Kaleidoscope Book Review

Ever looked in a Kaleidoscope as a kid? There was one at a park my mom took me to often, and I loved to look inside and see all the colors and shapes. They were all part of one picture, but they were individual pictures themselves and I enjoyed examining them. Patsy Clairmont, in her book Kaleidoscope, compares the book of Proverbs to this. Her book discusses the wisdom found in Proverbs in individual chapters, thirty three of them in all, and the life lessons we can learn from them.

What makes this book unique is Clairmont's informal writing style. Though her words are chosen wisely and carefully crafted together, the book still reads like a conversation with a friend (albeit a wise one) who is sitting down and sharing with you over a cup of coffee (or, as it's December, a Peppermint Mocha). It's a book to be lingered over, and enjoyed in small pieces, not all at once.

The issues discussed in and among the Proverbs, such as being careful with what we say, are issues that apply to any Christian, but especially to women. This book will be useful to women of all ages and at all point in their walks of faith. I especially appreciated how the chapters were broken up--first with Patsy Clairmont's insights, then with questions, then with a list of applicable Scriptures. Certainly this is a book that has a gem of wisdom for every woman, set in a personal look into a woman of faith's thoughts.

Breaking News!

I have the internet!!!!

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. The internet. In. My. House.

See, we live in a place where it's hard to get the internet. So we've lived here for nine months and been technologically behind the rest of the country.

But we have it.

So I'll be back.

Soon.

We Interrupt this Broadcast...

To bring you a brief note.

Or two or three.

First, I'm aware that it's been more than nine days. I have not forgotten you, faithful blog readers, but I'm so busy soaking up everything about Alaska and running around like a crazy person trying to DO all the things we want to do in the limited time we have, that I just don't have time to sit down and type out everything in the kind of detail I want to.

The bad news is, tomorrow is our last day in Anchorage, so I don't see myself posting 'catchup' blogs tomorrow.

The good news is, if I don't get to it before then, we should be in Alberta, Canada within four-ish days or so, and I think that province is a little on the boring side, so I should have time to type then.

My current plan is to divide the actual Alaska trip into locations (one blog entry for the first part of Anchorage, one for the Seward trip, one for the Homer trip) instead of days, but if anyone has unbelievable objections to that, speak now.

Okay, you can go back to reading. Just wanted to let you know what's going on--I've loved sharing this trip with everyone and can't wait to get back to it!

P.S. It's 10:24 pm and it looks like late afternoon with all the light outside. How DOES anyone sleep here? I can fall asleep fine, it's convincing myself it's time that's the problem.

Day 9

Day 9 Lions and Tigers and GRIZZLIES, Oh my!

Today we started out in Tok and everything was wonderful because we are IN ALASKA. My mom said she could see better today. Obviously it’s because we’re in Alaska. I slept fabulously last night—better than I have this whole trip. Why? Because we’re in Alaska!

We. Are. In. Alaska.

I love everything about this place. I love the way the trees are such a vibrant dark green, the way the rain falls like a mist. We stopped at a creek earlier, in case the salmon were spawning even thought it’s a little early, so that John could see them. But alas, no salmon. It’s okay, though, because he got to see the creek and how clear the water is as it rushes over smooth river rocks.

Today, I saw something I’ve never seen before. We were all looking out the window (well, minus Josh who was napping and my mom who missed it) and we saw this mass of blondish/brown. After a second it finally registered in our brains that it was a grizzley! Nine years. Nine years I lived in Alaska and I NEVER saw a grizzly. I told John he must be a good luck charm because he’s seen almost every animal you could hope to see up here. The grizzly saw us and then whirled around and ran back into the woods. He was enormous and I was excited to see him, but I hope I never see one any closer than we were.

The drive today was only 328 miles, but it took all day because we took our time a little more than we did other days. We stopped for lunch in the booming metropolis of Glennallen and ate at the Caribou Inn. It was yummy! My dad got fried halibut (just like the night before…he’s into variety) and John and I got reindeer sausage. My mom got soup, which was good too, just not as unique to Alaska.

