Alaska Adventure; Part Thirteen

18-21 June 2013; Aboard the Alaska Ferry Columbia --

A rainy morning on Inside Passage

Sunise along the Inside Passage

Our Alaska Marine Highway ferry, M.V. Columbia, cruised into the night last night as we slept. Thus we awoke this morning, as the ferry left its brief stopover at Auke, with beautiful forested islands and snow-capped mountains all around us. And, since Grumpy had taken such a dramatic photo of last night’s sunset, he felt obligated to arise at 0300 this morning to capture a view of the sunrise. Sleep can wait! 

From Auke we went to Sitka, where we made a two-hour stop before backtracking to the more inland route to continue on toward Wrangell. Grumpy chose to stay on board and rest while Sister went into town and took these special photos of totem poles. 

After a light evening snack [and a mandatory safety drill with the ship’s crew] the exhausted band of Adventuring Octogenarians slinked off to their respective cabins for a good night’s sleep, while our ferry continued to our next destination: Ketchican.

Petersburg harbor

At about 0600 we put in at Petersburg, a quaint fishing village on Mitkof Island.  After a very brief docking to unload a few passengers and at least one vehicle, and boarding passengers for further travel down this Marine highway, we continued on southward into a narrow waterway known as Wrangell Straits, with just the promise of a waterway opening up ahead somewhere, through which we could continue to go South. At times shoals on either side constrained our boat to a pair of channel-marker buoys (one green, one red) barely two or three ferry-beams apart.

After a half hour or so, the Wrangell Narrows opened into a very broad [but still protected from the ragings of the Pacific Ocean] expanse of water called Sumner Straits. We followed this Strait toward Wrangell, but turned South before entering Wrangell harbor. The rest of the voyage to Ketchikan was in a relatively broad waterway, with little chance of spotting land-living animals or shore-lounging sea mammals.

The ferry docked in Ketchikan a few minutes late, with an announced stopover of about two hours. The Captain announced that reboarding time would be 1645, with departure at 1700; then (s)he added:  “ … and we don’t mind leaving you if you aren't on board by that time.” One of our party assured us that, instead of arranging for a taxi to take us to downtown Ketchikan two miles away, we could catch a bus for fifty cents apiece and catch the return bus one hour fifteen minutes later and be able to sightsee in downtown Ketchikan.

Ketchican Totem Pole

Unfortunately, the Ketchikan city bus was anything but in agreement with its published schedule. It was about 20 minutes late arriving to take us downtown and even further behind schedule in arriving in time to take us back to the ferry terminal. Five of us hailed a taxi, and requested the driver to contact another of his cohorts to bring a taxi by our downtown location for the remaining two.

The two, who we had left behind, became impatient with the delay in appearance of the second taxi, and so when the bus finally did arrive they climbed aboard, arriving at the ferry terminal a bare five minutes before departure. Thankfully, the ferry personnel in charge of verifying valid boarding passes were still at their post to allow this last two of our party to board. The ferry, M.V. Columbia departed Ketchikan at exactly 1700.

Thus ended the 19th of June, and another Alaskan Sunset. And, although it is not yet the Summer Solstice, our days have been getting shorter and our nights longer ever since we left Fairbanks!

The morning of the 20th dawned without the now-familiar sunrises to which we had become accustomed for this unforgettable adventure in Alaska. This day, cruising through the Queen Charlotte Islands, there was not much outside to see. So some of the Older Octogenarians took the opportunity to learn about the Motor Vessel (M.V.) Columbia on which we would travel to our ultimate destination, via the ferry, Bellingham WA.


We learned that the Ferry Captain and crew had been instrumental in securing the safe rescue of the passengers (and their baggage!) from a cruise ship that had gone aground along this Inside Passage. 

Four-valves in
 Cylinder  Head

We also learned that the (2) big Diesel engines, which propel this vessel each have 16 cylinders, each of about 17 inches in diameter, with  a stroke of 29 inches. They are each rated a 6,000 horsepower. Three smaller auxiliary Diesel engines drive electric generators to power the lights and electrical devices on board.

Before "hitting the sack*" on this, our last night on ship, we packed for an anticipated expedited deboarding at 0800 tomorrow in order to catch the AMTRAK Cascades train to Tukwila Station.

