Over the past couple of weeks, as we have traveled back and forth to our favorite place, Fred Meyers (Kroger), we noticed a sign for the Glacier Garden Adventure. It is an excursion destination for cruise shippers, but I called the joint, and ask them when their “slowest time” was, and they said about 1230. So off we go. Bigfoot and Elkhorn pull into their “Bus Entrance” parking lot and was greeted by a worker who weirdly, politely, and kinda scrambled brainy said we should not park here due to the buses… So “should not” and “do not” mean two different things in my p-brain. I said I called ahead was told there was plenty of parking at this time. As we are talking through my opened window, she says ” LOOK, a bus is behind you now, can you see that? A bus is here, I told you a bus was coming…So she said pull up there and park. So Bigfoot and Elkhorn comply and park. Well that is what we wanted to do anyways. So we get out of our trucks, and this lady is trying to explain the parking situation, and this flat bed work truck pulls up, the driver, who looked like he just got through digging a ditch, asks what is going on? She tells him, and he looks at us and gently says “it’s okay, just park where you are, that is perfect” and drove off. Hmmm, Virgil and I look at each other, and say, he must be the boss or something, although he didn’t look the part.
Okay so now we are parked and we enter in the “gardens”. The 50 acres of gardens are tucked inside the lush Tongass National Forest on the side of Mount Thunder and are the creation of Steve and Cindy Bowhay. He is former local commercial fishermen and master gardeners who purchased the property for a stream rehabilitation project. The project took on a life of its own, and they’ve developed a guided tour through 2 miles of trails.
The most interesting objects here are the vibrant hanging gardens spilling from 15-foot-tall upside down tree “Flower Towers”. There are about 40 of these upside down trees, and each is buried as deep as it is tall. A net and dirt is placed in the roots and like ALL the flowers here, only Steve does the designing and planting. His attention to detail is superb creating colorful vignettes of all shapes and sizes. Waterfalls look natural with splashes of color abounding.
After wandering around looking at the huge hanging baskets of floral delight, and watching Virgil and Delores kiss in front of the huge heart of roses, (well I think it was staged), we climbed aboard a 12 passenger trolley, and our tour guide took us up a 22 degree switched back, dirt inclined path, that Steve built until we reached 580 feet above see level. During the slow ride up, we saw the evidence of the landslide in 1984 and the results of Steve’s efforts in creating this road up the side of the mountain. She described what we were seeing with great detail, and full of stories about Steve and Cindy. Unfortunately Cindy passed in 2019 from cancer. And guess what? Steve was the man in the flat bed truck who gave us permission to park.
The view at the top was amazing, as we were looking down at Juneau, the Gastaeunu Channel, and Douglas Island (where we did alot of fishing, okay I’m not talking about that again) there were many bald eagles fly in the sky above us.
We took the picture above and it reminded me that 29 years used to sound like a long time. Remember when you were a teenager and someone was 29? That was OLD! Well, not so much anymore.
1993 debuted the Pentium processor, the WWW becomes officially public domain – and free, because “Gopher” started adding hyperlinks and charging to use Gopher. The first web camera was used, Sears stopped their Catalog sales, gas was $1.16 a gallon, and the NY Giants 11-5, won Wild Card Playoffs (vs. Vikings) 17–10 but Lost Divisional Playoffs (at 49ers) 3–44.
But most important in 1993, Ann Marie and I were married! It seems like yesterday and not 29 years! Getting married on a hot summer day in Aiken, SC, then going back to an empty house, (everything was being shipped to LA) for a reception with our family and friends. We are both enjoying this journey we are on, we wish our kids and grandchildern could go for this ride with us as we sure do miss them.
Virgil and Delores celebrated with us, by joining us at Donna’s for dinner. We had a great time both at dinner and as we continue on this amazing Alaskan Adventure.
