Alaska 2026: Seward AK Front Row B&B
This is the view we woke up to from our suite at the Front Row B&B.
These are the spaces we were privileged to inhabit. We felt so blessed to find this exquisite place to stay.
The bed in our room – incredibly comfortable and also a work of art.
The common areas: uncommonly beautiful.
We had an all-day exploration and fishing trip, and when we returned, salt-soaked, sunburned and exhausted, a guest we had met was waving to us from the balcony saying, “Come on up!” We quickly cleaned up and went up to join all the other guests. The man, who stays at Front Row often, had prepared an impromptu cocktail party with some very fine wines and charcuterie boards.
His generosity of spirit blew me away. We guests didn’t know each other, but all the wine and good bites broke the ice, and we ended up having a very good time, or so the happy noise level informed me. Of all the times we have stayed in B&B’s, this was exceptional and memorable.
The common space is lovely for relaxing, perfect for dining. for entertaining, and is equipped for the pickiest, most needy guests. You can watch whales in the bay from this room, or the attached balcony.
The view of Mount Alice:
AdventureMan was so smart. He took the photo of the wine served at the cocktail party, a dry, complex red wine we both thoroughly enjoyed.
And no, I took the photos when the other guests were not around! 😄
If you want a hot breakfast, you walk a very short walk to a partner B&B where the property manager, Sarah, prepares your dream breakfast.
I needed an oat-y cereal, and Sarah went to her living area and brought out her personal stash – just exactly what I needed – oats, seeds, nuts, dried fruits, and there were fresh bananas to cut and put on it. She made this graciousness feel effortless, and she took her time with us, answering all our questions and giving us the information we needed to make our time in Seward most productive. Conversations with Sarah substantially improved our understanding of the quality of life and current issues in Seward.
Our last morning in Seward, we still had some wonderful smoked salmon spread from our meal at Highlight, so AdventureMan asked her if she could put it in an omelet. She said she could, and whipped up one of the most beautiful and tasty omelets ever, using fresh-cut chives from her garden.
Sarah oversees a variety of rentals and has a keen eye for important details. I cannot imagine a better place to stay in Seward.
Alaska 2026: Alaska Loves Her Veterans
Getting ahead of myself a little bit, on our last day in Anchorage, we were downtown looking for a place to park. We found a parking lot, but it had different areas with different rules and we found it very confusing. A young man was headed to his truck near us, so AdventureMan asked him what the procedure was for this section.
Taking in AdventureMan, he said “Are you a Veteran, Man?” and AdventureMan said “Yes.”
The young man gave a huge grin and said, “You don’t have to pay! I never pay! Alaska loves her veterans! They won’t come after you if you are a veteran. I park her all the time. I never pay!” and then, as soldiers do, they pulled out their resume’s and started comparing where they had served and it was old home week. Happens all the time.
As we were saying our farewells, he remembered something.
“Just try to keep it under an hour,” he said. “I can’t guarantee you can park longer than that, and I try to be respectful and not push my luck.”
“I try to be respectful . . .” I found that so refreshing.
We found evidence everywhere that Alaska truly does love and treasure and remember her veterans. By the side of the highway, as we neared Anchorage, we found this lovely Memorial.
At this memorial, I ran into a childhood nemesis. I don’t know the scientific name. As children, we called it Devil’s Club, and it grows in patches, and it scared us to death. Whe kids got mean, they might cut down a Devil’s Club and threaten one of the younger kids. It could really hurt, too, if you got hit with one.
Alaska 2026: Denali, Grizzly Bear Lodge and Hunter’s Cabin
Grizzly “prints” at entrance to Lodge
Thermometer on Hunter’s Cabin Deck:
Arriving at Denali Grizzly Bear Resort, I was hoping the cabin I had reserved didn’t have an old musty smell and was clean enough. We enjoyed the check-in with two young women from Jamaica who love working in Alaska, who were very helpful. They showed us on the map where the Hunter cabin was and how to get there.
When we got there, we were thrilled. It is a sweet cabin, well thought out and well prepared for visitors. As we walked in the door, we were met with an electric fire place all turned on and heating up the cabin.
The cabin has a full kitchen, with a fridge and microwave and coffee maker, a sink and running water and even a few basic cooking supplies. a table and chairs, cupboards, a separate bed room with a separate toilet and shower area and a sweet washing area with plenty of counter space for both of us.
