Let's NOT Honor the 50th Anniversary of Vietnam

This idea of memorializing the Vietnam "conflict" is not so hot.  For one thing, they are starting it two years too late for a 50th celebration.  It started officially in 1960, not 62.

Secondly, I would venture that most of us left alive from Nam (about 800,000 maybe less) just don't care to relive it.  Then there is that hatred that we had to live with for 20 years after we came back.  It seems that the ultra left is ginning it up again.  I've read articles that blame the Vietnam conflict all on the United States and our Imperial desires. Not even our opponents believed that.  And of course giving honor to those that fought there is a no no too.

So here it is on wind again--atrocities--baby killers--killers--murders--genocide--   I don't really want to hear that again.  I don't want to watch the parades knowing the most of those marching by who are supposedly Viet Vets are fakes and wanna be types. I don't want to listen to our newest vets referring to us as whiners and sponges consuming all the VA resources.  And for god's sake shut up about Jane Fonda.

Leave Vietnam alone.  Leave it be. Don't rip off any scabs.  Give us all here at home and our counterparts in Nam another 10-15 years and we will all be dead.  Then let the fakers march and parade and be honored.

Well Gad Dam I punched the correct button or somthin.

Sorry for being so stupid but for a month now I have NOT been able post anything cause I couldn't figure what they (Gurgel) had done and I was a "magazine" or something and "post" a new blog was no where to be found.  Still don't know how the devil I got to a control page even now.  These guys here at this new blog thing are so bright that they are idiot savants.  Maybe just idiots.  Anyway I bookmarked the magic pages and maybe, just maybe, I will be able to blog again.  So I am back to "Simple" which is actually more complete/complex than their graphic eyepoppers designed for bubble gummers.  Maybe I'm just to old to do this.  I mean my first telephone call was on a party line of 15 people and my "Number" was two longs and a short on the crank.  I did work with Big Daddy however in the Agency and latter in life created a unitary data system for a whole frickin State Higher Education System that was copied by a dozen other states.  You know seriously I had to fire one of my programmers when he mucked up the data base by fixing it and improving on it.  Anyways I've been pissed for a month, but now I back, I think.

MEMORANDUM: You Are Mortal

Imagine you are in a time machine hovering over a villa in the Roman city of Pompeii.  You hover there and observe the disaster as it unfolds.

Thus we have a day in Pompeii.

Day 8: On the Yukon and Klondike Rivers

On the morning of the 8th day we were taken on a boat trip on the Yukon and the Klondike, pretty neat, but it wasn't what I bought when I bought the tour.  I bought a real trip on a real ferry, the Yukon Queen up the Yukon River to Eagle, Alaska.  But Holland America not only canceled that trip but pull the Yukon Queen off the river.  So much for getting what you paid for.  So here we went on a fake paddle steam boat for a couple of hours and 4 miles of rivers and back.

He we go. Here comes the Klondike Spirit, note: don't go on the third deck it make the boat top heavy.  This blog and photos are about this excursion on the Klondike Spirit.

Dawson from the river.

Fish Camp

Fish Camp

Ferry across the Yukon

Water taxi

Not sure what they are doing, the Yukon has no rapids anywhere near Dawson.

But at least I got to boat by the Steam Boat Graveyard, twice.

Here are some details about the steamboats in the graveyard.

The Klondike River is geographically considered a braided delta where it flows into the Yukon. Not to mention it has been dredged to death because it is here where the waters slow down before flowing into the strong, fast, and deep Yukon and dropped its gold.

Back at Dawson we disembarked and proceeded on.

Day 7: Dawson City Yukon

The one full day in Dawson was used to sleep late and have a long breakfast at the bar in the Jack London Grill which was empty which allowed us to talk with the bar tender for an hour or so for stories and opinions. 

Moose Hide Slide

Dawson City Yukon: Read all about it.

Westmark Hotel

On thing about building on the permafrost is that when it melts it does so unevenly thus a building without an insulated foundation kind leans ever which way. These are call drunk buildings.  When trees do this it is a drunk forest.

Story is Jack London wrote "Call of the Wild" sitting in this bar.

This is the center of night life in Dawson (all seasons).

$25 gets you a shot of whiskey with a dead man's toe in it.  They call it the Sour Toe Cocktail.  Every night between 5 to 50 people ant-up and have the drink.  Yes it is a real toe.

They have two extra toes in the freezer in case someone swallows the toe (happened 4 times) or steal the toe (has happened 3 times).  Six people from Kansas City in our group drank one.  Take a gander of the actual process in this video.

This a wooden building covered in a tin facade. 

RMP office and jail from the 1890's.

We walked the four blocks on down to the tourist area along the Yukon River and the highway through town.  After strolling through the shops and stores the knees got wobbly and we sat and watched the people.

The Klondike Spirit River Boat on the Yukon River.

Up until 10 years ago these buildings housed businesses Then one morning they couldn't get the doors open.

Blacksmith museum (not open due to whim).

Low rent district.

Yukon mistletoe ?

The river boat Keno

Ferryboat across the Yukon.  Note the truck hauling two fuel tanks.