Airport Security @ Mile 14

I usually don't editorialize on this blog but somethings been in the news lately that's really bugging me. Yup, all these folks so wound up over losing their privacy by submitting to full body screenings or pat downs in the airport. Its obvious to me that these are not people who have spent 35 winters in Alaska, if they were I'd bet dollars to donuts just like me they'd submit to just about anything with the prospect of a break from an Alaskan winter. Give me a frontal lobotomy, I don't care. They can frisk me, interrogate me, see through my clothes...I don't care, lets just get this thing moving and get on the plane. OK?....


But I realized this is a serious situation for folks who might not be as secure in their skin as I am so I got to doing some problem solving and I think I've got it. My solution although it might sound complex really gets at the heart of several issues facing America, security, health and our desire to always be bargain hunting....So I propose that we evolve this 'body scan' machine that everybody seems to hate into a full blown C.A.T. scan machine. After all if it can tell you have a tumor it ought to be able to tell the TSA folks if you're packing a box cutter. Then when you clear the TSA station you're given a print out of your scan to use as you'd like, maybe spend a two week vacation worried about that new dark spot on your liver, who knows. Brilliant eh?...we do something for preventative medicine, take the gripe out of the system and we all fly securely. Problem solved.


I guess I have a knack for noticing the small things in life, Its part of that quest I'm on...appreciation. So now that its cold and the river is starting to freeze I got to taking a good look at the ice here at Mile 14. Its beautiful, really. MP and me along with Jet-Blue the dog that's learned to stand on two legs when on the ice walked down to Fall-in-Hole yesterday. That first pic is how the ice pans and floats down the river, its kind of cool because we see many shades of the same thing. Then the next pic I took of the shore ice. Naturally theres less current next to shore so the freezing process starts at the shoreline and works out. When it gets close to the water there is a strange ribbon of these ice crystals laying on top of the river ice. I don't know what causes it but I suppose it has something to do with the open water close by and when its really cold it kind of condensates dropping the frozen ice crystals onto the sheet ice. In whatever case its everywhere and really cool. I guess it underlines what I tell people all the time when they ask if I get tired of being on the river...the river is really a living thing and its different every single day. You just have to notice.

So this last pic is me and the crew saying happy Thanksgiving to all of you. This year its going to be a bit strange here as I think its just the 3 of us. Our boys are grown up and gone, our friends Dick and Loretta who we enjoyed many a holiday with have moved to the 48 and my nephew and his wife are going to Fairbanks to be with his sister. It'll be alright, MP has a mini-turkey and we'll light one of our Mexican candles, open a bottle of good Merlot and be thankful for all of you and all that we have here on the Kenai River. Keep reading, we'll have some fishing stuff going on real soon.