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It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything.  In fact it’s been since December 6, when I posted “I dreamed I saw Don Trump last night.”   But I have a good excuse:  I had to go to a funeral.

My aunt died on December 7.  She was a mere 80 years old, and so still fairly young by today’s standards.  (Especially as I myself get closer to that age.)  But she had a host of health problems, and so it wasn’t really surprising to get a text from my sister-in-law on December 3.  It said Joan was in the ICU, “critical but stable.”  But unfortunately she went downhill from there.

So I had to attend “another stinkin’ funeral!”  (As we say in our family, having gone through too many lately.)  I had to work up until 2:00 in the afternoon, last Saturday, the 10th.  Then I headed north, making Gastonia (NC) that night.

The following day I had an NTE.  (Near-Ticket Experience, an allusion to an NDE, as illustrated at right.)

I had crossed the line into Virginia about noon, on I-85, and about 20 minutes later some obnoxious guy in a brand-new BMW passed me.  (The BMW was so new it still had the paper-temporary license tag.)  To make matters worse, he did the old “thread the needle trick,” squeezing between two cars – one was mine – as we rocketed along about 76 mph.

At first I was a bit miffed, but then I figured I’d use him as a “rabbit car.”  A Rabbit Car is the mythical entity by which you can go well over the speed limit but not get caught.  The theory is that the police will stop the rabbit car first.

So, we were both barreling along about 85 mph.  I was slightly behind, and in the right-hand lane.

Right there on I-85 in Virginia the median is full of trees and woods, interspersed with service roads between the north-bound and south-bound sets of lanes.

And in one such service road I saw a police car.

Unfortunately the obnoxious guy in the new BMW saw him first, so he slowed down first.  Which meant that I actually passed him before I could slow down myself.

There were seven or eight cars fairly close behind us, so the trooper had to wait to pull out.  But sure enough, in my rear-view mirror I could see him get out on the road and start to follow us.  Then – quite soon after that – he turned on his “rollers” and sped up.

So I slowed down a whole lot, and also tried getting into the “rocking chair” position, nestled snugly between two other cars, one right in front of me and one right behind.

And for a moment or two I cursed my luck.  I didn’t need either an expensive ticket or an increase in insurance rates.  But fortunately the trooper passed me and commenced to pull over the obnoxious guy in the BMW.  (Who by then was about 10 car lengths ahead of me.)

After my heart-rate and breathing got back to near normal, I figured there was some kind of object lesson there…  I may write more about the funeral later, but speaking of object lessons, I got another one a day or two after I got back.

I made it back home from the funeral on Thursday, the 15th.  I worked all day Friday, and Friday night was busy unpacking and getting stuff sorted out.  Then this happened on Saturday…

I was at K-Mart, buying wrapping paper.  It came out to $4.76, so I handed the sweet young cashier a 5-dollar bill and a penny.  She said, “Sir, it’s four dollars and seventy-six cents.”  And I said, “Yes, it is.”  So she said again, real slow,  “Sir, the price is four dollars and seventy-six cents.” I said, “Yes, and I gave you a five and a penny.”

Naturally my mind HAD been racing with all kinds of thoughts, off in la-la land, your might say.

Part of it was the hectic travel involved in the funeral I’d just been to, and part of it was the upcoming Christmas season, with all the demands that go along with it.  But this little encounter slowed me down.  (“Grounded me,” you might say.)  

I had been on automatic pilot, but now I had to be “in the moment”

So finally I was able to “become the moment,” and explain.  I said to her, real slow, “If I had given you a five dollar bill, you would have had to hand me six coins back.  Two dimes and four pennies.  But by handing you a 5-dollar bill and a penny, all you have to do is give me ONE coin back, a quarter.”  So she said, “Oh…”

I figure that somewhere in this combination of experience there’s yet another object lesson.

But one thing is, one day her generation is going to be running the country.  Like when we’re in our nursing homes.  I mean, who knows? These young people today might end up electing some doofus who’s totally unqualified and untrained to run the country!

Oh, wait…

Or they might do things like rocket along an interstate highway at 85 miles an hour – or more – two cars at a time, on some delusional “rabbit car” theory.

In the meantime, the encounter with the cashier reminded of the cartoon below.

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The upper image is courtesy of Police Car Lights Flashing …police led light bar …galleryhip.com.

The lower image is courtesy of http://lowres.cartoonstock.com/food-drink-koala-koala_bear.”

“Liberty Enlightening the World…”   (Before all the talk about “Building a Stinkin’ Wall!”)

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The title of this post is a take-off on the film, No Country for Old Men.

(Which was – by far – the worst movie I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting through.  I waited – in vain and what seemed like hours – for the movie to show some glimpse of “redeeming social value.”)

And incidentally, the title of that furshlugginer movie came from the opening line of William Butler Yeats‘ famous poem, “Sailing to Byzantium.”  In turn, one theme of the movie – according to Wikipedia – was that more and more, “things are out of alignment, that balance and harmony are gone from the land and from the people.”

Which certainly could describe the dynamics of today’s political scene.

But – Wikipedia added – the movie is also “a lament for the way the young neglect the wisdom of the past and, presumably, of the old.”  The wisdom of old people that is.