After lunch we drove and drove until we finally got into south central Alaska. I love the whole state (see gushing in paragraphs above), but south central is home. I know my home is currently in Georgia, and I do love the south too. But this is one of the places that I feel at home and comfortable instantly, even if I haven’t been back in a while—in this case, nine years.

The road followed the sides of the mountains and while it offered incredible views of the steely blue rivers rushing by below, it also provided some lets-hold-our-breath-and-hope-we-make-it moments, since the RV is big and the road was a little on the small side.

We got to Anchorage in time for dinner (food is a big theme of our vacations) and picked Alison and Chad up from the airport late, late, late.

And then the real vacation began.

Day 8

Day 8

We spent the night in Rancheria, Yukon Territory last night. Good news—I didn’t get eaten by any bears. We hit the road early and were hoping to hit the Alaska border by bedtime. Initially I had thought we might need to stop at Kluane Lake, since you can’t make as much milage on the Alaska Highway, but we thought we’d push it and see where we could go.

Just as we were about to leave the campground, I noticed that the camper sounded funny so my dad and John jumped out to check stuff under the hood. Turns out we needed more oil. Personally I was a little surprised that we hadn’t taken care of that before we left—until my mom pointed out to me that we’d driven almost four thousand miles since Georgia.

Once we left Rancheria we got to show John some glimpses of the ‘real’ Alaska Highway. A lot of the highway has been paved and some areas have even been ‘citified’ with things light streetlights. Not so with the road after Kluane Lake.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Kluane Lake was BEAUTIFUL. John has declared it his favorite lake. Personally, I would never be unfaithful to Mucho Lake that way, but it was impressive. First, the size of it is pretty unbelievable. We read something in the Milepost about how quickly storms can whip up on the lake. You can set out in a boat when it’s perfectly clear and get in the middle and face a vicious storm. John found an island in the middle of the lake and according him, that’s where he’s building his house. Note that I said his house. I’m not sure he’s willing to share his lake with anyone.

Just when we had started to get the teensiest bit disappointed that John was just going to have to believe our stories about how bad the Alcan used to be, we started to near the border. On a positive note, if anyone’s curious to what pergatory is like—I know now.

This road was BAD. And I mean, really bad. It doesn’t even deserve to be called a road, much less a highway. We were flying over bumps, tilting to the side at uneven sections of the road and slamming into potholes. And all that was when we knew the bad sections were coming and could slow down.

On a good note, the road eventually quit alternating between good sections and bad sections, which meant it was easier to be on guard. On a bad note—that meant the road was all bad.

In the middle of this desolate wilderness area with a road that would make the devil ask to go back to…*ahem* ‘Memphis’, it started to pour. REALLY pour. I didn’t even know it stormed in Canada! I had given up my weather checking obsession because I thought surely I wouldn’t have to worry about severe thunderstorms in the Yukon. But the dark blue, almost black, cloud in the distance started to make me wonder…

And then it started to rain. Or so we thought. After a minute we noticed it was exceptionally loud and bouncing off of the windshield almost like…hail. Sure enough, it was hailing! It only lasted for a few minutes, and we only saw a few flashes of lightning, but after we’d been driving for a while we saw hail piled up on the sides of the road. It looked almost like patches of snow, but I knew it was too warm for that. Turned out the hail must’ve bounced off the road and the landed in piles along side it.

At least now I know they do have bad storms in the Yukon too. You just don’t hear about it because no one’s there to see them.

After the storms let up a little we came to Beaver Creek, which is about twenty miles from the border. The Canadians have their customs office/border crossing here, so basically if you ever need to flee the US and not have the Canadians know you’re in their country for refuge, as long as you stay on that stretch of road, you’ll be safe. Take note fugitives. The sky had made it so dark outside by this point that I was just hoping we could all hold it together long enough to make it to the border.

