Charade in Paris

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By Judy Berman

A train races down the tracks in a desolate country scene. Before the opening credits roll, one of its passengers tumbles out in his pajamas. Dead.

The widow – although she doesn’t it know it yet – also appears to be about to meet a violent end at a ski resort. As Reggie Lampert (played by Audrey Hepburn) sips a cup of coffee, a gun is aimed directly at her. Fortunately, it’s a water gun, and the shooter is her young nephew, Jean-Louis (Thomas Chelimsky).

His next water-soaked victim is Peter Joshua (Cary Grant). This Stanley Donen film, “Charade” (1963), is being re-released this year on DVD. It also can be seen online, and is well worth the view.

Most of the action in this romantic comedy/suspense thriller takes place in The City of Lights.  Several years ago, this movie inspired my husband, Dave, our daughters, and me, (all of us “Charade” aficionados) to check into the Hotel St. Jacques, stroll along the Seine River, dine on a riverboat, tour a market off the Champs-Elysees and take in other sites featured in the movie.

When Hepburn returns to Paris, she discovers her husband, Charles, had emptied out their place. She frantically runs from room to room, and is startled when Inspector Edouard Grandpierre (Jacques Marin) emerges. He asks her to come with him.

At the morgue, she identifies her husband’s body. The Inspector reveals her husband had multiple identities, planned to leave the country, and gives her Charles’ small duffle bag.

It contained an agenda listing his last appointment – Thursday at The Gardens, 4,000 francs, a letter to her – stamped and unsealed, keys to their apartment, a comb, a fountain pen, a toothbrush and tooth powder.

Not much to go on. When she returns to the apartment, the door creaks, and she hears steps across the floor. It’s Peter Joshua (Grant), and he suggests she go to a hotel where she’ll have a safe place to stay.

Hotel St. Jacques actually is a great place to stay. Some of the film’s interior shots were filmed here. But this turns out to be a bad choice for Hepburn. She no sooner opens the door to her room than she is confronted by George Kennedy (as Herman Scobie) – one of three men she wishes to avoid.

Kennedy threatens her. He and two others – James Coburn as “Tex” and Ned Glass as “Gideon” – are convinced Hepburn knows the whereabouts of the $250,000 that her husband stole from them.

Hepburn runs toward a winding antique staircase and screams for Grant. Grant rushes inside. You hear a scuffle and then silence. Hepburn tentatively opens the door and finds Grant on the floor. Kennedy is nowhere in sight. He escaped out the window. Grant follows.

When you step outside the hotel at night, you can almost visualize Grant leaping from one balcony to another in pursuit of Kennedy.

A fourth man, Hamilton Bartholemew (Walter Matthau), tells her that he’s with the CIA, and the money her husband stole really belongs to the U.S.government. Matthau tells her the government wants the money back. He warns Hepburn: “Now that he’s (Charles) dead, you’re their only lead.”

Grant and Hepburn also find time for romance over dinner aboard a riverboat along the Seine River. We took a similar cruise. In the dark, the Eiffel Tower looked golden and the view of the Notre Dame Cathedral from the river also is impressive.

Despite this idyllic setting, the body count and tension mount in the film.

The movie is a classic game of who do you trust. Donen keeps us guessing, even after Hepburn discovers where her husband hid the money.

If you can’t make it to Paris, check out this movie. Viewer discretion is advised. Shortly after you watch it, you’ll want to see the real thing.

** Post a comment below if you’d like to share what film from past decades is most memorable to you?

—–

* Photos of Audrey Hepburn, Jacques Marin, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, George Kennedy, and Walter Matthau and Audrey Hepburn in the movie, “Charade” (1963)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Charade

* “Charade” – movie trailer – about 3 minutes

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056923/

* “Charade” – movie summary, cast on IMDb (Internet Movie Database)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056923/

Vigilante or Self-Defense?

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By Judy Berman

Let’s say you meet a stranger in a dark alley. Someone is killed. The survivor claims self-defense. There are no witnesses. Only one side of this story is available because the other person is dead.

