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Prescription for Adventure

Monthly Archives: January 2013

Making Plans for your Trip to Alaska: A Prescription for Adventure

31 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Adventures

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If anyone is planning to fly to Alaska this summer, the time to make reservations …..was probably before now. I made reservations several weeks ago, for trips in April and in June.  Unfortunately, I did not have enough frequent flier miles on Alaska Airlines for both trips. That was my own doing because I refuse to fly the red-eye back, which is the least expensive. If you have not flown to Alaska in the summer, you might not know that Frontier flies up —for the summer months only— and all their return flights are red-eyes, as are United’s and Delta’s. I fly AK Airlines because they have daytime flights back, I can use my miles, and I just really like AK Airlines — and the AK Airlines people seem to like working for AK Airlines, too, which shows in their attitudes at all stages of the trip. But, a few words for any Cheechakos flying up.

If you do make your reservations early, and particularly for flights June – August, do not be surprised if you get alerts that your flights have been changed — 2-3 times–before your departure date – no matter which airlines you fly on. It is wise to have a grip on this before you leave for the airport, and in case you have connecting flights..

If you fly through Seattle, AK Airlines may book you for a 45-50 minute lay-over between flights – or, the really good deals may book you for 6-8 hour lay-overs. The short lay-overs are fine when your next plane departs from a gate in the same terminal; but, for your insider information, AK Airlines flies in and out of the main terminal and the satellite terminal. If your flights are in different terminals, you will run around wildly, find the escalator down, catch the train, de-train, leap onto the escalator up, and locate the gate on that other side.  This will give you an adrenalin rush, but really, there is no need to worry if  a)your plane does not arrive late, b) there are other AK flights departing for Anchorage, following the one you were booked on  —-that have seats available – and Anchorage is your destination and you don’t have to catch another flight — although ERA, out of Anchorage,  handles these situations matter-of-factly and you will get on the next available flight —- which, due to heavy tourist volume in the summer —  may be at 4:25 am the next morning.

AK Airlines knows that ANC is not everyone’s destination and that the last Frontier encompasses around 570,373.6 square miles. They recognize that some travelers plan to go to FBK, ENA, KOT, GAL, BE or elsewhere.  Other airlines can be baffled that there is life outside Anchorage. Where and how would a person fly anywhere else when you can see polar bear roaming the streets of Anchorage, catch salmon outside the Anchorage Hilton, and see Russia from the first story of their B&B?

Another problem with the delusion that Anchorage is the final destination is with baggage. A decade ago, 50% of the time, I discover that my bags had only been booked to Anchorage — where I’d have to find them and drag them to ERA, for my next leg – to Kenai. This process is complicated because unlike the olden days when ERA flew until 1 am, there are now no ERA flights to Kenai after 10:30 pm.

Again, there is no need to work up a sweat like a husky at the end of the Iditarod.  First, if you are there in the summer, the sun will be up much of the time and it won’t seem like you’re spending the night in the airport; second,  the Chili’s in the main terminal serves breakfast 24-hours a day; and third, you can be first in line for any 4:25 am flights.

Just making reservations is an adventure in itself, not to mention security requirements and lines, the anticipation of unknown flight connections, and the disequilibrium of time-change coupled with arriving in the Land of the Midnight Sun. And that’s just for starters! But, isn’t that why you want to go to Alaska in the first place? For an adventure? Absolutely!

Enjoy!

My Gaede family flying to Alaska in the late '50s.

My Gaede family flying to Alaska in the late ’50s

Connecting airlines to Alaska - late '50s

Connecting airlines to Alaska – late ’50s

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When it Comes to Adventure, Age Doesn’t Matter

12 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Inspiring Adventures

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Aunt Marianna --- minutes before a rain storm.

Aunt Marianna — minutes before a rain storm.

My favorite aunt just turned 89. Her red curly hair has turned gray; in my mind, it frames her face like a halo. As far as I’ve known, beneath that halo, there’s always been a smile.

Aunt Marianna has brought a smile to my face plenty of times. Take for instance one Thanksgiving when I visited her house. I brought an uncomfortable marrow-deep chill with me and couldn’t get warm.  Aunt Marianna poured hot water into a basin and set it on the floor before me. “Here,” she said. “Soak your feet. It seems that when feet are warm, the whole body feels warmer.” It worked. I smiled. I smiled too when she made her typical breakfast of fried rice, a tradition carried on from being a missionary in Japan.

She’s an adventurer. She and her husband back-packed around Europe when they were in their 60s; over fence stiles and into pastures of curd-chewing cows and wooly sheep.  Years later, those stories enticed me to do a walking trip through the Cotswalds in England.

She’s an inspiration.  From early on, she and my uncle opened their home and lives to international students – and in my adult years I was motivated to do the same.

When I taught a graduate class on aging, I asked who had a role model for growing older. Not a hand went up. Every student, most in their 20s, looked puzzled.. “Older” might have been age 40. Their assignment? Choose a grandparent-age person who they admired, and write about that person.

