The Weather Guesser and Pensacola’s August Cold Spell
Today’s weather has been unpredictable, to say the least. I almost didn’t go to church; the thunder was rolling in waves, with sharp, loud, frequent bolts of lightning hitting, mostly in the Bayou, but close enough to make my eyes go wonky. The rain came down in sheets, with tropical winds blowing limbs and leaves around, and then, just when I needed to head out for church, it all stopped.
Church attendence was low, not surprisingly, with the heat, humidity, blowing rain and lightning, but the rain held off until after the service. I got home, and it started all over again. It’s been that kind of a day, a nice day to stay inside with a good book. (Ann Cleeve’s Heron’s Cry). Now, it’s clearing up a little and you can see, the temperature has outstripped the forecast for today.
This is what they tell us it is going to look like for the rest of the week:
We do not use any of this for planning purposes. A good friend tells me about a radio station that will state, “we guarantee this forecast for the next twenty minutes.” AdventureMan refers to the meteorologists as “the weather guessers.” We dress for heat and keep umbrellas in the car, year-round, to cope with unexpected squalls.
The Limit on TBR (To Be Read)
Pensacola is HOT. We’re hitting 90+ degrees F. every day.
The streets are crowded with tourists, here for a High-T weekend of Blue Angels and their annual airshow. Pensacola is proud, very proud, of the Blue Angels, and, after a while, you just learn to steer clear of Pensacola Beach, any road leading to Pensacola Beach, and the popular restaurants on Blue Angels weekend. Unless you love crowds, fighting for a parking space, roasting in the sun and thirsting for cold drinking water – in which case Blue Angels on the Beach is right for you.
The heat saps my energy. I’m up early, trying to get steps in while I still have a breeze off the Bayou and before we hit our daily high temperature. There are days when you open the door and just gasp when the heat hits you in the face. Today, I am just sluggish. I missed my morning swim, which always cools me off and energizes me.
These are great days for reading. I have lots of choices; I can finish the book (again) that I am leading for Book Club in September (David Howard’s 1066) or I can escape with a hot-off-the-shelf best seller, or I can plunge back into the Hunger Games series from the beginning, which should give me a good week of escapism.
There is a limit – the top of my chair. You’d think that would be enough, but no, I have a backup TBR book-case for just in case I read everything on my TBR chair. 😊
Or I can postpone anything too demanding and write a post to HT&E. 😊
Alaska 2026: Saltwater Tours, Kenai Fjords, Glaciers, Wildlife and Fishing!
As I was fixing a quick breakfast in the upstairs common living room and kitchen, AdventureMan said “Look! They’ve even provided wine!” and I laughed and said “I bet that belongs to one of the other guests.”
Mere moments later, we met Brian, a frequent guest at the Front Row B&B, who represents a wine distributorship that includes Alaska. He joined us briefly as we ate breakfast, and we were having so much fun that we had to hurry to meet our ship.
We were meeting at the big anchor by the Harbormaster’s office. We saw one other couple there, and assumed the others were waiting on the boat. The captain, Stan, and deckhand, Emma, met us to escort us to the boat, where we discovered, no, it was just us and the other couple for the whole day. Also, they had snacks and sandwiches(from Primrose Provisions, no less), coffee, water, and soft drinks. We were all set. (Alaska Saltwater Wildlife Tours).
If you search for Alaska Saltwater Tours in the search box on the front page of this blog, it will take you to the first time we traveled with them, in June of 2014. It was so wonderful in 2014 that we sought them out again, especially to make this trip.
The day is bright and sunny, so sunny that although I hate sunscreen, I had applied it generously. Captain Stan gave us a quick introduction to the boat and boat rules, Emma gave us a rundown of things we could expect to see, and off we went – a glorious day at sea.
Forgive me. I can’t get enough photos of mountains. I can’t help it, the different angles of the sun, the sheer magnificence of these mountains as we rock along, and the sea life! Otter! An otter eating a crab! Whale spouts! Whale tails! Whale and baby whale! It’s one thrill after another.
We can see our B&B from the boat!
We’re not even out of the harbor when we start spotting otter, and whale.
As we go along, Stan and Emma fill us in on all kinds of local lore and tell us more about what we are seeing. It’s a great group and a great day altogether.
Sea Lions sunning on the beach!
