I've previously been to Anchorage twice in my life, both during the period of the longest day, when the sun never did set.  The first time was around 40 years ago.  To quote from my   24June2018 blog . I remember the previous and only other time I was here in Anchorage, maybe a third of a century ago, also around the longest day.  I participated in a hydrogen conference at the University of Alaska, and after that was over, joined a salmon fishing expedition.  Paid a fortune to be taken by van with eight others a two-hour ride away to be dropped off at a river.  It was a total disaster  There was only about a 50-yard portion of a river, where there were a hundred or more fishermen.  Only native Americans can fish wherever they want.   We were provided a long pole, line and a hook with some cloth material attached to it.   At this time of year the salmon returning upstream do not eat.  You need to irritate them so tha...

60 years ago, for my first job, I became a sugar engineer with C. Brewer in Naalehu within Kau on the Big Island of Hawaii.   Next door 12 miles away was Pahala, where I found my wife, Pearl.   34 miles further was The Volcanoes National Park. Hilo was another 22 miles ( 66 miles from Naalehu ), and at my arrival in this southernmost point of the U.S., there was no television nor radio reception in these two sugar cities.  Not sure if there was any area in the continental USA where this was possible.  The reason was Mauna Loa, which blocked signals.  At night you could with the right equipment listen to some radio static. About the history of this region, not  much happened in Kau until in 1868 when there was  a 7.9 Richter quake  which produced a tsunami devastating coastal villages, and five days later triggering a Mauna Loa eruption ( yellow spot below ), forming an 18-mile fissure, and fountains of 1000 feet, where lava entered the s...