Travel Alaska and more

I am in Portland now, a city I truely enjoy visiting. This is my third Quilt Market in Portland and I stay in a different part of the city every time, using public transportation to get around. Yesterday I went to Powells Bookstore, the largest used bookstore in the nation. I walked for hours through old downtown Portland and it was just fun. The flowers are blooming here and I even got a bit of sun sitting outside the convention center waiting for the admin booths to open.

Sarah and I were invited to join the greatest group of gals for the opening night of the Alaska Fiber Festival in downtown Anchorage, Alaska. Here’s Sarah Raffuse signing a book for Lee.

It was just so wonderful to see the artistic ladies who organize this awesome event and it was so nice that they remembered me, from the days when I attended meetings with the Anchorage Log Cabin Quilters Guild (and they remembered Sarah because I used to drag her along when she was just a kid). Gail Ramsey, Deb Hardman, Jane Odgers, Roxane Stoner, Mary Hertert are some of the artists and organizers of an event that is so well worth attending.

The Festival is presenting lectures and classes by Kenneth King and Jennie Rayment and the First Friday Gallery walk was just a HUGE success! The artwork will be up until the 16th of March and there will be a Merchant Mall at the Phillips Atrium downtown on the weekend of the 15 & 16th.

I only had time to visit one gallery, Virtu, on 4th Ave across from the Post Office Mall/Sunshine Plaza and what an outstanding display of art they had!! I was told that all of the galleries on the walk were just as exciting and I wish that I had been able to stay longer to visit them all.

(I put up the second photo because the colors are better, but the photo is a bit blurry. The first photo is sharp, but the colors are off.)

Here are some eagles looking for food. The little bird in the middle is a dwarfed by the eagles.

The dark eagles are immature eagles; they have not developed the white feathers around their head and feet. They have sort of speckled brown feathers. The larger black birds in the photo below are ravens.

Here are a few more pics taken later in the day and with a much better camera.

At the end of our short downtown street is Resurrection Bay. It’s quite lovely all year around and it’s larger than it looks here. We have small pleasure boats, yachts, fishing vessels, cruise ships, tugs and barges all the time.

As I turn toward the south, here’s the view. You can’t see the bay opening from here, the islands make it look like one continuous land mass.

We are back from 5 luscious days on Oahu! Seward was at about zero degrees and we were thrilled to be able to take a break from the cold and enjoy the beaches of Oahu. We stayed in Honolulu, a block from Waikiki Beach, but our wonderful friend Denise, who lives in Kailua, showed us the island and some of her favorite beaches. We enjoyed some Hawaiian music and a hula show on the beach of Waikiki, and some great food at Buzz’s in Kailua. It was my second time to Oahu but Tom’s first, and he’s never played in the salt water surf – we had a blast! He even went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. The little cupcake on the beach is Denise and the overlook of the big bay is Hanauma, with the reefs showing up as the darker patches in the water. We thawed and had a super time, and because we tossed our lei’s in the waters of Hawaii, I am sure we will be back!

I also love to travel the rest of the states. I grew up in new england and have taken train trips from Florida to Connecticut, and from New York City to San Francisco to San Diego & L.A. and back to N.Y.C. via Kansas and Missouri.

I’ve flown into Detroit and driven to Oshkosh and flown into St. Paul and driven to Oshkosh. I flown into and explored Kansas City (twice)(both of them), Portland, Oregon (twice so far), Houston, Texas (three times so far), Las Vegas, Nevada (can’t remember how many times!), Los Angeles, California and Honolulu, Hawai’i. Wherever I go I usually rent a car or ride the bus and explore, explore, explore! And then there’s the two trips up/down the AlCan Highway between Seward, Alaska and Arizona. Hehehehe. More travel than I had thought…

In 2000 I moved to Seward, after living in Anchorage since 1978. What a change! When I came to Anchorage at the end of the pipeline construction phase the population was just at 100,000 and dropping. After living in an east coast city of millions, it was a refreshing change.

By 2000 the population was close to 225,000 and getting too crowded for me. I had spent from 1990 to 2000 traveling around Alaska, looking for where I’d like to live and enjoying the rest of the state. I’ll write about the places I’ve visited, from Fairbanks in the north to Ketchikan in the south, from Crooked Creek in the west to McCarthy in the east, the roads I’ve driven, ferries I’ve taken, ports of call and bush flights, and also the places we’ve fished on the F/V Dolly B. This gal’s been around.