Yes, the sea lion is blurry. The boat is rocking. I’m doing the best I can!
Shortly after lunch, we get out the rods and reels and bait the hooks and fish.
Later we head for Holgate glacier, a rare glacier as it is increasing rather than declining. As we watched, a large chunk calved with a loud CRACK! into the water.
And then more fishing, and the fish are biting.
Late in the day, we head back. It is 5 as we near the docks, and behind us are all kinds of day excursion boats, returning home. I am covered with salt from the salty water evaporating on my skin, my Levis are stiff with salt, and I can’t wait for a quick shower. As we reach the B&B, our new friend Brian is on the balcony, beckoning us to come up; he has set up a cocktail hour with some very fine wines, several charcuterie boards, some business friends, and all the guests in the B&B!
As they say in the South, “I look a mess.” We clean us as best we can, make a quick change and head upstairs for this pop-up cocktail hour. We had a lot of fun, meeting our fellow guests. The wine was exquisite and the food was beautiful. It was a lovely way to end a very long day.
Alaska 2026: Hot Times in Seward, Alaska
When we opened our blackout blind (Alaskan summer days are very long, and it stays bright until around midnight. The dark doesn’t last long, and it is light again by 4 am.) we couldnt believe our eyes. It’s our free day – we can do anything! We have nothing scheduled! We slept with the window open last night – it was a hot night, but the open window kept us comfortable.
We walk to another nearby B&B for breakfast; they operate cooperatively under the same management. We met Sarah, our hostess, and once we all started talking, we couldn’t stop. We had so many interests in common! We talked about Athabaskan culture and language, we talked about the importance of friend groups for managing life’s joy and crises, we talked about the love of adventure, and taking calculated risks – we could have gone on and on; it’s wonderful when you connect.
She fixed AdventureMan eggs exactly as he likes them, and thin pork sausage patties. She brought out all the ingredients for home-made meusli, exactly as I make it with oats and nuts and seeds and fruits, so I could watch my blood sugar. She took really good care of us, all the while able to converse non-stop. She was amazing.
We have a map and we want to find the big anchor in front of the Seward Harbormaster’s office; it’s a hike, but we are up to it. As we walk along the lovely smooth waterfront path, I see something I find astounding and wonderful. All along the waterfront are parks – and camping spots. Some areas provide porta-potties, some more permanent restrooms. This is prime waterfront property, and the city has chosen to make it accessible to people who want to visit Seward. Not just a little – a lot of waterfront space devoted to campers.
I also love all the public art in Seward, starting just in front of our B&B with statues honoring original founders and participants of the annual Iditerod race. Seward has several kennels that provide opportunities for vistors to get to know the dogs and their training in pulling sleds across a variety of terrains.
Another thing I love is the sound of seaplanes coming and going. It was a part of my growing up in Alaska, across from a seaplane airport/hanger, and watching the seaplanes taking off and landing from the windows of our home. I haven’t heard the sound for years. and I find it very comforting.
Seward Main Street
Seward’s Pride crosswalk.
The old train station, now a cafe and restaurant with a fabulous view.
Seward also provides a free shuttle, circling to main stops in the community. We want to get to the Alaska Sealife Center, so we hop on the shuttle.
The driver was a man from Utah who was truly impressive as he asked each entering passenger their destination, and once we reached the train depot, also would stop and get out of the bus to load and unload baggage. He had a positive attitude, and was gracious, kind and patient with everyone. Two of the passengers were Native American; they wanted to be let off at the Chamber of Commerce stop which was adjacent the local Safeway. (The Safeway also has a Starbucks.)
The train station was chaos! A hundred people were trying to get their baggage checked for the evening departure. Arriving passengers were seeking their rides to their hotels. Those without pickups got on the bus to be dropped off near their hotels.
Three girls from Mexico got on and sat near us; they were in Seward to catch a Royal Caribbean cruise and wanted to know what to see while in Seward. We told them they were staying in a wonderful area for walking, shopping and to visit the Alaska Sealife Center – where we were getting off!
The shuttle bus let us off at the Alaska Sealife Center, where the 2 Seward girls at the desk gave AdventureMan a double discount for being military and for being a senior, and gave us directions to get us to the Highline for lunch.