* "Hitting the sack", is a traditional phrase used in the U.S. Navy to mean, "going to bed".

Alaska Adventure; Part Twelve

17 June 2013; In and Around Skagway --

This day, the 65^th Anniversary of my marriage to The First Wife (the One and Only), began with sunshine and warmth; a beautiful day to remember our wedding day and the joy of the more than 63 and half happy years we had together.

It was also a beautiful day to ride the White Pass and Yukon Railroad out of Skagway to the top of White Pass, with views of blue-sky outlined mountains along the way. We climbed aboard the antique, but restored and upgraded, passenger cars of the late 1890’s and inched along behind a modern diesel-electric locomotive toward White Pass.

The narrow-gauge railway went past the Gold Rush cemetery that we had visited the previous afternoon, so we heard again of the local legend of “Soapy” Smith and Skagway hero Frank Reid.


We saw numerous impressive waterfalls teeming with melt-water from snow fields – and a few glaciers – lounging on the hillsides and valleys a thousand feet or more above us. Along one stretch of the way we were on a man-made ledge with a vertical (or even overhanging!) wall on the uphill side and a near-vertical cliff on the downhill side.

A narrator on board this excursion train told of the sad tale of the greedy entrepreneur who used a massive number of horses as pack animals to carry prospectors’ supplies from Skagway up and over White Pass. Each prospector had to have at least 2,000 pounds of supplies in order to be permitted into Canada by the Northwest Mounted Police. The horses were usually overloaded, underfed and generally treated cruelly. As a consequence, many – in fact, most! – eventually died along the rocky trail that preceded the railroad. Many stumbled and fell to their death; others, unable to go on, were simply pushed over the cliff and left there to suffer and die, their bodies ultimately to rot and decay; the area was called “Dead Horse Canyon”.
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A Surprised-to-be-seen Brother Ahead

We crossed a couple of picturesque trestle bridges, each of which incorporated a curve such that those of us in the foremost car could photograph the rear cars of our train. Some people stood on the platform between the cars to capture the views fore and aft. Two tunnels entertained us with the presence of near-total darkness as these ancient passenger cars had no interior lights of any kind.

White Pass marks the boundary between Canada and the United States. Shortly after crossing the Pass and the border, we stopped and waited in our rail car while the engine was disconnected from our end and reattached to the opposite end; we thus became the “caboose” for the return trip back to Skagway.  Because none of us on the excursion train were allowed to get off the train, we did not have to have passports.

Grumpy was fascinated with this abandoned, old wooden trestle, a remnant of the road bed completed in 1899. Its dilapidated condition reminds us of how fortunate we are to be living in the age when steel-structure had replaced these wooden, decay-prone bridges.

When we returned to 82 degree Skagway, some of us enjoyed the shade of a handy tree to savor the local ice cream. Our ferry to Bellingham had a 1700 departure, so our stay in Skagway ended and our voyage down the "Inside Passage" began as the  Southeast Alaskan sunset bade us "goodbye" and "bon voyage".

Tomorrow morning we will wake up as the ferry leaves Auke terminal (Juneau).

The Inca in Peru -- Experts in Innovation

December 5th-8th, 2012; Around Cuzco, Peru --

What do you do when you run out of land on which to raise the crops that you and your civilization need to eat? The Inca give us a glimpse of what they did to solve their dilemma in this respect: they constructed level land -- and developed the irritation* systems to make it productive. But exactly how they did some of the things they did -- it is still a subject of mystery and conjecture.

• * The word, "irritation" was intended to read, "irrigation"; however, this typo is fruitious in that the construction of these agricultural developments provided considerable irritation to explorers, like Grumpy, who clambered up and down these sites centuries later.

John Deere tractor plowing a field.

Span of oxen plowing in adjacent field

Here are a couple photos of some quite level and rich soil, albeit at the elevation of 12,000 feet above sea level. Grumpy was told that the Inca occupied (lived on and cultivated) this area. Grumpy was fascinated by this contrast of the John Deere tractor and the span of oxen working in adjacent fields.

