Back on the Road

I can hardly believe it myself but we are showered and relaxing in a motel in Bozeman, MT as I write so it must be so.  After an October with three near death experiences (and I mean this in the funny way, Char, not the scary way) we were looking at plans to head to a sandy beach on Hawaii for a couple of months R & R.

Life has a way of fooling you or us at least.  We packed out off island to spend a week in Ketchikan at the Alaskan Shellfish Growers annual meeting and Seafood Festival.  On that island we can use a phone.  After talking with family we decided it was a good winter to visit Larry's dad in Indiana so we got on the ferry and headed south.

We spent a week around Seattle, WA acclimating to America.  How soon we lost the crowd survival techniques.  Fast food has these new fangled Coke machines with 130 flavors.  We don't even have soda machines!  We shopped like crazy and loaded up the barge heading back north to Jerry, Zach, & the Boy.  Lets just say they can cut wood, move snow, and will have peanut butter, pop tarts, and Attaboy for Christmas.

Looking at the map it was hard to choose a route 'cross country that we haven't all ready covered.  Larry was also trying to avoid the cold and the snow.  So far that hasn't been much of a problem.  Traffic is another story.  Driving on one lane logging roads at about 12 mph is no practice for Seattle rush hour.  I'm not telling who got stopped for making an illegal turn... but it wasn't me!

We spent the first day in Washington state.  We got to tour the Grand Coulee Damn so named because it spits water at Hoover Damn and they pass out a fact sheet to prove it!  Let's just say that at one mile across it is four times as big as Hoover Damn and produces 6800 megawatts as compared to Hoover's 2000.

Idaho was just a quick pass over the panhandle but in a great area.  Coeur d' Arlene is a lovely city on a high mountain lake.  There are silver and gold mines on every corner.  There are ski resorts as well but so far, no real snow.

Looking ahead we should make it to Custer's last stand at Little Big Horn before dark tomorrow.  You all have longer days that Alaska does this time of year.  That is we should if Larry doesn't find any more Cabellas stores.

