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Showing posts from August, 2012

Alaska-The Great Land-Action Plan

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Some Day Is Today /* Ocean Blue Navigation Theme for Blogger */ :root { --deep-ocean: #003366; --ocean-blue: #0066cc; --sea-foam: #66ccff; --wave-white: #f0f8ff; --anchor-gray: #4a5568; --coral-accent: #ff6b6b; --nautical-gold: #ffd700; } * { margin: 0; padding: 0; box-sizing: border-box; } body { font-family: 'Georgia', 'Times New Roman', serif; background: linear-gradient(135deg, var(--wave-white) 0%, var(--sea-foam) 100%); color: var(--deep-ocean); line-height: 1.6; } /* Maritime Navigation Header */ .blog-header { background: linear-gradient(90deg, var(--deep-ocean) 0%, var(--ocean-blue) 50%, var(--deep-ocean) 100%); padding: 1rem 0; box-shadow: 0 4px 20px rgba(0, 5...

Salmon Fishing- Reeling In The Years

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There's a fine line between fishing and just standing o n a bridge looking like an idiot unless you are in Alaska holding a salmon  It is truly the king of fish I have been fishing all season but not for the fish, but what the wild salmon symbolize--- the Pacific Northwest's natural splendor. The 1000 year-old salmon run is alive and well

Wings Over Misty Fjords-Flightseeing

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More like Blue Sky Fjords  205 inches of rain a year and not one drop today. A unique Alaskan experience— We took off from Ketchikan Harbor Seaplane Base,  and the self-proclaimed Salmon capital of the world---the place where people don't get old, they rust...and rust never sleeps. Up in the air for 30 minutes on the single engine "flying boat" and the small remote mountain lakes  we saw below would be next to impossible to reach on foot, a reminder that most of this area is still wilderness and accessible only by small boat or plane.  In the heyday, I could imagine how snail mail (US) delivery runs must have been done this way. Hey Hey, My My Yet they were spectacular by air, like waves  each one  more powerful than the next. Pilot Jeff Carlin, picked out one of the lakes, landed the "puddle jumper"  and  JC turned off the noisy diesel engine that was a reminder that we left  the  the buzz of everyday life...

Tongass---No Rain, No Rainbow Falls

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The way I see it, if you want to see Rainbow Falls, you gotta put up with the rain. I think salmon fish in the package is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge? Many consider the Tongass National Forest to be the "crown jewel" of our national forest system  One thing for sure- It's a  Watershed Moment---A point in time when nothing after will ever be the same as before when it comes to my appreciation for precipitation. It's no longer  the path of moist resistance. I like the rain. I finally got my bearings...

Tongass---No Rain, No Rainbow Falls

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The way I see it, if you want to see Rainbow Falls, you gotta put up with the rain. I think salmon fish in the package is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge? Many consider the Tongass National Forest to be the "crown jewel" of our national forest system  One thing for sure- It's a  Watershed Moment---A point in time when nothing after will ever be the same as before when it comes to my appreciation for precipitation. It's no longer  the path of moist resistance. I like the rain. I finally got my bearings...

B.E.S.T. Bears Eagles Salmon Totem Poles

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If you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing for six months. I could deal with that. Before you hibernate, you're supposed to  gorge yourself stupid. on salmon I could deal with that too.  Bears are a proud people, although they're not people per-say. They're animals. Bears derive their name from an NFL football team in Chicago. Bears have been known to attack man, although the fact is that fewer people have been killed by bears than in all of World  Wars I and  II combined, and probably World War 3. Note to self:“Always respect Mother Nature. Especially when she weighs 400 pounds and is guarding her baby.” Come On Dog, Mush!

B.E.S.T. Bears Eagles Salmon Totem Poles

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If you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing for six months. I could deal with that. Before you hibernate, you're supposed to  gorge yourself stupid. on salmon I could deal with that too.  Bears are a proud people, although they're not people per-say. They're animals. Bears derive their name from an NFL football team in Chicago. Bears have been known to attack man, although the fact is that fewer people have been killed by bears than in all of World  Wars I and  II combined, and probably World War 3. Note to self:“Always respect Mother Nature. Especially when she weighs 400 pounds and is guarding her baby.” Come On Dog, Mush!

