Icebergs, Seals, Waterfalls and Whales

As the iceberg scraped against our boat, it made an unfriendly grinding sound, but I wasn't worried. By this time in our journey to Tracy Arm Fjord, I was 100% confident that our Captain, Steve Weber, knew what he was doing. For many summers, he's daily taken visitors into this wonderland of waterfalls, glaciers, seals, whales, and yes, icebergs. He skillfully navigated us through them all, giving us the experience of a lifetime. Here he is, confidently pushing an iceberg away with a stick:

The adventure started early that day. Just after we boarded Steve's 56-foot boat in Juneau, we noticed that the captain of the huge cruise ship that towered over us didn't seem to realize that our little boat was there. At first, the tourists on both ships were having fun yelling greetings to each other, but when the cruise ship kept getting closer, and Closer, and CLOSER, Captain Steve realized that the situation was getting serious, and so he pulled our little boat out into the harbor. Here's what the big cruise ship looked like as we hurried away:

"That was a little too close for comfort!" Steve boomed over the PA system. "If you have to start yelling "Don't spit!" to the passengers on the deck of the ship above you, then you've got a problem! Usually those cruise-ship captains are excellent--I'm not sure what went wrong today. Anywho, I left my employees back on the land there, so we'll have to swing back around to get them once the big cruise ship gets out of the way."

Soon, the employees were on board and we started the 45-mile journey to the entrance of Tracy Arm Fjord, passing the beautiful Alaska scenery, like this, along the way:

Along the way, we enjoyed seeing Captain Steve guide the boat with his feet on the wheel.

Captain Steve invited us to feel free to move around the boat, including coming up to sit by him. "The chain across the stairs by me is not here to keep you out", he explained. "It's here to remind you that the stairs you had to climb to visit me are still there when it's time for you to climb back down. People forget that sometimes!"

We all enjoyed moving around the boat, visiting with each other, and seeing our first glimpses of icebergs. At first, we were excited to see even little icebergs, but the house-sized icebergs at the entrance to Tracy Arm Fjord spoiled us, and we were much harder to impress after that. Captain Steve took the boat in a big circle around the big blue one here, so we could get a good view of it:


Here's a closeup of the jagged edge of it:

The iceberg is blue because the weight of the glacier from which it came packed the ice so dense that the long-wavelength blue light can't get through it, and is reflected back.

Next, we made our way into the steep-walled fjord, where we began to see gorgeous waterfalls in the distance.

Another thing we noticed right away was the beautiful teal color of the water in the fjord, which is related to something from the glaciers that is suspended in the water (sorry, I forgot what that something was):

The interesting thing about fjords is that not only are the walls really steep above water, but the walls are steep BELOW the water too. As a consequence, our little boat could go right up close-and-personal to the walls--I even touched the rock wall at one point while we were checking out this waterfall:

I had fun pretending to wash my hair in another waterfall:

And capturing this photo from the side of the waterfall:

The waterfalls dropped very long distances. If you look closely in this photo, you can see the waterfall which starts high up in the green section of the mountain, and cascades it's way down to a great big drop at the bottom:

As if the gorgeous waterfalls were not enough, we soon begin to approach the South Sawyer glacier. The area around this glacier was filled with the icebergs it had created, as large chunks of ice "calved", or fell, off the glacier.

This is where the icebergs began scraping the boat, but Captain Steve just slowly and patiently guided us through them. I mentioned before that we were free to go anywhere on the boat, but that wasn't completely true. There was one place that was strictly forbidden. This area was marked out with red tape. If we stood there, we'd block Captain Steve's view, which just wouldn't be cool while he's trying to navigate through icebergs. Here's a fun photo my mom caught of all the folks trying to take photos, while also trying to stay out of the forbidden area:

Once we got close enough for a good view of the glacier, Captain Steve turned off the motor, and we just relaxed there for 45 minutes or so, enjoying the view and waiting for the glacier to calve.

