Sunday, March 8, 2009

The Best Laid Plans of Moose and Me: The Bobs in Alaska - March 2009












The first thing you need to know about me, if you don’t already know it: “For a Los Angeles resident, Amy Engelhardt has solid Alaska credentials.” (That’s from the Sitka Sentinel, March 13, 2009 edition. It’s in print so it must be true.)

Alex and I were married north of the Arctic Circle in Coldfoot, AK. I've driven almost everywhere in the state that has a road and through part of the Yukon. My idea of drop dead gorgeous is the George Parks Highway between Fairbanks and Anchorage, in about mid-September. Alex and I have visited the Kenai Peninsula, met a bear on Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, hiked amongst the spruce in Sitka, lazed in steaming Chena Hot Springs as the aurora blazed above (-12 degrees out in mid- February), laughed our butts off Ice Bowling at Fur Rondy (Anchorage's Winter Carnival) and ferried down the Lynn Canal, North America's longest fjord (not the Fjord Fiesta) from Skagway to Haines to see the Bald Eagle Preserve. We intermittently scheme to go to Barrow, Nome, and the Pribilof Islands. Alex is currently working on a new documentary about the Iditarod, and was in fact in Anchorage for the "Ceremonial start" and in Willow for the "Actual start" this year.

So why would I not scheme to bring The Bobs to Alaska? The Bobs last toured Our 49th State right before I joined the band. Lori Bob got to go to Anchorage and Valdez with them in 1997. So when Alex and I visited Sitka in 2002, I contacted a local promoter to see if I could get the ball rolling. Many e-mails, plans and moons later, it all came together with the addition of dates further into the state courtesy of super-promoter Trudy Heffernan - Fairbanks, Anchorage and Kodiak Island! It was to be the dream tour for me in many ways. I'd get to do what I love to do in a place that makes me simply sigh in aesthetic wonderment. Some of which happened!


Thursday 3/19/09 - Sitka? I already Knowya!


I am so very excited to board our 7:50am flight to Sitka. (And yes, regular Bob Tale readers, Sitka is the beauteous spot for which the beauteous kitten Sitka was named.) And it does seem inherently wrong to be going to Alaska without Alex, but hey, he just did it without me! As we descend into Juneau, I see the glacier on the left... forgot to tell Dan to look out for it... And walking to the terminal I am grinning madly. God, it's gorgeous. No real food in the 4-gate terminal, just vending machines... Sitka will be even smaller, tee hee. We land and it's as beautiful as I recalled. Walking to the giant Sitka Fine Arts Camp van, Roger Schmidt, with whom I engineered this Bobs show, is excited we're here, too. I note that the parking lot is now at least partially paved...

Goofy Footnote: Sitka is the only real city on Baranof Island. Population is about 8000. My cousin Lorie's hubby's brother Paul and his wife live here. When Alex and I were here, after a great dinner with us, Paul and Karen offered us their car, to use while they went to Anchorage for the weekend. "Just leave the keys in the glove compartment." It's really the Sitka way. On this island, stealing a car is a misdemeanor, but if the ferry's docked it's a felony. Where you gonna go? There are limited roads! When we got to the Sitka airport for our OWN departure, one parking space remained. We had to park hanging about 5 inches over the painted line defining the space since the person next to was... inconsiderately positioned. Karen emailed us a week later to tell us she had received a voicemail from the Sitka Police Department while she was in Anchorage telling her that her car was spotted at the airport, and it was "ALMOST illegally parked." WHAT THE??!?!?