We headed upstairs, starting with the outdoor collection of puffins, gulls, and all kinds of seabirds with a rockery and a huge pond, doing what seabirds do. One puffin took a liking to me, coming closer and closer. We later watched them from underneath windows as they dove and swam at amazing speeds through the water.
The next stop was the sea lions, looking like enormous golden sea slugs, but very fast sea slugs, whirling round and round their huge enclosure.
We found a fabulous display of sea terms of measurement, about half of which I knew and several I’d never heard of but was glad to know existed for measuring and accuracy.
We were so impressed with the young people who served as guides to all the dazzling exhibits of sea creatures. They were delightfully nerdy (as a nerd, I use this word with intentional honor) in their knowledge of the most minute details of the creatures they tended, and delighted in sharing their appreciation and wonder for all sea life.
We found another area with sea lions, (or maybe they got to go to this other area for feeding time) and watched for a while as they horsed around (can sea lions horse around? Yes! They can!)
After a thorough tour, we were ready for lunch and walked to the Highline, recommended by both our VRBO host/manager, Sarah, and the local girls at the Sealife Center. There we split a smoked salmon spread with sourdough bread, and a halibut sandwich.
We’d walked several miles by this point, so we walked a little more, back to our beautiful Bear’s Den on the waterfront, and we grabbed a short nap and then headed out to hike to the Exit Glacier, just 8 miles out of Seward.
Exit Glacier has . . . exited. It is in retreat. We walked to the closest viewpoint, but the glacier was too far away, so we walked further and we could see it – divided into two sections now, and continuing to recede. It was a great time to be there, late in the day, all the tour buses loaded and gone. We weren’t alone, but few were on the hiking trails.
One family asked us, as we were returning to our car, if we had seen bear. We told them no, but to keep talking to one another, and if any bear were around, they would wander away.
We had an agenda for dinner. We are heading out on an all day wildlife and fishing expedition tomorrow, and we need snacks and sandwiches. Sarah had recommended Primrose Provisions, a repurposed railway depot, so we stopped there for dinner and to get provisions – but they were sold out of sandwiches.
Did I mention the sun was shining in Seward? It was in the high 70’s F., and people were sporting sunburns? We sat on the porch, drinking good wine, waiting for our dinner to come – an Alaska charcuterie board. It was lovely, with smoked salmon, smoked cod, two spreads, sourdough and strawberries. Beautiful to look at and delicious.
We had only a short walk back to our Front Row B&B, through the small park honoring Iditerod race creators and supporters, celebrating the Seward connection. We need to think about our clothing and day pack for our sea excursion. I needed to make sure I had my fishing license with me!
This was our route for today – the big red dot is the Alaska Sea Life Museum.
Welcome Easter in Pensacola!
If you live in Pensacola, you feel truly blessed when it rains as early gardens are planted, and dry weather means a drought in Florida. We have had beautiful sunny weather, good for planting seeds and sprouting them, and we need the rain to ensure their survival and vigorous growth. Thanks be to God for a glorious rain.
We had a strong crowd for the early service this morning; the flowers were stunning. I totally missed that the alter flowers were a metaphor for sunrise until our priest pointed it out.
This was the quiet service, the sanity service. Our family will be serving at the next service, the children’s service, after which there will be an Easter Egg hunt. There will be a brass band and celebratory trumpets at the two later services, making a joyful noise indeed! We will all meet up for brunch later. A festive and joyful day, The Lord is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!
Slight of Hand and Wires and Mirrors; No Accountability
Our leader announced a speech to the nation, which turned out to be nothing but repeats of “Truth” social posts and comments previously made. A boring, disjointed 19 minutes of nothing credible. Credibility is stating a mission and following through. Chaos is changing the mission and its achievements every ten minutes or so. If you don’t believe me, watch the stock market.
Meanwhile, behind the curtain, The Great Oz and his handlers are changing how our democracy operates. The failed military officer, Pete Hegseth is examining and removing African Americans, females, and especially African American Females from promotion lists. He is firing the top general who questions his judgement in toying with a time honored system where the military chooses its leaders based on performance and leadership abilities, not their gender nor their color.
Does Hegseth understand demographics? Does he understand that military recruitment is problematic these days days, that the pool of recruits has shrunk dramatically? Does he understand that brawn no longer wins wars, but fighter planes, drones, new ideas and weapon development are fighting a new kind of war, where every gender and color contributes the the nuances of creative strategies available to a commander in chief who genuinely understands how to function in the fog of war?