During that time, I captured this photo of the brilliant blue portion of the glacier:

Here's a photo of my parents and I:


Finally, the glacier began to calve. As the ice fell down, it created a huge splash and then a huge wave that gradually made its way out to rock our boat. For those of you who can't watch videos, here's a photo of a glacier just as a large piece is falling:


Here's a video that my mother captured of it:

Before we left the area, Captain Steve motored us to a place where hundreds of seals were basking on icebergs.


Here's a closer seal photo:


We then made our way to the North Sawyer Glacier, which isn't as impressive. Here's a photo of it:


Along the way out of the Fjord, we stopped to pick up a man and a woman kayaker, who had camped on an island there. Captain Steve was clearly a pro at loading people and kayaks into the boat. He'd been frustrated by the guy when he dropped him off the day before, because the guy kept insisting on how it should be done (and was wrong). So when captain Steve first saw them from a distance he said something like "Amazingly, they're still alive!" Tell us how you really feel Captain Steve! He was able to get them loaded into the boat again without a problem.


We were happy and content as we made our way back to Juneau, but then had another awe-inspiring experience. We encountered two humpback whales, who were very close to our boat, and who were in the mood to jump. The two of them launched themselves out of the water, falling back again with a crashing splash, at least a dozen times each. My camera's memory card was full, so as the whales went underwater for a few minutes between jumps, I deleted photos as fast as I could to capture their leaps for joy.

Here are a few videos of the whales:

When they show their tail like this, they are often diving deep.

Sometimes they just like to slap the water, like this:

For those who can't view videos, here are a few photos:

I found myself filled with awe at this display. Unfortunately, one of the passengers on our boat had a flight to catch, so we could linger no longer and had to move on after watching them for about 30 minutes. One of the employees, who'd spent the entire summer doing this, said she'd never seen anything like it. As we pulled away from that spot, Captain Steve said over the PA, in a reverent tone: "THAT was a very special experience." I had to agree.

I love Alaska.

Here's a link to Captain Steve's website, in case you'd like to take a trip like this yourself someday: http://www.adventureboundalaska.com/adventure.htm. I highly recommend it!

Helicopter Glacier Trek

I don't often have the sensation of being in a famous movie scene, but I did the day I went on a helicopter glacier trek near Juneau. As I walked towards our helicopter with my three fellow travelers, the four of us marching in cadence in our matching red and black gear, I had the sensation of being in the movie "The Right Stuff", marching with the astronauts towards their spacecraft.

(This photo is actually from the movie Armageddon--but it shows the concept).

Of course, a helicopter isn't as cool as a spacecraft, but the helicopter flight to see the Juneau Ice fields and to land on Mendenhall glacier for a walkabout, was among the coolest experiences of my life. (If I ever get a chance to ride in a spacecraft, I'll definitely blog about it here! Don't hold your breath though!)

Here's what the Mendenhall Glacier looks like from a distance--this is from a viewpoint just off the highway in Juneau. The gorgeous pinkish lupine flowers are there because the glacier has been retreating, and they are some of the earliest plants that can take root and survive in the nutrient-poor, squished (but gradually expanding) ground that was once below a stinkin' heavy piece of ice. The lupine will help put nitrogen back into the soil, paving the way for more plants to grow there in the future.

Here's a little video showing the portion of the helicopter flight just after we left Juneau, so you can see how wooded and beautiful the area is. You can also see our pilot, saying funny things over the two-way radio headsets. Along with the pilot and my three fellow travelers, a female guide flew to the glacier with us. Our pilot said he was sweet on her, so he'd give us an expanded flight so she could see more of the glaciers around Juneau, which she hadn't seen before. So, we were lucky to see 8 or 9 different glaciers that morning.



The Juneau ice field, which collects all the snow that turns into slowly moving frozen rivers called glaciers, is a huge area that extends from Juneau for about 85 miles to near Skagway. It feeds 38 glaciers. (Incidentally, while I was doing this, my parents flew to Skagway for the day, and came home completely amazed by the beauty of the ice field they saw along the way, so that's another great way to see this gorgeous area).

