Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

      This will be the final installment of  my documentary, Peeing Across America. No doubt volumes could be written about our time on the road, and the many stops we made along the way to empty our full bladders, but I don't want to bore the reading audience, so it's best to shake it off, wipe it out and move on. After watching the sun set on the Grand Canyon, we made our way to the Red Feather Lodge where we spent the night. It was kind of a two part lodging facility, something I've never seen before. They had a regular hotel, and a smaller, less fancy, but still fairly expensive motel on the property. Since we were only spending one night and didn't want to finance the next property they wanted to build, we opted for the motel. It was OK. Not great, but it runs in my mind that the shower was good and it did have air conditioning, which frankly was pretty noisy, but I didn't complain. The occupant in the bed next to me was snoring pretty soundly, and when the air...

    As we continued on our journey towards the Grand Canyon, we moved along through the great state of Utah, peeing as we went.  We stopped to take a leak near an old corral. Extra, extra, read all about it, Liz takes a whiz in Virgin. We made it to Springdale, before we stopped again. I can't remember how far away it was, but probably not that far. Surprisingly, I didn't have to go. The girls declared I had a bladder the size of a watermelon, which of course we know isn't true. More like the size of a large grape. Even though there are things like Google Maps and regular maps on the internet, somehow, we figured that if we went down to Zion National Park, close to the town of Hurricane, we could meander up to Arches near Moab in a few hours. Of course we were wrong, not surprisingly. Instead of returning the way we had come, we spent two nights in Hurricane. The girls hiked for the better part of a day in Zion, and later we all took the car to a different part of the par...

  For those who might be concerned that I'm giving up on my documentary- Peeing Across America, let me assure you, I haven't written the last of that yet. I just thought I should share a little bit of what's happening in my life while I'm alone at the house. Near the end of our trip south, we dropped Jan off in Denver to visit her sister in Wisconsin. It seemed to make sense, rather than going all the way back to Wasilla and then having to leave from Anchorage. In retrospect, I wonder if it wouldn't have been cheaper to have gotten a round trip ticket, but that's a moot point, water under the bridge, money already spent, whatever. When I returned to my house, I had the whole thing to myself, which isn't that big of a deal, considering that just Jan and I live here. While there are certain benefits about being alone, like watching what  I want to on TV or not having to share the computer, there are a few minor downfalls too. Things such as having to do all th...

When I wrote my last post, which was documenting the beginning of our journey, Peeing Across America, I didn't have access to the notes that my daughter Autumn had been recording. Just to set the record straight, I wanted to go back over a few things that I had failed to mention previously. I suppose it goes without saying that prior to hopping into the rental car at the Boise airport, we all thoroughly drained our bladders. One would assume that we'd be good to go for at least an hour, however, that assumption would have been wrong. Our first pit stop on the trip was the Black Hills rest stop, twenty minutes outside of Boise. I had assumed that it was going to take us longer than the average family to cover the ground that we needed to cover, but this was ridiculous. At this rate, we wouldn't reach the Grand Canyon until Christmas.  I can't recall how far we went before nature called again, but it was before we made it to Mountain Home. We made a stop in Bliss Idaho to...

   Last week Jan and I and our three daughters who live in Alaska, Jen, Liz and Autumn, left for a journey to one of the great wonders of the world, the Grand Canyon. Before we left, I happened to mention to my good friend Renee Alexander that we would be lucky to make twenty five miles without having to take a bathroom break. She wrote me back a day or so later and said that she'd had an epiphany during the night; an idea for a book which might be a best seller. She suggested the title, "Peeing Across America: Memoirs of an Old Man and his Three Daughters With Weak Bladders." I loved the title, but figured it might be a little long for a book. I may have to tweak it, but I'm definitely going to use some variation of it in a future book. I mentioned Renee's suggestion to Autumn, who whole-heartedly endorsed it, and using her phone started to document our trip as we took a leak in a vast number of restrooms across this great land. We left on a Friday night to catch...

    Several weeks back, perhaps more like three weeks ago, Jan, Liz and Autumn went to one of the local farms to pick strawberries.  Actually, it wasn't all that local, the farm was located probably twenty or more miles away, outside of Palmer. It was one of those U-pick places, where you go in and pay to pick your own produce, I suppose with the understanding that either the food you harvest yourself will be healthier and hopefully it will cost less. In the case of the strawberries, I believe they paid the handsome price of about ten dollars a quart. Not exactly a bargain. Add to the cost the gas it took to get there and back, and the bending down to root through the berries that others have already picked over, traipsing through the mud and dealing with mosquitos and other hungry vermin, those are some pretty expensive strawberries. I guess its the adventure of the whole process that is supposed to be memorable. I can't really relate. As far as being healthy goes, that'...