A semi-cold day. Deserted streets. No cruise ships in town in March. It was crowded when Alex and I were here in autumn. I treat myself, nostalgically, to a bowl of salmon chowder at the new Level II restaurant downtown (used to be The Bayview - we have a magnet on our fridge). I nap and do email all afternoon, and Karen picks me up for dinner. More salmon! Yum! Their cool new house is gorgeous, and their kitties Cinderella and Lucky (a recent rescue) very sweet. Their lovely daughter Abby (who DOESN'T like the internet and loves to read) tells me all about the worm compost farm in the kitchen. Karen and Paul were Bobs fans before we even met. Kinda cool. We have a great conversation about... everything. Paul is teaching his students about one of the last terrible Native American massacres. Karen reveals that she too has a Facebook account (Paul didn't know). It's cozy. I offer to house-sit for them for a week this summer and we agree to keep in touch about it. How amazing would that be?!?! The view of Mt. Edgecumbe alone, from their livingroom, makes me weep!



The Bobs take over KCAW's Raven Radio that evening for about an hour. Many thanks to the effervescent Rachel and her young assistant, Savannah. While we're on the radio, fans who were "just driving by and heard you" drop by the studio THREE TIMES! Where else in the country can you get that kind of hometown greeting? We sign a quilt that's being donated to a local organization, Rachel gives us some great Raven Radio swag and we head back - across the street, basically - to the hotel. My cell phone doesn't work here, or I'd call Alex... I fall asleep dreaming of places as gorgeous as... where I actually am!












Friday 3/20/09 - Quoth the Raven: "You're Not Doing The Show."

We walk across the street at 8:00am to do another KCAW plug for the morning host, Robert. Good silly fun. Coffee at the Back Door, then a great workshop at Sitka High School. I can't help but wonder, as I did on Lopez Island (in Washington state's San Juans), how growing up in a breathtakingly scenic place influences you. Yes, family drama is family drama, but does it sculpt your mind? Your general outlook? How would seeing the Baranof Island Range and the Alexander Archipelago versus, say, a brick wall and a dumpster outside your bedroom window shape your view of the world and its possibilities? I announce our website, myspace, and Facebook presence, and am pleasantly surprised when the kids boo Matthew's son's comment that "Facebook is for old people." (I will rub Duncan's face in that later when I find him and FRIEND him on Facebook!) We stroll through the Performing Arts Center, a stellar new addition to the high school, where "we" will be performing tonight. It puts some Lower 48 venues to shame.



It's about 40 degrees and the sun keeps playing a supporting role in the sky, so I am shocked that none of The Bobs want to join me for a very non-strenuous, mile long hike in the Sitka National Historical Park. This totem- filled rainforest trail is a canopy-filled wonder of Sitka spruce and western hemlock right on the rocky coast (yes, a forest on the coast), offering views of the harbor, the little islands, the towering, Baranof Mountains glistening in the snow. It's... Mmmmmm..... The trail itself is surprisingly un-slushy and I pass several mid-day joggers and dog-walkers. It's calming, oxygenating, crisp. The Visitor Center Ranger asks if I want to see the movie about the park. "No thanks, I got what I came for." I cruise back to the hotel, stopping to get some goofy souvenirs downtown. It is a perfect afternoon. I'll get dinner later at the venue. The peanuts and lo-carb bar I just ate can hold me until then.

CUE HORROR FILM MUSIC! I'm instant messaging with a friend in Massachusetts when my descent begins. I proceed to vomit, shake and... basically... Loo It Up all afternoon, freezing cold and increasingly dizzy. I can't figure out which end to toilet first! Huge headache. It felt like food poisoning at first but that is eventually OVER, and this was much more severe. All that salmon yesterday? I'd have been sick last night. The peanuts from Fred Meyer? Were they part of that recall a month ago? At 5:30, Matthew comes to fetch me and I toss the van key out to him, praying this will subside. They'll do soundcheck and send someone to get me later. At 6:30, a lovely girl comes to fetch me (she must have lost a bet). I am on the floor in the bathroom mumbling something like "Oh god, oh god." Before I am able to get myself out the door I will vomit in the bathtub WHILE sitting on the pot. It's that horrific. I get to the venue eventually and consult with a doctor. I unpack my stage clothes. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?! That it would magically stop and I'd be able to sing a Bobs show. I run for the bathroom. I crawl out. When The Bobs walk into the dressing room I am curled up in a ball in the corner and have no saliva. Matthew orders me to the ER. I apologize profusely to Roger, saying how heartbroken I am. Sitka is Russian for "Archangel." That would be Dr. Connie Kreiss, who drives me to the ER at 7:20pm as I barf into a garbage bag into her car. I see happy people heading into the theater as we pull out of the parking lot... bleahhhhh.