As the flight started, we first saw lots of wooded landscape like around the rest of Juneau.
Then we moved into some areas that were bright green, as if they were covered with moss.
(Sorry that you can see the reflection of the helicopter blades in some of my photos. Any yellow spots you see are a reflection of the emergency kits we had with us, and any red you see is a reflection of my "Right Stuff" uniform.)

As we got closer to these bright green mountains, we could see mountain goats on them. (Too bad the mountain goats look like little cotton balls in my fuzzy photos of them...hence, no photo is here).

Here you can see the transition between the green lush mountain and the barren Juneau Ice Fields in the distance to the right.


The sight of the rugged mountain peaks and the undisturbed snow was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
Here are some of my favorite photos from that area:






Didn't God do an amazing job creating this beautiful world!?!

I was surprised to see that the glaciers had a big black stripe down the middle, so perfect and symetrical that you'd think it was made by man. But these big stripes are actually debris lines, and are made up of rocks that were scraped from the surrounding valley. Called moraines, you can see them along the edges and down the center of the glaciers
Another example of a striped glacier:
Here's a place where two glaciers meet:

I liked this photo because the retreating of the glacier makes it possible to see how glaciers carve U-shaped valleys. (Rivers carve V-shaped valleys).
As we got closer to the glacier in preparation to land on it, we could see more details, like the texture of the ice here: And the crumpled-up ice as it makes its way around a bend:
Here's what that crumpled-up ice looks like from a little closer:
We landed in a flat spot on the glacier, and began our 4-hour trek. Here's a photo of our helicopter and the female guide that flew up with us (and to whom we owe our extra special tour from the pilot!)

Our trek was led by a young man who first helped us put crampons on our boots and gave us ice picks/axes.

Then he lead us around so we could check out the different caves, streams, pools, and waterfalls along the surface of the glacier.
Here's a stream and waterfall that were on the surface:
There were also waterfalls coming down from the surrounding mountain valley, along with deep gashes in the glacier where the ice had started to melt:
We drank some of the glacier water, and checked out the great big rocks that were moved by the ice:

We loved the beautiful blue of the ice ponds. Our guide said that they just suddenly appear at times, which is why he seemed really jumpy and spooked if we ever took a step that made an unusual noise, as you just never know if the ice really is stable.

Here's a photo of me in a cave created by the ice. We climbed down into this area and then quickly got our photo taken so we wouldn't have to stand for very long under the dripping ice water that wanted to run down our backs.
For the grand finale, we put on harnesses and ropes so we could get a look at a 400-foot deep mulan (hole) in the glacier. Here's what the mulan looks like:
Here's what you have to do to get a photo like the one above. I found the experience a little frightening, but afterwards felt hope that perhaps I do have a little of "The Right Stuff", to feel the fear and do it anyway.
I'm so thankful I had the opportunity to go on a helicopter glacier trek...the experience is among the highlights of my life.

Unconventional cruising

When we were planning our Alaska Inside Passage trip, I wasn't sure I wanted to be trapped on a cruise ship with a fattening buffet for a week (my self-discipline NEVER would have held out that long). I also wanted more time exploring Alaska than would have been possible with the sailing schedules of typical cruise ships. So, we chose to take a more bohemian approach: ride the Alaska Marine Highway System (public transportation) ferries between cities.

One of the ferries docked at Juneau.
This definitely took a lot more planning than going on a typical cruise ship, because there are some cities where a ferry only comes by every two weeks. (In those towns, the ferry's arrival is such a big event that all the townsfolk like to board the ferry just to eat at its cafeteria, disembarking just before the ferry leaves). It took quite a bit of thinking to figure out how we could ride the ferries to see the places we wanted within our time constraints, but all the planning was WELL WORTH the effort. It was a very comfortable, fun, inexpensive experience.

