Where In The World Is Sum1?

And Alaska makes...... 50!

         As I mentioned in my previous post, I finally made it to Alaska, the only state I hadn't been in.  I spent the week in Juneau, Alaska delivering a class for the United States Coast Guard.  Have you seen the show 'Coast Guard Alaska'?  In this show, the Coast Guard rescues people in trouble on the waters of the Pacific near the Alaskan Coastline.  Well, when you hear their radio transmissions on the show, the students I taught are the ones who maintain that system.

         Juneau is a small town, with a population of about 30,000.  It can only be gotten to by air, or ship.  There are no roads that lead there from other cities in Canada or Alaska.  It rained almost the entire time I was there, with low hanging clouds hiding the peaks of the nearby mountains.  And those mountains were very close too!  I grew up in New Mexico with the Sandia Mountains nearby.  But these were about 20 miles away, whereas the mountains near Juneau were maybe a maximum of 1 mile away.  Since it rained all week, I didn't get to see much, but after class ended Friday, I was able to visit the Mendenhall Glacier, and that was very impressive.

         There are abandoned gold mines all around Alaska, and especially Juneau.  The photo below is of a pump house sitting on the water.  The pumps were actually on the shore of course.  The pump house was the location of the suction point.  The water was used in the sluices of the mine, which is where they separated the gold from the rest of the minerals.

Look for my next entry, from Halifax Nova Scotia.  It was a 2 day trek to get from Juneau to Halifax, and a time shift of 5 hours.  Till then, y'all stay warm in this winter we're experiencing.

Jim