each day an adventure in alaska: July 2013

so far behind because we've had no rain days. we are setting records for hottest days. a nice change from our previous record settings of longest winter and most snow in one winter. so i'm not complaining, but it is making it tough to get caught up on all the pictures from this amazing summer of sun. above is from the bog. love that this place is right by the house.

several in here are again from a nice hike to hidden lakes, or tarn.

popped down to homer yesterday and back again today. so that will be more pictures i guess.

i was debating a homer run and then had pretty much decided to just take blossom out to eagle river for a walk out eagle lakes area. i took both dogs in the bog and attempted to settle rio in on the couch with her usual peanut butter treats. no go!

she would have nothing to do with that plan. kept ignoring treats and coming to door. that walk was just too long for her..she was slow just looping the bog that morning. makes me wonder if she is really on deaths door and knows it, but isn't telling me.

the group rests and eats up the cookies i'd brought. actually, by the time i arrived here the cookies were all gone. devoured by the kids! i baked a lot those weeks.

i'm sure it's feeling pretty quiet at bob and tanya's place with their friends gone back to Sweden. soon i will have a houseful to visit with. more cookie baking i'm sure.

anyway, rio refused to be left behind yesterday so i called the "driftwood Inn" and they had a dog room available. so i repacked from hiking to a road trip. these are things that as a single female without kids i can easily do. it has it's perks.

the drive was quite beautiful. i can't say as i got tons of photo ops. mostly it was too sunny really for the best photo's. i like some clouds. it all can get kinda washed out if it's just sun. i let my friend cathy know i'd be down so she stopped by my room last night and i met her at the hospital where she works for a lunch. always fun to catch up with my old ketchikan crew. i do miss that place. my friend janet posted a most beautiful sunset photo from down there. nothing like the southeast for beauty really.

back to the trail, we got moving as it started to rain that day. it didn't last long or fall hard. we for sure had clouds that day.

the colours were vivid though.

i guess mchugh trail is closed in a section. some guy shot a charging brown bear with an AK not 47 but some other assault rifle. of course, i'm more disturbed that there are people out there with assault rifles on the trail than i am that a bear charged some guy. seems like overkill to me. i can't say i know much about guns though. wimpy me only carries bear spray. haven't decided yet if that makes me an idiot or super brave. i guess if and when i get attacked by a bear the public will decide. odds are usually on the side of the no attack thing. many of those charges turn out to be false charges, meaning the bear will stop short and not kill the threat it is charging. a huge bear charging you is pretty terrifying though i'm sure. i highly doubt i could get a gun up and ready in the short time it takes for a bear to charge ya.

i just hope i never am faced with it. i have been charged by a few moose. doubt i could have gotten a gun up and ready. i just got behind a tree for those though. a bit different when it's a bear.

rio and i had a meltdown moment today on the road. well, really, i guess i was the one who melted down. she was just being rio. she decided today in homer that she was going to start jumping into the front seat of the car while i was driving. she's always reserved this move for the moment i get out of the car. for years, i return to the car and open the back window to get her back to the back. the first time i drove to a spot, got out and moved her to the back. the second time she made this move i was driving at over 60 mph. having a blind 130# dog make a leap to the front seat is just dangerous. no two ways about it. she was not getting the point. so i immediately pulled the car off to the side of the road, got in the back and basically grabbed her and moved her to the back abruptly. i can have super human strength apparently on occasion. she got slammed to the back with a yell to boot.

i immediately felt terrible, but the fact is i really did need to drive the point home before this becomes a habit. she is unsteady on her feet and won't just settle down in one spot. it's not safe. despite my owner guilt she did lay quietly in the back the rest of the drive back to anchorage, except when i had stopped the engine and gotten out of the car...as is usual.

the dogs got their photo's taken by several tourists today and even my car got photo's taken of it. lots of tourists in homer. spoke to several people. i'm generally willing to chat with nearly anyone. one couple was from austrailia. they said that even though it's winter there right now, it's as warm or warmer than it is here. they were fun to chat with and when she found out i was a nurse, she was very nice and was saying she could tell that i would be a wonderful nurse just from our conversation. not sure how one can tell that, but i am always happy to get a compliment. they tend to get fewer and fewer the older one gets.