Speaking of expense: many of the ferry riders sleep on lawn chairs on the top deck of the boat, rather than booking a cabin. Here's where they sleep, in an area which is protected from the weather and has overhead heaters:



Families traveling together setup tents in this helicopter landing pad area. Because we were on shorter trips, I didn't see any tents myself, but saw a photo where this area of the deck was covered with them.



The ships have very nice public restrooms, including some that have showers, to accommodate those who do not book a cabin:


Since this was our first time and we were unsure if we wanted to sleep on lawnchairs or camp on the deck, my parents and I booked a three-berth cabin for our longest 20-hour trip aboard the Matanuska between Juneau and Ketchikan. I've never been on a typical cruise ship before, but my parents have and said that our cabin and bathroom was roomier than the one they had on a traditional cruise ship. Here's a photo of my mom on the top bunk of the cabin.

Not that we spent much time in the cabin. There were all sorts of fun things to do and see around the ship. We ate delicious food at the cafeteria, we browsed through the gift shop, we watched movies in the recliner lounge, we listened to several presentations given by a National Park Service ranger who was on board to educate and entertain us, and we made friends with our fellow travelers in the various public areas around the boat. Oh, and we gazed contentedly at the beautiful, amazing scenery going by. It was a delightful way to travel...to relax while beautiful vistas and breaching humpback whales go by. Here's a photo of my mom in the recliner lounge:
One of the unique things about the experience is that the ferry is not only used to transport people, but also to ship cargo, cars, RVs, and even road graters. Here's a little video of us boarding the Fairweather ferry at the same time a road grater was boarding. Where else would you ever get such a unique experience as that?! (Definitely not on a luxury cruise ship!)


Here's another little video, showing a large RV disembarking:




Our trip on the Fairweather was a four-hour ride between Sitka and Juneau. Fairweather is a fast katamaran, so it can cover that distance in 4 hours, while the other standard ships take 8 or 9 hours for the trip. Here's a little video showing the water shooting out of the back of the katamaran, along with my parents and our new friend AJ, who worked on the boat and took us on a tour.



We met AJ in the recliner lounge, where we were watching the latest Star Trek movie. After the movie and after he'd done his work, he offered to show us around the ship, including going up to see the captain, which we LOVED! (Thanks AJ!) While we were at the bridge, the chief engineer kindly let me sit in his seat for this photo. (The captain and first mate are in the front--you see them on the left of the photo).

They mentioned that one of the individuals on the bridge has the job to look through powerful binoculars, looking for debris on the horizon so they can avoid it, as the debris causes problems if it gets caught between the two hulls of the katamaran. As a side benefit, that helps them spot whales, which they can then announce to all the passengers. They said they have automated systems to help them do that, but that the most effective tool is a human being looking through binoculars. I asked them, "What do you do at night?" and the captain confidently said "Debris doesn't exist at night", which made me smile.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the experience:
My parents on board the Fairweather:


The ferries all have the Big Dipper (which is also on the Alaska State Flag) painted on them. I thought it was cool.
Here's a photo of the ship making it's way through the Wrangell Narrows. The guidebook said that it gets so narrow, that you could reach out from the deck of the ship and touch the trees on the side. Because of that, I got up at 4 a.m. to observe this part of the trip, but it didn't ever get THAT narrow, which was a disappointment. But, it was fun to see all the buoys that keep the ship traveling in the deep places...you can see some of them here. And, I also enjoyed seeing all the folks sleeping on couches and recliners and lawnchairs all around the boat, which I wouldn't have observed if I hadn't gotten up at that hour.
Here's another photo, where you can see a guy at the front of the ship, guiding it through the narrows.
I did enjoy seeing this wavy wake from the side of the ship in the Wrangell Narrows area.
Traveling this way was a great experience...I loved the fact that it gave us more time to explore Alaska than a cruise ship would have, and that it helped us visit the cities during times when the cruise ship crowds weren't in town. Plus, it was a comfortable, relaxing way to travel. I hope I have the opportunity to ride the Alaska Marine Highway System again, and next time, I'll bring my sleeping bag and enjoy the adventure of sleeping in a lawn chair on deck!

