Jim Still Lights Women's Fires...

Jim Morrison's grave - still has groupies

Friday was a full day in Paris. We started out at 10am. Linzy was pounded by the jet lag and opted out of the day. Her cold had flared up, and we all decided she should just stay in bed and rest. Nikole and I visited places Linzy was not as interested in going to. We started the day out by going to the Père Lachaise Cemetery which is where Jim Morrison is buried. The site was surrounded by old groupies and young fans alike… and many stood around talking about smoking a joint in his honor. They have it fenced off now because of the constant vandalism. While we were there, one 20ish year old fan climbed over the fence and kissed his tombstone… apparently he lights her fire.

From the cemetery that Napoleon built, we headed over to the Moulin Rouge. The Moulin Rouge is the birth place of the can-can dance and cabaret style entertainment. After exploring the area, we headed in to Montmartre. Many artists had studios or worked around the community of Montmartre such as Salvador Dalí, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh. Today, many artists still hang out, and you can walk the streets and watch people paint. We sat in a café sipping espresso in the shadows of Sacré-Cœur Basilica (Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris). We toured the Salvador Dali Museum which had 300 pieces and then wandered to the Basilica – rumored to have the best view of Paris.

View from the top of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart


Me standing on a French street corner

The view was spectacular and the 300+ steps climbing to the top justified the crepes soaked in Marnier afterwards. The narrow spiral staircases are becoming familiar in all these old buildings. The staircase was so narrow it touched both shoulders in some places. The view was amazing! It was 360 degrees of history below us… and pretty breathtaking. We could see the Eiffel Tower across the city. We decided to head that way; Nikole and I drank champagne under the tower and toasted our trip on the banks of the Seine River.


Nikole sipping champagne at the Seine

Our day turned to night and we hopped on a night cruise of the Seine. It was wonderful sipping wine and boating up the river enjoying Paris by night. The Eiffel Tower was lit with orange lights, as were most of the city lights. They added an extra sparkly dash of lights that seem to turn-on every hour.

It seems that the French like to sit along the river at night with their baguettes and wine and chat and enjoy the river. The French like to do that everywhere. We finally rolled back into the hotel at 11pm. What a packed day!

Eiffel Tower at night. Hard to take
photos of it...

Baguettes, Wine, and Lots of Cheese!

http://madaboutparis.com/shopping/the-best-baguette.html

Since I have landed in France I have done nothing but stuff myself with the finer things in life. It is really easy to do that here… the French have loaded the streets with cafes serving heavy creams and carbs - A dream come true! Pastries and breads of all sorts… and the cheese - over 400 kinds are produced in France - are on every street corner. Now there is a major contradiction going on here… with so many carbs and heavy cheeses… why are the French so slender? Why is everyone here so slender but yet constantly stuffing themselves with all this wonderful food? I discovered the answer to that question today… STAIRS. Stairs everywhere in monuments… in all the subway stations, on the city streets. This is why the French are so thin. I worked off every carb I put into my mouth today.

And just when you thought you have tasted heaven…. I get a crepe soaked in Grand Marnier and piled high with fresh made whipped cream slid in front of me to go with my cappuccino! I am going to have to say that this is my most decadent vacation yet. Did I mention the croissants?

Now there are a couple of things I have noticed about the French:

They are all dressed very nice… even to go to the mall.
The men carry purses too.. The Man Purse is really popular here!
They are always walking around with baguettes under their arms… apparently the French do not put preservatives in their bread… so they bake it twice a day and it is readily available everywhere. This means the entire city always smells like fresh bread.
Most women are wearing gladiator style sandals.
If you do see someone with a tee shirt, it generally has a US slant to it, usually American baseball teams or Adidas logos.
Men and women share the same bathrooms sometimes, but the stalls all have locks on them.

Did I mention the coffee? I am having at least 3 cups a day! WooooooHooo

By the way, the tracker is working in Paris. Click on the link (above and to the right) to see where we have been for the day. Turn on the satellite imagery for the best view.


Coffee #3 for the day.. in the artists district.

Final Installment on Cordova…

Childs Glacier taken minutes before it calved. Don't let
scale and size fool you... this thing is massive!

So.. There I was sitting on the bank of the glacier river, with this gorgeous glacier wall across from me. The glacier front was so massive I was having a hard time photographing it. Jaz had stayed above (about 50 feet) at the viewpoint and was shooting with a wide angle lens.

My strategy (since I have no such lens) was to get down near the river and shoot across and upstream where I could capture more of the length. It is hard to shoot ice. The shoreline was very rocky and hard to navigate, but it was so beautiful. I have seen many glaciers up close and personal all over Alaska, but Childs Glacier has to be the most spectacular to date.