That image of the vigilante who takes the law into his own hands was popularized in Hollywood. Think: Charles Bronson (as Paul Kersey) when he avenged his wife’s death in “Death Wish” (1974). Many cheered him on when he sought revenge.

But two recent cases in Florida, that appear to have taken the same path, ended in the deaths of two young men under the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law.

Make no mistake. This is not about anyone’s right to “bear arms” and protect themselves. This is about rights guaranteed to U.S.citizens in the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution.

Rights such as the right to a fair trial “decided by a jury” of your peers. There’s not much chance of that happening if someone apparently takes justice into his own hands.

“The 2005 law eliminated a citizen’s duty to retreat when attacked, leading critics to say the statue fosters vigilante justice and allows criminals to get away with murder on a claim of self-defense,” according to The Miami Herald.

Florida Statute 776.013 (3), known as the “stand your ground” law, allows people to use deadly force if they think their life is in danger, or other lives are in jeopardy.

  • On Feb. 26th, an unarmed 17-year-old in Sanford, near Orlando, Trayvon Martin, was gunned down by 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman. Martin was returning to his parents’ home after going to a convenience store to buy Skittles and ice tea. Zimmerman told dispatchers that Martin looked “suspicious.”
  • On Wednesday, March 21st, Miami-Dade Judge Beth Bloom tossed out a case against Greyston Garcia, who was charged with second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Pedro Roteta. 26, on Jan. 25th. “Police said Roteta was stealing Garcia’s truck radio.” Garcia chased Roteta more than a block before the fatal attack. Roteta had a pocket knife, but it was unopened and in his pocket, according to The Miami Herald.

In the Martin case, Zimmerman ignored police advice not to confront the teen. He followed Treyvon Martin in his sport utility vehicle and then on foot. The two allegedly got into a fight. The devastating outcome has been the subject of protests and national news coverage.

The Miami-Dade judge’s decision on Garcia angered Miami police Sgt. Ervens Ford, who supervised the case. The Miami Herald quotes Ford as saying the decision was a “travesty of justice. How can it be Stand Your Ground? It’s on (surveillance) video! You can see him stabbing the victim … “

The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office may appeal the judge’s ruling.

The Miami Herald reports that “in the first five years the law was in effect, it was invoked 93 times. In the last year and half, it has been invoked at least an additional 37 times. ‘Justifiable homicides’ reported to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have increased threefold since the law went into effect.”

The state of Florida should take action now to re-examine the Stand Your Ground law. What happened to Trayvon Martin … and to Pedro Roteta … could have happened to anyone’s child. This law is a matter of concern for all citizens who want safe passage on our streets and in our neighborhoods.

——-

* Main photo of Charles Bronson taken in 1973. In 1974, he starred in the vigilante film, “Death Wish”

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bronson_1973.jpg

Attribution: Fish Cop at en.wikipedia

* Editorial cartoon: courtesy of Jeff Parker, Florida Today 

* Miami judge decides fatal stabbing was self-defense, a news article in The Miami Herald.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/21/2706789_miami-judge-stabbing-in-the-back.html

* Number of “stand your ground” cases rises as legislators rethink law, a news article in The Miami Herald.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/22/2708767_number-of-stand-your-ground-cases.html

* The Bill of Rights

http://www.ushistory.org/documents/amendments.htm

“You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat.”

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By Judy Berman

Danger lurks on a moonlit beach as a girl romps in the water.

The teen ventures in while another partygoer lies drunk on the beach. Moments later, she screams when she’s attacked in the water. An unseen force drags her under, and she is gone. Later, her remains wash ashore.

The villain: a great white shark. Sharks have had a lot of bad PR ever since “Jaws” first hit the movie theaters in 1975.

Note to spring-breakers, tourists and snowbirds: You’re more likely to be struck by lightning in Florida than become shark bait while surfing or swimming.

Some statistics to consider:

  • Florida was known as “Lightning Capital of the World.” NASA has recently given that distinction to Rwanda, Africa. “With more deaths and injuries than all other states combined, Florida ranks as the #1 target for public safety and lightning awareness campaigns,” states weather.about.com website.
  • “Florida led the nation again last year with 11 of 29 shark attacks. None were fatal. Worldwide, there were 75 shark attacks; 12 of them were fatal, the most since 1993,” according to TCPalm’s web site on Feb. 25th.