Sitka, Alaska

If I ever become homeless and destitute, I think I'll move to Sitka, Alaska to live off the land.

When my parents and I visited there the first week of August, we were thrilled and delighted to see that the Sitka area is covered with berry bushes. The salmon berries and blueberries were just becoming ripe, so we enjoyed our fill of them as we walked around the town. Salmon berries are a lot like raspberries, except some of them are a light-orange (salmon) color. Yum!





You do risk getting swallowed by the huge bushes at times! I was amazed at the enormous size of the leaves on the Devils Club plant:

Not only does Sitka have an abundance of berries, but it also has an abundance of salmon, swimming upstream to spawn. There were so many salmon that my Dad (who likes to fish occasionally) said: "Having so many of them, so easy to catch, takes all the fun out of fishing!"

Fortunately, all the nice brown bears that compete with the the fishermen for the salmon and the berries add the adventure back to fishing! While we were there, some of the trails were closed because bears were in the area.

Here my mom points out some bear tracks we saw just in front of a blueberry bush.

Because food was so easy to come by in Sitka, the native Tlingit people had time to develop a sophisticated culture. Here's a photo of them in some of their native dress:

They also created totem poles, many of which are now gathered into a beautiful wooded park in Sitka.

Not only do Totem poles tell stories, but they were also symbols of status and wealth. In some cases, totem poles were put up to shame people who had done misdeeds, and would only be taken down once the person had made restitution for the wrong they had done.

(I'll have to suggest that to one of my friends, who has a "Wall of Shame" for men she dates that don't treat her right...creating a "Totem Pole of Shame" might be very satisfying to her!)

Normally, you can see Tlingit dancers perform in Sitka, but because we were there when the cruise ships were not (since we flew in and then took the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry out), we didn't get to see a performance. But, we did enjoy seeing the town without cruise ship crowds!

When I think of American Colonial times, I normally think of Britain and the 13 colonies, but now I've been to Sitka, the former capital of Russian America, I'll remember that parts of the United States were also colonized by Russia! You can normally see Russian dancers in Sitka too, but we missed them also!

Russian colonists buried these metal plates, which say "Russia owns this land" up and down the Alaska islands.

We attended services at the Russian Orthodox church that is still in Sitka. The thing that amazed me about the church services there was that people stand for the whole service, which is over an hour long! I liked seeing how people sung instead of spoke the scriptures, and I enjoyed seeing the priest in his beautiful robes shake incense around the chapel. Here's a photo of St. Michael's Russian Orthodox Church, which sits in the middle of downtown Sitka.



The first Russian Bishop who came to Sitka was a good and kind man, and had an amazing variety of skills. When we toured his house, I was interested to learn that some of the books he had there were extremely rare, because most of the Russian Orthodox materials that had been in Russia itself were destroyed by the Communists, who were atheists. How interesting that Sitka, which was once a distant outpost, had been able to help the central Russian Orthodox church preserve its heritage.

(Which reminds me that as I discussed this with another tourist, he mentioned that while traveling in Russia, he saw an ornate Russian Orthodox church that had been hidden from the authorities inside of a plain-looking Quonset hut).


Lastly, I liked seeing the Bishop's China and his tea stuff on the tour of his house.

We visited Castle Hill, which is a high fortress where Alaska was transferred to the U.S. from Russia in a ceremony in 1867 (after Lincoln's Secretary of State-Sheward, purchased it).


One evening we decided to walk to the Russian Cemetery, which was near our hotel. We got a little lost, and so we stopped to ask directions of a fisherman who was out in front of his house, pictured below:

He said "If you cut through my backyard, you'll save 15 minutes...go ahead and go back there, and just follow the path." So we went back and were surprised to find that his back yard was a giant rain forest! We started making our way through it, but since the trees were taller than we were, and we weren't totally sure which way we were going, we did get a little lost. So we ended up spending the 15 minutes we saved trying to find our way out of his backyard. Fortunately, there were lots of berries back there, so we knew we'd be okay and would have a great story to tell! Here we are, lost:


Once we made our way through, we were rewarded by the sight of the beautiful Russian cemetery.