Of course it might help if more of “the old” weren’t so ^%#$ grouchy all the time!

Then too, what passes for wisdom – from way too many people my age – is simply a rehash of the cliche that’s been around for millenia:  That the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

Which is ironic.  That’s because people my age are Baby boomers, and once upon a time we told ourselves we were going to “change the world.”  And yet, here we are – way too many of us – mouthing the same old “negative vibes, man!”

(Which is itself a negative vibe, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.)

But we digress…  My point is this:  “New York City is a refreshing reminder that there’s more to this country than just the right-wing wackos so prevalent back home in ‘The Bubble.’”

That’s what I wrote on my Facebook page on September 22.  That entry also included this:

Ever since last Saturday, September 17, we’ve been taking the Staten Island ferry into and back from Manhattan Island. So that’s eight times – twice a day for four days now – that we’ve seen the Statute of Liberty, off in the distance…  And I don’t remember ONCE seeing a sign that said, “the heck with your tired, your poor,” those “wretched refuse … yearning to breathe free.”  WE’RE GONNA BUILD A FRIKKIN WALL!“

Of course much of the time I did feel like I was surrounded by a bunch of “furriners” in the Big Apple.  (Not unlike the Willie-and-Joe cartoon at left.)  And they all seemed to be speaking every language but English.  But that brings up another – ongoing – theme of this blog:  That unless you step out of your comfort zone on a fairly regular basis, the chances are you’ll wind up as just another GROUCHY OLD PERSON!

And who wants to be just another cliché?

And by the way:  That September 22 Facebook post was also when I wrote that my next offering in this “Wasp” blog was going to be titled, “No City for Grumpy Old White People!”  (I changed it to “grouchy,” as more fitting.)

And finally – I noted back on Facebook on September 22 – it had been “a long day, but fun.  And I’ve had my usual one beer at the South Manhattan Terminal,* then another one on the Ferry itself, and I’m now finishing my third of the night, a ‘Corona Extra.’”

The point being that – while it’s healthy to step out of your comfort zone every once in a while – it’s also nice to have a routine to fall back on…

*   *   *   *

Which brings up the fact that we spent a lot of time on the subway, as well as the Ferry.  And traveling on either one can be an especially bad idea during rush hour.  That’s when it seems like everybody in New York City is on the subway (or the Ferry), and in a big rush.

And that’s not to mention being all crowded in – in to the subway especially – and hot, sweaty and disgusting.

But every once in a while you might catch a break and find one of those liminal moments.  For example, what caught my eye in the photo above right – aside from the obvious – was the separate train running parallel to ours, leading to “multiple images.”

I figured there was some kind of symbolic message there.

Then there was the Saturday night – September 17, our first night in the city – when we took a double-decker tour bus.  It was scheduled to head down Sixth Avenue toward downtown Manhattan, then over to Brooklyn.  But the bus was late, and so first one line of passengers and then a second – our line of passengers – had to wait patiently for our bus tour to start.

Then we finally got on the bus, and as we rode down the Avenue of the Americas toward the Chelsea district, we heard a whole lot of sirens.  (I mean, even more sirens and louder than usual in the City.)  Then we passed a street or two that had been blocked off – as seen at left – and all kinds of murmuring crowds.

At the time I was texting my on-and-off-again Dulce, back home.  I was describing to her our progress through town,  when she texted back, “Explosion reported in New York..  be safe.”  Which made me one of the first on the bus to find out about the story, “New York City explosion rocks Chelsea neighborhood.”

The thing is, when the bombing happened – apparently – we were still back in that long line to get on the tour bus.  And at the time we were kind of disgruntled about the long delay.  But as it turned out, the delay meant that we DIDN’T drive by right as the explosion happened.

From which an object lesson or two might be gleaned…

I’ll continue this travelogue in Part II.  But I’ll close out this Part I with an example of why – it seems to me – the Big Apple is “No city for Grouchy Old White People:”

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Back home this would come under the heading TMI!

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I took the photo at the top of the page on our first trip into NYC, via the Staten Island Ferry.  You can tell it’s Saturday (9/17) because of all the pleasure boats clogging the harbor.  For more on the Statue see Statue of Liberty – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 

Re:  “Change the world.”  The song – written by Graham Nash – was originally titled “Chicago.”  It referred in part to the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  The “chorus contains the lines: ‘We can change the world./ Rearrange the World.’” (See Wikipedia.)  Which begs the question:  “If we were going to ‘change the world,’ what the hell have we been doing all these years?”

The “Willie and Joe” image is courtesy of Willie & Joe: Summary-1 – amyatishkin.  (And of course, Bill Mauldin.)  For a larger image, see Re: “So many dang furriners,” from August 1, 2016.

Re:  The “South Manhattan Terminal.”  As Wikipedia noted, the formal name is “Whitehall:”

The ferry departs Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry Whitehall Terminal at South Ferry, at the southernmost tip of Manhattan near Battery Park.  On Staten Island, the ferry arrives and departs from the St. George Ferry Terminal on Richmond Terrace, near Richmond County’s Borough Hall and Supreme Court.

