each day an adventure in alaska: more of Kennicott...

slept in but not too bad. after some yard work and hose time with the pups we headed to Hatchers Pass for a hike. beautiful day....hot day, but still pretty. thankfully, a breeze came in this evening out there as i wore boots and i should have worn my keens. i dipped my head band in whatever water i ran across to cool me off. yes, 70 in Alaska is hot...so hot.

every community seems to litter. so this is the remnants of the mine...humans are messy and slovenly. we leave a mark and a scar where ever we go. this is universal. i don't care what race or culture or religion you are...you are leaving a scar and a mark. nobody is really better than anyone else here. the ancient ruins people visit exist because people left their mark on the land. they were messy. we just have more and more crap that we throw away though...

eventually, most of it gets covered over or broken down...most not all for sure. crap sticks around for thousands of years in the right conditions. mother nature has a way of taking humans down a peg or two every so often. it could be famine or locusts or disease or a big earthquake or tsunami...Mother Nature has many options.

or she can just leave us to our own devices. we will over populate the earth, get pissy with each other and start wars which will take out thousands of us. it happens with all the species. over population means stuff becomes less available for all...those with money and power want more of it and they could care less who dies to keep them in that position. historically, it doesn't always pay to have money and power. sure, they can kill off a lot of us regular folks but often they too end up dying horrible deaths.

listened to podcasts as i drove. liking the podcasts. mostly, i listened to "the Moth" and "stuff you should know". figured i'd avoid too political of stuff while i was on a relaxing road trip. of course, that meant listening to a podcast about how decapitated heads continue to have emotions and feelings for up to 30 seconds...that some have been known to change their expressions, open their eyes and make eye contact...and apparently, you should never poke your finger up the spinal cord of a decapitated person right after they are decapitated...major pain. pretty freaky.

the moth can be pretty fun. always love hearing stories from others. regular stories. so happy that the moth brings that back. humans just talking and telling stories, live. there are some pretty wise parents and some pretty sad stuff that people just get through. some that cracked me up...as a little girl this lady got mad at her young sister and that they had the same bedtime despite her being older...after her plea to her mother for a later bedtime failed, she decided to run away...to Grandma's down the block.

oddly, to a 5 year old anyway. her Grandma opened the door...like she knew she was coming over. her mom showed up shortly after...her mom wisely after some discussion just told her, well, i guess if you want we can take your sister to an orphanage tomorrow. i mean you came first so, if that is what you want.... she said that at 5 everything she'd heard about orphanages was bad so of course, she couldn't send her sister there. of course, the rest of her life anytime she complained about her little sister her mom would just tell her...you had your chance. haha.

another girl was telling about some school variety or talent show. the first time she was in it she was supposed to sing but instead she just stood there bawling because she'd forgotten the words. the next time she had gotten a ventriloquist doll and practiced like crazy, even making up her own jokes. she studied all these joke books and memorized the best jokes..only to have some girls steal her jokes in the act before hers and another boy destroy her doll. so that one didn't go much better. anyway, lots of fun stories and interesting information from the other podcast. i usually just plug in my ipod...

the amazing scenery along with the old equipment was pretty cool out there.

where i walked today has some old mining stuff, but most of it is pretty much destroyed.

the dogs were pretty tired after. they had a great day again. they got right in the car after so i think it was all positive for them. we probably walked about 5 miles.

they were off leash, but behaved very good...quite a few folks out there. Ivy only jumped on me and that was the post meet another dog excitement thing.

the mine looks all pretty with the red buildings. as i mentioned in a previous blog only a few buildings at the site were painted a different color. this had to do more with who was in it. women. the men were not to enter unless they had a real reason to be there.

the ore was brought in at the top of the big building on the right. it was broken down as it traveled down through the 14 stories of that strange shaped building...probably oddly built as they kept adding on as they needed to. at the bottom you can see the opening where the train would come in. the train had just the one track. McCarthy is where the circle thing was so they could turn it around. we had one in our toy train sets i remember. McCarthy was also the place where the alcohol and hookers chilled out. the workers would head down and spend their hard earned money...making them need to keep working..the circle of indentured servitude.