Close, Too Close For Comfort: A Tsunami Warning

Living on the water has built in dangers and with time you either get scared off or grow complacent with the issues.  You can guess which road we travel on as here we still are!
Brother Jerry has been laying in supplies, extra food, and pushing us to have a "Bug Out" plan as he calls it for some time.  I think his visions of approaching dangers were different but he had the lead last night as we needed ready- packed emergency supplies and a set plan to quickly get out of harms way.
If it didn't reach Midwest news with all the coverage of storm Sandy we had a 7.7 quake just off the coast of Canada south of here at 7 ish last night.  It was followed by a 5.8 aftershock, both strong events.  They triggered a tsunami wave and we were in the warning path sitting on our raft on the water with all our earthy valuables and our lives.
Usually nephew Charlie is our weather warning but he must of been sleeping yesterday.  Instead our local marine radio came in to play.  We got a call at 7:25 that the wave was on its way and our closest town on island was evacuating.  
The advice was get to higher ground by 9:14.  We switched channels and sent the warning on to other families that we know of living out on the water.  There is a new couple on a float just a few miles south of here that are real newbies!  We have been giving them frozen fish!  They live in the water and we have to give them old fish to eat, really.
Well, we looked at each other for a few minutes.  It was a cold, dark night, but not stormy for once, Praise the Lord!  It was actually a starry, full moon night.  If not for the fact that the temp was around 26 and frosty outside it would have been quite pleasant.
The topic of discussion was what to do; stay and ride it out, or abandon our hearth and home in seek of higher and hopefully safer ground.  JR has been after us to practice his bug out plan and Larry has an nifty new backpacker's stove that he has been dying to test out so the decision was made for us to go.  
We each packed a waterproof bag of what was considered necessary for survival.  Now here is a study in human nature, what one packs in the moments as you look danger in the face.  Let's just say my bag carried the chocolate supply for everyone!
My girl scout background came in to play as well as I strapped a boat cushion on my back for a sit upon.  It was a little morbid as I wondered if it would float my body should it come to that.
In a short time our raggedy little band was ready.  Note to our dog loving friends:  Brick is in need of some side bags.  No one thought to pack any food for him and he had the energy to carry his supplies plus more!  Of all of us, Brick was having the most fun.  You could read in his face that he didn't know what his humans were doing hiking in the night but he thought it great.  Unfortunately, I think JR did too.  I foresee drill evacuations in my future.
So, we strapped on our guns,  turned on our headlamps, loaded our bags, climbed in the boat, and waited on Larry! 
 Family members are used to this description of our travels.  This time he was doing good.  He placed our other guns, electronics, and various valuables up higher in the house for protection.  Really, on a floating raft with a rogue wave, where is safety? but points for effort.
It was 9:12 and that wave wasn't going to wait on the Ryggs' timeline so we got LR in the boat and "Bugged Out".  We got to shore and realized that we needed to have put more thought in a plan for the boat.  How to leave it secure was the question as best case scenario had us needing it for a victorious return to the house.  We settled on putting it on a long rope tied to a tree.  Hopefully it had room to float high and settle back down in the water, not in the tree when we deemed it safe to return.
So began our adventurous hike to higher ground.  Now we have reported  numerous times that Alaska is not the best location for a woodland hike.  At best it is a 0 on the scale of 1 to 10 of best hiking locals.  And that would be under ideal conditions, not at night, running for our lives.  It is a maze of five foot diameter downed logs, thorny Devil's Club bushes, and foot sucking layers of moss over sharp granite mountainside.  All this in the dark of night with no trail, no real idea of destination in mind, and thoughts of that giant wave pushing up from behind was a little less than ideal.
Add that to the fact that we had all ready put in a full day of hard labor and you can begin to feel what we faced.
I tell you, you quickly realize why the Oregon Trail waysides were littered with discarded belongings.  You decide quickly that you don't need the weight of that piano in the backpack.  Soon, I was even questioning the need for an extra pair of socks.
Well, all jokes aside, we ascended 76 ft. climbing over and under and sometimes around forest obstacles in under 25 minutes.  We found a triangle of big logs to sit inside and contemplate what it is you contemplate when you are near what could be The End.  I was feeling smug that I had that boat cushion between me and the frosted, wet ground.
We turned the hand held radio into NOAH weather station for the latest updates and Larry broke out his backpacking stove.  It is the newest gadget that had chambers to re burn the smoke and uses mere twigs to heat your tent or dinner in minutes. 
 Well, we didn't have a tent or twigs but Zach and LR managed to get a hand -heating flame going rather quickly.  JR broke out his emergency chocolates, thus saving mine.   We bemoaned the fact that Zach didn't think his guitar ranked in his top ten things to save and that nobody had marshmallows in their survival packs.   The Boy would have had he had a survival bag of his own.  He loves marshmallows.  As reported earlier, the Boy was having a blast.  He ran off sniffing and rooting and doing doggy things while we all sat around doing our human things.  With no alarming notices off the radio after two hours of such fun and nary a hint of watery advances around us, I was ready to head back down to shore to assess the situation.
We managed the climb back down, it is amazingly as difficult to get down a mountainside as it is to get up it.  We located the boat, still afloat, and motored our way back to our safe, warm beds just a little after midnight, a little smarter and a lot more thankful than ever.
The wave by the way, what part of it that managed to navigate its way in to us through the passages and around the islands caused a whooping four inch rise in the normal tides.  Let's hope all the coastal areas affected were as lucky as us.
As for us.  We had a sobering wake up call that we need to put more thought and planning in to a true evac plan, that and buy more chocolate, for the energy it provides of course!