There is another radiator to provide heat if we need it, extra blankets, and hooks to hang our jackets and outerwear. It also has thick dark blackout curtains, a definite must in a state where it doesn’t get dark until very late and starts getting light very early.
View of Nenana River through the trees.
We took a quick trip across the street to figure out where we will meet our Wilderness Tundra Tour tomorrow morning, and picked up some Seafood Clowder at the Denali Village Lodge for our dinner.
Back in our cozy cabin, we ate dinner and got ready for bed. The three hour time difference is breaking our routines; we are exhausted and ready for bed way too early. But this is a vacation! We can sleep when we want! Routines are not dictators! So we are in our nightclothes and AdventureMan is snoozing on and off, now up and running through his bed time routines while I joyfully write up today’s adventures. I can’t wait to show you the photos!
What Happened to “The Buck Stops Here?”
Today, Heather Cox Richardson reports the following:
When a reporter asked Trump today why he didn’t “stick around for the signing ceremony with this Iran peace deal,” the famously camera-courting president answered: “I might, but I’d rather, this is a memorandum of understanding. It’s very important, but it might not be the kind of a document that I should be signing.” The reporter responded: “There is some element to this where you send the vice president. If it works out, great. You look like a genius for sending him. If it doesn’t work out, it’s the vice president’s fault.”
Trump responded: “I like that idea…. This way, if it works out, I’m gonna take the credit; if it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming J.D. You better be careful, J.D. He’s gonna turn his plane around and get the hell outta here. Yeah, I like that idea. I think that’s a good idea.”
If anyone else said that, and then said “just kidding!” we might believe them. When Trump says it, he means it. He doesn’t really know what the memo implies, doesn’t understand how it puts the United States in a worse position than before he started the war (the memo specifically calls it a war), and while he is already taking credit for it, he leaves himself an escape hatch in case the wires and mirrors stop working.
Citizens, more than ever, it is time to protect your vote and to make sure your vote counts.
Make sure you are registered to vote.
Call your Supervisor of Elections and make sure you are still on the rolls, and that your information is accurate.
If you intend to vote by mail, make sure you are listed for a mail-in vote, and when you vote, mail you vote at a post office, or deliver your vote to the office of the Supervisor of Elections in advance of election day.
Vote the scoundrels out.
Trump is in the process of doing everything in his power, legal or illegal (just look at the judges who stop his illegal mandates daily), to eliminate votes against his party. We, the people, must be vigilant!
The Buck Stops Here.
Happy Anniversary, AdventureMan
Today I received this.
At first, I thought it was some friend reminding me and wondered who it was, but I think it is a WordPress function, giving me material to post.
Truly, it’s the whole reason I started this blog, twenty years ago. We are human. We forget. As I read, I was back in that earlier time, early COVID, and I forgot how restricting it was. I had a wonderful, brave real estate friend who showed us houses, and then my sweet daughter-in-law called and said “Are you still interested in THIS house?” It was the house we had sold to them ten years before, but now, with a growing family, they wanted something larger and were happy to sell the house back to us, with one condition – that they inherit the house when we move on. We happily agreed.
And here we are, 6 years later, doing what we love to do – travel, see new things and talk with people. We have had the most amazing adventure, back to Alaska. We love stories, we love to hear how people came here, how people live. Yesterday, we had the joy of finding ourselves on board a small ship with just four passengers, one of whom was a Jordanian man, almost our exact age, and we had so many friends in common, and we had so much fun together.
As he introduced himself to us, he said “You will notice I have an accent, I am from Jordan.”
AdventureMan, always quick, responded in Jordanian Arabic, asking which part of Jordan. The look on the doctor’s face cracked us all up, and from that moment, we were not fellow passengers, but family. We ended up having lunch together after the excursion; we couldn’t stop talking.
Tomorrow, we have dinner with a man I graduated from high school with, lo, those many years ago, and who is, in my eyes, a hero. He is a doctor with his own airplane, and he spent his career flying to outlying Alaskan villages and providing medical services to those who otherwise would not have access.
Life is sweet.
Once I get the photos organized and the trip written up, I will share with you. Meanwhile, thank you, WordPress, for the prompt.