I watch the Bobs show tick by on the ER clock at Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital as Aidan, Connie, Christine and another doctor whose name I cannot recall pump SEVERAL liters of fluid into me that... doesn't come out... as well as an anti-nauseant (which makes the rest of the evening semi-bearable). The good news is that this ER is only three beds wide and I'm the only patient. Not quite the ER experience in, say, Los Angeles? The staff is really wonderful. I call Alex on a nurse's cell (remember, mine doesn't work here) and ask him to call our insurance company - I can't think clearly enough to deal with that and can't remember if we're supposed to do it... ah, our wonderful health care bureaucracy! They run tests as I freeze under 3 layers of clothes and 3 layers of heated blankets. It is, as they say, "Not My Idea of a Gig." Connie comes by at intermission to check on me. It's going well. It occurs to me that The Bobs have never played here, so this audience doesn't know what we are normally like... and boy howdy are they in capable hands with Dan, Richard and Matthew. I am just, well, I think disappointed pretty much sums it up. Disappointment Pants. I tell Connie to go back and enjoy the show. She's too shy to give The Bobs the message, "Quit talkin' trash about me!" I am diagnosed with a classic case of Viral Gastroenteritis. It is not food poisoning. Antibiotics are ineffective against it. You must treat it symptomatically and wait it out. Connie comes back around 11 as I am just finishing my IV drip and shuttles me back to the hotel with some medicines that should..."hold me" over the next few days.

The guys come back with Roger about 10 minutes later and I meet them in the lobby. I think we are all shocked I am awake and mobile, not to mention standing upright, considering what I must have looked like when they left me on the dressing room floor, crawling towards the bathroom. The show was fine - they got a Standing O - and Roger says, "You'll just have to come back." What a great guy. I still feel sad but I am actually really happy the audience got their entertainment dollar's worth. Dan was in the hospital a few years ago (acute pneumonia) and Richard, Matthew and I did a trio gig. It felt... hole-y to us but was a fine performance. Oy. What can I say? I head upstairs to pack - we leave at 4:40am.

Saturday 3/21/09 - Is This a Dry Town or is it just Me?

Fairbanks Webcam Link

I tell the desk clerk to sterilize the room I was in, we board the shuttle and cross the bridge to Japonski Island, home to the Sitka Airport. There are people from last night's audience on our flight. "Is that the sick girl?" They ask this and point as if I am a doll or something! I am so out of it I hardly notice our TWO landings (Juneau and Anchorage) on the way to Fairbanks. I actually sleep on the plane. Mace, who is one half of Acoustic Adventures, our Fairbanks promoter, meets us at baggage claim. Heading to the rental car, it's 4 degrees outside and windy. I am laughing but wishing I could REALLY laugh... In the Subaru wagon, Wyoming-raised Dan cannot help himself... "I've been in cold before, but.. this is...... F**k!" There is a cord in the car- you plug it in overnight so it will START in the morning. I remember laughing when Alex and I did that here. Mace is another angel - once we're at the hotel, she offers to run to the local Fred Meyer and brings back bananas, apple juice, water and... extra strength Imodium. I sleep on and off all day, confused when it's a different Law & Order case on the TV.