Re:  “Liminal moments.”  My first thought was to describe the timing of the subway photo as a “subliminal moment,” but further research led me to Liminality – Wikipedia.  One definition therein described such a moment as a “fluid, malleable situation that enables new institutions and customs to become established.”  Wikipedia added that the term has “passed into popular usage, where it is applied much more broadly, undermining its significance to some extent.”   I would define the term – used here – as when you see a photo worth taking, with lots of hidden meanings…

I took the lower-image photo at the “Staten Island Ferry Whitehall Terminal at South Ferry,” the afternoon of Wednesday, September 21, our last day in the City.  We left earlier than usual, both to avoid the usual rush-hour hubbub, and because the hubbub that day was going to be worse than usual.  See Obama, traffic woes arrive in New York for United Nations General Assembly:

[H]ello actual gridlock.  President Barack Obama left Washington, the city where nobody gets along, and arrived Monday in New York, the city where – for the next two weeks – nobody will be able to get around midtown.  Obama is the headliner at the 68th United Nations General Assembly, an annual gathering that means world-class traffic woes in Manhattan.

An 1886 view of “Liberty Enlightening the World” – before the talk about building a wall…

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We left Part I with an example of why – it seems – the Big Apple is “No City for Grouchy Old White People.”  But that’s just another way of saying a visit to New York City is a refreshing change of pace.  And a lot of that refreshment comes from seeing the Statue of Liberty.

(Every morning and evening for four of five days on a mini-vacation…)

But not everyone agrees that “Liberty Enlightening the World” has a special meaning for real Americans.  For example, one knucklehead wrote, in 2014:

[The inscription on the Statue of Liberty] is just a poem.  It’s not one of our founding documents, nor is it a law, nor is it anything more than what it is:  a poem.  A nice poem, with stirring, emotion-driven rhetoric, yes, but a poem nonetheless.

See Words on Statue of Liberty merely a poem – azcentral.com.  But that – it seems to me – is like saying the Bible is “just a nice set of old-time stories.”

Be that as it may, that just a poem guy was responding to a suggestion that “Congress read the inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty in order to make a more informed decision regarding immigration.”  (Which sounded like a pretty good idea to me.)

And by the way, about 75% of the Old Testament is also “just a bunch of poems.*”

Which brings up the fact that way too many people interpret both the Bible and the Constitution in the same narrow-minded way.

“Strictly,” narrowly and fundamentally.  It also seems they’re usually the ones who already have it made – and are deathly afraid other people might take what they have.  (Like the “just a poem” guy.  But see my response to that narrow approach – On “originalism” – in a companion blog.) 

But we digress!

We were discussing the “mere poem” inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.  (The statue I passed by “eight times – twice a day for four days now,” on my recent visit.)  It spoke of a “mighty woman with a torch,” whose name is “Mother of Exiles.”  (Get that?  Mother of Exiles.)   The poet then told the “ancient lands” to keep “your storied pomp!”  Then came the famous words:

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”*

Which seems to speak volumes about the American Dream.  The Wikipedia article on that “national ethos of the United States” featured a picture of the Statue of Liberty, with these words:  “For many immigrants, the Statue of Liberty was their first view of the United States, signifying new opportunities in life.  The statue is an iconic symbol of the American Dream.”

And that – I assume – includes the inscription written on the Statue of Liberty.

Finally – on this topic – It also seems to me that the “just a poem” guy probably bears a passing resemblance to the man shown at the bottom of the page.  (At least metaphorically…)

So now, like Mr. Gump, “That’s all i have to say about that.”

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Meaning I’m done with the soapbox part of this post.

Turning to the true travelogue part:

Five of our six various group-members met up on Friday afternoon and evening, September 16, at the home base near the north end of Staten Island.  (From which we were to commute by ferry to Manhattan, and which itself was home to a number of strange-speaking “furriners…”)

At its fullest, the ever-shifting “Gang of Six” consisted of the brother and the nephew with whom I recently hiked the Chilkoot &^%$# Trail!  Along with my sister-in-law and her daughter – my niece – and her relatively-new beau.  (Of over a year now, and he arrived late Saturday night.)

On Saturday morning, September 17, the five of us took our first ride on the Staten Island Ferry, and visited the One World Trade Center.  (Where some nice guy took the photo of me at left, with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background.  As also noted, the “beau” arrived late that night.)

In the evening we all – still just five of us – took an tour by double-decker bus, of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.  (Punctuated by the bomb going off in the Chelsea district shortly before we passed by, as noted in Part i.)  But other than that the tour was nice.

At the end of this long day, I got three “Stellas” at the Whitehall (Manhattan) Terminal.  One for me, one for my brother and one for my nephew.  (We had beer in the car near the Staten Island terminal, but that would have taken a while to chill.  Which is why I got another beer on the ferry ride back to Staten Island.  $6.00, cash only.)  We got home about 12:39, much past my bedtime.

On Sunday, September 18 we got up late, and we elder-folk  finally met “the beau.”  (Who had arrived late the night before.)  After that we mostly relaxed and stayed on Staten Island.  I did some laundry.  The six of us took a walk on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Boardwalk and Beach.

On Monday, September 19, a new set of five took the ferry to Manhattan.  (After my nephew headed back to classes at Penn State.)  We visited the Museum of Natural History – uptown – after a long, crowded ride on the subway.  And the line to get in – shown at right – was also very long and very crowded.

