Well, it’s August folks. And it has been August weather for three months here in Texas. Supposed to hit 100 again today. My fall tomato plants could go outside if it weren’t so hot. Tomatoes don’t do so great at 100 so I think I’ll be keeping them inside.

I’d like to get started on the winter crop. I usually do one or two that stay indoors all season. This year I plan on doing the Siberian (handles cold well) and maybe a Sugar Grape. I chose both of these because they are small–which means I stand a chance of getting some tomatoes quickly. If I plant a regular sized tomato, I end up with lots of leaves/plant and oh, maybe one tomato before I’m already transferring everything outside for a spring crop!

I don’t always do a winter crop. It can be a lot of work–planting the seeds when it’s in the 90s (or worse) keeping them watered and in the right window, cleaning up those inevitable water spills, and then sometimes having them die when you leave town and the neighbor doesn’t quite understand “every day” when you specify the watering schedule. Ah, gardening. And then there’s the dog days.

For those dog days, my friend (super librarian) Nancy Pendleton recommends a trip to Alaska. In her own words:

We took a cruise and had port calls in Juneau, Skagway, and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. We sailed on Royal Caribbean and the food and the service were both excellent. I would eventually like to try other cruise lines but, for the time being, I am beginning to plan my next cruise on Royal Caribbean.

Yes, it was cold (high was 55 one day) and raining which, none of us seemed to mind since we had seen no rain for months. The only thing I would change would be to have it rain just a little less in Juneau so we could have seen more and been able to take more pictures. Mom and I did have a good time in spite of getting soaked. We went panning for gold and then went to a salmon bake which, fortunately, was under covered shelters. The food was wonderful and there was a folksinger who encouraged audience participation.

My most memorable day was the one in Skagway. That was one of the 2 days it didn’t rain. (The other was the day we sailed out of Seattle.) We took a helicopter to the top of Denver glacier and rode in and drove a dog sled. They had gotten 3 inches of snow the night before. I have no idea what the temperature was on the glacier but, we were bundled up pretty well and were not extremely cold. The musher told us that the weather was actually a little warm for the dogs.

In Prince Rupert we took a boat tour to a grizzly bear sanctuary. The boat had an indoor cabin with comfortable seats so we were able to watch the bears (we saw 5) from a comfortable perch and the boat was large enough that we could easily move around. They also served us a delicious boxed lunch with homemade sandwiches and cookies.

The days cruising on the ship were also enjoyable just watching the landscape go by. We pulled as close to the Endicott glacier as the captain could go, got to take some good pictures, and observed the seals laying on pieces of floating ice.

I actually enjoyed the whole trip and got some awesome pictures. I still think they best ones are the ones in my head, though. Some images just simply cannot be captured through the lens of a camera.