We head to UAF campus NPR station KUAC with Dan's friend Dorly around 6:30 and it's still light out... daylight savings time in the Great White North. Fairbanks itself is not particularly scenic but the quality of the light when you are this far north is distinctive. Beautiful. The sun seems to rise and set somewhere in the South... it's odd, magical. You cannot tell time by the sky here. Sunsets linger. We have a great time on the program and I get to throw around my Alaska pedigree a bit. I decline dinner @ Dorly's place - not ready for that yet. I'll just get toast from the hotel restaurant. I am so hungry and sad to have to eat all of these carbs, which I don't even like anymore. They aren't filling, and I have felt famished since Friday. And all the sugar from the juices and breads makes me sleepy, so I can't tell if the dizziness is from the dehydration or the carbs as I fall asleep on every chair, sofa and bed in the room over the next few days!



Sunday 3/22/09 - The Fairbanksest of Them All


I pass when Richard calls at 10am to say they are headed out for coffee - still not that recovered yet. More toast. But I am feeling much more human today and.. all's quiet internally, so maybe I'll eat real food tonight. At 2pm we unplug the car (!) and head for our 4pm matinee at Davis Concert Hall at the University of Fairbanks (UAF). It's particularly odd to hear from Matthew that The Bobs have played here twice because when we get there I recognize the lobby. Alex and I stood right here in 2002 and peeked in this concert hall, and I said, "I wonder if The Bobs could play here." The building's right across from the bookstore, where we bought cool UAF gear. KUAC serves as our dressing room. I am kind of dizzy in the show - it's difficult to get breath support (singing a Bobs show requires a TON of this, O Vocal Students), sometimes hard to focus. Not surprising. I am drinking water like a fish. And I have noshed on some veggies in the green room... feels OK so far.


After the show, Trudy, Mace, their kidlets and friends take us out to an Italian dinner on the outskirts of town. And in Fairbanks, the outskirts feel just like the tundra! The sun is just beginning to set as we head into The Veletta. I dare to have a small salad but skip the onions, and about 1/3 of some chicken parmagian. Later on we're joined by someone I went to high school with, now a glaciologist and scientist studying the impacts of climate change on the arctic landscape. I haven't seen Matt in 25 years. In my mind he's a baby-faced, kid wearing a corduruoy blazer with elbow patches, a wisecracker at the back of Mr. Bertsch's trig class, leaning back on his pastel plastic chair until it tips over. He's a tall, weathered guy with extremely long hair, a beard, and a eyes that say, "I have spent a lot of time mapping the Arctic." Softspoken. The people at the table know him from the university. He is more at ease with them. We didn't really know each other at school. It's still kind of fascinating just to look at him side by side with the picture in my mind. I can't help but wonder what he is thinking. Oddly enough, I found him through the Iditarod Insider, an online subscription Alex has for the documentary. I clicked on a page that had Matt's name. He filmed the background images used in the musher GPS tracking software. How cool is that?

It's just getting dark around 9 and we head back to the hotel. Matthew and Richard aren't interested in going to Chena Hot Springs tomorrow. The workshop we're doing is 18 miles down the same road that ends at the hot springs 40 miles later. I'm kind of shocked. To each his own, I suppose. But you can't convince these guys. I know I am a lot more psyched to be here than they are, but their lack of adventure is puzzling. Dan is game, though. Ah well. Back at the hotel I think about Matt. He asked me about our 25th Reunion this May. He'd probably be the farthest flung Prepster there. His laid-backness doesn't begin to convey the scope of his amazing work and the places it has taken him. When I asked him why he came to the Arctic after college, he said, "What was I going to do? Just get a job and an apartment in New Jersey?" Indeed.

Monday 3/23/09 - Various Eruptions

I do NOT feel good today. A semi-relapse. Maybe I am not timing the medication correctly... always tricky with GI illnesses. I think I ate real food too soon. I will not make it up to Chena Hot Springs to see the Aurora Ice Hotel. Probably not a good idea to keep putting myself in places that are further and further from civilization when I have this stuff going on! I can't effectively communicate how sad this makes me. I love Alaska so much, so having this happening while all I want to do is frolic and do what I love to do, on a tour I basically shepherded into being, is... well... words cannot express it!