In The Sky-Wings Over The Inside Passage

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And the vagabond wind, whispers over the bay and the songs and the laughter, are carried away in the sky Anywhere there is blue on the map you can find them. Seaplanes don't need runways.Taking off and landing in water has a romantic fascination because float planes  can go places that you can't get to otherwise.  De Plane, De Plane

S E Alaska-Here Comes The Sun-

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And I Say It's Alright 5 days a year there is pure sunshine, the rest are liquid.  The Ketchikan-Misty Fiords Ranger District encompasses over 3.2 million acres of temperate rainforest, mountain peaks, glaciers, alpine tundra, muskegs, lakes, rivers, and streams. Time to take a hike and listen to The Beatles... The first tune I learned  to play on guitar was “Horse With No Name”, the second, "Here Comes The Sun” . It’s light and simple and my favorite George Harrison song. The song is in A chromatic-minor with an A tonic major chord.[2] The refrain uses a IV (D chord) to V (E chord) progression (the reverse of that used in "Eight Days a Week" ). The melody in the verse and refrain basically follows the pentatonic scale from E up to C♯ (scale steps 5, 6, 1, 2, 3.Now where is my guitar..oh yea--- Gently weeping. YESterday was cold and rainy But Here Comes The Well -Deserved Sun

Tongass Rain Forest-On The Waterfront

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If people concentrated on the really important things they'd be a shortage of fishing poles.  Carpet Diem means fish of the day around here. Pinks and Silver-Ko ho salmon. Fishing is actually boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it is disgusting I Hear Invoices   I am thinking of that movie with Brando " I coulda been a contender." the central theme of the coulda, shouda, woulda crowd. At sea, however,  we have no CNN effect  nor 57 channels  to tell us our dancing, singing and comedy  is not good enough as American Idol-click- or DWTS-click, TMZ-click or Reality TV. The Way In Is The Way Out It's all self referential which ends up being the way out of the Contender Syndrome and  America’s culture of envy, and wanting be, do, and have more. The disease of more is  really an indictment of our  own judgments that we haven’t accomplished enough. Reaching our potential comes from a discrepancy ...

Tongass Rain Forest-On The Waterfront

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If people concentrated on the really important things they'd be a shortage of fishing poles.  Carpet Diem means fish of the day around here. Pinks and Silver-Ko ho salmon. Fishing is actually boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it is disgusting I Hear Invoices   I am thinking of that movie with Brando " I coulda been a contender." the central theme of the coulda, shouda, woulda crowd. At sea, however,  we have no CNN effect  nor 57 channels  to tell us our dancing, singing and comedy  is not good enough as American Idol-click- or DWTS-click, TMZ-click or Reality TV. The Way In Is The Way Out It's all self referential which ends up being the way out of the Contender Syndrome and  America’s culture of envy, and wanting be, do, and have more. The disease of more is  really an indictment of our  own judgments that we haven’t accomplished enough. Reaching our potential ...

Misty Fjords-Active Rain

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Back in Ketchikan, Its Tlingit Indian name, Kach Khanna, means “spread wings of the eagle".  and I have seen many of them. I am within minutes by float plane from Misty Fjords and the Tongas National Rain Forest. Timber harvesting is all but over, and the environmental narrative is about this place, while not being  as bio-diverse as The Amazon, Tongas  is denser and the largest rainforest  in the US,at 17 Million acres Among the salmon and deer and black bears, and trees

Seattle- I Have My Reservations

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Doing some eco-tourism in Washington State and meeting people that work for Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon ,those bio tech firms and of course Starbucks.But I would have really liked to talk story with Chief Seattle.Here is his take on real estate. It is not just location, location, location:"Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people." "Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. This we know: the earth does not belong to us but man to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself"

Alaska,,Where Mother Nature Lives

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Alaska: Where Wilderness is Therapy πŸ”️ ❄️ 🐻 🌲 πŸ¦… Alaska Where Wilderness is Therapy "The Wilderness Makes Me Want to Wrap Myself in Tinfoil and Walk on the Moon" Glacier Bay National Park Marjorie Glacier - The Most Photogenic Marjorie Glacier is one of the most photogenic glaciers in Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska. I had the good fortune to be there today. None of these landscapes are ugly because they are natural and wild! I learn about geography by traveling by cruise ship; geology, the day after a huge event-- They take place every day somewhere around the planet--- earthq...

Glacier Bay-WWJM(John Muir) Do?

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Have a nICE Day “The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.” -JM Same Ship Different Day I had a similar epiphiny in the Norwegian  Geirangerfjord- Mother Nature and Father Time Are Effing Special. “I'm past the point of no return,” Mother Jones Before, Norway, Earth Goddess was just a yuppie  salad dressing you could buy at Whole  Foods. I never thought  that people died. They just went to organic health food stores... and  that Japanese guy who always wins the hot dog eating contest is the anti-christ. Today as I kayak in the fjords and observe the sun, the water,  the green and everything in flow, I say to myself  "Yes indeed, all this belongs to me!". and, more than that,I play a role in its appearance. As I get a glimpse of the deeper, random, chance  encounters of my 3 pound  universe (brain), with Mother Nature and Father Time being demoted from actual realit...

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