A Blowout at the Southeastern Alaskans' Conference

Larry and I just spent three days hanging onto the mainland at a governmental conference on development trends in SE Alaska.  They hit us up to donate oysters for the opening night's reception.  Larry had to sit and shuck them for four hours.  He still got to talk to real people, even a senator or two.  They really draw the folks in with free food.

I was free to sample the bar offerings and the magnificent seafood buffet.  I even tried dried halibut - kinda tasted like chewing on fishy sticks, but I will try anything once.  There was something in an egg roll skin that was really good.  I passed on most of the seaweed sushi, it's just not my thing.  Ditto on the fish eggs and greens salad but I did enjoy many mushroom caps stuffed with everything.

I won another door prize too.  This time it was a fused glass whale tail.  There is something to be said about low numbers and raffle chances!

Yes, everything was just about perfect except for the weather.  It was nice until we got there and  helped our friend Kat set up all three tables of her jewelry. There was to be a crafts fair outside the high school where the conference was hosted.   I brought just the animal hats this time and they were an early hit.  I sold three right off.  Good thing because it soon turned ugly.  The wind picked up and the rains started to pound.  Most conference attendees stayed inside so one by one the venders packed up.

Lar was off running errands in town so I was captive to Kat and she was the last die hard.  The log carver had moved his truck close to load, the other oyster farmer was loading her boxes and the volunteer in charge was worrying around. We were just packing up the jewelry when the worst of the weather hit.

Picture the sidewalk to the high school as an aisle to two huge row tents.  These tents were bought with a grant to host events in each community on the island to encourage events on the island I guess! 

I have gone to a few of the crafts fairs and it was soon apparent that most of the vanders are the same at each place and we had better buy from each other because they don't draw many attendees.  Add in transportation $ and food $ and it was rarely a money making show.  We just go for the chance of talking to strangers.

Back to the tents.  These are Alaskan tents.  That is heavy canvas in ten foot sections about 100 foot in all.  This is held up by a frame of 1 1/2 inch steel pipe weighed down by five gallon buckets filled with water because the ground is usually solid rock.

Well, these tents were no match for the wind.  The one across from us was taking the brunt of the wind lifting up and scooting across the aisle with each gust.  I was packing as fast as my clever little fingers could go.  Have we mentioned that Kat is disabled?  She has a bad hip and uses crutches and a wheeled chair/lift seat thingy so she isn't moving as fast. 

With the biggest gust yet the tent across from us and all of the tables and chairs and posts and people comes flying into our tent and proceeds to pull it up with it.  At first I grab  hold of the canvas thinking to stop its progress I guess.  (It is happening so fast I'm not sure what or if I was thinking.)  What was soon evident was that I was not going to be able to stop two hundred feet of canvas wrapped around steel pipes, tables, chairs, and some people dragging five gallon buckets.  I let go and slid out of the tangling mess somewhere halfway across the parking lot.  Kat had remained standing in our space.  Our tables had risen up and over her hitting her on the shoulder and hand.  She was bloody but basically sound. The tangle rolled on stopping when it wrapped around two trucks in the lot.  It slowly shed the log carver, the oyster farmer and the poor volunteer scans clip board was uncovered last.  I was wet, getting cold, and ready to leave.  A few high school students came out.  Kat's jewelry trays had flown with the tables scattering  and breaking.  We got Kat in her chair, picked up what we could find, and got out of Dodge.
It had bent the steel like pretzels and did a number on the two trucks.  We shook it off and like the rough and tough persona of the rural Alaskan, went on to the reception and the bar.

For a drink I can tell you quite a story or I have some wet, bent earrings at a discount...

Slipping off the Edge of the Civilized World

Our clock stopped working and all the batteries we had couldn't bring it back to life.  It stopped at 4:20 so it is now always 4:20 here.  A.m. or p.m. with the sunlight we can't always tell... 

You wouldn't think that a little thing like no longer having time as a point of reference would make such a difference in your life but you just might be wrong.  Although time is just an artificial constraint, it does govern civilization.  And, we lost that guide.