We head up Chena Hot Springs Road. When I came here with Alex, we took the Resort's Van from the Airport up to the hot springs. I remember spotting moose in the wooded areas on the side of the road. You don't want to encounter a moose, though - just point and be amazed! Out at Two Rivers School, Trudy has set up a sound system. She's super psyched that she was finally able to bring a band out to this school for a workshop. The kids are great. Dan is particularly goofy today, too. Which is good since I am so dehydrated again I feel faint and need to sit between our 30 minute sessions.


And then the Mt. Redoubt volcano erupts in Southern Alaska. All flights north of Anchorage have been canceled as a precaution. We were supposed to fly to Anchorage (about an hour flight and a 7 hour drive) at 5pm but are rebooked for tomorrow morning, assuming the wind changes direction. That's a new one to deal with! Our Anchorage show isn't until tomorrow anyway. Well, this hotel is really comfy and I'm not... I ask Matthew to pick up some bread up for me at Fred Meyer. He returns with the most fiber-rific, grain-encrusted dark loaf I've ever seen and rhapsodizes about it. Sweet. I park in front of the computer, waiting for the next round of medicine to kick in. Facebook and the Internet are lifesavers tonight. They keep my mind off of my tummy when I am not tired. Sans Scrabble with folks around the country and previously missed episodes of ER and The Daily Show, I would have gone bananas (instead of eating them) obsessing about my insides.


Tuesday 3/24/09 - Iditabobs

The folks at the front desk tell us people have come in from Anchorage this morning! A great sign. And I am feeling much better today. We check our bags at the Fairbanks Airport, and after VERY brief debate at the Alaska Airlines counter, rebook our flight back to Seattle for tomorrow instead of Thursday. The airline is waiving all change fees (Acts of God and all that - and take THAT, Bobby Freaking Jindal!) There is no way we will chance flying to Kodiak for our show at the Orpheum Theater, which NPR station KMXT was to sponsor. Without the threat of being stranded because of the volcano we had been willing to roll the dice - folks are routinely stuck on Kodiak Island because of weather issues. Matthew gets us seats on the 6:30 am to Seattle tomorrow, and our flight down to Anchorage takes off without incident. We can see some greyness in the southwest but not major stuff. Denali is out today and the Alaska Range is as breathtaking as I'd remembered. I can't stop smiling. It was worth the whole trip to see this again. I am excited as we descend over Cook Inlet...

I'd forgotten about the massive stuffed bear in Anchorage's Ted ("The internets is a series of tubes") Stevens International Airport. Alex smiles around every corner here. The first thing the Kodiak promoter tells Matthew when they speak is that the show's not gonna happen - they were pounded with snow and nothing's moving there. So we made the right choice. And it's 40 degrees here! The airport's bigger now. The city's bigger. More and more locals are calling it "Los Anchorage," still a stretch. The promoter is Mike McCormick from the University of Alaska at Anchorage - but he's pure Bostonian. And a great guy. His restaurant/coffee rundown of downtown Anchorage is encyclopaedic, but I am half-listening. I am staring at the mountains. They are hypnotic. Surreal. Amazing.

The weather's so nice I walk downtown and buzz the Downtown Deli for some oatmeal, a good first meal out. I call Alex. Yes, he confirms, the Iditarod Dog statue on Fourth Street a block away was where the race began on March 8. A lot of the street snow has since melted but there's still quite a lot. Alex tells me to go to the top of the parking garage @ 4th and C (the "eagle" floor) for a panoramic vista. It doesn't disappoint. I buy some gifts at the Official Iditarod Store and have to diss the staff for not knowing who JUST got the Red Lantern in Nome this morning (traditionally awarded to the last musher who finishes the race). Come on, you guys. You work here! I live in Los Angeles and I KNOW! It clouds over, so I bag a plan to walk a bit of the Knik Arm Trail that begins downtown. I kind of feel jinxed about doing that anyway since I got so sick after my wonderful Sitka hike. Sad but true. So I do laundry and nap before we leave for UAA - in palpable traffic!

