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Alaska!

Dave Purchases Huge Territory from Russia!

Gale returns it because it’s the wrong size!

Panorama of the high point of Dave and Gale’s July 2009 cruise between Seattle, WA and Glacier Bay, AK. This is Mendenhall Glacier, just over ten miles from Juneau, AK. The face is about two hundred feet tall, and is receding sixty feet per year. Note the waterfall of glacial meltwater gushing out to the right.

Panorama of Johns Hopkins Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park. Yes, the ice is blue or turquoise, due to absorption of the longer frequencies of light by the highly-compressed ice crystals. This too is about two hundred feet tall at the face. At far left and far right, muddy meltwater is gushing up from under the glacier.

Panorama of the Holland America Lines MS Westerdam, anchored in the bay at Sitka, AK.

Dave and Gale overlooking Portland, OR, the first stop on their cruise vacation. They attended the wedding of Dustin Zemel and Jane Robinson.

This is a pretty good approximation of the cultural standard of Portland. Relaxed.

MS Westerdam. Tonnage: 82,500 gross register tons. Length: 936 ft. Beam: 105.8 ft. Decks: 11 passenger decks. Installed power: diesel-electric. Propulsion: Azipod. Speed: 24-knot maximum. Capacity: 1,916 passengers. Crew: 800 crew. It’s just plain big.

If they did not endure the inconvenience of ports-of-call, this is exactly how the relaxed couple would have spent all of their daylight hours: on the bow deck, with cool beverages, pizza slices, and chewy cookies from the 24-hour snack bar. Dave’s belly can be seen in this action shot, growing at the same rate that the nearby glaciers are receding. Only faster.

Gale examines a typical hilltop neighbrhood overlooking Juneau, AK. The houses are built at various levels, and many are connected by informal, vertical alleys of staircases.

Marching down a street in Juneau. Many of the houses have quirky color schemes. The streets are steeply inclined up the mountain side, and there aren’t many private cars on them.

Dave triumphantly stands his ground on a sandbar, unaware of the dramatic glacial scene behind him, at Lake Mendenhall, near Juneau.

An actual piece of Mendenhall Glacier, shoplifted by Dave while the park ranger was ticketing an iceberg parked in a tow-zone. Each ice crystal is roughly a one-inch cube, some larger. Some of the blue glow is visible at the bottom.

Gale waves from the base of AJ Falls, above Lake Mendenhall. This sight occurs within the Alaskan rainforest which is draped with mosses, lichens, and the clothing of bear-eaten hikers.

Norman Jackson is a Tlingit native-Alaskan from Ketchikan, AK, and is the artist whose interpretation of traditional lore and symbols is seen here. Dave and Gale purchased a copy of this limited-edition silk screen print.

Gale after ordering breakfast in the ship’s dining room.

Gale ready to enter Pike Street Market in Seattle, WA.

Faye and Rubi Wed a Second Time!

They Love to Party!

The first of the Mausner-Zemel cousins to legally cohabit, as far as we know, Faye and Rubi were married by Milwaukee County magistrate Dean. Then, months later, they were religiously married, before all their family and friends, in their synagogue. This time, they did it right.