The Port Alcan border is what a border station should look like. None of this four lane garbage like we saw when we came into Alberta. Nope, this was a teeny building with, as far as I could tell, one man working there. He welcomed us home and we kept driving the three miles that would take us to where we had semi-planned to stop.

The owner of the restaurant at said place told my mom when she walked in to do recon that the grill was off and we could have something fried or have a cold sandwich. Now, I know we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto (or the South, as the case may be) but in my day, people were a lot more welcoming in Alaska than this guy was. So since my dad and John and I didn’t really want to stop anyway, we left his rudeness behind and pushed for Tok. After all, can you really drive the highway through Tok and not eat at Fast Eddy’s?

Fast Eddy’s has apparently been a tradition with my parents for quite a long time. I remember when we moved up here in 2000 and stopped at Fast Eddy’s to eat dinner and my parents explained that we always stopped there. It must have stuck in my brain, because eating dinner there last night just seemed right. AND yummy. It’s a good thing we’re going hiking a lot on this trip or we’d weigh the camper down so much we might not make it back over the rough patches of Canadian highway.

The Canadians seriously need to consider highway maintenance in the Yukon.

Eh?

Day 7

DAY 7

Is it bad on a roadtrip when you’re keeping a journal like this and have to look back at old entries to see what day it is now? Roadtrips like this, where you get up and drive, drive, drive are kind of like that movie Groundhog Day. I could almost promise you that it’s the same day over and over, with the exception of the changes in the scenery.

Today has been SO full of everything. Scenery, miles, fun, animals…We woke up this morning and were on the road around 6:40, which is the earliest we’ve left so far, since the first day. Within a span of two hours we saw a moose, a deer, a rabbit, and another black bear! Today has actually been full of black bears. Four have been spotted from the camper today. My dad saw all of them, John saw three and I kind of saw three (the cub John saw was just a dot out the window by the time I saw him) and my mom saw two of them. I cannot BELIEVE how many bears we’ve seen! In all the times we’ve driven this, we’ve never seen so many. We have seen tons of buffalo too, which I thought was really exciting. And rock sheep (they eat rocks). And at least a couple caribou. Just a few minutes ago we saw the only animal we felt like we were missing—wild horses. John and I even saw an otter, happily swimming along on his back.

I was reminded (again) that British Columbia is my favorite province for a reason. Today was so breathtaking as far as scenery—I told John earlier that I’m on sensory overload, basically. My brain is still trying to process everything we’ve seen today. We drove around and up some mountains, stood on the side of the road at a mountain lake and later a river and just enjoyed the scenery. We saw some mountains that were entirely made of rock as we drove into the Canadian Rockies. And then there was Muncho Lake, which is traditionally one of the reasons I would rather drive to Alaska than fly. The water is a irredescent robins egg blue. It seems almost like it glows from a light underneath it, but the color is from copper oxide in the water. There are seven miles of coastline that the Alaska Highway follows and they were all gorgeous. I must have taken a dozen pictures of the same scenes because I wanted to capture them on my camera. The blues and greens mixed with the soft white clouds made the whole scene look like something from a fairy tale or a dream. Pictures kind of show you why it’s so special there, but they don’t really capture it. We were talking about that today, as we drove along a windy mountain road in a country that apparently doesn’t believe in the value of guardrails—this whole landscape, just like Alaska, is so BIG that it’s hard to get perspective from a picture. You try to record what it truly looks like, but you really can’t. But, judging by the hundreds of pictures on my memory card (and we’re not even to Alaska yet!) I am going to keep trying.

It’s raining again—it seems to do that a lot in Northern Canada. We’re almost to Watson Lake, which is the town where we’d originally planned to stop today, but I’m not sure right now if we’re going to stop there or keep going. Probably stop, since it’s past six and today has been a looooong day, even though I feel like time flew by today more than any other day. Probably because I spent so much time looking out the window…

We ended up driving a little further. I've decided it's the daylight that makes everyone want to keep going. It's hard to think about going to sleep when there's no sign of the sun setting anytime soon.

