Season's Greetings from the Little Latitudes

As we complete our latest trip around the sun, its time to reflect on 2022 and look forward to another solar circuit in 2023.

There were two exciting developments in our part of the world in 2022 and both were newsworthy in one way or another.  Most importantly, Cathy took the plunge and joined the ranks of the retired.  She had spent much of the last 40 years or so in some form of computer science but on August 31 she said goodbye to her company.  Now almost every waking moment is spent honing her skills as a world-class knitter.  If you need a sweater or a wool cap made she will pump one out at warp speed.  My personal favorite is her Fair Isle knitting style.  I only wish it was cold enough here more than 2 days a year for a wool cap because I would certainly like one in that style.  She also oversaw the torturously long effort to remodel her kitchen.  Its taken more than 3 months to complete and is still not finished.  Cathy served as general contractor for this effort.  She’s not old enough yet for Social Security so she might want to consider being a kitchen remodeling manager as a retirement job.

The other exciting news in 2022 was the unwanted arrival of Hurricane Ian who roared ashore just south of Sarasota on September 28.  Peak winds here were clocked at 127 miles per hour. We suffered no property damage other than a couple broken palm fronds, We were among the luckiest of people in Ian’s path.  Too many suffered far more.

Unwanted and unwelcome Hurricane Ian roared ashore about 40 miles south of Sarasota as a Category 4 monster on September 28, 2022.  Good riddance

Cathy’s rambunctious grandson Channing spent almost every other weekend with us.  We spent a lot of time in the pool where he continues to excel as a swimmer.  At 5 ½ years old we are making plans to build houses for the imaginary 9 families of muskrats he is convinced live in our pool.  We spend a lot of time watching jets flying over and Channing remains fascinated by their contrails. His ability to identify birds by their voice is improving but his wildlife specialty has become rescuing frogs, turtles, and millipedes that fall into the pool.

 

One of several juvenile Red-necked Sliders that Channing rescued from our pool this summer

Cathy and I made three major trips together this year beginning with the Galapagos Islands.  The birds, the marine mammals, and the scenery were almost lifted from an Evolution textbook and it was a huge rush to be exploring the same waters and islands that Charles Darwin explored aboard the HMS Beagle.  

The course followed by the Bedbug infested Golandrina I among the islands of the Galapagos

Sadly for us, the ship we were on, the Golandrina I, was not the least bit comfortable. A Galapagos Sea Lion that hopped aboard and joined us for dinner one night, and a bed filled with bedbugs were the two most memorable onboard experiences. On our return from the islands to Guayaquil, Ecuador, Craig misinterpreted the COVID rules and discovered when we checked in for our flight to Miami that we needed a negative COVID test before we could depart Ecuador. Eventually everything worked out and we left Guayaquil 13 hours late.

 

Even in your wildest dreams the Golandrina I was not and is not a luxury Galapagos yacht, although the bedbugs were memorable

Moose are regular visitor's to my daughters Wasilla, Alaska, yard.

We traveled to Alaska and Montana (on Alaska Airlines of course) in late July and early August.  We spent time with my daughter and her family near Wasilla (without once again seeing Caribou Barbie Palin), then made a day trip to Nome where we found 22 Musk Ox and $7.00 a gallon gas! Our dinner restaurant, the Bering Sea Cafe where we paid $5.00 for a ping pong ball sized baked potato, burned down the next month when the remnants of a typhoon ripped through west coastal Alaska.  Luckily none of the great people working at the Bering Sea were harmed in any way. 

Musk ox are the highlight of any trip to Nome.  Seeing 22 of them makes it even more special.

From Nome we flew to Kalispell, Montana, and spent a week with our Sarasota neighbors in a house owned by Bob Barker.  We spent one day in Glacier National Park where a Grizzly Bear sauntering down the highway like he owns it (he does) and a flock of Bighorn Sheep at Logan Pass were the wildlife highlights.

Bighorn Sheep at Logan Pass in Glacier National Park, August 2022

On Halloween we flew to New Orleans to celebrate my latest birthday.  We stayed at the Westin Hotel by the river, ate breakfast one morning at Mother’s Restaurant, dinner one night at Deanie’s Seafood, and lunch and dinner another time at the Crescent City Brewing Company.  Once again we are convinced that it should be a requirement of US citizenship to travel once every 4 years to New Orleans just to eat Cajun food.

 

It's worth standing in line for hours for the best soul food breakfast in New Orleans at Mother's Restaurant

Craig made a couple solo trips to Alaska including a marathon “See-Alaska” jaunt in late May and early June that took him to Fairbanks, Bethel, Nome, and Kotzebue before landing in Barrow for the fifth time.  There he conducted the Barrow Breeding Bird Survey and saw an Arctic Fox, two curious Caribou, and a Polar Bear that was foraging on a recently harvested Bowhead Whale.

There are two hotels in Barrow but my favorite, just a stones throw from the airport is the King Eider Inn.  Any hotel named after a way cool duck has to be a place for wildlife enthusiasts to stay while there
 

 

The runway at Ralph Wein Memorial Airport in Kotzebue Alaska cuts through the middle of a large Estuarine Emergent wetland where flushing flocks of Long-tailed Ducks is a common occurrence each time a plane arrives!

This rather large Polar Bear was dining on the leftovers of a recently harvested Bowhead Whale on the Arctic Ocean ice at Barrow in June.  Photo by Sarah Alli Brotherton Guthrie of Barrow. 

This Caribou was found daily along the route of the Barrow Breeding Bird Survey at Barrow.

Plans for 2023 depend on whether our respective hearts continue pumping!  Too many friends from childhood passed away in 2022 which is making both of us more aware of our own impending mortality. 

Before that happens we have a trip planned in mid-January to Antarctica with stops along the way in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and the Falkland Islands.  Our original reservation was for a balcony stateroom, but Norwegian did some stateroom rate changes and we ended up with an aft-facing penthouse (complete with a personal butler) for less than we originally were paying for a balcony!

Our most favorite Norwegian Cruise Line ship "The Star" will be taking us to Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, the Falkland Islands. and Antarctica in January.

This will be Cathy’s fifth time in South America, her second time south of the Equator, and Craig’s 6^th time in Argentina.  Antarctica will also be Craig’s 7^th and final continent.  

Sixteen days aboard the Norwegian Jewel from Honolulu to Skagway, Alaska, to Vancouver, British Columbia, should be a relaxing way to maybe pick up one new seabird for my life list

Thanks to an email from a cruise broker we found an astonishingly cheap 16-day cruise from Honolulu to southeast Alaska to Vancouver British Columbia in April and early May.  When we called Norwegian Cruise Line to see if the offer was legitimate we learned that Norwegian’s price was even cheaper than the cruise broker.  So in mid-April,  Alaska Airlines will plunk us down in Honolulu and from there we will begin our watery trek north before going south.

Craig’s only other Alaska trip in 2023 will be a return to Barrow for another breeding bird survey, and to conduct a new breeding bird survey route on the Nome to Teller Highway. With luck there will be a Polar Bear on the Barrow route this year, and maybe a Wolverine on the road to Teller.

Willow Ptarmigan, the State Bird of Alaska, are surprisingly common and conspicuous along the Nome to Teller Highway (which is a dirt road!)

The Alaska Native village of Teller, 80 miles northwest of Nome, is one of the most picturesque locales I have seen anywhere in Alaska

As with every year we hope the holiday season finds you happy, healthy, and looking forward to the New Year.  Its curious how as children it seemed to take forever to get from one Christmas to another.  Now it seems like it was just last month we were wishing you Happy Holidays from beneath a Florida palm tree.