That night we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe New York (Theater District), after which we wandered around Times Square awhile.

Somehow we lucked into some $30 tickets to see “The Fantasticks” at the Jerry Orbach Theater, at 210 West 50th Street.  (“The show’s original off-Broadway production ran a total of 42 years and 17,162 performances, making it the world’s longest-running musical.”)  

Which made for another late night trip on the ferry.  (Fortified by one beer from the Whitehall Terminal, one beer on the ferry itself – I remembered to bring cash – and one back home.)

Tuesday we five headed over to the City on the noon ferry.  While we were waiting in the terminal, there was an old guy wandering around talking to himself, saying something about wanting to get married.  It looked like he was wearing something like adult diapers…

Once we got over to the city, we took another subway ride up to the start of the “High Line.”  That’s the mile-and-a-half “New York City linear park built in Manhattan on an elevated section of a disused New York Central Railroad spur.”  Then we had lunch at the Artichoke Basille’s Pizza, in Chelsea.  (The same neighborhood where the bomb(s) went off Saturday night.)

Then my niece and her beau left to head back to home-and-work places in the Washington D.C. area.  That left three of us – the three “elders,” two of whom are retired – to head uptown.  We headed uptown – by another crowded subway – to a museum I had chosen, the Frick Collection (and/or Museum).  (“I picked the Frick!”)  

And through the magic of internet, you may see the galleries “through our Virtual Tour.”

We had a light supper at some swanky place uptown.  (I had a brioche au fromage sandwich – with tomato – and we sat outside and watched rushing New Yorkers passing by.)  Then we took a walk along the Hudson river-front, and still got home fairly early.  I bought a draft Bud Light at the terminal – again – and a Corona for my brother.  (He has expensive tastes in beer, at least outside Utah.  Where he lives they can only buy 3.2 beer.)  

Wednesday, September 21, was pretty much an “anti-climax day.”  We visited the South Street Seaport Museum | Where New York Begins.  But then we ended up taking the 3:30 afternoon ferry back home.  That’s because we found out – after the museum visit and lunch – that Ellis and Liberty islands were at least partially closed, because of a visit by “the Prez.”  But back on Staten Island my brother and I visited the National Lighthouse Museum.

Then we started packing, to head back home the next day.

On Thursday, September 22, I kayaked across the Verrazano Narrows.  (Mostly following the Bridge of the same name.)  

Here’s a photo from about half-way back to Staten Island.  You may notice that the waters are fairly choppy.  And I can tell you that those waters got WAY choppier than when I started.  In other words, I seem to have started out – that fine Thursday morning – on pretty much of a neap tide.  It only took me 20 minutes to get from Staten Island to Brooklyn, and I like to do a full two hours of kayaking a week.  So on the way over I toyed with the idea of cruising along the Atlantic side of Brooklyn for awhile.

But I decided not to, mostly because I figured it would be better to get back on the put-in side while I was still fresh.  And it’s a good thing I did.  As I was paddling back the tide started coming in.  Which wasn’t so bad, since at worst it would have swept me in toward Hoboken.

I ended up having 13 minutes left of my two-hours-of-kayaking-a-week quota, when I finally got back to where I put in, at Roosevelt Beach.  (And got dunked “coming in for a landing.”)  But it could have been worse. The tide could have been going out.  (As in, “out to sea…”)

And that was pretty much it for my visit to New York City.  I drove home via the Cape May Ferry and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel, and got home Saturday, September 24.

Except to note that the visit sounds a lot shorter than it was in real-time.  That’s because in real time we did a lot of walking, through the streets of Manhattan.  And we did a lot of people-watching, of the “passing panoply.”  And we spent a lot of time on crowded subways, listening to all kinds of languages spoken by all kinds of different people.

But that’s what made the visit so refreshing…

And except to note one more thing.  The photo below is one I took at the Museum of Natural History, on September 19.  With all the talk of politics lately, I figured this would be a good one size fits all insult, for whatever political opponent you may have in mind.

So here’s my gift to you, a souvenir from my recent visit to New York City:

Here’s a typical [- fill in the blank – ] voter!”

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The upper image is courtesy of Statue of Liberty – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The caption:  “‘Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World’ (1886) by Edward Moran. Oil on canvas. The J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York.”

Re:  Much of the Old Testament as “a bunch of poems:”  See Poetry in the Hebrew Bible:

Approximately 75% of the Hebrew Bible is poetry.  All of Psalms and Proverbs are Hebrew poetry and many other books, such as the book of Genesis, are filled with poetry.  The reason much of the Bible was written in poetry is that it was originally sung and stories that are sung are much easier to memorize that when simply spoken.  There is much more poetry in the Bible than most realize because most people do not understand it.*

See also Biblical poetry – Wikipedia.  Which brings up the fact that the just a poem statement also implies that liberty is a finite commodity; that there’s only so much to go around.    

Meaning in turn that – to way too many people these days – “liberty” must be preserved for only those who “already have it.”  (See Nativism – Wikipedia.)  But apparently the swarms of “furriners” – surrounding me in NYC – hadn’t seen the poster at right, from Colorado…  Which may be another way of saying that liberty is only a finite commodity to those who are afraid to share it.

