Sunday, August 28, 2011

John Kamp's Favorite Poem

John Kamp, my father-in-law, passed away last Friday morning at age 88.  Denise and I have posted his obituary on our Facebook pages. As a lifetime private pilot this was one of his favorite poems:


High Flight
Oh!   I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.  Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Wherever lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
--John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Vancouver to Anchorage

Calving at the Hubbard Glacier

Skagway to White Pass

Tracy Arm Fjord

Tracy Arm

Vancouver from Stanley Park

Denise before boarding a DeHavilland Beaver

Arctic Waterfall

Abandoned Railroad Trestle near White Pass AK

Approaching the Hubbard Glacier

Calving (see my video on Facebook page)

Mugging for our local newspaper in Skagway



Alaskan Fjord