The city of Cuzco, situated on the bottom of a prehistoric lake, was also home to a large population of Inca at the time the Spaniards arrived. So why did the Inca find it necessary to construct crop lands in such inhospitable places as Moray, or Pisac, or Ollantaytambo --- or Machu Picchu!? Probably for the same reason the present world is running out of areas where crops can be productive -- partly because of the encroachment of pavement and warehouses onto our most tillable land. The effort to which the Inca went to develop crop lands should be a lesson for us to be better stewards of this precious commodity of which we still have quite a bit.

One of the most unique Inca sites is called Moray; it was built around a crater-like formation that may have been a "sink hole", since some of this area is limestone. There were actually two natural, circular depressions at this site plus an additional one that appeared to Grumpy to have been formed by damming an adjacent ravine. This site included a comprehensive irrigation system, utilizing water from surface run-off plus a diversion from a spring in another nearby valley. Most of this irrigation system was intact and functional.

The site that had the most elaborate irrigation system, and the one that was actually functioning when we visited, was at Tipon. Here on the left is a view across the series of nearly-level fields; the fields slope gently down toward their lower retaining wall. On the right is the irrigation canal bringing water along this side wall to various spots where it is diverted into cross-field canals (located next to the wall separating it from the field above it), from which each individual field can be flood-irrigated. This is the most water-efficient method of irrigation; least water is lost to evaporation, as is the case with "sprinkler" irrigation.

The Inca site that most clearly demonstrated the apparent desperation of the Inca to be able to grow crops in order to survive, was at Machu Picchu. Here in this part of Peru is the most "vertical" topography Grumpy has ever seen! Yet a hardy group of Inca came to this location (following a ridge from higher ground closer to Cuzco) to establish this settlement; then, after "only" 15 years, they inexplicably left, taking all of their belongings with them. To have accomplished as much as they did in only that short time is amazing in itself. The fact that they "made" fields on hillsides as steep as the one you see in the photo on the right is absolutely stunning to Grumpy. As you may note, the lower fields virtually stop only because below it is a near-vertical cliff.

A Short Side Trip to Peru -- Oxygen Not Included

December 5-10th, 2012; Cuzco City, Peru --

This side trip during the last week of my two and half month visit in Brazil was a pleasant surprise organized by my lovely Brazilian Sister-in-Law: Our stay in a beautiful old mansion, retrofitted into an upscale hotel, the tickets and driver to take us to each of eleven former Inca sites -- and the endless walks (up to 10,000 steps a day according to my trusty pedometer!) -- all were arranged by her.

View of dining plaza; right of entry

View on entering enclosed courtyard

I would like to start out by showing you a couple photos of the hotel. It had three floors of guest rooms, a large indoor courtyard dining area where a complementary breakfast was served each morning [this "complementary breakfast" was head and shoulders better than the so-called "free" breakfasts advertised by U.S. motel chains!], and each guest room included a Jacuzzi in addition to a shower and other "necessities". Four "suites" were located on the second floor behind a balcony which overlooked the dining area. Lunch and dinners could be ordered by guests from a "Chef's Menu".

Meat was also unrefrigerated -- flies would die!

Step right up and eat with gusto -- and the flies!

Our first exercise, upon arriving in Cuzco (also spelled "Cusco"), was a walk to the Central area to see such sights as the city market place (food service and fresh meat storage not meeting FDA standards!) as well as one of the Cathedral's that was built over the ruins of an Inca temple. The Catholic priests evidently believed that by building over their ruins that the Inca would recognize the defeat of their religion by Christianity; I believe the good padres were misguided in their approach, but I wasn't there.

Cuzco is at an elevation of 11,000 feet above sea level. Walking around the city took an effort, even though it was not as hilly as downtown Seattle. Needless to say, Grumpy's lungs, acclimated to sea level, found the Oxygen content of the air here to be very lacking; he "huffed and puffed" a lot during the entire visit to Peru, but especially the first couple of days.

Close up of scene on left!

These aren't just little rocks!

[This Inca site was developed in a large crater.]

The second (and first full) day, we visited four Inca sites located at an altitude of 12,000 feet! Fortunately, these sites had only a few stairways up (and down -- or down then up!). By going slow and taking lots of photos, Grumpy was able to survive. His leg muscles were in decent condition since had been exercising on the treadmill fairly faithfully in the days and months leading up to going to Brazil, and again while visiting his brother and sister-in-law in Brazil. But the leg muscles still needed Oxygen and Grumpy opined that Peru must have been rationing it since there seemed to be so little of it available to we tourists.