Still, I’m not reassured. There have been three shark attacks in Florida this month – one at Playalinda Beach on March 4th and two at New Smyrna Beach on March 14th. All three teen surf riders were injured, but are OK after the sharks’ bites.

The only shark adventure I’m after would be on celluloid or digitally. In this case, “Bruce,” the name given to the mechanical shark in “Jaws,” is the only kind I’d care to meet up with.

We don’t see “Bruce” for most of the movie. That’s because they had trouble getting the mechanical beast to function as it should. If I were to compare this movie to an Alfred Hitchcock film, it would be “Psycho.”

We know something bad is about to happen to Janet Leigh in the shower scene. We can see some sort of menace beyond the shower curtain and know she can’t hear us scream that she’s in danger.

It’s much the same in “Jaws,” when the theme music plays … “dun-dun! dun-dun! “dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun.” Something awful is about to happen, and we’re powerless to warn those in the water.

We’re scared wondering when it will strike again.

This film has captured our family like few others have. We’ve had Jaws-themed birthday cakes, Jaws movie marathons and Shark Week extravaganzas. This, at the request of our youngest daughter, Jenn, who’s had a lifelong love affair with sharks.

It began with this movie. Director Steven Spielberg nailed this when he deviated from the novel, and added the right touch of terror and humor.

The scene that captures that best is when Amity Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) got an up-close look at “Bruce.” He’s on a boat with fisherman, Sam Quint (played by Robert Shaw), who is determined to kill the shark, and oceanographer Matt Hooper (played by Richard Dreyfuss).

As Brody backs away from the shark and into the boat, he tells Quint, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

At one point, Scheider tells Dreyfuss: “I used to hate the water.” Dreyfuss: “I can’t imagine why.”

Even though I live near the ocean, I rarely venture near the frothy waves. In my mind, I hear … dun-dun! dun-dun! That’s all I need. I quickly dive back onto my blanket and grab a book – anything but “Jaws.”

——–

* Main photo of shark silhouette in the Maldives, taken Oct. 29, 2003 by TANAKA Juuyoh (田中十洋)  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shark_Silhouette.jpg

* Family photo of Jenn’s Jaws’ themed birthday cake in 2011 which was designed by her sister, Danielle. Yup, Ernie’s gonna need a bigger boat.

* video clip of Amity Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) backing away and telling fisherman, Sam Quint (Robert Shaw): ”You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat,” from “Jaws” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gciFoEbOA8

* Jaws’ theme song: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=jaws+theme+song&view=detail&mid=BFF2316080871FFC7F93BFF2316080871FFC7F93&first=0&FORM=LKVR7

** MSNBC story about a shark attack: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/15/10701089-like-jaws-girl-pulled-under-by-shark-twice

** updated MSNBC story about shark attacks: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/46774631#46774631

Vanishing Point

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By Judy Berman

The bragging rights of a new car – the enviable stares, the admiring glances, the unabashed ogling. That’s now past tense.

Now the point may be not to be seen at all. Of course, that could be a problem in high-traffic areas when you want to avoid a crash.

Mercedes-Benz’ “Invisible” Mercedes F-Cell was put through its paces on the streets of Stuttgart, Germany, this week. This technology is straight out of the James Bond movie, “Die Another Day.”

Bond (played by Pierce Brosnan) is driving an Aston Martin Vanquish which is being hotly pursued in a rapidly-melting ice palace by his foe (Zao). Zao (Rick Yune) aims his Jaguar XKR straight for Bond’s car, which vanishes moments before the intended impact.

“I’m looking through you. Where did you go? I’m looking through you. You’re not the same.” (The Beatles’ “I’m Looking Thru You”)

The F-Cell, a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle, is being manufactured in limited quantities. But the “Invisible” Mercedes F-Cell, an emission-free car, is still a car of the future.

“While the car isn’t completely invisible, you are just seeing a moving outline because the LED screen is projecting what’s behind it. The effect works best when the scenery behind is uniform, for example, while crossing the bridge in the video (link posted below), and at night when there’s more contrast between light and dark,” according to a story posted by Matthew Humphries on Geek.com.

