election night, no amount of snow will stop the voters!!

we just got a bit of snow. always great to wake up to the white stuff blanketing the neighborhood. didn't take too many pictures today so obviously these first bunch aren't from today. these were taken several years back. i have been loading some old cd's and ran across these. i went with my friends sharon and chris for a hike to ptarmigan lake just this side of seward. at the time we went the salmon were running as you can see and thier dog, mac, was out fishing. he was quite excited about the salmon. don't think he caught any that day, but he sure had fun trying. poor mac has passed on and is hanging at the bridge with my butch and baby huey no doubt.

i did speak to a guy who had a malamute/rottweiler cross one day. that dog was quite pretty actually. haven't ever seen one of that mix before but it was the colours of the rottie but the size and shape and hair length of the malamute. anyway, apparently, that dog was a good fisherman and would limit him out at times. he had spoken to a gentleman from fish and game as he was concerned about the law regarding the dog fishing, he was told that basically, the dog was then fishing under his license so whatever he and the dog caught would all count.

the above picture was also not taken today. it is winter though. a local trail i frequent as it's just 1-2 miles from my place. great for a ski. you can connect from this trail all the way to the coast. anchorage has got the best ski trails! today i loaded my ski gear into the car and the snowshoes. i'm sure many are skiing at the slightly higher elevations. i just wore my snow boots and went to north bivouac. will take me some time to get used to trudging through snow again. can be hard work.

i believe this is kenai lake, coming or going to the ptarmigan trail. i missed that one this year. it's a great trail. i think each time we planned to go it started raining something awful and my friend that wanted to join me would back out. always love the colour of the lakes and rivers...that glacial silt really makes for a beautiful lake.

this next group of photo's are from dangerous passage. went kayaking there two years in a row. the first year we got nothing but rain...except for these rare moments where the rain briefly stopped. the next year was gorgeous. we did see tons of bald eagles and seals and such the first year. the seals seemed to look at us like we were nuts, out there in those kayaks.

i had taken my old tent, not wanting to do damage to my beautiful new tent. it was a big mistake as water pooled in the tent and it was nowhere near being waterproof. i donated that to my friend stephanie for use as a dog tent right after that trip. if you have new and excellent equipment, take it out of the closet and use it. the first night the boys took 3 hours to get the fire started. i just stripped down and got in my sleeping bag. i'm not a coffee drinker but it sure tasted good that day. we were pouring boiling water into our sealskin gloves and socks.

of course, i remember i impressed the men folk the second day. they went off to look for wood and i had the fire started in a few minutes. lint from the dryer and those compacted firestarters do wonders. of course, that is a baldie above.

today is election day. i did get out and vote. i vote at one of the grammer schools by the house. no line and pretty uneventful. it will be interesting to see how our senate race goes. i haven't checked for a bit. lisa murkowski was our senator. she got bumped out in the primaries and decided to run a write in campaign. first they have to determine if there are enough write in votes to do the count and then they must do the count. it looks like there are enough votes to do the count. the write in votes were ahead of the republican tea party candidate and the very green democrat candidate. not that i don't agree with some of the tea parties points, but i think many alaskans are just over sarah and are a bit sour on anything that she is involved with and the guy they selected, miller, just wasn't really the best man to select. he's a bit too out there and made some bozo mistakes. i think he ticked off the natives, which is a bad idea up here. they have alot of clout, i suspect the native vote is going murkowski, that was who they had backed. the sitka mayor running as a democrat just seemed too green. sitka is a community of maybe 5,000 and so mayor is a part time job. his ads were all odd. none of them said what he could/would do just stuff like he's been sworn at by norweigean fisherman so he can take anything and the last one was that he's twice the size of miller and probably 3x the size of murkowski. couldn't take his campaign seriously. so though, i'm not a gungho murkowski fan, it seems the safest and most sensible selection. i'm registered independant and i don't vote party at all...i vote individual. so we'll see soon enough how that all turns out.

this big pond is obviously not ready to cross yet. that is the continued trail across the bog there. we just took side trails around the bog and ended up on that other side. was going to do the big loop, but did a variety of smaller sections.

it was damp out there and the snow was falling down. i was totally lazy and skipped my swim again. i snuggled in the covers with my book when i got home and ended up napping a bit.

had some manicotti for dinner. easy to make and now i'm still feeling very full.

hope everyone took the opportunity to vote, no matter who you choose. it's important to get out there and vote. it's always sad how few people actually do vote. generally when they say only a small percentage vote they are actually talking about the percentage of those registered to vote...that doesn't include those not registered. i remember one history teacher breaking it down. in the end a very small percentage of the population actually votes. things like voting and education are taken for granted in this nation. in other countries, they will wait for hours to vote with smiles, happy to at least have the opportunity to try and have thier say. i have an old newspaper clipping from an election in zimbabwe on my bulletin board. the line seems to stretch on forever, but they know the importance of it and are willing to wait without complaint. i'm always happy that they provide an opportunity for people who are patients in the hospital to vote.

anyway...i'm off.