At first I was discombopulated.  I never realized how much I referred to that clock.  I time the bread's risings, simmer my soups, gauge how much work I have put in, guessed at when someone would return from a  trip or just decided what it was time to be doing.

Now our children would tell you that we never adhered to much of a schedule anyway.  I like to say that recipes, patterns, and schedules are just suggestions.  So, we are going to bed when we are tired, getting up when we awaken, ( or Brick barks too loudly) working until we are tired or that task is done, and eating too often!

Before you panic for us and mail out a clock, Larry does have a watch so we can meet the plane or catch a tide if we have to  although by now we can pretty much see the tides.  Our main shipping days are over for the year so life has slowed considerably.  

We do see the seasons' changes.  The sun is setting in a whole different area of the sky and the moon is all turned around.  Last night Brick woke us up at _:__ (it was dark!)  I stepped out on the upper deck and I think I saw the Aurora Borealis.  It wasn't moving much but it was several bright lights spiking up from behind the trees across the skies.

We used to question each other over what day it was.  The only ones we knew for sure were shipping days when that float plane touched down.  Now I guess we are just savages in a savage world doing whatever occurs to us.  Good thing there are no wild boars on the island.

Light (or the lack of)

This is a short story of lights in remote area.  I'm not including any pictures since our camera's aren't the best at taking low light shots.......

......this morning at 3:00am we headed out to the processor to pack up an order (shellfish) headed for town. The sea planes are booked up with all the summer help heading back to America (as we call it), last minute tourists and fisherman so we had to take the ferry over and have to get there rather early 7:00am. It's a half hour boat ride and 2 hour drive through the mountains to get to the terminal. Our summer season is winding down....

......back to the light.... while riding to the processor in the boat the wake of the boat was glowing a bright green...like a glow stick.. where ever the water was disturbed, the droplets for the bow splashing out to the sides, the waves off the stern and the prop wash from behind the motor was really glowing.  This is bioluminescence caused by a certain kind of phytoplanketon in the water called Noctiluca scintillans. We a have a big time bloom of it going on right now........

....so we got the order packed and JR and Zach head off toward town.....It was starting to get a little morning light now, it's overcast so it's not like the sun is peeking through, just not pitch black like earlier and I can see the outline of the mountains around us, the tops of them were covered in clouds....what kinda dawned on me at this very moment was there wasn't a light anywhere to be seen......no light pollution, no glow in the sky from a city off in the distance, nobody, nothing........ Now Linn and I have traveled all over through the mountains down in America and we usually see lights sprinkled all over them at night from the distance......

......back to the light.....or lack of ......couple nights ago I was outside and it was clear out......no moon up yet and the stars were shining so bright just twinkling at us. The milky way was shining super bright...the sky looks so big too. Thought we saw a UFO darting around .....but that's another story for later.

The morning is finally here.....foggy, overcast, still, peaceful.........

here's one picture for you since it's getting light out...

Great Blue Heron on the point at the right side. Fog is rolling in.

Alaska....It is either all light (summer) or all dark (winter).....in our part of the state it gets to about 3 hours of dark in the summer....the sun may not be up in the sky that much the glow of the light is.... opposite is true in the winter and can get kinda of gloomy if you are one of those people that need their sunshine.

Our sunsets are another facet of light that deserve it's own chapter.....last night was a beauty.

Looking west from our deck. The far tree line is over a mile away.

Shot of the moon and must have moved the camera before the lens shut. Kinda looks like a shooting star.

A Civilized Weekend

This is how a lot of folks come in for the Festival.

Well, Ma and Pa packed up the skiff with handmade goods and a cooler and floated off to the island for a weekend Seafood Festival and Arts & Crafts Show.  I don’t think they will make a song about it, but a fun time was had by one and all.

Local art carving.