On a related note, of the United States Constitution as “the nation’s scripture:”

During the Constitution’s 150th anniversary in 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt likened [the Constitution] to the Bible, saying it should be read over and over again.  It was an apt simile. The Constitution had always served as the nation’s scripture…*

Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America, by Ethan Bronner.  (Anchor Books, published by Doubleday, at page 21.)  On that note, scripture is alternately defined as “anything written” – from the “Classical Latin scriptura, a writing” – or any statement “regarded as authoritative.”  (In addition to the usual definition: “the sacred writings of the Jews, identical with the Old Testament of the Christians,” and/or “Christian Bible; Old and New Testaments.”)  See Scripture – definition of scripture by The Free Dictionary, and Scripture dictionary definition. 

Re:  Words on the Statue of Liberty. See The New Colossus- Wikipedia.  Here are all the words:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

 

 

As noted in my last post, I just got back – last August 29 – from a trip that began on July 26.

That’s when my brother and I started the drive from Utah to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.  Four days later – on Friday, July 29 – we met up with my nephew, fresh out of the Army.

In due course, my brother and I – alone and aged 70 and just-turned-65 – paddled our canoes “‘up’ the Yukon River.”  (440 miles in 12 days.)

But first, we two brothers – joined by our nephew-son – hiked the Chilkoot Trail.  (See Naked lady on the Yukon.)  And to hike the Trail you have to start in Skagway, Alaska.  (Above left, the day we arrived.)  I also noted that people call the Chilkoot Trail the “meanest 33 miles in history.”

Also in Naked lady on the Yukon, I posted this news flash:*

There’s a reason [why] they call it the “meanest 33 miles in history.”  I’ll be detailing that little jaunt in a later post.  (To be titled, “On the Chilkoot &$%# Trail!”)  

And so, here it is – drum roll please – my blog-post on the Chilkoot &$%# Trail!

First of all, note the picture at the top of the page.  It includes an easy-to-miss orange pole.  (You see them marking the “trail.”  The one in the photo above is to the hiker’s right – the viewer’s left – and “up the trail” a bit.)  Note also:  There doesn’t seem to be a “trail” anywhere around, either in the top photo or the ones below.  Just one big pile of &$%# rocks after another.

So now you’re getting a feel for “hiking the Chilkoot.”

More background:  Before doing the hike I learned that the trail actually started in Dyea, Alaska. (It ends in Bennett, British Columbia.)  I also learned that Dyea is actually pronounced “DIe-eeee,” perhaps prophetically.  (As in, “that’s what you feel like doing once you get on the &$%# Trail!”)

Further, the Chilkoot was a major access route – from “DIe-eeee” to the Yukon goldfields – in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896–99.  That gold rush “transformed the Chilkoot Trail into a mainstream transportation route to Canada’s interior.”

And I learned that the only other route to the gold fields was through White Pass.  (Up to 1899, when a railroad was built from Skagway to the Yukon.)   As to which route was better, a pioneer – Mont Hawthorne – said there really was no choice:  “One’s hell.  The other’s damnation.”

A side note:  White Pass was also called “Dead Horse Trail,” apparently renamed by Jack London:  “Nearly 3,000 pack animals died.  Drivers rushing over the pass had little concern for beasts.  Exhausted horses starved, were hurt on rough ground, became mired in mud and fell over cliffs.”

Which also gives you a feel for “hiking the Chilkoot.”

And finally – after the fact and back at the Westmark Hotel, Whitehorse – I saw a plaque about the Trail.  It noted that every Klondike “stampeder” had to haul a year’s supply of food – 2,000 pounds – up and over the Chilkoot Pass.  “This often took 35 to 40 trips up and back down.” Further, the last 1,000 feet of the climb “took an average of 6 hours with a loaded pack.”

Which made me feel better about my performance – detailed below – but only after the fact. (On Tuesday – August 2, the day we climbed over the pass itself – we averaged a little over half a mile an hour.  Which turned out to be not too bad, historically speaking.)

By then I’d already developed a host of blisters, one of which – a blister-on-a-blister on my right heel – got infected.  It was still throbbing – from time to time – and didn’t fully heal until well after two weeks of canoeing and then six days driving back home from Dawson City.  (I’m sure the 12 days of feet being wet and cold 11 or 12 hours a day canoeing on the Yukon didn’t help.)

But we digress… 

I packed a notebook for the hike – which lasted four days – and duly made an entry at 8:32 p.m., August 1.  (Day 1 of the hike.)  But then I didn’t make any more entries until August 4, when we finally got to the railroad station at Bennett.  There I noted:  “I wrote no more until we reached Bennett, on the 4th day. Too [&$%#] tired and late arriving on the 2d day.  And the 3d.”

There’s more on those second and third days below.

But on the first day we made Sheep Camp: “13 miles or so – nobody seems sure of the miles – by 7:30 p.m.”  That included crossing the swaying footbridge, à la Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  (There’s a picture from the movie in the notes below.)  There’s more on that in Part 2, but unfortunately, I’m now approaching the limit of the ideal length for a blog-post.  (No more than 1,200 words.*)  So, I’ll wrap up “Part 1” with a story relating to the photo below.