Subsequent days we visited about three or four different sites each day, all at altitudes between 11 and 12 thousand feet. As if the altitude wasn't enough, each successive site seemed to have more stair steps -- and steeper stairways! Besides the altitude and the numerous and steep stairs, the Inca must have had a peculiar body form to have been able to build and accommodate their stairways: Grumpy figured that they must have been only about 5'5" to 5' 7" tall -- but with legs that were at least four feet of their body height and very well muscled! Grumpy's reasoning stems from the fact that in most sites, the riser (height of a step) was 15-18"! Sometimes the tread (the part where your foot goes) was only 8-10"! Going up was sort of like going up a ladder; going down was like contemplating suicide! [And of course, there were, and are, no handrails!!]

There is much more to tell. In coming days, (as I relax from the trauma of perparing my 2012 FORM 1040!!) I will concentrate on a few of the more impressive (to me) sites and try to describe with photos the "ups and downs" that made them impressive -- to me. Stay tuned.

Bob's Favorite Sport; Moving Rocks, Part Two

Early November 2012; On Site at the Tennis Club --

In the continuing saga of the movement of rocks, we ultimately encounter disaster -- of a humorous sort! The victory of Physics over Engineering. Keep your toes and fingers out of the way!!

In this second installment of the "rocky" adventures of the inveterate and never-discouraged Z-Brothers, we find them moving the third biggest rock from the pile on the lower side lawn into an elevated position in this meter-high rockery. Please note the use of advanced technology here -- a five-sheave block and tackle! [What is this world coming to that these two would resort to such modern equipment when faced with the trivial task of raising a 6-700 pound rock a mere meter and half above the surrounding terrain?]

After using "normal" brute force and cleverness to move this rock from its long-time place on the lower side lawn, to a judicious position below its intended place atop some previously-placed large and intermediate rocks, the brothers decided to employ a recently re-strung set of block and tackle. This set, using five sheaves (pulleys), would provide a force on the rock end of roughly five times the pull on the rope at the other end of this gadget. A carefully-placed and Mechanically-engineered ramp of two-centimeter thick lumber would provide a bridge along which this rock would be moved uphill on rollers to be positioned by the Physics-ian brother. BSME brother, the ever-inventive Engineer of the ramp-bridge, would provide the grunt-power on the working end of the block and tackle rope.

Victory of Physics (gravity) over Engineering (design errors).

All went well as the rock moved smoothly up the ramp, past the judiciously-placed bridge abutment that had been previously placed by the thoughtful Engineer. Disaster, in the form of the victory of Physics over Engineering, struck -- exactly as subsequently calculated by said thoughtful Engineer -- as the rock came to the mid-span point between the bridge abutment and the final end of the ramp-bridge. Previously-thoughtful Engineer had neglected to continue his thoughtfulness and provide a support at this critical mid-span point. 

Subsequent steps were taken which rescued this rock from its "comfortable" place in front of the rockery, to its proper place on top. No record of these "after thoughts" and actions were made. But here the rock is, nicely capping a continuation of this beautiful rockery.

An Effort to Improve Gas Mileage

Grumpy's Castle; 17 September 2010 --

Grumpy noticed that his prized automobile, Red Rocket, was trending downward in miles per gallon. It was first noticeable last summer when the Grand Mother and he drove to the midwest (at a maximum speed of 65 mph, of course) but averaged just under 31 mpg. In 2008, Grumpy's first "experiment" with slow driving, he had averaged over 34 mpg. What could account for a 10% drop in mileage?

One possibility was that the sparkplugs were in need of replacement*. The owner's manual says that they should be replaced at 105,000 and the 'Rocket' odometer was showing 84,000 of "hard" driving (the Grand Mother's term -- not Grumpy's!).

With this in mind, Grumpy searched the INTERNET for information on the best plugs to buy and any special tools needed. Yep, a special thin-wall deep socket was required. Grumpy chose a set of Bosch platinum plugs with four radial gaps -- similar to the plugs in Uncle Bob's Mooney engine.

