A slice in time....

Bringing back pictures......a slice in time....

A piece of my history....49 nine years ago...

The year was 1965....my dad's dream was to travel to see Alaska, "the last frontier"....
So in 1965, my parents planned a trip to southeast Alaska.  The state had just built a new system of travel,the Alaskan marine highway, a ferry route that connected the seabound towns of southeast Alaska. you could travel from port to port either with your vehicle or by foot on the ferries...

We had asked my paternal grandparents along on this adventure which started in Northern California....we drove to Vancouver, BC. My father driving, grandpa in the passenger seat, my mother, my grandma,and I in the back seat of the car.  My grandmother read every road sign as we travelled those many miles to Vancouver...(I try not to do that For my grandchildren).

In Vancouver, we boarded a freighter which also took 100 passengers.  This ship travelled to sea bound  communities north of Vancouver. They treated us like royalty.  We visited little communities while bringing them freight and on loading their goods..one stop, I remember, the students rushed the ship, raiding the pop machine with their quarters....there was no key cards to read for boarding as we have now!

We arrived in Prince Rupert, spent the night and boarded the new Alaska ferry the next day...we even had a state room, which was a far cry from the cruise ship state rooms. But it was a bed nonetheless....stopping in Ketchikan and Juneau, where we got off to visit the Mendenhall glacier, the chapel by the lake, the capital and a a small fishing type boat which had been transformed into a floating church.   My grandmother had supported the church and the boat as a mission in the past. My grandparents left us there to fly to the interior to visit relatives.

Yesterday, I revisited the Glacier, along with three other cruise ships of people.  Not as quiet or solitary as my first visit...we visited the Chapel as well.  The same magnificent view of the glacier and lake as before, the same smell of the logs....I wanted to turn around and say to grandma, " look, it is the same as it was 49 years ago" but she wasn't there to listen and admire, neither were my parents....time has passed so quickly...and they are all gone...

It was this trip to Alaska those many years ago that was topic along with my future husband's work in Alaska that we had in common on our first date.  And then, when he asked me to marry him.  We finally made it there on our 25th anniversary together...he had returned work and hunt as we stayed in the lower 48....

It is interesting how ideas, dreams, plans, people intertwine over the years...threads of the picture pick up and take off.  As I was on the long ago ferry system, my husband was working on a fire crew in central Alaska...I dreamt on the ferry of getting married...it is still vivid in my my mind, the ring became popular the year we became engaged, but it was way out of our price range.  I later received one as a gift..

On the first trip,  my parents and I rode the White Pass Yukon train to White Horse. There was no highway at the time connecting Skagway to White Horse. When we returned for our 25th, I drove the highway while my family rode the train..it is so beautiful and old..I wanted them to experience it...

The towns have changed, catering to the thousands of cruise ship passengers during the summer season. The ferries still plow the waters as well, looking like miniatures boats beside the ships carrying the cruisers...but they go to ports that the cruise ships can't and carry cars and passengers to those smaller towns.  We saw the original Russian Orthodox Church in Sitka that year as we wondered around the town.  It burned down several years later and was rebuilt.

Now I am here again, taking in some of the same sights, adding news ones....without grandparents, parents and husband, but instead with wonderful friends...not quite the same, but still memorable...

thank YOU for the memories, the intersections of times, people, and places....

Deuteronomy 4:8-10
New International Version (NIV)
8 And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?

9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. 10 Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.”

Ecclesiastes 3
New International Version (NIV)
A Time for Everything

3 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.
9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

15 Whatever is has already been,
    and what will be has been before;
    and God will call the past to account.[b]
16 And I saw something else under the sun:

In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,
    in the place of justice—wickedness was there.
17 I said to myself,

“God will bring into judgment
    both the righteous and the wicked,
for there will be a time for every activity,
    a time to judge every deed.”
18 I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath[c]; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?