     This past week, we were expecting two of our good friends, Mark and Sarah Smith, formerly from Hoonah to come for a visit for a few days. We hadn't seen them for several years and we'd planned a few day trips locally, as well as a few hours at the bowling alley, totally humiliating ourselves, but having fun nonetheless. I was expecting to spend the better part of at least one evening looking over my stamp collection. When Mark was the Hoonah post master, he went out of his way to order the latest, most interesting stamps that became available. In a large part, I owe my fascination as a philatelist to him. He was a deep well of knowledge and we spent many  hours not only discussing stamps, but a variety of other subjects, both appropriate and not so much so while he was collecting a wage from the government. It was time well spent though. There was some talk of a pod cast, though I don't know anything about those things or how they would work. No doubt it would r...

     The girls and I had such a good time last week when we went to Kepler Lake, we decided to go fishing again. Liz has been on vacation, and Autumn has been off work waiting for the new location for the cafe' to get the necessary permits so they can open. We wanted to try Hatcher Pass again. Last time I was there in June with Camille and her daughter Justine, there was still ice and a foot of snow on the lake. I checked with Fish and Game and found out that they stocked the lake on July 4, but it still had ice and snow on it. We figured by now, it had to have thawed out. We wanted to catch some of the thousand trout that ADFG had stocked. This time, I figured that I would offer the trout something other than nightcrawlers so I wouldn't have to spend all my time baiting the girl's hooks. I brought a handful of frozen, raw shrimp with me. I still ended up baiting some of the hooks and taking a few of the fish off, but for the most part, I spent most of my time baiting my ...

  About a month ago, I was getting desperate to go fishing. I tried to get several people to go with me down to Kepler Lake, near Palmer, but for one reason or another, it didn't work out, so I went by myself. I won't say that it was a mistake to do that, but I will mention that it was a real challenge. For one thing, the john boats, while large enough in length and width, don't have much depth to them. I guess because they are flat bottomed, kind of like me, they don't want the seats to be too high in the boat. As a result, unless you are young and limber or an athlete of some kind, they can be incredibly uncomfortable to sit in for any length of time. They all come with oars, but for an additional $5.00 per hour,  you can rent an electric motor to push you around the lake. In retrospect, perhaps I should have just stuck with the oars, although that would have provided an additional challenge. As it was, I was sitting in the stern of the boat, facing the front, and hav...

    Last week, while my daughter, Camille, and her oldest daughter, Justine were visiting, I recalled that there was a little park down on Lake Lucille that was populated with quite a number of wild Mallards and a few Grebes. I guess they're wild, although by the look of these pictures, I suppose they could be considered domesticated.  They certainly come running whenever anyone comes to the park and gets close to the water. Since we didn't have any stale bread we wanted to get rid of, I took several tubes of saltine crackers to feed them, along with some black sunflower seeds. Needless to say, they made short work of the food we brought them. Justine laughed with delight and of course tried to get them to eat out of her hand, which they didn't want any part of. Like most things we enjoy doing, once wasn't enough, so we made a second trip to the park to engage the feathered gluttons. This time I didn't bring saltines, I don't want them to end up with high blood ...

    About a week ago, my neighbor and good friend, Butch, mentioned that a friend of his who he has hunted and fished with for years wanted to go fishing for the afternoon at Finger Lake, close to home. He wanted to take his boat out and make sure the motor was running OK. Of course I don't know what we would have done if we'd gotten stuck out in the middle of the lake, since he didn't have a kicker motor, but I'm sure we could have gotten a tow in before it got dark. The day was almost ideal for fishing, overcast with a slight wind. It was kind of cool, but I had brought my jacket, so I was pretty comfortable, unlike my last experience with a boat up here. I need to do a post about that, but I want to get a picture of the boat I rented first so you'll have an appreciation of what an experience that was. Anyway, we motored over to where my friends wanted to fish and I dropped a salmon egg into the water with a bobber about three feet up the line. It didn't take ...

 Last year when we went East on vacation, I briefly mentioned stopping in Vermont and picking up my friend Buffalo Bob on our way down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We spent several days in Vermont looking around, and Buff knew all the local areas for miles around. Amongst the places we visited was the famous Vermont Country Store. Perhaps you've been there yourself or received one of their catalogues in the mail. I don't know if they still do mail order, I guess they sell primarily on line now. Anyway, I happened to be thinking of things from my childhood the other day, and one of the things I recall was Chum Gum. It was bubble gum, but it came in sticks like regular chewing gum. I think you used to be able to buy it in a pack of three, I'm not sure. Anyway, it was by far the best bubble gum on the market, sweet and soft and chewy. Like most bubble gum, the flavor didn't last very long, but it was sure satisfying while it lasted. Unfortunately, the company that...