The venue is a gorgeous, 200-seat recital hall in the UAA Fine Arts Building. I read the interview Richard did for the student paper, the Northern Light. Apparently their photo editor planted a flag about our normal publicity photo (the power tools pic). "Concert photos only" - which we don't have. I'll come back to that. Kind Mike runs to the cafeteria to fetch me some chicken soup and I'm visited by locals Mary & Janetta, two fabulously smart, wry gals who used to run a B&B in their Cheney Lake home. We hit it off immediately when Alex and I stayed there on our first trip (in 1995, when we got married) and again in the winter of 2000. We just clicked right away, and 9 years later it feels like we're continuing the same great conversaion. They even asked about our stuffed moose, Marty, a constant companion on those trips. Why yes, he is back at the hotel!

The show is LOTS of fun. A crowd of all ages, from music students to longtime Bobs fans. I am amazed when 1/3 of the crowd raises their hands when we ask how many people have seen The Bobs before. Same thing happened in Fairbanks. GET YOUR MONKEY OFF MY DOG is a phrase you could hear at the Iditarod. Richard asks if there are monkeys at the Iditarod. "Sure - they're the ones who scratch." In the Tom Spath intro I reference Palindromes ("hey, didn't she run for VP?"). And I insist that we get a "concert photo" for The Northern Light. "OK, act like we're really into something we're singing." The audience loves it.

After the show, lots of fans. Kyle, who puzzles about how to get the folks in the a cappella group he founded on campus to commit, to not be afraid to make funny sounds. The sweet young Arts editor of the Northern Light, apologetic and fresh-faced (!), folks who saw The Bobs in 1997. When I tell them it wasn't me they saw in Alaska with the group, they try to refute this point, so my new tack is this: I ask if the woman they saw in the group was awesome. If so, it was me. If not, it wasn't! I snag a cool poster from the wall and Mike chauffeurs us back to the Clarion Suites. Wish I could stay longer and hang out with Mary & Janetta. Wish I could see those mountains every day of my life.

Wish there was a thermostat in the room. When I ask the front desk folks what I can do about the fact that the room's boiling hot (a frequent hotel problem in Alaska, actually), the woman tells me there's a thermostat under the window. No, that's the heating/air conditioning unit. She says, "You turn it from hot to cold." That's not a thermostat. A thermostat has a temperature reading. It adjusts the room to the setting you program.. "Hey," the dude next to her says, "Do you want me to show you how to work it?"


Wednesday 3/25/09 - NOT a Kodiak Moment, or Best Gig Cancellation Excuse Ever

The room is way too hot and the air conditioner is too noisy so, no sleep. That's OK for the last night. We board the airport shuttle in the dark at 5:00 a.m. It's a positively balmy 42 degrees outside. Spring has sprung. And planes are still flying in Southern Alaska - it's the northwest part of the state that is now affected. Later on, we will look back on this exit strategy as a stroke of pure luck. It's the last day of this week that most flights will be allowed to leave Anchorage. If we hadn't rebooked we'd have missed our shows in Port Townsend and Seattle. The volcano will continue to erupt all week, covering the Kenai Peninsula and putting Anchorage in a Volcanic Ash Alert. We all have exit row seats. I see the sun rise over the mountains and glaciers of Southeast Alaska and note the British Columbian coast peeking through clouds.







No, it wasn't the Dream Tour I'd imagined. But Alaska is still a Big, Wide, Magical place. I'll be back. AND NOT STUCK IN A DAMNED BATHROOM FOR HALF OF THE TRIP!!!

(C)2009 Amy Bob Engelhardt