Mendenhall Glacier

Just outside of Juneau, Mendenhall Glacier is one of the more accessible Alaskan glaciers.  Somewhat dirty at the face, it's still impressive, a frozen flow into a lake dotted with icebergs, surrounded by rugged mountains and greenery. 

Mendenhall Glacier 

Hikes of various difficulties span the park.  For an easy walk, take the boardwalk trail around Steep Creek, where you might see salmon spawning in July or August, or the flat walk out to Nugget Falls, which crashes into the lake and dwarves the spectators.  Information on various longer hikes can be found at the visitor center or online.          

Kayaking on the Mendenhall Lake

Nugget Falls at Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau

Steep Creek Trail, Mendenhall Glacier

Practicalities:

To get there, you can take a shuttle bus ($16 round trip) from the cruise ship docks, or catch a much cheaper city bus, which will drop you off a mile or so short of the glacier.  Entry is free to the glacier, and the visitor center charges a modest fee. 

UPDATE 2020:  The shuttle was $16 in 2011.  In 2019 I believe it was $45.  It'll probably increase. This ridiculously inflated price does include the fee they're now charging for entry to the park, which you'll have to pay yourself if you come by bus, etc.  However, the fee's only $5 per adult, free for children, and free with any national park pass.      

If you want more information about Mendenhall Glacier,

check out my books on Amazon:
Cruising Alaska on a Budget
Hiking Alaska from Cruise Ports

"Summers at Castle Auburn" by Sharon Shinn

I love the romance in Summers at Castle Auburn.  People talk of love triangles, but Sharon Shinn creates an infinitely more complex love square here, all accomplished with tingly romantic tension and no graphic love scenes.  As a big fan of Jane Austen and similar works, I find this pleasantly drawn-out style of love story much more to my taste than the lets-hop-into-bed-two-minutes-after-meeting type of story so common today. 

After all, Summers at Castle Auburn isn't just a romance.  It's a fantasy with themes of slavery and independence, and lots of interesting but not overly-complicated, hard-to-follow court intrigue.

I like the main character a lot:  a somewhat tomboyish girl, raised to be a witch (herbalist), but thrust into the world of nobility and royalty when she discovers her dead father was a nobleman.  She makes friends just as easily with the rich nobles and the rough guards and the captive servants. 

Also intriguing is the attraction between the main character's uncle, a renowned hunter of the alluring, fairy-like creatures used as servants in rich houses, and the queen of these ethereal creatures.  Hunter and hunted united in a strange dance of hate and love, desire and fear.

The writing is good, and a whole lot more happens than in The Safe-Keeper's Secret, another of Sharon Shinn's works.  See my less enthusiastic review for that book here.  I'm not sure, however, that men would enjoy the tale as much as women. 

My rating:  4+

If you're looking for a clean romantic fantasy, read Castles at Summer Auburn by Sharon Shinn.

Alaska Nature

Here are a few photos of the natural beauty I discovered

on my recent Alaska Cruise. 

If you want more pictures and information, 

check out my books on Amazon:
Cruising Alaska on a Budget,
Hiking Alaska from Cruise Ports

Beginner's Publication Luck—or Curse

I recently had a poem published on diamondsandtoads.com. 

If you don't count high school literary magazines, this is the first poem I've submitted to anyone, and it earned publication!  Now, if the pattern holds true, I only have to submit about 25 more poems before another one will be snatched up.  That's what happened with my short stories.  

I used to be so scared to show my writing to anyone.  I had a few stories published, again, in my high school literary magazine, but they were almost accidental:  the first one I didn't even submit, but wrote overnight for an assignment in English class.  My teacher was also the literary magazine advisor, and she submitted it without me knowing.  I'm the first to admit it's not a masterpiece.

For a few years after high school, when I went to university and realized how much I didn't know, I hardly even talked about my writing to other people, though it was a huge part of my life.  Finally I saw a short story contest at my public library and decided to enter.  I labored over my story for weeks.  Then I took it to the library, where I had previously worked and thus knew all the librarians.  Terrified, I shoved it at Greg, red-faced, and said, "Don't read it."  Which seems rather self-defeating.

Weeks later the call came:  I had won the contest.  "Beautiful," they called it.  Boom.  Instant confidence.  My first venture into the real world of writing turned out roses.  So I joined a critique group, which I'd been afraid to do.  I started submitting to literary magazines.  The first rejection I took with pride.  The second, third, fourth…not so much.  I kept submitting, though slowly.  Rejection.  Rejection.  It took me 24 more short story submissions before I received my first acceptance, into THEMA Literary Magazine.  (Summer 2011 issue--available to buy at Thema's website.)

The first three travel writing pieces I submitted?  Accepted.  Then a dry spell of rejections.  Do we see a pattern?

Too bad it wasn't the first novel submitted which won acceptance.  Of course, then I'd be on every writer's "that's not fair" list.  So I guess I'll plod along on the novel front with everyone else.

Writing takes time, patience, and skill.  Getting published takes more time, more patience, just as much skill, and lots of luck.  So this month, I'm really going to work on my submitting goals as well as my writing goals.  Good luck to everyone else doing the same!   

Ruby Beach, Washington

The beauty of the rugged North Pacific coast.  

Ruby Beach, Washington

Just a short walk from Highway 101, on Washington's Olympic Penninsula, Ruby Beach is a hot spot for sunset photographers.  Without tripod and fancy lenses, I felt a little underdressed, but the spectacular scenery compensated for my little point and click.

Hubbard Glacier, Alaska

Disenchantment Bay, Alaska

Over six miles wide at its face, Hubbard Glacier appears small until you realize how far away it is, until you sail slowly toward it through icebergs and eerily blue water and mountains scarved in mist, until you realize that it's dwarfing this ship of yours, this ship that itself can dwarf a town.

Hubbard Glacier vast in the distance

Hubbard Glacier much closer--just the very end fits in the camera.

The most beautiful thing about Hubbard Glacier is how alive it is, one of the most active glaciers in the world, and one of the few still advancing.

300-foot high walls of Hubbard Glacier, calving modestly in the center.
The ice chunks that fall off can be as tall as 10-story buildings. 

As you stand at the rails in Disenchantment Bay—possibly the most inaccurately named bay in the world—watching the 400-year old ice at the glacier face break off and crash into the water, creating a sound the native people describe as white thunder, you'll marvel at the diversity this planet so generously offers, and how very small we all are in the face of it.    

Click here for an awesome time-lapse video of Hubbard Glacier on a sunny day.  Watch for calving at about 45 seconds.  The second video is a cloudy day, where the ship doesn't get half as close.  Thanks, Jeff Birmingham (radiofreebc), for the great videos. 

If you want to know more about how to see Hubbard Glacier for yourself, 

check out my new book on Amazon:   Cruising Alaska on a Budget,

My story on the Helium home page

Helium.com is a site where people can post articles on all sorts of topics, and creative writing in many forms.  Today my flash fiction piece, "A Summer Storm" appears on the Helium home page.  It will probably disappear from there tomorrow, but you can read it any time here.