So there I sat adjusting and fiddling with my camera when a large chunk of ice calved -off the front. Now, of course, my camera was not facing the ice, so I missed the shot. I turned and tried to face the ice, but was too late. Suddenly all my hair stood on end and my immediate reaction was to grab the camera and tripod and run. The piece of ice that fell off did not seem that large but it apparently was. I no sooner turned and made it away from the river before the water receded and began advancing on my position! I managed to stay a couple of feet away from the moving water, but boy was it loud and powerful! Jaz missed the opportunity of photographing me running…

Very refreshing and invigorating! Nature is very powerful. The rest of the trip went well.

I have since traveled to Denali National Park and Preserve and got some wonderful shots of wildlife but I am going to have to play catch-up on that trip and skip to my current trip: France

Riding the Copper River Highway was amazing!

Here is a link to an amazing video that recently captured an Alaskan glacier calving, and it demonstrates how the water can react.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL3EjH9-WSs&feature=related

Cordova Cosmos

Cordova, Alaska by motorcycle (and boat and train tunnel). Well, I am behind again as usual in posting my blog. Keeping up with posting on the road is a challenge, either because of lack of connectivity, or being too damned tired to do anything but face plant at the end of the night.

I finally got to travel the road less traveled (literally) and visit the Copper Highway north out of Cordova, Alaska. Of course, it is less traveled because there is no road to Cordova. Cordova is a small fishing village located across the Prince Williams Sound from Whittier. It was one of the communities hit the hardest from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Copper Highway was built to service the railroad from Cordova to Chitina in 1945. The construction included the “Million-Dollar Bridge”, the first bridge to nowhere along the railbed. The 1965 earthquake took out a section of the bridge making it impassable until 2005, when the state of Alaska repaired the section. Today, the railbed has been converted to a dirt road that travels 50 miles into the heart of the Copper River Delta passing too many glaciers to count. The Copper Highway is one of only 4 roads left in Alaska (off the main road system) that I have not traveled. The road to Manely Hot Springs, the entire Petersville Road, and the Dalton are the remaining 3.

Getting to Cordova is a challenge. Jaz and I took a Friday off a couple of weeks ago and headed south to the Whittier tunnel. The Whittier tunnel, on a motorcycle, can be a frightening experience. The tunnel was originally constructed in 1941 to service a train only passage. The tunnel is narrow, with a single track laid in the middle and runs for 2.5 miles. Today, they have laid down metal grating between the rails to allow cars and motorcyclists to travel through. Because the trail still uses the rails, motorbikes must straddle this 2.5 foot wide metal grating between the deep rail gullies the entire length of the tunnel. The traffic brings in rain (a usual for Whittier) making it slick. It is dark, cold, mesmerizing, and there are large blower fans to move the car fumes out. The fans have been known to frighten less steady-handed motorcyclists into the rails. This morning, both Jaz and I were apprehensive about the tunnel. We both emerged in Whittier with cramped hands from the white-knuckling the ride.

Tunnel to Whittier
(Image www.mtnmouse.com)

Once in Whittier, we put the motorcycles on the Alaska Marine Highway fast ferry – Chenga bound for Cordova. The 3 hour boat ride across the sound was calling for 6 foot seas. Great! I get sick in ½ inch seas. We brought tie downs to strap the bikes down hard for the boat ride.

While standing in line waiting to get on the ferry, we met Joe. Joe was a likeable fellow that pulled up on a KLR650. Joe hadn’t been riding very long… you could tell. While we were standing there, his bike topples over onto its side. He stands there and looks at it. I look at him and say… aren’t you going to pick it up. He says… I don’t know how. I tell him to move quickly… and I help him right the bike. Then he spent the next couple of minutes trying to figure out if the girls he was trying to impress saw him. They did not. Once we rolled into the ferry, he was confused as to how to tie his bike down. He parked next to me. I helped him with that as well, and warned him that if he left his bike too loose and it tipped on mine during the ride I was going to kill him. Jaz then warned him if he tipped on mine and then caused mine to fall on hers, that she would finish whatever was left of him after I was done with him. He made sure his bike was secure. From then on we referred to him as “Knock-it-over-Joe.”

Jaz eyeballing "Knock-it-over-Joe" suspiciously..

We rolled in to Cordova 3 hours later and checked into the Cordova Rose, an abandoned barge turned bed and breakfast on the beaches just south of the town. The barge is a stones throw from the ocean and when we were not riding the highway or walking into town, we were enjoying walking the property enjoying the sculptures and miscellaneous fishing items strewn about.

The B & B was not in town, and a taxi in Cordova is a dicey proposition. The one and only cab driver is a fisherman, so if the fishing is good, then the cab service is not. The fishing was good. We walked into town to have dinner and drinks at the Reluctant Fisherman. They serve a mean Cordova Cosmo that I highly recommend! Stay away from the pilot bread! Cordova is a nice little fishing town with a fishing problem. Walking back, 3 Cosmos later, was… interesting. The next day we were going to travel the Copper Highway!

View of Cordova from my barge (turned B and B)

Part 2 - Cordova to come....
Learn why I jumped so fast your head would spin...!