Fourth Port of Call...............................

 ..........................................Skagway:

Situated in the northernmost fjord in the Inland Passage, Skagway is a delightful little town.  I say little because there were more people on our cruise ship than live and work in Skagway.  It's heyday came in the very late 1800s.  Gold was discovered in the Yukon Territory, and Skagway was the most logical jumping off point for waves of prospectors. All that traffic attracted the usual characters.  Most of the buildings seem to date from that era. Our quick tour of the town included a visit to the "Boot Hill" cemetery, where our guide gave a colorful exposition on the life of Soapy Smith.  The highlight though was the train ride up White's Pass.  Most of the photos were taken on that trip.

Skagway has a delightful historic downtown.  We had an
excellent lunch at one of their many restaurants

The Skagway River

Ditto

Some pretty fair views from the top of the Pass

A bridge in our future

I could stare at this view all day

If you squint, you can see the cruise ship

Thankfully we didn't take this bridge

Local mass transit option for tourists

Skagway.  We would go  back.

If you care about your family's well-being......

.........................spend some time absorbing this. 

Third port of call..........................

 ...............................Juneau, Alaska:

The capital city of Alaska is an interesting place.  Geographically, it is larger than the State of Rhode Island.  Population-wise, it is smaller (32,000+) than Newark, Ohio.  Not accessible by road, you can only get to Juneau by boat, plane, or being born there.  A major stop for the cruise ships, a significant part of the town is dedicated to tourists.  Our tour guide pointed to  the capital building, "the one with flags on top", but it took a while to find it.  A mere 12 miles from downtown Juneau is the Mendenhall glacier and Nugget Falls.  Well worth the morning trip.  During the afternoon we went whale-watching.  We saw humpbacks surface and use their blowholes.  Watching them use their tail flukes to dive was pretty cool.

Arriving in Juneau

As advertised

It borders on Canada, but is long way to anywhere else

I suspect they didn't pay a lot for the archicture

Panorama from the cruise ship

The Mendenhall glacier

Ditto

Nugget Falls at Mendenhall

One amazing traveling companion

A calving from Mendenhall glacier

Hunting whales

Thar she blows!

Leaving Juneau after a full day

Is the Big Bang Theory in trouble................?

 It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

-Richard Feynman

Pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope don't seem to be supporting it.  Story here.

via

About this time every day..............

 

And written by the victors..................

 Our knowledge of any past event is always incomplete, probably inaccurate, beclouded by ambivalent evidence and biased historians, and perhaps distorted by our own patriotic or religious partisanship. Most history is guessing, and the rest is prejudice.

-Will Durant

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Second port of call......................

 ..........................Icy Strait Point:

This would appear to be entrepreneurship at its finest.  Cruise ships, with their many multitudes, stop here regularly.  It is not really a city, or village, it is a tourist attraction.  Wikipedia says it better than I can:

Icy Strait Point is a privately owned tourist destination just outside the small village of Hoonah, Alaska. It is located on Chichagof Island and is named after the nearby Icy Strait. Owned by Huna Totem Corporation, it is the only privately owned cruise destination in Alaska, as most stops are owned by the cities in which they are located. Huna Totem Corporation is owned by approximately 1,350 Alaskan Natives with aboriginal ties to Hoonah and the Glacier Bay area. Many of them are of the Tlingit people.

We rode the gondola up the mountain.  Some of us zip-lined back down.  We took a hike with a native guide and learned about the medicinal value of local plants.  We toured a mock salmon cannery.  And we made our first error in judgment.  We opted to go whale watching in Juneau inside of Icy Strait.  The people who whale-watched at Icy Straits were treated to many breaching whales and orcas.  Those of us who whale-watched in Juneau saw whales, not breaching, and no orcas.  Oh well.

Riding up the mountain.  Our home away from home is 
safely berthed, awaiting our return.

Passing on the goodness of nature learned from his elders

He emphatically said he was carrying the shotgun "for our 
protection".  There are probably more resident brown bears
on the island than there are full-time resident people.

My Sweetie made a new friend

Major league zip lining.................

 

If you are not checking in...............

 ......with Some It's Just As Well, why aren't you?

Both are sneaking up on us...................

 

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In praise of mischief.......................