Robert Reich: Freedom Summer 2026
Robert Reich shares an idea for hope in a shocking season of gerrymandering. Win anyway, by registering voters. Michelle Obama would say “we go high”:
Friends,
Yesterday I spoke with Tennessee state representative Justin Jones, one of the nation’s young Black leaders who’s been a rising star in Tennessee politics, about the Supreme Court’s shameful April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Jones told me that, at Trump’s urging, Tennessee Republicans had prepared a redistricting map even before the Court announced its decision. Then, despite pleas from Black voters and voting rights advocates, the white Republican legislators moved their meeting to another room without allowing the public in to watch, passed the new map out of committee, and enacted it within 24 hours.
The new map has eliminated Tennessee’s one remaining Democratic district around Memphis, a city of about 610,000 people, about two-thirds of whom are Black — by cracking it into three majority-white district, one stretching hundreds of miles. The map has also divided Nashville, another city with a Black majority, into five white-majority districts.
Jones described Tennessee house speaker Cameron Sexton as the “grand wizard in chief,” explaining that “that’s what they want to do. They want to create a process that is unfair and unequal.”
Other Southern states have joined Tennessee’s rush to redistrict.
Louisiana’s governor has ordered that the state’s ongoing congressional election be set aside while state lawmakers redraw maps to eliminate a Democratic-majority – that is, a Black-majority – seat covering Baton Rouge.
At Trump’s request, Alabama Republicans have approved legislation directing the governor to schedule new primary elections this year under a GOP-friendly map that would end districts represented by Black lawmakers, if courts lift an injunction on its redistricting.
The Mississippi legislature will soon convene in a Confederate-era capitol building that it hasn’t used in 100 years, presumably to eliminate the Democratic majority in the one Mississippi district held by a Black representative.
South Carolina’s Republican majority in the statehouse voted Wednesday to extend its legislative calendar, allowing time to consider whether they should eliminate the state’s sole Democratic-majority, Black-majority district, held by long-serving representative James Clyburn.
Florida was already in a special redistricting session when the Supreme Court announced its decision, enacting a congressional map for its 28 districts that packs Black and brown voters into four districts on the south Florida coast and Orlando, eliminating every other Democratic majority.
“We’re going backwards at warp speed,” Jones told me. “In just over a week, we’ve gone from the 1965 Voting Rights Act back to the era of Jim Crow.”
I asked him what he and other Black political leaders in the South were planning to do.
“There’ll be a lot of litigation,” he said, “but we can’t be optimistic with this Supreme Court.”
“So, what’s the strategy?”
“We need the biggest voter turnout in history this fall. Every Black person, every Brown person, every Democrat, everyone who cares about the moral soul of this nation has to vote for equal voting rights. Take over Congress. Increase our power in state legislatures. This is the only way to respond.”
“I’m with you,” I said, “but I really wonder whether that’s possible.”
“How about a new Freedom Summer?” Jones responded, with a smile. “A multi-racial force of young people fanning out across the South, registering voters, getting them to the polls, just like they did in 1964.”
“I remember. I lost a dear friend in Mississippi Freedom Summer.”
“I have no direct memory, of course,” Jones said. “I was born in 1995, thirty-one years after Freedom Summer. But the South is almost back to where it was then. So, yes, it’s possible. It’s got to be possible.”
I told him I’d share his idea with you, and ask you for your responses.
If His Lips Are Moving – He’s Lying
Our Old Testament reading this morning is from Leviticus, that ancient book of do’s and don’ts tha tpeople cherry pick even today, even after Jesus came to clear up our misconceptions and told us many of these rules were not God-given, but man made, traditional customs.
Leviticus 19:
33 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. 34The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
35 You shall not cheat in measuring length, weight, or quantity. 36You shall have honest balances, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 37You shall keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and observe them: I am the Lord.
But Welcoming the Stranger is a theme throughout the book. Not cheating. Telling the truth. These rules don’t change.
Often when I don’t write, it’s because I am stunned into silence. I don’t care whether you believe as I do or not – worldwide, people share some basic beliefs because they help us survive. Kindness to one another. Compassion, even to those we might not like much. Humanity in our dealings with one another, dealing with one another straight up, giving an honest measure – often even a little more, a “bakers dozen” of 13, an extra inch of fabric, a good measure.