I took the photo on Day 4, when we finally reached the railroad station at Bennett.  But it relates back to an incident that occurred on the second – the worst – day of the “Trail.”

We were approaching the summit of the Chilkoot Pass.  (Slowly in general and especially slowly for me.)  What with my lack of depth perception, going over “one big pile of *&$% rocks after another” was like negotiating a minefield.  I wore heavy hiking boots, but they felt like ballet slippers.  Every step was sheer torture, and brought new pain to each aching foot.

I had just taken one of many missteps – especially bad that day – and let loose a string of pungent epithets. Then I looked behind me and there – climbing “personfully” behind me – was this sweet young thing.  Sheepishly I apologized, noting that I had “no depth perception.”

She went ahead and passed me.  (And probably rolled her eyes in the process…)

One of many happy hikers who finished the Chilkoot Trail at Bennett, B.C.

*   *   *   *

Unless otherwise noted, the images in this post – including the photos at the bottom and top of the page – are ones I took during the aforementioned “hike.”  (More like sheer torture…)  Also, an asterisk (“*”) in the main text indicates that a word or two of explanation will be made in these notes.

For example, the “news flash” image is courtesy of www.dralionkennels.com/newsflash.

Re:  “One’s hell.  The other’s damnation.”  The quote is from The horror of the White Pass Trail | Yukon News.  Also, “Dead Horse Trail” was also known as Dead Horse Gulch.  The photo accompanying the paragraph is courtesy of the Yukon News.

Re:  Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  See also happyotter666.blogspot.com, which included the image at left, of a bridge like the one we crossed on the Chilkoot’s second day of hiking.

Re:  Ideal length of a blog-post.  See How Long Should My Blog Posts Be?  (Suggested length, 800-1,200 words.)  But see also The Ideal Length for All Online Content – Buffer Blog, indicating a preferred post-length of 1,600 words.

Re:  “The end of the trail.”  The link-quotation notes that the “trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for.”  I could have used that quote both on the Chilkoot Trail and again on the Yukon River, when I was always “slow ship in the convoy.”  See e.g. The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia: Convoys:  “The convoy can only advance at the speed of the slowest merchant ship in the convoy, which negates the speed advantage of the faster ships.”

I could have used that little quote too, if only to ease my own own mind…

*   *   *   *

Okay, it wasn’t quite as bad – crossing that “swinging bridge” the first day on the Chilkoot Trail – as it was for Indiana Jones in the photo above.  (For example, we hadn’t been “cornered by Mola Ram and his henchmen on a rope bridge high above a crocodile-infested river.”)

But that second day on the Trail was pretty &^%$ bad…  In case you hadn’t noticed, this continues Part 1 of “On the Chilkoot &^%$# Trail!”  We left Part 1 with we three – brother, nephew and I – all having made Sheep Camp by 7:30 p.m. on the first day of the hike.

13 miles or so – nobody seems sure how many – by 7:30 p.m…  That included crossing the swaying footbridge … à la Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

(Reprised in the photo above right.)  Part 1 also included the tale of a “young thing” I managed to insult on the second day of the hike – approaching the summit of Chilkoot Pass – and how most or all us hikers met up again – on the fourth day – waiting for the 3:15 train back to Skagway.

But I had to cut it short – and make this a two-parter – because I was “approaching the limit of the ideal length for a blog-post.”  (About 1,200 words.)  So now, back to Day 1 of the hike.

On Monday August 1, we left the trailhead – near “Die-eee” – at 9:00 a.m.  We made Sheep Camp by 7:30 that night, and after getting situated I managed to write a little something in the notebook I’d packed.  I wrote:  “I’m shivering as I’m writing.  I’ve been sweating all day despite the cool 68-degree temps.  And now it’s turning cool, so I’m shivering.”  I then added:

There were many times – many times – today when I wondered what the hell I was doing here.  And that this was just too far to go in one day.  And I like hiking at my own pace.  Rather than always bringing up the rear…  So today was the tough one, as far as miles traveled.  “Only” eight miles, but we’ll be climbing the Pass [tomorrow].  BTW:  I just had my fifth swallow of “O be joyful.”

So here’s another side note:  “O Be Joyful” was our code-word for ardent spirits.  We started packing them – in past canoe trips, like down the Missouri River from Fort Benton, MT – as a way of following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark, and other American pioneers.

You see, back in the old days of our country, whiskey – for example – was used instead of hard currency:

One of the first media of exchange in the United States was classic whiskey.  For men and women of the day, the alcohol did more than put “song in their hearts and laughter on their lips.”  Whiskey was currency.  Most forms of money were extremely scarce in our country after the Revolutionary War, making monetary innovation the key to success.

See Why Whiskey Was Money, and Bitcoins Might Be.  So it was in that spirit – primarily – that I took a flask of “O be joyful” along on the Chilkoot.  Be that as it may, after I wrote, “I just had my fifth swallow of ‘Oh be joyful,’” I then added, “Which helps a lot.”

(I wasn’t so sure about the “song in my heart and laughter on my lips…”)

Also on the evening of August 1st, I wrote that the campground was more crowded than I expected.  And that in the audience – listening to a lecture by a ranger when we arrived – there were some cute women, but “romance is the last thing on my mind tonight.”