Now in her late 80s, she regularly reads stories to five classes in a nearby school. Reading isn’t “just reading,” it comes with visuals, items to touch, and conversations. Easy? Aunt Marianna has an inherited hearing loss.

Now in her late 80s, she walks a mile around the college track. Easy? Not with health issues that come with “almost 90.”

Now, in her late 80s, Marianna and her daughter, Sharon, regularly visit female inmates in the county jail who are awaiting trial, and the state prison. In the county jail, they sing along with a CD and have a Bible study.

Easy? No. Some days, at the county jail, mother and daughter are turned away due to a lockdown in the jail.

The prison is worse. “Easy” is not a word found anywhere. The guards don’t assume Marianna is a benign little old lady – dressed neatly in a red brocade kimono  top. Who knows? She could be carrying contraband, a crowbar, drugs, a chainsaw, explosives, chocolates. She has to empty her pockets, pull up her pants legs and show the bottoms of her shoeless feet; then, because she cannot go through the metal detector due to her pacemaker, she is “wanded.” She also has to point out her two hearing aids and show a written statement from her doctor for wearing them.

Some days are more worse than others. The prison does not allow visitors to wear hats, hooded jackets, or carry an umbrella. During the Christmas holidays, just before her 89th birthday, Marianna got drenched in a cold downpour while waiting to go in. Out of sensible concern for herself and her mother, Sharon urged, “Let’s go home, Mom. We can come back another day.”  My role model with a dripping halo could have done just that: shed wet clothes for a cozy robe, put her feet up, and sipped a cup of steaming tea; instead, she replied, “We’re already here. I want to see one more woman.” These are not nice women and nice visits. Several women they regularly visit are in for murder. All the same, the stringently searched angels of grace and mercy buy the inmate lunch, read the Bible, pray, and encourage her.

Now in her late 80s, my aunt’s home and kitchen table welcome college students, long-time international friends, and ex-inmates. Much like the father of the Prodigal Son, when she heard an ex-inmate was coming to visit, she set out a festive table with lit candles and brewed hot tea, and greeted her with a warm embrace. The ex-inmate could have repulsed many people. Easy? Not for a judgmental person. But, even though Marianna has a strong moral compass, she isn’t judgmental. When confronted with someone’s hideous and unspeakable crime, she asks, “What would Jesus do?” She manifests the hands and face of Jesus through open arms and the gift of unconditional love and grace.

All the same, she acknowledges that what she does wouldn’t work for everyone.

“My elderly next door neighbor would be horrified if she found out I was entertaining ex-inmates in my home,” she says with a soft chuckle.

Aunt Marianna isn’t climbing Mt. Everest, wrestling alligators, cleaning up a town after a hurricane, saving the whales, or learning to hang-glide, but she’s an adventurer. Her adventures are a prescription of her own. They match her God-given personality, passions, setting, and resources. And, her adventurers are encouraged by a family of cheerleading children, grand-children, great-grandchildren, and a host of other people who call her “mom” and “grandma.”

Age Doesn’t Matter When it Comes to Adventure

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Freedom, Emancipation, Homesteads

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Gaede-80 Homestead

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"Proving up" the Gaede-80 (acre) Homestead

“Proving up” the Gaede-80 (acre) Homestead

January 1, 1863, 150 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. We commonly think of this as freeing all the slaves, when it fact, it did not; it was only the beginning.

On that same day, the Homestead Act went into effect. The land was not completely “free,” improvements were necessary:  (minimum) living on the land for five years, clearing a percentage of the land, and planting a harvestable crop.  Each state had its own challenges. On the prairie lands of Kansas, where my forefathers and mothers moved from the Ukraine, grains could be planted and harvested.

From those wheat fields, my parents moved to Alaska in 1955.  In 1962, they got in on the tail-end of the Homestead Act on the Kenai Peninsula. That area was not prairie land; it was a forest of short and tall straggly black spruce with shallow, webbed roots. Clearing this terrain was arduous. My parents spent three winters with ax, chainsaw, and burn piles to clear a half-mile airstrip — for amount required to “prove up” the land.   Next came planting a crop.  The growing season was too short for many grains planted by homesteaders in other states. My father tried oats and timothy. A nearby homesteader planted potatoes.

Our family still holds the Gaede-80 (acre) homestead, which my father added 33 more acres to later. The airstrip shows up on aviation maps as “Gaede Private.”

Mark Gaede and David Isaak on the "proved up" acreage/Gaede Private airstrip.

Mark Gaede and David Isaak on the “proved up” acreage/Gaede Private airstrip.

Personal freedom, land, and just about anything else we dub as “free” is not really free. Someone has worked for it, fought for it, or paid for it. There are many things we take for granted that someone before made possible. We live in the Land of the Free because of the Brave.

Homestead Act of 1862

Look for the new Emancipation Proclamation stamp – “Shall be FREE.”

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