great day to be outside....

thought i'd put in the parting shot from my little roadie. i saw the swans about the same time another guy in his car saw them and we both made a quick pull off to try and get a better look. the quick pull off is a frequent event on alaskan roads. on the rarely traveled denali highway one can pull over whenever and whereever really it seems. the parks highway can be a bit busier and is a major connector...anyway...the swans are a beautiful sight whenever they show up.

this is one of the 4 moose i sighted on my walk yesterday in kincaid. this is actually not a sight one wants to see when standing 15-20 feet from a moose that you thought was alone...a baby popping out of the woods on the other side of you and crossing over. lucky for me the mom moose was pretty mellow. when i chatted with rudy today he surmised that it may be like humans...those who have had many kids are more mellow than those first time parents. being chased by annoyed moose is something i always try to avoid. they really get big when they are running at you...that much i can tell you from experience.

below is a few shrooms that are growing in my front yard. i saw them on some web page and i believe they are edible. i'm not a mushroom eater so i won't test that theory...but they look cute. hopefully, i'll trade in some novels i have at the used book store and find me a book so that i can put names to the shrooms i run into. must be hundreds of sorts.

there are some terrific gardeners a few blocks away apparently. my morning bog walk occasionally turns into a neighborhood walk as well and i saw these flowers. thought they were quite lovely. must be some sort of daisyish flower. it's good to always carry the camera...you never know what will be of interest on a walk.

i'm still thinking of my trip north and missing the big mountain and all the other mountains in the area that i can now see from my home here. my brother, joel, was shocked that this mountain is readily visible even though it's an almost 5 hour drive north of here. to him that would be like being able to see something in dallas from houston. below is denali mountain as seen from the tank trail in anchorage today.

so i guess i figured that jay leno would do something new and different, but everytime i flip over to his show...it's exactly the same. a bit disappointing. i mean i still haven't figured out why he left if he didn't want to retire and still wanted to do the exact same show. letterman's mono was cracking me up tonight. sometimes a nice lazy day at home is fabulous. i watched a mini "bones" marathon. love that show. i also cooked up a crock of beef stew. i have no particular recipe and really just improvise each time...i think it's getting better though. did some crosswords, chatted with my brother joel, it's his birthday. also chatted with rudy for a bit earlier.

great weather out there today so was outside for much of the day. first walked rio and blossom...well walk...really with rio it's a stroll. she has one speed lately and is quite focused on the sniffing part of the walk. who can say no to such a sweet face. must have been some good sniffs out there in the bog. later blossom and i went up to the tank trail and then off to the back woods. no bears, no moose today.