Saturday, 25 May 2019
Alyeska, Alaska, USA
Planning on panning at Prospector John’s after a short drive from Cooper Landing. For $20 you could get lucky and find that elusive nugget of gold. It’s a gold panning shop where they teach you how to pan for gold. The soil is brought from a creek about 5 miles away. Fill your bucket and you’re good to go. First pass of the soil is in a scrubber consisting of rubber washboard and sponge sections. Put a trowel full of soil at the top and the water flows over it. Keep shaking so the soil, silt and stones wash over the washboard and sponge. Am told that in 20 years of doing this, no one has walked away without gold in their pockets. Today is no exception.
Takes about 20 minutes to do the first pass over the scrubbers. One trowel full of dirt at a time is shaken over the scrubbers. Sure enough, I see little flecks of gold in the washboard section. About half a dozen in total. Ooh the excitement. Like a big kid. Gold is 18 times heavier than water so it doesn’t wash off and stays in the washboard grooves.
After the first pass, the larger flecks of gold are removed by tweezers. The whole scrubber consisting of washboard and sponges is then washed in a small bucket and the silt residue and water is placed in the pan. The sponges pick up the smaller gold ‘dust’. In the pan is a lot of silt. The trick is to wash this away in the pan and see if there are any flecks of gold. You’ll all have seen gold panning in the movies so you know how it goes. Great fun, and I admit it, like being a kid again, but after all that hard work only one small fleck of gold is discovered in the silt. It’s added to my haul.
Told that each fleck of gold is about 75 cents.
Now have enough to buy a coffee. Just as well, as it’s now chucking it down with rain.
The thinner the flecks of gold, the further away from the main seam they would be. The geological movement over millions of years squeezes the gold through the various layers of rock and flattens it. What I have is quite sold flecks rather than them being gold plate thin.
Adjacent the panning place is a roadside diner. Typical Alaskan diner full of locals. Great place and great vibe. Great prospector’s breakfast. Now that I’m a gold prospector.
Sadly, the heavy rain stops seeing snowy scenery enroute to Alyeska. Brief stop at the Alaska Wildlife Centre. An open air type farm park that you drive around to admire the animals in their large pens. But instead of the usual farm animals there’s bears, moose, caribou, bison and reindeer. The brown bears put on a good display and get close to the fence. At one point, one of the bears is about 4ft away from me. Separated by an electric fence fortunately. An impressive animal and glad I’m not coming face to face with it in the wild. You can tell how hard and heavy the rain is as you can see it on the photos below.
Arrive at the Hotel Alyeska (https://www.alyeskaresort.com/hotel), a ski resort, which is out of season. Mrs Cincinnati has recommended the Asian restaurant for dinner. Have been looking forward to Asian cuisine all day. Even so far as checking out the menu online. So you can imagine my disappointment when I discover it’s closed. Given that it’s a 300 room hotel and it’s pretty full this Memorial holiday weekend, you would think there would be more dining options. Sadly not. Just the Aurora bar and restaurant. Bar is full. Restaurant has two tables empty. Approach the young lad maitre d’ at the door. With his table plans and reservations list. Ask for a table for one. He looks around the restaurant, sees, as I do, two vacant tables and replies that there are no seats available. He can put me on the wait list but it will be 30mins at least. There’s one 4 seat table by the window and a 2 seat table near the entrance. Ask why I can’t sit at the window table. Erm, it’s reserved, Sir. Can immediately tell he’s lying. Can’t be doing with people lying to me. One of my pet hates. He just doesn’t want to give up a 4 seat table to a single diner. What about that 2 seat table. Erm, it’s reserved for a big group.
But it’s a 2 seat table.
Pause.
Erm, yes, erm it will be added to another table to make a bigger table. Can tell he’s lying about that too.
Brace myself for a short wait until a table becomes free. But I’ll just hover by the entrance pretending to read the menu to see what happens. About a minute later a couple of elderly women turn up and ask for a table. Hear him ask if they have a reservation to which they say no.
Cheeky sod then directs them to the 4 seat table by the window. Which winds me up. He returns to the front desk. We’re going to have a discussion. Now that I’m a bit tetchy at the way a single diner is being treated. In all my years of working and travelling around the world I have never had a problem as a single diner. I’ve often had the best seats in the house. But he’s taking the whatsit.
Challenged that they didn’t have a reservation and you put them on a table you told me was reserved. Head down refusing to look me in the eye, he ums and aahs and mutters something about he can’t give a 4 seat table to a single diner.
There’s still the 2 seat table free. Challenge him on that. Told it’s reserved. Stand back a few paces and hover, pretending to look at menu and walk a few paces to the adjoining bar to see if any seats have become free.
Walk back a few paces to hover near restaurant front desk. Have been away a matter of seconds. Maitre ‘d pipes up. OK, Sir, you can have this table, the 2 seat table. Thought you said it was reserved?! Um…aah…they’ve just rung to cancel. Idiot. He’s lying through his teeth. No one has rung him. Tetchy now.
Instead of a nice Asian dinner, it’s a poor pizza. Ask one of the waitresses passing by if they have any Tabasco and fresh black pepper, inferring that I would like them brought to the table. She says yes and just looks at me. Tetchy levels are increasing. We have to go through the next step. Would it be possible to have them then, I ask. She says yes. And then she goes to another table and deals with them. Pizza arrives and can tell waitress has forgotten all about my little request. So ask the kid who has bought the pizza to the table. Sure, no problem, and quickly returns with Tabasco and black pepper grinder. He then goes. Waitress then sees pizza on my table and can see that she’s suddenly realised she’s forgotten. So she comes with black pepper grinder. Not immune to a bit of black pepper she does a quick grind over my already peppered pizza. She buzzes off. Then my actual waiter turns up a minute later with a black pepper grinder asking if I’d like some. You can never have enough black pepper so it’s a yes. Now have a pizza absolutely covered in black pepper.
Once again, decide I’ll take a beer back to room and watch a bit of TV. It’s the same old rigmarole as last night. Have to be escorted back to room with waiter carrying beer on a tray. Which is then handed to me at my bedroom door. Told that because it’s dark for so many months in Alaska, there’s a lot of depression and alcoholism. Which is why the state regulates alcohol sales.
Am noticing that Alaska has a slightly different take on the famous American customer service that I’ve experienced in the lower 48, as the rest of the USA is known up here. There’s a slight edge to them as if they couldn’t give a toss. A slight indifference to the customer. Wonder if it’s because they’re primarily dealing with cruise ship tourists?
