WEDNESDAY,
JULY 10:
As we
were crossing over from Juneau to Gustavaus on the ferry, the sky started
clearing and the sun broke through – made me so happy! It’s so nice when we can see from the
ferry! Several people came aboard with
just kayaks & camping gear – they’re off for an adventure! A very nice 4-hour ride.
Sunny and beautiful when we docked at
Gustavus.
No terminal at all – don’t
know how they do ticketing here. You
probably have to do it all on-line.
Drove ¼ mile down the main road to the golf course, which is where our
cabin is. Yes, Gustavus has a golf
course.
And the owner built a couple of
cabins on the property, which he rents out to folks like us who don’t want to
spent upwards of $200 a nite to stay here, but don’t want to camp either. He told us on the phone that they’re “rustic
– more for the camping crowd,” but have a fridge, microwave, & mattresses,
but you need to supply your own bedding.
And a separate bathroom and shower house. So he aptly prepared us – they were just a
step above camping. But met our needs
just fine for 3 nights.
We even had
fresh spring water, when we wanted to use the pump outside!
We met the
guy who owns this outfit, Morgan, in the evening. (He has no keys to the cabins – “we never
have any problem,” he explained. So we
just let ourselves in and got settled after we arrived.) He’s another very nice down-home guy who’s
full of interesting stories. His
grandparents homesteaded this land in 1957– 160 acres, under the same Homestead
Act that Abe Lincoln established for the settling of the prairie. His parents were both school teachers in
Juneau, but he always spent his summers here as a kid. Don’t know when, or for that matter, why, he
built this golf course, for this isolated community of 400 year-round
residents. But we got a real kick out of
walking around on it – probably the only golf course in existence which has
wild strawberries growing in the rough (“grab yourself some,” Morgan invited),
a bathroom and shower house furnished from rough cut lumber, a fairway that
cuts across the town’s main street, and fresh moose tracks parallel to another
fairway! And people do really use it – we saw the
guest book filled out in the “clubhouse.” And I read that it was designed to exact
specs, patterned after some of the most well-known courses And,
hey, since he had this land and apparently wanted to preserve it, a much better
and more creative use of it than to turn it into a zipline or something! Myrtle Beach and Torrey Pines, look out! The competition for the PGA tour is creeping
up on ya!
After we got lunch at a little health food store
up the road (really delicious sandwiches!), we spent the afternoon driving into
Glacier Bay National Park and exploring the Visitors Center, etc. The
water in the bay was a gorgeous blue on this clear, beautiful afternoon. And, as always, the sublimely beautiful snow-dappled
mountains as a backdrop, this time the Fairweather Range.
We saw a couple of movies in the Visitors Center, as
always, of highest quality. Learned more
about the natural and human history of this National Park and how it’s a
supreme example of how landscapes are constantly changing. By 1750, during the last little ice age, the
glacier had reached its maximum area.
Glacial ice completely covered what’s now the bay, and beyond, jutting
into Icy Strait. But when George
Vancouver explored this area just 45 years later, the glacier had melted back 5
miles into Glacier Bay – which it had gouged out. And when John
Muir explored the area 84 years later in 1879, it had retreated another
40 miles up into the bay. Today, you
have to travel 65 miles up the bay to view tidewater glaciers. Which we’ll do tomorrow.
Since we
were up here at the Visitors Center and lodge, we decided to eat in the
restaurant here. A beautiful setting,
overlooking the bay, and nice ambience.
My seafood pasta was very tasty, but Bill’s salmon dish was poor. Disappointing, when we eat out so
infrequently, and especially at nicer places.
Oh well . . .
After dinner, we took a little hike on a
short, easy trail around the Visitors Center.
Passed a nice little pond.
Saw lots of signs of wildlife – especially bear
scat. We were told by rangers that one
particular black bear keeps exploring the area around the Visitors Center. He’s apparently an adolescent, and, typical
of teenage boys, testing his mettle. They keep trying to guide him off back into
the woods, but so far not too successfully. At
the end of the trail loop, we took a little detour into the Park
campground. Only saw about 4 or 5
parties tented there. All kinds of warnings
about bears were posted. Glad they’ll
have dry weather to sleep in tonight!
When we
got back home, after visiting with Morgan, we took Pappy out for a long walk on
the golf course. It was a luscious
beautiful soft evening,
with a beautiful setting sun outside our cabin window.
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