generally 15-25 feet. This activity stirs up the nutrients in the water. Also, there is a narrow channel that further compresses the food in one place, so the whales like to congregate there. The only disappointment was none of the whales actually came up out of the water. We just saw a lot of backs and flukes.
We also saw an island positively covered with Stellar Seals on one end. Making lots of noise! On the same island, there were 2 eagles perched, one on a sign, and one on top of the hill. It was so cool to see all these animals, and the scenery was breathtaking. Mountains and snow and glaciers and clear blue skies. Phenomenal.
It was hard to choose which pictures to use – all you had to do was snap the shutter and you were bound to get some beautiful photos. But most of them will have to wait. Internet service is mucho expensive on board and it takes a long time to load photos.
So more to come… but probably not until I’m home again!
We can see Alaska now. Lots of fog and clouds and hills right now.
I'm taking pictures and more pictures. I will post more as I can. However, the internet isn't always reliable, and it costs money to use it, so the more I'm on it, the more I'm spending.
Of course, time is also a factor. We're staying pretty busy.
So, Faithful Readers, sorry, but it may be a while before I'm able to post much. I'll be sure to put a lot of pictures up when we get back!
Yes, the Rural Writer has become the Intrepid Explorer for the next week or so. Yesterday The Farmer and I drove a couple of hours to get to the Nashville, TN, airport. From there I went to the Minneapolis St. Paul airport, and then to my final flight destination, Seattle, Washington.
Here are some pictures I took along the way, between Minneapolis and Seattle. Just bear in mind I was taking them through the two panes of glass in the airplane's window. They're not as sharp as I might have liked.
The crop land looks really neat from way up in the air!
Crop Circles!
And remember, we had to fly over the mountains to get to Seattle!
I had a hard time choosing pictures. There was a lot of fantastic scenery along the way. And I'm just getting started, because next... I head towards ALASKA!
We’ve been trying for some time to find a good source of hay this year. With the drought conditions here this summer, the price of hay is going through the barn roof. Some places we called wanted $8-9 per bale! Thankfully, we don’t need near as much as we used last year, since we sold the biggest part of the animals.
It’s been difficult to even find any hay to purchase at whatever price, though the big round bales are easier to come by. However, we don’t have the equipment to handle those, and certainly not enough muscle power to move such a huge thing. I don’t like to use them with our sheep anyway. I personally know of two people who have lost sheep due to the huge bale collapsing down on the sheep while they were eating.
The smaller bales work much better here. I can break them into even smaller flakes to scatter around in several places. There has to be lots of piles available, or the goats commandeer all the hay and the sheep don’t get any.
We finally found a place with the smaller square bales at prices that wouldn’t require the loss of an arm or leg to pay for it. I don't really know why they're called square bales when actually they're rectangular, but they're not round, and I guess 'square' is quicker to say.
At any rate, yesterday The Farmer went and picked up our hay for the winter. It took a couple of loads, and a lot of listening. The guy is bought it from is a TALKER. He’s always interesting, but don’t go there expecting a quick get-away!
That’s one less task done in preparation for fall and winter!
We’re back from our journey through Tennessee and Kentucky, on into West Virginia, and even Ohio. We had a fine visit with my dad, sister and her family. Saturday we all went to Cambridge, Ohio, to see The Wilds, a nearly 10,000-acre wildlife conservation center.
The Wilds was created from land donated by the America Electric Power's Central Ohio Coal Company, which sounds very altruistic, but I suspect they got some tax advantages out of it, not to mention the fact they’d already mined it out. Now someone else has the job of finishing the reclamation of land ravaged by surface mining, and this wasn’t your typical operation. Not by a long shot!
After normal draglines and power shovels had removed as much coal as possible, the company decided to build a unique piece of equipment called Big Muskie, the world’s largest walking dragline. This is a picture of Big Muskie in operation. Note the size of the "normal" machine below, and pay special attention to the size of the bucket in relation to the rest of Big Muskie.
It took them nearly two years to build Big Muskie on-site. When they were done, they had a monster machine weighing 27 million pounds, or as much as 13,500 cars. It was as wide as an eight-lane highway, with a 220-cubic-yard bucket that could move 325 tons of dirt in a single bite. That’s the equivalent of a two-story house!
This humongous dragline could take about one bucket bite per minute, moving 39-million pounds of material per hour. During its operating years, Big Muskie moved more than 4.8 million cubic yards of earth, which is nearly twice that moved to create the 40-mile long Panama Canal.
Talk about an extreme machine!
Remember how small the bucket looked in comparison to the rest of the machine??? Take a gander at how HUGE it really is! And to give you a even better idea, check out Scott, Maria and Caleb standing inside this bucket.... Once Big Muskie did its job, and the land was donated to International Center for the Preservation of Wild Animals, The Wilds was created. It’s the largest preserve in North America for threatened and endangered species.
Not only are they working to preserve animals, but have some special challenges in reclaiming the land. Big Muskie was just so huge and monstrously heavy, that it along with other heavy machinery, compacted the surface so tightly that tree roots cannot penetrate the soil in some areas. There is an experimental section with various species of trees growing to see which thrives best. They were planted 20 years ago, and have made very little progress. Nevertheless, the land is lush with growth, and has several beautiful lakes made when digging brought water to the surface. It’s now not only a gorgeous scenic area, but home to several native animals, and endangered species from all over the world as well.
They have buses or “open air safari” vehicles available to take you on tours through the open-range animal areas. You enter through a locked gate system reminiscent of Jurassic Park. The guides make jokes about it, informing you there are NO dinosaurs in the park.
However, there are lots of other interesting animals, along with a Mid-Sized Carnivore Conservation Center, a stop with feeders for giraffes, and many separate enclosures for different species. Our guide was quite knowledgeable about the different animals, and we spent an enjoyable 2 ½ hours riding the bus through the preserve.
We’re a diverse group, but we ALL enjoyed the tour. We saw animals I’d never even heard of before. It was a great trip, and I’d recommend it to anyone who happens to be traveling in the area.
I shot a LOT of animals. With a camera, of course! To see a slideshow with pictures of most of the species we saw, go HERE. There’s about 4 screens worth of photos. Just click on the top left picture and a new box will pop up to show bigger pics.
I grew up on a farm in WV, then spent a big part of my adult life moving around to several states. Now here I am, back on a farm again. Living in the country provides some unique experiences. Rural ramblings combines my love of writing and photography to tell tales about life on our little farm, and our adventures rambling around to other places. Make yourself comfortable, and sit a spell. I hope you enjoy your stay!