(Which itself was telling…)  I concluded, “Altogether a good day.  I had my doubts, which were justified in a way, but ‘we’ came through.  Albeit with me bringing up the rear the whole day.”

On that note, I “brought up the rear” the next day as well, and for pretty much the rest of the hike.

Which brings up the fact that hiking the Chilkoot Trail is sheer torture for someone – like me – with only one good eye and and thus no depth perception.*  And that applied even on the relatively smooth parts of the trail, like the section shown at right.

Also – as mentioned in the notes – anyone hiking the trail is advised that if they have to get airlifted out, the cost will be a cool $28,000.00.  Which brings up another point rangers make in the process of getting your permit to hike the trail:  Watch out for the bears!

For one thing, the general rule is “no chow in your tent.”  Each camp has a tented-in dining facility,* and there – and only there – are you supposed to eat.  Eating on the trail can be messy, and the usual solution for crumbs or spills is to wipe the stuff off on your pants.  But bears have an extremely keen sense of smell, and so some crumbs in your pocket or syrup from a snack-cup on your pants could lead to an extremely unpleasant midnight visit.

But for me the message distilled down to this:  You don’t have to be faster than the bear.  You only have to be faster than the others in your party.  (Which of course spelled trouble for me…) 

But once again we digress…  The point is that eventually – in our case, the second day – we got  past the smooth parts of the trail and began approaching the summit.  It got so bad for me – after we got up and over the summit – that first my brother and then my nephew left their packs ahead and came back and carried my pack for a while.  Which led to its own problems.  Much like the phantom limb phenomenon, the “phantom pack” syndrome leaves you disoriented.  Especially when negotiating “one big pile of *&^% rocks after another,” you end up walking like the proverbial drunken sailor, weaving to and fro.

Finally – after much anguish – you get to and over the summit.  But as noted, things don’t get any easier.  There – on the other side of the summit of Chilkoot Pass – were at least three “glaciers,” or ice-fields.  (Like the one at right.)  My first reaction was:  “Great!  Nice smooth snow to walk on!”

But these glacier-slash-ice-fields were just as treacherous, though in a different way.  My fellow hikers hadn’t relieved me of my pack yet, so walking on the slippery snow led to several falls.

It got so bad that finally I stayed down – on the snow-slash-glacier – and slip-slid to the end.  That got my pants and boots thoroughly wet in the process, but at least – for a moment or two – I wasn’t struggling over “one big pile of &^%$ rocks after another.”

Somewhere in there I slipped and fell on some rocks, banging my right knee enough that by Thursday, at Bennett, that area of my jeans was covered with crusted blood.

Which leads to my confession – I “do not deny, but confess” – that there were times on the Trail when if I could have cried I would.  (But that wouldn’t have helped the pain in my feet, or made the journey any shorter.)  Which brings us to the late afternoon and evening of the second day.

Along with the usual “one big pile of &^%$ rocks after another” – and the three “glaciers” noted above – the other side of the pass featured a seemingly-endless series of streams and/or rivulets like the one at left.  They too were beautiful, but treacherous.  (I was going to say “like some women I know,” but decided against that.)

I know my brother took a spill or two – and got an infected elbow as a result – but mostly because he told me so later.

And as far as I know my nephew did okay crossing the many “beautiful but treacherous” streams, but not from any personal observation.  He – and my brother as well – were usually so far out in front of me that I often lost sight of them.

Then it started getting dark.

Back at the hotel in Skagway – before we left – it was still light as late as 10:00 p.m.  Therefore – I deduced – we should have plenty of hours to hike on the Trail.  But for some reason it got darker earlier on the Trail, which meant that by 7:00 p.m. or so my brother started getting worried.  The result was that in the fullness of time – just in time – we had a little parade.

To make a long story short, my brother went ahead the couple of miles to Happy Camp, dropped his pack and hiked back to where I was.  He carried my pack for a bit, then some strapping  young lad showed up.  He – the strapping young lad – had heard someone at Happy Camp talk about my struggles, and decided to come back and help.  (Apparently we – or at least I – became quite a conversation piece around Happy Camp that night…)

So the strapping young lad carried my pack a while – “jabbering all the way,” my brother said – and finally my nephew came back.  He had also dropped his pack at Happy Camp and then he carried my pack the final mile and a half.  That was my brother’s recollection.

All I remember is that along about 7:30, I could see some people on the Trail ahead of me.  Eventually I limped up to where my brother and nephew were.  Also there were the aforementioned “strapping young lad,” along with a nice white-haired Canadian ranger lady who called me by my name.  (They keep tabs on all hikers on the Trail.)

From that point, we all set off toward Happy Camp.  The nice ranger-lady followed behind me, engaging me in conversation.  (Probably trying to keep my mind off my aching feet.)  So, eventually we all made it to Happy Camp, and that’s how we “had a little parade.”  But this time I wasn’t bringing up the rear.  (For once.)

On that note – and as described in Campgrounds of the Chilkoot Trail:

Happy Camp is the only campground on the Chilkoot Trail in the alpine…  Happy Camp owes its name to the relief prospectors (and hikers) experienced from arriving at the first outpost after the pass. The camp is situated in a true alpine ecosystem and receives heavy use because of its location.

