{"id":3904,"date":"2015-08-30T11:36:08","date_gmt":"2015-08-30T18:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3904"},"modified":"2015-08-30T11:36:08","modified_gmt":"2015-08-30T18:36:08","slug":"civilized-freedom-ketchikan-alaska-08252015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3904","title":{"rendered":"Civilized Freedom \u2013 Ketchikan, Alaska \u2013 [08\/25\/2015]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/suitcase10.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3905\" src=\"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/suitcase10.jpg\" alt=\"suitcase10\" width=\"269\" height=\"295\" \/><\/a>They civilize freedom<br \/>\nTill no one is free<br \/>\nno one except by coincidence me<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>~ Paint Your Wagon<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to believe how fast this season has gone \u2013 I mean wasn\u2019t it only yesterday that I got here?<\/p>\n<p>With September so nearly upon us, Alaska is well\u2026closing down. Soon we will turn the great state over to locals, moose and wolves and the chill of winter. Not for the first time a part of me is tempted to stay here, to see what it\u2019s like after the tourist shops and the endless jewlery stores have packed up and followed us south for the winter. On more than one occasion Amras and I have joked about missing the ship \u2013 though really such things are not meant to be joked about.<\/p>\n<p>Every week we come back from now on there will be more empty store fronts, more vacant windows. By the time we leave it really will feel like just us and the timber wolves.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s far from a bad thing really, Alaska becomes wonderfully peaceful when all the people have disappeared from it, you start to get a sense of what it must have been like before we somewhat invaded\u2026<\/p>\n<p>I read a travelouge once that said that when cruise ships first started calling here the locals used to be able to walk right on, no security, no nothing\u2026and the ships themselves were lifeboats compared to us. Overnight all that changed, and in came the mega-ships (a classification for which my employer does not qualify and I hope we never will) and then came 9\/11 and in came \u201cauthorized visitors only\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll miss Alaska this season; more so than usual. It\u2019s given me a lot, it very nearly took a lot from me \u2013 but that\u2019s another story altogether \u2013 and I\u2019ve learned never again to question what might be waiting for me at the bottom of a glacier. But really, this Alaska season has been more about cupcakes, pool tables and pinball machines\u2026<\/p>\n<p>I never did win at pinball\u2026but there are still a few calls left to change that.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They civilize freedom Till no one is free no one except by coincidence me ~ Paint Your Wagon It\u2019s hard to believe how fast this season has gone \u2013 I mean wasn\u2019t it only yesterday that I got here? With &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3904\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,80,17,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alaska","category-northern-exposure-2015","category-reflections-below-the-waterline","category-summer-contracts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-10Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3906,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3904\/revisions\/3906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}