Hallowed Eve eve

We had snow flurries yesterday, and it is cold this morning. It may hit 40 by afternoon, but it is sure to be sunny. The Sandias are dusted with snow. Flowers wilted from the cold, and leaves are gathering in piles, swept by the winds we had before the the cold and snow came through.

Jackson got a cast on Wednesday. It is bright orange. He carries a permanent marker in his pocket so his cousins, classmates and friends can sign his cast. On Wednesday evening, Jack got his bobcat badge at the pack meeting. It's the initiation achievement. He was very excited and happy about it. We had the complete uniform for the meeting, all the badges and patches on. Last night he studied the wolf handbook and made a list of all the "belt loops" he can achieve.

Rylee is very excited about Halloween. He is already talking about next year. He has a costume parade at school today, and a couple of his buddies at school have birthday party plans. He is making skeleton hands out of paper and glue. Cyndi made candy corn and popcorn hands, with plastic spider rings, using latex surgical gloves, for both Ry's and Jack's classes. They will have a busy day.

Bare Loon Lake

I'm going through some documents in my office today, and found this poem Ariel wrote in the summer of 1996. She may be cringing a little, knowing I'm about to set it out here. She was 12 when she wrote it and about to go into 7th grade. I recall she submitted it and it was published before. We were returning from our hike with David, Terra and Jennifer along the Chilkoot Trail when she wrote it. The night before we left on the hike, David directed us in packing our provisions, quick eats like gorp, bagels and cream cheese. I think I drank iodine-laced water, flavored with Tang, on the trip, as we had no purifiers then. Most of our party had external frame backpacks. Ariel had a blue junior-sized one we bought at REI, filled with gear and clothes, her sleeping bag and mat, and food and water. A ridiculously small bell dangled and tinkled from her backpack to protect her from bears, a dubious safeguard no longer recommended. She usually wore shorts, big boots, wool socks, a couple of layers on top, sunglasses, and a floppy hat or bandanna on her head. David had the only stove, which we used to boil water. We took the ferry up from Juneau to Skagway, slept overnight at the trailhead in our only rainfall of the trip. The trail took us through the rainforest and then we entered alpine and snowfields, following 33 miles of the trail the gold seekers took during the Klondike Gold Rush to enter the Yukon in the late 1890s. Before the Chilkoot Pass there was a hard climb up a rocky slope, covered with snow near the top. There were switchbacks of boulders marked by poles, but it was mostly scrambling. There is a famous photograph from 1898 showing an endless train of stampeders, each carrying hundreds of pounds of provisions on their backs, hiking straight up to the summit along steps carved into the snow. These are the Golden Stairs. Once you reach the summit of the pass, you enter British Columbia. A Mountie (probably a warden, or ranger, actually) was stationed there. A man portaging a canoe passed us there. We saw very few others, usually only at a camp site or at the pass, discussing bear sightings, but more often we saw no one. Several miles later we made our second or third camp at Bare Loon Lake. We were alone. Our two tents sat on a rocky ledge at the edge of the lake. The night never became dark, and we listened to the cries of the loons on the lake. I recall drinking hot coffee in the morning, standing near the lake, and Ariel bolting from the tent, pack on her back, ready to go. Here is her poem, which I think she began on the ferry back to Juneau and worked on as we flew back home. She also made a pastel painting, a Christmas gift, which I have but I must repair the glass.

Bare Loon Lake

I wonder if the loons sang those nights
The nights it was windy and cold
The nights stampeders hiked through mountains and snow
To find but a handful of gold

I wonder if the loons sang those nights
Sang their eerie song
On a lake with waters as clear as glass
Glistening in the quiet dawn

From the lush rain forest in Alaska
To Canada with lands full of light
Gold seekers reached a peaceful lake
Where the loons may have sung that night

I heard the loons sing last night
The night after climbing The Golden Stairs
The same stairs stampeders made in the snow
The snow that covered many rock layers

I wonder if the loons sang those nights
Sang for the travelers sake
I wonder if the loons sang those nights
Those nights on Bare Loon Lake


Here is an official web site for the Chilkoot Trail.

David has pictures and an account of a recent trip along the same trail here. David has other links, pictures from another trip, and photographs.

Finally, here's the wikipedia page.

When I have a chance, I'll scan photographs from our trip in 1996. Someday, there'll be another.

injury

Cyndi had a girl's night out in Santa Fe on Friday. They took the Railrunner and went to Canyon Road and the plaza. The boys and I had hot dogs at Costco and went to an indoor putting course. On Saturday morning, we went to the skate park, meeting Pete and Brendan there. In the afternoon, we went to Belen. I put bratwursts on the stove, Ry was still asleep in the car, and Cyndi and Jackson went riding on their bikes. I'll let Cyndi describe what happened and how she managed to find a cell phone, but I got a call that Jack broke his arm. I drove with Ry to the park where they were and we took Jack to an urgent care. We managed to get there two minutes before they closed; otherwise, we would have had to drive to Albuquerque. We got xrays and saw a doctor. They put his left arm in a splint and a sling. At this point, it doesn't look like a fracture, possibly a dislocated elbow, and probably a severe sprain. Cyndi will take him in tomorrow, but it doesn't look bad. Jack was pretty tough about it, and he helped his mom in the moments after the accident.

sailboats & golf

The boys got costumes for Halloween this week. Ry is a "scary ghost" and Jack is a magician. There's talk of the cousins making a "haunted house" at Nicholas' and Lauren's house, where we'd meet for trick or treating this year.

Jack's cub scout pack had a sailboat regatta on Saturday. We met on Saturday afternoon at the middle school, and the boys raced their boats in rain gutters set up on sawhorses and filled with water. The regatta was followed by an ice cream social, with big bowls of ice cream and lots of toppings. Jack and I started building the boat from a kit on Thursday but the last coat of paint and glue were still drying just before the race. Jackson painted the boat in blue and yellow and put stickers all over the sail. The boat could have sailed better, but Jackson had fun.

Ry and I went to the skateboard park early Saturday. It's pretty amazing to watch him gliding along. Later he asked to use a golf club and decided that golf was his new favorite sport. He wanted to watch the golf channel that evening. Ry will only wear sports clothes, because they're "cool." Lately, he's been adopting a skateboarder look. He said he wasn't interested in the "handsome" clothes his mom ironed and set out for him for school. We told him he could be both handsome and cool. When he said he wanted to wear golfing clothes, I told him golfers wore "handsome" polo shirts, just like the ones Mom set out for him. So now he's wearing a polo shirt.