Personally, I can vouch for the “relief” part.  And it got better.  (At least for that night.)  

Apparently the nice white-haired Canadian ranger lady felt sorry for us.  (Or at least for me.)  So she let the three of us use her personal shelter tent.  That is, she said she had to get up early the next morning for some meeting elsewhere on the Trail, so she’d stay in main – wooden – shelter at Happy Camp, shown at left.

That meant the three of us didn’t have to set up our tents in the waning light of that second day on the Trail.

It also meant that two of us got to sleep on cots.  (My nephew slept on his air mattress on the floor, despite my saying I’d sleep on the floor.  But I made it up to him – for carrying my pack – by splitting two six-packs of beer once we got back to Skagway, as described elsewhere.)   And finally, the nice white-haired Canadian ranger lady brought us each a juice-box.

And a sweeter nectar I’ve never tasted.  

From that point the rest of the hike is a blur.  I know we made it next day to the campground at Bare Loon Lake. (Which included numerous tent platforms like the ones at right.)  

And I know that that left only four miles to do the next day, Thursday, to get to the railroad station at Bennett.  And that rangers and other hikers kept saying the Trail would get easier and smoother “a mile or so further along.”

But it never happened.  At least not until a mile or so from the station, when the Trail got wide and sandy.  In fact the Trail at that point was pretty much like walking on the beach.  Which of course presented its own different challenges, but at that point I wasn’t complaining.  (Much.) 

Thursday, August 4, 1:20 Alaska Time.  We’re at the Bennett railroad station.  Got here at 12:05 AT.  I’ve set up my tent to dry it off – it rained last night – and heated up some water…   Spilled some walking back across the tracks.  (“No open fires.”)  But there was enough left over to make hot coffee.  For the first time since Monday morning.  The right knee of my jeans is covered with blood.  The ankle areas are dried mud.  I have two or three large blisters, one each inner heel, that have already popped.  And one large blister on the right big toe that looks about to pop.  Huge!  But right now the world looks great!

That’s what I wrote in the notebook I’d packed, writing in it for the first time since Monday.  So there – at the railroad station that would remain unmanned until the 3:15 arrived – the right knee of my jeans was crusted with dry blood.  And my feet were blistered and beyond sore.

Which is another way of saying they don’t call the Chilkoot Trail “the meanest 33 miles in history” for nothing.  Meanwhile, I had one final point to be made.  I made it via email – to the folks back home – once the three of us got back to Skagway:  “I used up my quota of expletives for the next couple of years, so any prayers in my direction would help immensely.”

So now, to paraphrase that great philosopher, Forrest Gump:

“That’s all I have to say about the Chilkoot &$%# Trail!”

*   *   *   *

Unless otherwise noted, the images in this post – including the photos at the bottom and top of the page – are ones I took during the aforementioned “hike.”  (More like sheer torture…)

For example, the image at the top of the page is courtesy of happyotter666.blogspot.com.  See also Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – Wikipedia, which provided the “cornered” quote.

Re:  “O be joyful.”  See also Definition of oh be joyful – Online Slang Dictionary, and/or O-be-joyful – 17 of the Finest Words for Drinking.

Re:  Whiskey and other “ardent spirits” used as currency.  See also TTB.gov Alexander Hamilton And The Whiskey Tax:  “small farmers on the young Nation’s western frontier in the Appalachian Mountains, often distilled whisky from their surplus corn crop.  This whisky was then often used as a form of currency on the cash-strapped frontier.”

Re:  “No depth perception.”  As illustrated by the image at right – courtesy of lookfordiagnosis.com – imagine trying to negotiate “one big pile of &^%$ rocks after another,” with no depth perception.  And while trying maintain enough speed to keep up with your brother and nephew, while seeing the “piles of &^%$ rocks” as a blur.  (As in the background at right.)  And with the full knowledge that one bad move – one twisted knee or ankle – will cost you a cool $28,000 to get airlifted out.  (That’s what they told us in Skagway when we got our permits.  Meaning it’s happened often enough that they have the figures down pat.)    

Re: “No chow in your tent.”  The photo at left – courtesy of Campgrounds of the Chilkoot Trail – Wikipedia – shows both a “dining shelter” in the background, and in the foreground a ranger at Sheep Camp giving a lecture like the one in the main text.  Also, “Rangers recommend 7.5 to 10 hours for a group to travel from Sheep Camp to Happy Camp.”  We took longer than that… 

Re:  “Called Me by My Name.”  The allusion is to a song by David Allan Coe.  (Which – incidentally – is one of my signature karaoke songs.)  The photo shows Coe on stage in 2009.  It is not intended to refer in any way to the “nice white-haired Canadian ranger lady.”  That nice white-haired Canadian ranger lady should – in my estimation – be elevated to sainthood, along with Mother Teresa.

Re:  The juice boxes and “sweeter nectar.”  My brother said his was grape juice, but I could have sworn that mine was “raisin.”  I remember thinking that it was such an odd flavor for a juice box, but I couldn’t find any such flavor on the internet.  (Or maybe I was in a state of delirium.)  One thing I do know:  No matter what the flavor, that juice box – at that point in time – was delicious!

The lower image is courtesy of that’s all i have to say about that – Forrest Gump – quickmeme.