The “invisibility” is the result of a lot of cameras and flexible LED-mats which can weigh nearly 1,100 pounds at a cost of nearly $263,000.

Is this what Taylor Swift is really singing about in “Invisible,” rather than unrequited love?

“And you just see right through me. But if you only knew me we could be a beautiful miracle, unbelievable. Instead of just invisible, yeah.”

Not to worry,Taylor. You could still be a beautiful pair. You could cruise the streets in a car that the paparazzi would not be able to detect. Perfect!

As for the rest of us who wish for a vanishing point from the maddening crowds, we’ll just have to wait for the price to come down.

—–

* Photos of the “Invisible” Mercedes (and a video in Motoramic. Article by Justin Hyde)

http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/invisible-mercedes-brings-james-bond-technology-life-171557818.html

* Mercedes article by Matthew Humphries on Geek.com. Includes videos:

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/mercedes-create-near-invisible-car-using-leds-2012035/

* The chase scene from James Bond’s “Die Another Day”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbAiYjovbBM

* Pierce Brosnan who played secret agent James Bond in 4 films from 1995-2002

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PierceBrosnan(CannesPhotoCall).jpg

And Justice For None

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By Judy Berman

Courtroom dramas. Noble attorneys, jurors who stick to their convictions despite the opposition of their peers, courtrooms that are just out of control, and justice as an elusive end product.

As a reporter, I covered quite a few trials. Some of the verdicts took me by surprise, as did some of the tactics used to sway a jury. Few of them, however, quite measured up to Hollywood’s portrayals of the legal system.

So, I began to wonder what would be the odds for me if my fate rested on a Hollywood lawyer or jury? Here are a few possibilities:

  • This year marks the 50th anniversary of the movie To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. He’s an honest man assigned to a case he’s doomed to lose – even though his client is innocent.

Several characters, who are innocents, take a hit in this drama. They were destroyed or injured by evil: Tom Robinson (played by Brock Peters), a black fieldhand, accused of raping a white woman, is unable to get a fair trial. Boo Radley (Robert Duval), a recluse who lives near Scout (Mary Badham) and her brother, Jem’s, home, was the victim of emotional abuse by his father. Jem’s (Philip Alford) innocence also is shattered by what he witnesses at Robinson’s trial.

Chances of winning at trial: 2 (Slim and None)

  • 12 Angry Men, (1957), starring Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley and E. G. Marshall.

In a line from the movie trailer, “On the point of that knife, a man’s life is at stake.”

When the jury began its deliberations, it looked like an open-and-shut case of murder. Then, the baggage that many people carry around with them – prejudice and preconceived notions – begins to shape the outcome.

Chances of winning: Excellent, if Henry Fonda is on the deliberating panel.

  • Runaway Jury (2003), starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Rachel Weisz.

“Trials are too important to be left up to juries,” said Gene Hackman (as Rankin Fitch, a jury consultant), as he schemes to rig the trial’s outcome through bribes and blackmail.

A failed day trader guns down former co-workers at a stock brokerage firm. Attorney Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman) takes the weapon’s manufacturer to court on the grounds of gross negligence.

Thru blackmail and bribery, Fitch tries to handpick a jury that will appeal to the gun lobby. On the inside, however, juror Nicholas Easter (played by John Cusack) is working with his girlfriend Marlee (Rachel Weisz), who is on the outside, to score a win.

Chances of winning: Well, to be bribed or blackmailed, you have to have a life. As I have neither, the outcome is up in the air.

  • And Justice For All, (1979), starring Al Pacino, Jack Warden and John Forsythe.

An ethical lawyer (Al Pacino as Arthur Kirkland) is forced to defend a corrupt judge (John Forsythe as Judge Henry T. Fleming) in a rape trial. This same judge wrongly sentenced Pacino’s client, who was innocent, on a technicality. Pacino had thrown a punch at the judge, and might be disbarred unless he takes on this case, even though he knows the judge is guilty.

Chances of winning: I’d throw myself on the mercy of the court, rather than get involved in this quagmire.