Today Heather Cox Richardson alerts us to another slight of hand, the kind of small change the controllers hope will go unnoticed: The challenge of ACCOUNTABILITY and how it impedes a sitting President. She quotes the following, and it quite takes my breath away:
Yesterday Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser, of the Office of Legal Counsel, published an opinion for the White House that claims the Presidential Records Act, which requires that presidents keep records of their official business and turn them over at the end of their term, is unconstitutional. Gaiser clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
“The PRA is not a valid exercise of Congress’s Article I authority and unconstitutionally intrudes on the independence and autonomy of the President guaranteed by Article II. The Act establishes a permanent and burdensome regime of congressional regulation of the Presidency untethered from any valid and identifiable legislative purpose,” the memo reads. “For these reasons, the PRA is unconstitutional, and the President need not further comply with its dictates.”
(taking a moment to catch my breath)
We burden our elected president with the requirement that we know what he does and why he is doing it?
How can anyone believe this lunacy? Any person in a position of responsibility has to answer to his polity! Elected politicians all the more. He answers to us, the voters.
Our leader has a lot to answer for. We can’t trust anything he says, from minute to minute. Our treasury has been declared insolvent. He is sending our children off to war with unclear orders and insufficient leadership.
He has hired a confederacy of ignorant, greedy sycophants. He has gutted our diplomatic service. He has gutted Consumer Oversight. He has gutted the Environmental Protection Agency. He has corrupted the Department of Education.
He is terrified he cannot win and is attempting to take over national elections. Meanwhile, he is bankrupting our country with garish monuments and wars we never agreed to fight.
He is subjecting women to outdated standards and taken away their rights to make decisions for their own bodies.
He is corrupting our social system, taking medical care away from those who need it most, and callously neglecting the veterans who have served our country so loyally.
He has made agreements with other countries that we only learn about by accidental comments.
This can’t go on. Give us Accountability. Oversight. Congressional Approval. Fair and Free Elections. Constitutional Restraints!
Sunset 2 February 2026
Amd suddenly the polar vortex shifts and spring temperatures appear. AdventureMan and I scurry to uncover the plants. So far, so good; everything looks like it survived.
We are blessed by unexpected phone calls from old friends, out of the blue. Unexpected blessings rolling in as the cold winds roll away.
Sunset on the Coldest Night of the Year
What you can’t see is the wind blowing, and the white caps on the bayou. We had to re-cover and re-clothespin the roses and plumbago, and the ice on our water tubs was an inch thick. No problems with the running water freezing – so far. We have some cold days yet to come, but this is likely to be the coldest day of the year.
We saw One Battle After Another yesterday at the theater downtown that shows art films, foreign films and award nominees. The tickets are $10, the venue is provided free and the guy that runs the show does it for the love of film. Not only do we watch the films, but there are also great discussions.
Friends told me I probably wouldn’t like the movie, but I loved it. Going to Uni on the West Coast, I felt like I knew those people, on both sides. And dark as it was, it held a mirror up to current themes. I love actors who choose challenging roles, and even roles in which they play people who make bad decisions, or aren’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Leonardo diCaprio had his work cut out for him in this role, and I think he nailed it. Yes, it is wacky and violent. We are living in wacky and violent times. Who would have thought we would elect a liar, cheat, and felon to be President of the United States, and that we would stand by, helpless, as he gutted our Constitution? Wacko. It’s all wacko.
Today is a Full Moon, a new month and God willing, a time to turn things around. Bruce Springsteen has the number one song in 19 countries, with The Streets of Minneapolis, a roaring anthem fit for the times, and Minneapolis has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their activism and self-restraing in the face of the goons of ICE.
Atlantic Monthly has a new article on how the Proud Boys aren’t coming in the counter the hundreds of demonstrators; that the Homeland Security and ICE squads are doing a fine job – and they have photos to show how an organization theoretically doing customs enforcement now looks just like the Proud Boys. When did Customs Enforcement dress like troops going into villages in Afghanistan? What legitimate law enforcement officers wear masks? Who in their right minds arrests little children?:
Proud Boys in Washington, DC
ICE agents in Minneapolis
Law Enforcement officers, in civilized countries with laws protecting the innocent (and who are innocent until the system determines them guilty), are TRAINED to operate with restraint. Trained personnel do not fire on civilian bystanders.