I knew a woman I privately considered as dishonest, and one night we were discussing the love of money as the root of evil in a group, and she said she never considered money her own, that it is God’s money, flowing through her as a conduit, going where it is meant to be.
I told AdventureMan when I got home, and he liked it, too. We decided to tip generously, to let our excess flow through our fingers, trusting God to put it where it is needed, and we would have no idea. We’ve never regretted that philosophy.
I fear for our world. I fear for the selfishness and greed putting our world at risk. I fear that the pulling back of environmental restrictions will impact on our ability as human beings to continue to live on earth. I picture Octavia Butler’s enclaves of the ultra rich while the rest of us scrabble for scraps in a world where rich and poor are breathing bad air, sweating in tropical heat and where plague and filth become common because we no longer invest in public health.
The “Truth” our leader speaks changes, not even daily, but sometimes within an hour, within 15 minutes. It’s not a War? When missiles are still destroying innocent lives? When ships cannot pass freely through a waterway that has been unguarded and open for years? When we pour the life blood of our country into guarding a war we never chose, and pulling our troops out of countries who for over half a century have been allied in creating widespread wealth, and a better world.
I gasp at his audacity, telling his citizens that a legal election was not a legal election, and that his own attempts to meddle in election results never happened, or was not illegal, or whatever the lie is today, or in his most recent speech. His truth changes according to his imagination, and he goes after those who expose his untruths.
Do you remember the wall that the Mexicans would pay for? Now we have a billion dollar ballroom, a monument to gilded vanity, that was touted as built by wealthy donors, but he is handing taxpayers the bill. The taxpayers who will pay are the same ones who have recently given up health care insurance they can no longer afford, or the dream of home ownership, or the dream of sending their first generation of American citizens to college.
What a tragic twist of fate, that the Trump years would bankrupt an entire country the way he bankrupted his own casinos and businesses. When will this stop?
For Those Who Fall Victim to the Forces of Evil
Almighty God, our Refuge and our Rock, your loving care knows no bounds and embraces all the peoples of the earth: Defend and protect those who fall victim to the forces of evil, and as we remember this day those who endured depredation and death because of who they were, not because of what they had done or failed to do, give us the courage to stand against hatred and oppression, and to seek the dignity and well-being of all for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, in whom you have reconciled the world to yourself; and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Today our Lectionary remembers the Armenian genocide:
GENOCIDE REMEMBRANCE
Genocide Remembrance Day is observed by Armenians in dispersed communities around the world on April 24. It is held annually to commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide from 1915 to 1923.
The date 24 April commemorates the Armenian notables deported from the Ottoman capital in 1915, of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, most of whom would be executed, which was a precursor to the ensuing events.
— more at Wikipedia
Although this date is specifically a remembrance of the Armenian genocide, it is clear from the collects that it is intended here to cover all genocides: the killing or harming of people simply because of which ethnic, religious, or national group to which they happen to belong.
Oddly Satisfying Conversation
We had a lovely weekend, a confirmation of a much-loved young friend, and gathering afterwards in her home with other close friends.
On our way home, AdventureMan was laughing so hard he almost couldn’t drive. He had asked me about the serious conversation I had been having with the host.
“We were talking about loading the dishwasher,” I told him, not thinking to incite this hilarity.
When you run into someone who shares your interests, it can lead to a great conversation. I love doing dishes. I find it meditative. I like gathering them and rinsing them and stacking them. The host agreed with me that my loading his dishwasher would not be a good thing.
People who LIKE loading dishwashers have their own ideas about how it needs to be done, it’s like we have inner patterns that must be met. I want to load my dishwasher because I unload the dishwasher, and if I load it, I have all the things together that need to be unloaded together. I like to unload and put away because I like to know where things are in my kitchen. If I put them away, it is always in the same place.
I think it’s OK to be a little bit obsessive about a few things!
A friend once laughed because all my spices were in alphabedical order. Now, I’ve changed the pattern; I do this now and then when new ways of achieving efficiency come to mind. Now I have herbs and savories together and baking spices together, and it makes sense to me, but to someone else it might not.
But I’ve discovered it is like a secret club, this need to have order. Some people are not wired this way, but those of us who are can discuss pros and cons of different patterns endlessly and enthusiastically.
And AdventureMan just laughs.
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… John on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… John Smith on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… tigerbutterya0c5ff1d… on “Who Would Do Such a… Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 