I rest my case. Hollywood ending: 4. Justice: None.

What was your favorite courtroom drama on film?

—-

Photo of Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) and Tom Robinson (Brock Peters) in To Kill A Mockingbird

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atticus_and_Tom_Robinson_in_court.gif

Movie trailer for To Kill A Mockingbird

http://www.cinemagia.ro/trailer/to-kill-a-mockingbird-sa-ucizi-o-pasare-cantatoare-2384/

Movie trailer for 12 Angry Men

http://www.moviestrailer.org/12-angry-men-movie-trailer.html

Movie trailer for Runaway Jury

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi982581529/

Movie trailer for And Justice For All

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2677512217/

Hitchcock’s Take on Reality

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By Judy Berman

It seemed so innocent. Feeding pigeons in a park. The next I knew, a flock of birds converged on my baguette. I dropped the bread, fearing that if I didn’t, all that would be left of me was my trench coat and glasses.

I also feel uneasy around the ominous stares from birds gathered on the power lines. Birds swooping down on the beach near our home also make me edgy.

What accounts for this irrational fear? Blame Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, The Birds. Just what was the Master of Suspense’s inspiration for swarms of birds that ganged up on the public and attacked them?

The genesis for that plotline was ripped from the headlines. It was not the first time that Hitchcock chose to weave fact with fiction to keep audiences riveted in their movie seats.

Truth is stranger than fiction. Imagine Hitchcock scouring the news stories and breathing new life into ancient yarns. He did this with Rear Window (1954), by using details from two different crimes to develop characters and the story. With The Lady Vanishes, he also rewove elements in an old tale to create his suspenseful 1938 spy movie.

In 1961, Hitchcock was shooting a movie in Bodega Bay when he heard about crows attacking some young lambs “in the same locality where we were working,” according to “Hitchcock,” by Francois Truffaut, a noted film critic and filmmaker. The movie director met with the farmer whose lambs had been attacked and got the idea for some of the scenes in the 1963 suspense thriller.

Hitchcock said “these things do happen from time to time, and they’re generally due to a bird disease, a form of rabies.”

The birds are now believed to have ingested toxic algae.

“The cause of the outbreak in 1961 was not identified. Then, 30 years later, disorientation and death struck brown pelicans in the same area,” according to a recent story by LiveSciences senior writer Wynne Perry.

“It was found that the birds had eaten a toxin, domoic acid … which are diatoms, a type of algae.” This can “cause confusion, disorientation, scratching, seizures and death in birds that eat the stuff,” Perry wrote.

For Rear Window, death also occurred by an unnatural cause: murder. Here, Hitchcock took “two news stories from the British press. One was the Patrick Mahon case and the other was the case of Dr. Crippen.”

After Raymond Burr’s character, Lars Thorwald, kills his wife in Rear Window, Thorwald has the same problem as Dr. Crippen. How is he going to dispose of the body? Then, the added dilemma of how to explain her absence. Justice quickly caught up with both. (The movie also starred James Stewart, picture at left, and Grace Kelly.)

The Lady Vanishes was based on a film called So Long at the Fair. “It’s supposed to be a true story, and the key to the whole puzzle is that it took place during the great Paris exposition, in the year the Eiffel Tower was completed,” Hithcock told Truffaut.

In this film, mother and daughter are visiting Paris when the mother becomes ill. She has bubonic plague, and officials were concerned that this would scare away crowds who were coming to Paris for the exposition. This yarn fits the story line of The Lady Vanishes, where a great scheme is devised to deny the existence of Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), who turns up missing aboard a moving train. As it turns out, Miss Froy was key in unraveling a spy mystery.

Hitchcock always did have the knack to leave me Spellbound. That the plots were strange … and often based on reality … I Confess that’s even spookier.

—

Still of Alfred Hitchcock from The Birds trailer

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_Hitchcock%27s_The_Birds_trailer_01.png

Flock of gulls

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flock_of_gulls_-_various_species.jpg

Article: “Blame Hitchcock’s crazed birds on toxic algae”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45862619

Still of James Stewart in Rear Window

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Stewart_in_Rear_Window_trailer.jpg

Another Roadside Attraction

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Alaska– Part 2

by Judy Berman

The Land of the Midnight Sun, Alaska, is a wild frontier. It has a vast wilderness populated with bear, moose and wolves. Some of its communities are reachable only by plane.