The cross with the bar across it at the bottom is a Russian Orthodox symbol




Some of the graves were even inscribed in the Cyrillic script:


We enjoyed seeing the beautiful sunset from there:



Sitka is a beautiful place, covered with flowers. They even creatively plant flowers in the cracks of the sidewalks!


Sitka Sound is beautiful and has this lovely lighthouse, which I understand can be rented.


What would it be like to live on a little island, like this?



Another wonderful thing about Sitka is that they have a hospital for injured birds of prey. Here's an image I captured of one of the Bald Eagles who lives at the Alaska Raptor Center, because his injuries prevent him from living in the wild:


On our last day in town, we took a boat to St. Lazaria island, which is a refuge for birds. Along the way, we got to see these fun sea otters among the kelp:

This is where we also caught our first glimpse of the enormous, awe-inspiring humpback whales:





We were fortunate to see many more of them, which I will write about in an upcoming post.

If you ever get a chance to visit Sitka (even if you are not destitute and needing a place where you can live off the land), it's a beautiful, interesting place well worth a visit.

Pulling a Handcart in the Days of '47 Parade

I think I've never had my picture taken more times in a single day than I did on July 24, 2009, when I pulled a handcart in Salt Lake City's "Days of '47" pioneer day parade. I loved it. I loved smiling and waving at everyone.

Thank you so much to my friend John Lodefink for giving me the opportunity to have this experience! Thank you also to Karen Gillmore, who made my pioneer dress. Here's a photo of John and me at about 5:45 a.m that day.


John lives in Sugarhouse, and rather than loading his handcart on a trailer, he enjoys walking and pulling it to the parade route, through the parade, and then back home again. That makes about a 20 mile day. I wasn't sure I was ready for that, so I met him at Liberty Park at 5:45, where the parade ends. We pulled the handcart along the route in reverse, and enjoyed seeing the participants of that day's fun run go by.

When we reached the starting point, we pulled out some lawn chairs and relaxed for an hour or two before the parade started. During this time, I enjoyed meeting the son of an actual pioneer who had crossed the plains. His father had been a baby when he crossed the plains, in one of the last pioneer treks, and had fathered this man (who is now in his 70's or 80's) when he was a very old man himself.

What a thrill it was to wave and smile at the crowds. We were the fourth entry in the parade, and the first handcart, and so the spectators were excited to see us.

The part I wasn't prepared for, however, was seeing people begin to cry as they saw us, or seeing people wipe tears from their eyes as we walked by. In all the fun and excitement of a modern day parade, it's easy to forget the meaning of it all. But when people started wiping away tears, I remembered that our handcart and our costumes made us a symbol of the very high price that the early Mormon pioneers paid for their faith.

I felt honored to represent them that day.

Although I must admit feeling a little guilty to have people cheer for me, when I was wearing nice comfortable shoes, wearing gloves that would prevent me from getting callouses, and pulling a very lightly loaded handcart along a nice, smooth road for only 3 miles or so. I knew those cheers really weren't meant for me, but were for those early pioneers who sacrificed so much. Perhaps someday I will have the opportunity to pass those cheers along to those who truly deserve them.

Sacred Ground in Arizona

Think you’ve got a rough commute? The next time I want to complain about mine, I hope to remember the young Navajo man I met in Canyon de Chelly (pronounced canyon t’shay) this summer. He came running up behind my family as we hiked down the steep, mile-long trail from the rim of this mini-Grand Canyon to the canyon floor. Each morning, he runs down the trail to water and graze his sheep on the canyon floor; once the sheep are situated for the day, he runs back up the rocky trail so he can go to his day job. Then, he repeats the process each evening.