maddie and martin really developed a fun friendship so i'm sure she's bummed that he's gone back home.

some flowers along the trail.

blossom was quite tired this day and is tired today...so is rio. probably from her emotional day.

it was nice to be in homer and just enjoy the community without having to worry about catching a boat here or there. great to kayak out of homer, but it's also a fun place to visit. i cruised shops on the spit and several galleries in town. only bought one birthday gift for a friend. tomorrow is last day of july...this summer is nearly over!! it does go fast. no complaints though as it's been a lovely summer. i still haven't done enough hiking/biking or swimming. have done more of the larger treks so that has cut into the routine stuff. work always cuts into that fun time too. haha.

no summer is complete without a few trips to mooses tooth for dinner with friends. we all went there after our hidden lakes hike. it was hakam's birthday so celebration was in order.

here is rio in one of her latest lay down on hike cause it's too hot moves. i was with kelly on this one. walks are taking longer with rio along, but she keeps refusing to not come along. so hard to refuse a dog that wants to walk. like i said though, she can't handle the heat and so this is also cutting into my hikes. my leg is doing great i must say. had that procedure and i'm able to walk much easier. that backpack trip, this hike, i felt more like myself out there hiking. thank you Dr Artwahl and crew.

here are a few from the day we went fishing. it's all just a mish mash. easier to load pictures in numerical order rather than by trip. i use several different camera bodies so the numbers get all out of whack. these guys did fine setting us up with our halibut trip.

we got there at the crack of dawn, which is even earlier here.

the sunrise was quite pretty in whittier though.

gift stores were not open when we got there, hard to even find coffee really. when we got back we were in a rush to catch the tunnel. if you miss the tunnel you have to wait an hour to catch the next one.

we caught the 5:30 am tunnel to whittier in order to get to the 7am boat.

a few favorites from the morning.

i rarely get my arse up in time for sunsets. in the winter i can though. or at work.

the only thing i forgot to bring to homer this weekend in my rush was my book. it would have been nice to have had that to read. i had a hard time sleeping last night. i often would take a benedryl in an unfamiliar place to help me sleep, but i had left my little pill caddy in the car and was too lazy to walk the 20 feet out there to get to it.

only saw one moose on the way down there. my friend has been seeing a bull moose the last week swimming in lake hood. great pictures. would love to get that shot, with the planes and all, so i was quite happy that she did and was able to share them. so cool. of course, it could be disastrous if a float plane hit a moose on landing. she said the fish and game people were trying to get the moose out of the water.

it's been hot so moose across town are taking whatever opportunities they can find to cool off. streams, lakes, creeks, puddle pools and even backyard ponds.

the whittier harbor.

someone had these old tonka trucks set up by the boardwalk. loved them . had to try to get pictures of them with the boats in the background. thought they came out pretty sweet. i'm pretty easy to make happy.

diaper shortage...another article in the paper. i'm just catching up. poor people can't get enough disposable diapers. perhaps they should buy the old fashioned cloth and just wash them rather than try to keep up with the expense of disposable?

we lost two soldiers here i guess this week. not to war related injuries. one was on a jet boat that flipped over and another one apparently drowned in a lake up north. always sad to lose young people in accidents. we tend to get several deaths over a summer. warm days does mean more people out enjoying the warmth and it's a risk.

the charter company had a puppy in the building. cute rottie pup.

anyway, i quite enjoyed my little trek to homer...if for no other reason than it helped me further delay all the chores at the house. i did make an appointment for the window to get fixed this week. huge crack in the windshield of my car...before i got to portage a huge rock slammed into the windshield. so i'm happy i will get it changed out. it's toast. happy that happened before i changed it and not right after. nice to have headlights and working windshield wipers again as well. guess i've accomplished a few things this week.

i'm pretty much deciding that i really shouldn't go to kaktovik right now. too expensive. i've just spent too much money already this summer and it's not over yet. perhaps next year i can make a kaktovik run and plan for it better. we shall see.

the grand hotel of whittier. i've never been there. we walked to the front doors, but the dining room wasn't going to open until at least 7 am. oh well. i was hoping for breakfast.