Alaska Trip Day 31: Juneau → Seattle → Hong Kong

Seattle , 6 June 2020, during anti-police brutality rioting.

[Remember: this is just a Virtual Virus Vacation. It’s what I had booked before had to cancel coz Covid-19.  Click here  for Day 1 of the virtual (proposed) vacation. Then click “newer post”]

And so home. Juneau to Seattle and thence Hong Kong. 

Had we actually done this trip at the time, we would have just missed the George Floyd-related rioting and looting in cities we visited, LA, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City. We would have been aboard Safari Endeavour.
But we would have bumped into the madness in Seattle, the post George Floyd killings protests, and some rioting and looting. In Seattle, this led to, yesterday, 9 June, to the establishment of a “Capital Hill Autonomous Zone”, run by anti-government, anti-police people. We might have been there in time to see it...

When I do the trip like this, virtually, day by day, I realise that I have to pat myself in the back, cause it looks like a truly wonderful itinerary. First the road trip in the southwest, around desert and high mountain country, the Joshua Tree National Park, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Jackson Hole, the Spiral Jetty. And then fourteen days in a small, boutique Alaskan cruiser. Wonderful. Then again, it’s the wonder of America that makes the itinerary easy. Would be difficult to make it other than wonderful.
I do hope we can do this in real life. The cruise company didn’t return our deposit, but put it towards a trip with them we can take up any time before December 2021. I thought that pretty fair, and, feeling for them, decide not to press. Just hope they’re still around next year.
And it has to be soon. For me, at 70, it’s tempus fugit. Or, as Groucho said “time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana”.
ADDED: I’m writing this on 6 June. There are still riots going in in Seattle connected with the police killing of George Floyd. Can’t tell if will still be happening on the 8th, when we plan our virtual pass through. The pic above comes from this article in a local paper which notes:

Monday morning on his show, Todd examined the destruction of the city of his youth and his home of 20 years. He started by reminding his listener family about how the Seattle news media expressed love and compassion for an Antifa terrorist who tried to kill Federal Agents.

Jay Inslee and Bob Ferguson did nothing to investigate his Antifa splinter group, the John Brown Gun Club. Now, that terrorist’s comrades have destroyed Seattle.

There are some who say if you connect Antifa with the riots you’re just echoing a false Trump meme, so better be careful. There’s a distinct disinclination by elements in the left to acknowledge the involvement of Antifa, despite the evidence of mayors and police chiefs around the country, despite the clear evidence on live vids (the black bloc is a giveaway) and despite the fact they’ve been doing this sort of stuff for ages — I’ve seen then in action for at least a year, turning up at demos is standard MO. Seattle is one of their early stamping grounds.
They’re also inspiration, in look and methods, for our very own rioters here in Hong Kong to which we’ll be returning from our virtual vacation.
And so home…