Canyon de Chelly, in eastern Arizona, is a sacred place to the Navajo people. It has several beautiful, impressive ruins, such as the 800-year-old White House ruins, shown here:

The natural setting of these ruins is so stunning, it's difficult to capture it with a camera. Here's another photo that attempts to show the enormity of the canyon wall under which they are built.
Here’s another view of the ruins looking down upon them from the canyon rim:
The White House trail is the only hike visitors are allowed to do without a Navajo guide. It’s a beautiful hike, although a little rocky. My sweet sister Laurie and her husband Klayne were tough enough that they even took their son Gideon in a stroller down the steep trail.

Here’s a photo of Klayne and Gideon at the canyon rim:
For much of the way, they had to carry the stroller, as you can see here:

But carrying the stroller didn’t dampen their enthusiasm, as you can see from this video taken while we were resting along our way back up the trail


Isn't my brother-in-law great?

Not only was the hike very beautiful, but it was fun to pass the Navajo people going about their business, including an older Navajo woman who said she was born in a house on the floor of the canyon.

Here are some of my favorite images from the experience.

My parents are the treasure at the end of this Canyon de Chelly rainbow:

Here's my sister Kristy, sitting in a rock cove along the trail.


Some of the interesting rock formations along the trail

My sister captured this photo of me walking through one of the tunnels along the way

She also caught me as I sat on a wall, taking a photo:

I was amazed to see big flowers blooming where this rock wall meets the dry earth.

I loved the contrast between red and green visible in this shot:

Sunset over Canyon de Chelly

I enjoyed visiting with the Navajos selling jewelry, pottery, and other art. I was very interested to learn that the Navajo people are related to the Athabascan Eskimos from central Alaska.

The Chinle Holiday Inn where we stayed had a fun southwest decorating theme, including these dried peppers.

I had never heard of Canyon de Chelly until I read about it in the book “1000 Places to See Before You Die in the U.S. and Canada”, and I had to agree with the book: it was well worth the visit.

Murray Library Boyfriend

One of the best parts of living in Murray, Utah is being able to see a library employee named Danny each time you visit the city library.

If you are lucky, Danny will be sitting at the front-most circulation desk when you come through the door. He’s the young man who will say “Heeeey! You’re back!” and give you a big smile and nod as you walk through the door.

Sometimes, when people are really friendly like that, it can be easy to misinterpret their friendliness.

My sister Suzy was 8-months pregnant and had two toddlers in tow when she first met Danny, and he was incredibly friendly with her, impressively flipping the library books in an artistic manner as he checked them out to her. Suzy wasn’t sure if he was trying to hit on her or not, but thought “Isn’t it obvious that I’m in a relationship?”

But, as she chatted with other young mothers who go to the library frequently, she realized that Danny is friendly to all. One of Suzy’s young mother friends likes to say “I have to go to the library today so I can see my boyfriend there”.

I love people who are friendly like that, especially when you realize that they aren’t trying to hit on you.

I tend to be a friendly person too, and my intentions are sometimes misunderstood.

When I worked at the Church Office Building, I often warmly greeted the cafeteria employees there. One day, when I greeted one of the young men behind the sandwich counter, he said to me:

“I’m off the market”.
“Huh?” I replied.
“I’M OFF THE MARKET!” he spoke loudly.
“Market?” I asked, still confused.
“I’M ENGAGED!” he said with frustration.
“Oh! Wow! Congratulations!” I replied enthusiastically. Then I realized that he’d interpreted my friendliness differently than I had intended it. Ooops!

I’ve been on both sides of that mistake.

Anyway, I happened to see Danny at the library last night, and interacting with him was so much fun that it made me smile for about 30 minutes afterwards.

So, I thought I’d blog about him. If any of you happen to visit Murray, you’ll definitely want to include a stop at the library to see our collective boyfriend Danny, who, if you are lucky, will be waiting there for you.

Danny, thank you for raising the happiness level in Murray, one “Heeey! You’re back!” at a time!