In the time we spent in Alaska, we had just one regret. We never got to see Denali National Park. We were headed to the park – about 200 miles from our hotel in Fairbanks - when our trip was abruptly cut short just past Cripple Creek Road. About 14 miles outside of Fairbanks, we became another roadside attraction.

I was used to driving on icy roads, but I hit a patch of ice and overcorrected the car when it began to skid.

Huge mistake. The Ford Explorer veered into a ditch and flipped onto its roof. We were unhurt, but the rented vehicle was totaled.

Still, that wasn’t our most memorable experience in Alaska.

Ice Alaska had just wrapped up shortly after we arrived in Fairbanks. But the frozen images of a full dog sled team and musher, a huge ship and an ice castle were still intact. It’s amazing what works of beauty ice artists can create from a block of ice.

This year, the World Ice Art Championships runs from Feb. 28 to March 25.  Seventy teams from all over the globe will compete in this event that attracts more than 100 ice artists and 45,000 visitors.

Another first for us was to see greenish Northern Lights in an inky sky dotted with stars above our hotel. (That story about the aurora borealis was in my previous blog: “Kaleidoscope Skies, Alaska, Part 1.”)

One morning after brunch, we flew in a small plane from Fairbanks to Fort Yukon – eight miles north of the Arctic Circle. It held only two other passengers and the pilot. Mail and boxed items took up most of the plane’s remaining space.

The folks at Frontier Flying Service must have alerted Richard Carroll that two tourists were on their way. He met us at the airport and gave us an exclusive two-hour guided tour of the village. Typically, this owner/operator of Alaska Yukon Tours has a busload of people. He also conducts river tours, lake tours, gold panning and wilderness camping.

The village seems to have one foot in the past and another very much in the future. Carroll said about “150 years ago, my people were in the Stone Age. Then, as if by slingshot, they were catapulted into the 20th century.”

To emphasize that point, he showed us the dinosaurs of technology left behind when the Air Force left town. A long-range radar site that look like a giant white golf ball with huge antennas. There is a string of these – 25 of them – from the Aleutian Islands across North America.

Just how cold does it get here? Wikipedia says: “The highest temperature ever recorded in Alaska was in Fort Yukon on June 27, 1915” when it reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). “Until 1971, Fort Yukon also held the all-time lowest temperature recorded at 78 degrees below zero.”

When we visited, the high was 38 degrees in Fort Yukon and the low was 5 below zero. It actually seemed milder than the weather we left behind in Central New York (where we lived at the time).

That lured us into thinking it’d be a great day for a drive, and off we went toward Denali National Park.

About 15 minutes later, our drive ended with our vehicle upside down in a ditch. Every passing motorist stopped and offered to help. Two great guys from the Department of Transportation – Mike Rogan and Chris Tilly – freed us from the car, made sure we got out of the Explorer unharmed, called state police and waited with us until a trooper arrived.

I wrote a letter to the local paper and to their boss thanking Rogan and Tilly for their help.

Months later, I got a postcard at work featuring the Northern Lights and I burst out laughing. It was from Rogan and Tilly, the guys at the DOT. The message? They invited us to come back to visit Alaska.

This time, Rogan ribbed us, we should see the Northern Lights right side up.

—

Photo caption: A trip interrupted. Dave and I next to our rented vehicle.

Photo caption: A 9-foot-tall ice sculpture depicting New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees in the midst of a throw. Dawson List (the owner of the photo as well) sculpted it in Fairbanks, Alaska

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coolbrees1.jpg

Photo caption: On the way into Denali National Park and Preserve. It is located in Interior Alaska and contains Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America. The park covers 9,492 square miles.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:On_the_way_into_Denali_National_Park.jpg

For humorous comments about mosquitos in Alaska and serious info, go to Alaska Wildlife:

http://www.angelfire.com/ak3/alaskana/wildlife.html