The spark plugs on the Honda V-6 engine are not visible -- even when you open the hood. Grumpy removed a "suspicious" looking cover on the front of the engine. The plugs were still not visible, but a set of three small-gauge wires led to three black caps each held on with a single bolt. Removing the bolt and pulling on the black cap uncovered a deep hole about one inch in diameter; at the bottom of this hole -- about six inches down, to be exact, was the top of a spark plug. Would Grumpy's standard six-point deep socket fit down this hole?

The answer was a comforting "YES!" However, the problem arose as to how to lift the plug up out of that hole after it was unscrewed from the engine head. Scrounging in Grumpy's odds-and-ends tool chest, a short grabber was spotted -- something inherited from his Father-in-Law perhaps -- not yet used by Grumpy (he had a longer one that he had bought years ago to retrieve something that had dropped down through an engine block and into the oil pan).

The "Grabber" was useful for extracting each plug after it was unscrewed, but was also used to carefully lower the new plugs into place and finger-tightening them before torquing them with the deep socket to the proper spec.

All went well until the removal of the last plug -- #6. By the time Grumpy had fetched the old plug from its deep hiding place, his hand looked somewhat familiar. Yes, the Zimmerman gene had shown its ugly head again. Now the reader can see why Grumpy can sincerely say that he "FEELS" for his Grandson whose bloody knuckle was the subject of much pondering, guessing and ridicule a few days ago. Up to this point Grumpy was thinking that this job would be an exception to the long tradition that suggested that "A good job isn't done until there is a bloody knuckle or two."

Of course, Grumpy successfully finished installing the new plug in the #6 position -- and the 'Rocket started on the first cylinder!

Then Grumpy went in, washed his hands and took this picture of the "special" tools used on this job:

From left to right, the "special" tools are: six Bosch Platinum-4 plugs (with black marker pen used to identify each used plug so it could be replaced in the same cylinder if necessary); 8mm Allen wrench (to remove cap-retaining bolt); 5/8" deep socket with six-inch extension; 3/8" square-drive ratchet wrench; six-inch "Grabber" (for snagging tops of old spark plugs so they could be pulled up out of the deep hole they were in). Grumpy suspects that the so-called "required" special deep socket was one which included some kind of plug removal device. With the willingness to try something available rather than spend good money on a new tool that may only be used once or twice in his lifetime, Grumpy saved probably twenty bucks -- the new fancy plugs cost almost twice that much! But, as an old friend used to say, "There is more than one way to skin a cat without kissing it to death!"

*For more Automotive technical information, including things that affect gasoline mileage, go HERE.

Heat Pump Operation Update

Thursday; South King County--
Since its operation began in early September, the Heat Pump has been performing properly and reliably. Most of this time the outside air temperature was well above 35 degr F, the temperature at which the installation technician had set the system to switch between the Heat Pump and the auxiliary heat (oil furnace). In December, when the outside temperature loomed into the 20's, and with high humidity, Grumpy reasoned that the switch-over temperature ought to be set higher to prevent frost build-up on the outside heat exchanger coils.

Sometime around the last part of December, Grumpy noticed that the Heat Pump was going into a cooling mode when the outside temperature was near freezing. Grumpy reasoned that this was a process to melt a frost build-up on the outside heat exchanger coils. Grumpy's professional (Mechanical Engineer) solution was to change the outside temperature at which the Heat Pump turns itself off and commands the "Auxiliary Heat" to take over.

But Grumpy became suspicious of the adequacy of his solution when, in early January the outside temperature got into the low- and mid-40's and the Heat Pump was still going into what Grumpy thought was the "defrost mode". So he changed the master control to use "Emergency Heat" only and called the people who had installed the Heat Pump.

Today (Thursday afternoon) the technician arrived, and after only a few moments, ascertained that the master controller had been programmed in reverse! Grumpy had obviously made a change that he hadn't intended to make! Now the heat pump is again working flawlessly.

Meanwhile, Grumpy gathered the data to show the progress of "saving money" with the Heat Pump as compared to depending on just the oil furnace. During the November-December period, we consumed 99 gallons of fuel oil and used 1375 kwh more electrical power than the previous year's period. Calculating that the Heat Pump provides the same heat as an equivalent quantity of fuel oil (211 gallons), Grumpy declares that we "saved" $449.10 this past two months! That's nearly $600 so far this heating season.

Note that the total "equivalent quantity of fuel oil" should approximate 500 gallons by sometime in April. That is the usual time when we have run out of fuel oil in past years.