The RV park where we are has wi-fi (finally!!!), which is good. What's not so good is that as we pulled in my mom shared a fond memory with me from last time we stayed here when she saw a grizzly bear track. Great. I told her she should have told me that tomorrow AFTER we spent the night, but it was too late.

Stay away, grizzlies. We have a gun and we know how to use it.

Day 6

DAY 6

I think I’m wearing out the Dixie Chicks CD Alison got me for my birthday. Seriously, though, if you’re a country fan at all and can drive out west without listening to “Cowboy Take Me Away” and “Wide Open Spaces” over and over…well, I just don’t get you.

We left the campground at about seven this morning, after heating up last night’s leftovers for breakfast. Last night it was FREEZING! And I’m not sure I’m exaggerating. I didn’t check the weather, all I know is that I don’t remember the last time I was that cold. I think tonight I’ll sleep in, oh, five layers of clothing maybe? That and the blankets should keep my organs from completely shutting down. Brrrrr! Don’t get me wrong, I adore cold weather. But I don’t think I have the appropriate clothes. I tried to pack warmer clothes, but it’s so hard to even picture needing them when it’s 100 degrees when you’re packing.

Northern Alberta looks suspiciously like Alaska, minus the mountains. The trees and vegetation is pretty similar, though. We stopped at a roadside bathroom, which my mom was not thrilled about. If you haven’t had the pleasure of using a Canadian “rest stop”, they’re basically glorified porta poties. It’s a real building, but inside is a metal “toilet” over a pit in the ground. Ah, Canada.

I got super exciting at the rest stop because now it really seems like we’re on our way to Alaska. I blame it on the cold, but I was so excited I ran circles around the parking lot. I only ran for a minute, so it’s not like it was a full workout, but I’d forgotten how fun running is when you can breathe without a snorkel and you’re not about to pass out from heat exhaustion.

When we finally got to British Columbia I was really, really, REALLY excited and in Dawson Creek, where the Alaska Highway officially starts? Well, I was downright ecstatic.

The beginning of the highway must’ve undergone some improvements since we were up here last, either that or we didn’t remember it well. It’s a beautifully paved four lane road. Don’t worry. We weren’t fooled, we figured it would get worse. And it did. At one point we were up against a hill on one side and a gradual drop off on the other. There was a river of water (not one that was supposed to be there) running off along the side of the road working on eroding it. We also drove over a narrow bridge over a river that started with a ‘K’. The bridge was narrow and was made of that metal grate stuff, so we went slow. My dad says if you drive too fast on that stuff, it jerks the car around. The view of the river from the bridge was awe inspiring, seriously. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. No pictures of that to show anyone—my camera batteries need to be charged AND I was too busy looking. I’m documenting a ton, which I really want to do so I can remember all the details of this trip, but I also have to remind myself to make sure I experience it and don’t just take pictures of it.

AND I saw my second bear (in the wild). This was on the side of the road and I was the one who spotted him. I thought at first that it was a moose (we were far away, okay? It was big and dark). Then I decided it was just dirt or something. Then I decided it was a moose. And then as we got closer I realized it was a black bear! He couldn’t have been terribly old, we’re guessing last year’s cub, maybe? He was feasting on a moose kill on the side of the road and ran off with a strip of moose in his teeth.

We stopped for dinner at The Shepherds Inn at Mile 72 of the highway. The food there was delicious and the owners were Christians, judging by the books they were selling. My parents and I got strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert. Why oh why can’t we grow rhubarb in the south?

We ended up stopping for the night at a campground on the Sikanni River. There was a construction crew there, too. They had been working to dislodge some trees that had caught under the bridge and formed a dam that was making the river rise (pretty significantly). Despite the fact that John and Josh were the only ones not a little worried about the river flooding in the night, even though the problem appeared to have been fixed, we were fine and got to enjoy the views of the river.