It was held in Coffman Cove, an ex-logging camp/fishing port turned “town” which is what all our communities on POW Island are.  I won’t say it is small but I’m pretty sure all residents have to go off island to find spouses!  Well, all 165 Coffman Coveans pulled together a great event.

More carving, salmon run.

It was 100% rain all three days but we were under tent and no one up here seems to mind a little water.  It would be nice if it were a warm rain…  They pulled in 30 some venders and some wonderful raffle prizes.  With 165 people your raffle odds go way up!  I won two wildlife ink prints and a $25 gift certificate to the local diner – it almost paid for two hamburgers for our lunch one day!

Linn whooping up a hat.

But who wanted hamburgers with all that seafood.  I couldn’t believe the first meal, Lar got fried halibut which we eat at home 3 X per week.  He said he wanted to taste how someone else cooked it, something about not burned…  Over the weekend we had our choice of oysters, B B Q salmon, clam chowder in sour dough bread bowls, shrimp gumbo and a vender flew in fresh fruit from America!!  Her lines were the longest.  We tasted peaches and Washington sweet cherries!

Linn's Bare skin blankets on display.

We have a friend here who makes stone jewelry and I helped at her booth.  I sold all my fish shaped pot holders and debuted my animal hats.  They were a big hit.  Other venders were a varied lot and a lot different than you would see down there.   There were wood carvers, rustic furniture makers, and beachcombers “found” art.  There were bone artists ( I will leave that description up to your imagination) and several native, tribal art booths.  I am not a fan of the stylized red and black animal spirit print but to each their own. A gal made waterproof fabric bags called Mermaid Purses that were cute.  Christmas spoiler alert!  There is a wonderful soap maker on island and a beader that works with pinhead sized beads.  There was even a tie died tee shirt maker who never left the sixties!  A woman who had sewn “Grandma” style full aprons sold out – is this a trend that I missed?

Cat with all her stuff, she had half the tent and was a big hit.

Plus they had entertainment!  It was listed as a battle of the bands, but no bands showed up.  We were instead serenaded by several Bob Dillons with guitar.  They had a hilarious fish topic poetry slam (who would have guessed?  Fishermen do spend a lot of time alone on their boats with thought of fish.) and fireworks over the Bay.  I love fireworks!

This young lady posed for me, (if you look close) she is wearing rain gear under her dress. 

 Besides set up and breakdown and all other grunt work, Larry got to walk around and talk to new people.  He took his walkingstick with all the National Parks emblems on it.  It is a real conversation piece.

Yes indeed,  A great time was had by all.

Tents with band playing bluegrass in the center tent.

Larry said to add that on the way home we sneaked (lets not use that word since we weren't supposed to go that way, lets use) took short cut on to the main road to home that is closed for construction to check on their progress.  It is ten miles that is being paved with a finish date of 2016.  After all summer they now have a whooping 3 mi. prepped then is it mud slides and rock the rest of the way.  The current detour is a one lane forest service road that won't be passable in the snow...should be an interesting four winters 'round here.

Something is Smelling Fishy 'round Here

We have inadvertently discovered, (but then, isn’t that how all the best discoveries happen?) the most noxious smell on earth.  I am talking, eye watering, nose curling, leave the room, stink.  We could hold up banks, take over small countries, or chase away obnoxious, freeloading company.   Not that we often get company of any kind,

The substance you ask that causes such a reaction?  It is rotten bear brain paste.  Like I said it was by accident.  Zach and I had been out turning the compost pile and adding rotting fish, starfish, and dead mussels.  Foolish us, we thought that was the smell that we brought home.  We took turns scrubbing and taking off pieces of outer wear but we couldn’t solve the smell.

Finally on another trip out the door I noticed that the bear skull Jerry had recently brought up from a crab pot was dripping gray pasty matter from the brain stem.  One whiff of that and the mystery was solved.  We don’t have to burn our clothes, just drain the bear skull.

The skull is out to be shipped with the pelt to be turned into a rug.  I wonder what the postal worker will do with that package???