denali highway and campbell airstrip trails...

another favorite shot from the weekend. the fall colours were faded, but it still can be beautiful. i've been watching, "in america" while i load pictures. i always like this movie. it's a strange movie, but life is struggle and friends come from strange places. it reminds you to keep you heart open for you never know when something good can come from something that isn't what it appears.
last night i watched, "an angel at my table". it was longer than expected. it was based on this new zealand poet. kinda odd flick. supposedly this poet came from some sort of dysfunctional family and had some sort of melt down and ended up being treated as an inpatient in a psych unit for some 8 years. the first part which showed her childhood didn't actually seem that dysfunctional. just poor parents, probably less than properly educated. she seemed to have issues with anxiety and depression. she was diagnosed as schizo and got lots of shock therapy. a later psychiatrist told her she had nothing wrong and all her issues were related to the shock therapy. i think she did have issues, just not the ones the original docs thought. lots of people were put away back in the day. easier to just toss people in buildings that deal with them. so much was misunderstood and still is. shock therapy is still used i believe for severe depression, but at least now people are sedated beforehand and i'm sure the dose is lower.

the day today started foggy and turned sunny. i took the pups out to campbell airstrip trail. we started on the sled dog trail and then headed back along the main trail, then i opted to risk bear attack and walk down rovers run. no sightings of bear or scat. it was a lovely walk, we meandered for a few hours. when i returned there was a note on the car from my trail friend gillian. i met her the first year up here and we run into each other mostly in the winter on the trails. she is someone i've come to admire. i love that she is up in years and still totally active. she could so out ski me. i helped her find her two doodle pups and always enjoy chatting with her. we chatted this evening. she has a friend with a dog that needs knee surgery and is too old so she wants a brace like rio has. there are some amazing people in this world and i never would have met them if i hadn't taken the road less traveled.

i think the pups enjoyed thier day. rio got to wade and blossom got to swim and chase her tennis ball. dogs are so easily amused!

the forrest floor was blanketed with those wonderful red leaves. so pretty.

impossible to capture some things on a screen...it's just always so great to be out there, walking and enjoying the scenes, no matter what season.

lots of fungi out there still. many have died off. these bear bread fungi were huge and amazing looking. they were over a foot across the top.

i read a bit when we got home. we all like an afternoon nap, it's especially nice when the sun is beating down on the bed. i started out reading, but quickly dozed off. not that the book i'm reading is dull, just the sun, it puts you to sleep. i woke in time to get to my 1.5 hour massage...

love a massage. i always have loads of knots. they never go away, but she does a good job at working them out a bit. i was totally relaxed afterwards.

above is a ptarmigan. we scared up several walking through the woods today. blossom seemed totally uninterested. they always scare the crap out of you though as they flutter off the ground and fly to the trees. i always think a moose or bear is coming out of the brush and then it's just those dang ptarmigan.

stopped by for a swim, only did 25 laps. still felt relaxed from the massage and didn't want to ruin it. so as you can see i accomplished very little actual work today. i'm such a slacker. i did run a load of dirty dishes and washed the car so maybe i'm not totally hopeless.

back to the drive...i pulled over at a favorite spot, mclaren summit so that we could go for our walk. at one point i look out and see blossom just staring off into the distance. i followed her stare and saw a caribou. she never barked. we ended up spotting 5 or 6 caribou along the hike which was fun. we laughed as we're not sure what the benefit of having that white tail is...seems like a target to us which is a bad idea if you are a caribou.

blossom tired after her tennis chase. she and rio quickly fell asleep when we got back on the road.

these were the only flowers we saw out there really. these are harebells..which i just kept calling hairballs. i have seen them around here and have always liked them. sweet little flower.

a few more caribou check us out.

getting pictures of me with the dogs is nearly impossible...the dogs just don't cooperate. i don't think i looked very good here either so all in all a lousy picture...so why did i post it? who knows...i think it's the only picture i got of me this weekend.

there was a cool photo in the newspaper this morning. yes, i still read an actual paper. so what!! this scientist is laying down watching the walrus and man do they look huge. i mean they are huge, but the picture just accentuates thier enormity. apparently the sea ice has melted where they would normally be hauled out. our walruses here aren't known to haul out on land like they do in other places. they hauled out on land in '07 and '09 for the same reason. they are trying to keep planes from flying over for fear it will spook the walrus and creat a stampede. when they get spooked and rush off the smaller ones get killed off. due to the nature of walrus it can be difficult to keep accurate counts of thier numbers. of course, here on land they are easier to count and this group stretches for over 1 mile of beach.

global warming? it's not convenient so many just deny it's existence. it seems obvious that the earth is on a warming trend and impossible to think humans don't have any impact on the earths warming. i am a lover of walrus and polar bears. happy to say i have seen both in thier natural habitat which was glorious. i do hate the thought of a world without them. it would be a sad world indeed.

apparently there is yet another superbug making it's way into the states as well. as a nurse, this is of course, concerning. all these new things come to a hospital near you. it's apparently coming from india and called NDM-1 for new dehli. last year swine flu, this year new dehli. overuse of antibiotics and misuse of the same has led to all these superbugs. tb meds were sent out to asia without being regulated and eventually became ineffective there. in my training in los angeles area one hospital had mostly asian patients due to the neighborhoods surrounding it and we saw all sorts of resistent tb. nothing you could really do for those people.

it was so great watching those caribou. any animal sighted in it's natural habitat is a thing of awe.

these racks aren't nearly as sweet as the ones we saw up past atigan. those were some impressive animals. we only saw a handful.

berries...tasty.

love the fluffy flowers.

there was also some note about hand sanitizers not being any more effective on flu than not using it. i've often thought we overuse it at the hospitals. they moniter us to make sure we use it as we walk in/out of a room. it's a bit over the top to wash you hands at the sink with soap and water and then be told to use the squirt as well. soap and water is still the best option. i've often though too that those squirt bottles are overused. frequently, people really need to just use the old soap and water method. they'll be stuck on it for years though.

more fluffy white stuff. wonder if you could collect enough to spin into yarn?

below is the summit with the road stretched out below us. always just amazing how much land is out there, open and untainted for the most part. it's really insane and until you are here driving around or flying around, it's hard to comprehend the vastness that exists.

maclaren summit...there i've spelled it wrong this whole time.

thought these leaves were an amazing colour.

this glacier is closer to the paxson side.

though the colours weren't at thier peak, they ain't half bad either.

love to watch the glaciers work thier way down a valley. i was told that the tops that are jagged were never covered with glacial ice. once upon a time all the rest was filled in with ice and all that remained were those little jagged bits.

this was back at the paxson lake before we took off for breakfast and all.

rio gets comfy for her road trip. i'm sure it's tough on her, but not as tough as being left behind.

the road looks like it drops off. you can see the little mile marker. i couldn't find any of the old ones as we drove along. i'm wondering if they were taken down or stolen. was cool adding those old ones into the pictures last year. i'm tired and done...massages wear me out!! no poetry tonight...