 "Mischievous people make the world a lot more interesting, and a much better place to live."

"Another example is a little more boisterous and even more obviously mischievous. There is a story about the Chinese monk Budai, a quasi-historical figure in Buddhism otherwise known as ‘the laughing Buddha’. Budai was well known for his pranks and mischief, and did not disappoint even in death. Knowing that he would be cremated, when he knew he was dying he stuffed his pockets with gunpowder and fireworks, so that his followers would be amazed and shocked – and would burst into fits of laughter – as his corpse exploded on the pyre at his own funeral. It is hard, I think, to imagine a greater triumph over death than this. It is also a wonderful example of the cheerfulness of mischievous people extending beyond life into death."

-whole story here

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This is sort of interesting...................

 

via

First port of call.......................

 .............................Ketchikan, Alaska.   The southernmost Alaskan city, with a population a bit over 8,000 folks, it styles itself "The Salmon Capital of the World".  The first salmon cannery opened here in 1885.  We watched lots of salmon battling some mighty currents to get up stream.  After a half hour. we decided this group wasn't making it home.

Ketchikan currently has the largest standing collection of totem poles in the world (for some reason no pictures were taken).

The vague shadow halfway up is salmon trying desperately

If you look carefully, you will see the shallows teeming with
salmon, either resting or waiting their turn to climb the rapids.

Cruising................................

 My Sweetie and I just returned from a two-week jaunt: north to Alaska and back.  The cruise ship left from Vancouver and ventured up the Inside Passage, stopping at Ketchikan, Icy Straits, Juneau, Skagway, and Seward. In between the stops at Skagway and Seward, we cruised the Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay. Disembarking at Seward, we bused north for five hours to Denali National Park.  After a night's stay there, we took a train back to Anchorage.  Flying home on the red-eye a day later, we arrived home safely and happy, and a bit tired.

Masks were required on the flight from Chicago to Vancouver.
Serious fines were threatened for non-compliance.  Not normally
compliant individuals, we both wore masks through John Glenn 
International and O'Hare, as well as on the planes.  You see, once
we landed in Vancouver, we needed to score "negative" on a
Covid test.   Scoring a "positive" would have disqualified us from
 getting on the boat.  Gratefully, we were all "negative."

Fifty years ago........................

Harry Nilsson............................................Spaceman

Four sensible rules for investing (and life)....

1, Stocks usually go up.

2. Sometimes stocks go down.

3. The world never actually comes to an end and if it ever does it won’t matter what your portfolio looks like.

4. You have to invest in something.

My strategy is to continue saving and investing and following my plan no matter what the market is doing.

None of us controls what happens in the market.

But we all have control over how much we save, how we allocate our assets, how often we check the market value of our portfolios and how we make intelligent investment decisions.

You focus on what you can control and let the chips fall where they may.

-Ben Carlson, from this post

On the separation of intent from reality.....

 The administrative state may operate in a bubble where blatantly bad ideas receive little or no substantial pushback. State officials seem disconnected from reality when they issue arbitrary orders that are unlikely to make a difference when applied in the real world.

-Michael Van Beek, as culled from here

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Our elites aren't very.............................

 Honesty is a rare quality in the exercise of the will to power. For at least a generation, our elites haven’t valued anyone’s freedom but their own: but it was fascinating to hear them say it. . . .

After all, if you are obsessed with control, you will never get enough of it. But there’s no necessary contradiction between the two perspectives: you can be addicted to control and aware of its loss. In a vague and inchoate way, the progressive elites sense that they have power but lack authority. They live in dread of a reversal in the tide of history . . .

-Martin Gurri, as cut-and-pasted from here

Some thoughts...........................

 ..............................on the good stuff.

Honey, I have a feeling we're not in Newark, Ohio anymore................

 

From the airplane.  Suspect it is Mount St. Helens

Walking around Vancouver......................

Totally impressed by its skyline

Vancouver House: Bjarke Ingels' work of art

Granville Island Public Market

A touch of whimsy

Gastown's Steam powered clock

 

Likely true

It's a hard working city.  A major container port.

North Vancouver

Gardening art.  Weeding must be a bitch.

A little slice of heaven - a vinyl record store

My Sweetie in her favorite coffee shop