I’ve watched the Minneapolis tapes, especially the one filmed by officer Jonathan Ross. I listened to him as, just after the shooting, he said “F@#king B!tch” and I don’t think he was even thinking about Good; I think he was angry that Good’s wife had called him “Big Boy” and told him to go get a sandwich. Most of the guys we see in those uniforms are hefty, and slow, and clumsy. And they do not respond to mockery with self-restraint – as we have seen. They need training. And it wouldn’t hurt if they had grown-up leadership. The kinds of vague, unconstitutional and inciting instructions they have received seem designed to be incendiary.
Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln, How was the Play?
That’s the punch line of a really bad joke, and it came to mind today as my good friend from Michigan was asking me, after a long conversation about the current disasterous state of events in our country, how AdventureMan and I are getting through the cold days in Pensacola.
Honestly, the weather is glorious. AdventureMan is busy keeping the bird feeders full (he calls them the squirrel feeders) and breaking the ice in our water barrels. The skies are clear and the stars bright and sparkly when the sun goes down.
It IS cold.We are having waves of cold weather, with a little warming in between. Because it goes below freezing frequently, we’ve got our more fragile plants covered, including 2 avocado trees I’ve grown from pits, that are over 10 feet tall 😊. My roses are the first plants I cover; I brought them with me from our former house. They are white, pure white, with a little bit of pink in the center, only visible when they are first blooming. I try to take good care of these roses! We also cover our plumbago, which grows well in this part of Florida.
“And what are you cooking?” my friend asks, she who made a huge frost covered cake to celebrate the storm in Michigan.
“Pork with Apples and Onions,” I replied, “And an Autumn Plum Torte only with peaches, which turned out to have all the taste of sugar, butter, and flour.” I should have known that the peaches I bought in January would not have much flavor.
The weather will dip even further starting Friday, so I am cooking up a big pot of chili tomorrow.
Waiting for Snow
Lest you think I sit around between trips finding things to rant about, I will share my Saturday with you.
I am religious. I am a believer. LOL, here is where Catholics and Muslims have something in common – when I say “I am a believer” my Catholic friends think I am Catholic, and my Muslim friends think I am Muslim. Sooner or later we get it all figured out. I believe in a Great Creator, without whom nothing was created, and who is magnificent beyone our ability to understand. I believe he cares about us on an individual basis, and that he wants only good for all of us, whether we agree or not. I do not understand why he gave us all free will, and I know it would be a terrible world without it. I believe God is infinitely merciful.
So in the midst of some of the political horrors of January, I texted a friend and said “I need a meet-up.” We met up this morning at a local cafe and hashed out our lives, just normal stuff, families, husbands, children, and what we CAN do to make a difference. I have a friend from high school, and a friend from college, and friends from almost every post where we lived. We don’t always see one another, but when we need a good connection, we get on the phone – yeh, old school – and it’s like we’ve never been apart. When I need to re-balance, when my emotions are unmanageable, my friends help me recenter. Thanks be to God. At the cafe, I also saw another old friend, of a different political persuasion, and we were delighted to see one another, reminding me that our current differences are temporary, and mendable.
I arrived back home to the aroma of garlic and peppers sautéing; AdventureMan is making beans! We have been informed it MIGHT snow tonight, it is hovering just above and below freezing and a big pot of beans is a perfect hot weather meal.
Birds on the Bayou are chowing down, the fish must be running. We have pelicans plunging, an eagle chasing off a hawk, a cormorant and a heron.
Last year, almost this same time of year, we got several inches of snow. In previous years, I have seen a flake of snow here and there, but last year was a special confluence of factors – humidity, cold, polar vortex and a series of cold dry days in which the snow first fell, and then stuck around. It was like wiping away all the bad, a clean, clear new earth, few cars driving, lots of walking and lots of playing. Maybe we all need to play a little more. Pensacolians love a good snow, and it doesn’t stick around long enough to get old.
Our house is warm, we have a big pot of beans cooking, we have friends, I’ve recovered all my lost-for-a-very-short-time passwords and life is sweet. May you be equally blessed; may all your problems be little ones.
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