i think a few more bugs got some good bites on me today. it was pretty though. the columbine is out

really need to hit the grocery store. will plan on that tomorrow after my walk. we are thinking rabbit creek trail. since it's hot for me, it's hot for the puppies so need to find trails that have some water for them to cool off with. keens tomorrow if it looks like this.

nice to have a week off of work...especially when it looks like this outside. often feel like a mosquito and fly bus driver. opening the windows at various times to allow a bug to exit the vehicle. one traveled along quite a while with me last night. what do they think of their new surroundings so far from their original location when they are released...worse, how do they feel being on the inside of the windshield watching so many of their comrades die a gruesome death on the other side of the glass.

still need to feed the pups. they are turning out to be more free feeders. i still feed them twice a day but they tend to eat the morning meal more in the afternoon.

a huge part of the Antarctic shelf broke off in the past week or so. it is the size of Delaware. they say it won't displace the water levels since it was in the water. that is massive and i'm sure there were some big waves generated when that thing set sail. ice melts much faster in water than on land...explaining why the northern ice has been disappearing more rapidly than the southern ice. pretty simple science.

gorp...always a good snack item for a snacker like myself.

it's almost 11 so i suppose cooking a dinner would seem silly at this time...not much of the basics in the kitchen anyway.

the nations top ethics chief has resigned. his term was to be up next Jan but butting heads with this administration wasn't worth it apparently. suspect we really would need a huge ethics department to deal with all the ethics violations of this administration. it's all quite sad...more sad how many give them all a pass no matter what crap they pull.

so apparently, a campground really close to Chicken was closed due to a black bear tearing up tents...hmm...perhaps i had someone or some dogs watching over me so i didn't have a close bear encounter on holiday again. haha.

reading old papers..tsunami in Greenland killed 3-4 folks. a native gentleman in northern Canada tries to teach the younger generation the soon to be lost art of igloo building. guess they used to use knives fashioned from walrus tusks, now they use saws.

there is a ranger talk in the morning out on Round Island...i think it's 10 am our time here.

partial travel ban back on of course. seems really odd as the time allotted for the original ban is over and nothing bad happened. they had plenty of time to check on the vetting process. learn that it's just fine. but if they accepted that they couldn't preclude the entrance of muslims as they so desire to do. fear is a terrible way to run a nation. we have become weak in such a short time and it's all because of fear and fear based decision making...and decision making based on a whim and tweets. our forefathers are spinning in their respective graves.

interesting podcast on voting issues and how parties find various ways to prevent folks from voting. currently screaming voter fraud, which really isn't a major issue. the GOP uses all sorts of ways to decrease voter turn out. it was a really interesting and eye opening podcast on the history of it all. in that first election for Washington really only like 6 % of citizens actually voted. land owners only, males, white really...i think initially black landowners could vote, but how many black landowners were there back then.

i think one of the first voter increases had to do with military...they could be shipped off to war but couldn't vote. that changed. blacks and women eventually got the right to vote but various ways were worked out to prevent them from actually voting. each state made their own rules. voter intimidation and misinformation are still pretty popular tactics. poll taxes...i'd never really heard about all that. crazy...now they find ways to for creative poll "taxes" still. voter id is more complicated than it sounds and is actually a way to prevent many of the elderly and disabled from voting. the GOP also likes to find ways to prevent early voting in their favor. it's all so shady.

rump Jr sounds like he was at the least an idiot when it came to Rus and the election. he's obsessed with Rus so i doubt the total idiot excuse really holds up. are they trying to sell us out to Rus or just get in the good graces with Put. we will have to wait and see.

couple of black bear cubs will be relocating to a zoo in San Francisco. kind of surprised they found homes, but good for the little guys.

below is from the bottom of the 14 story complex looking straight up. took a tour the second day i was there. that first night i ate and then wandered around town a bit as the light was great and it was nice since hardly anyone was out there wandering around.

a total of 73 polar bear attacks on humans from 1870-2014, a good percentage of those are more in recent years. suspect that less ice may be making the bears more dependent on land and land sources. humans are edible when you are a polar bear.

other AK news...a dog apparently died after it possibly put a car in gear that was idling. the dog was alone in the car. the car rolled down a hill and into a river. the dog was unable to get out of the car. so sad.

probably a little dehydrated. will have to get some more water in me before i crash for the night.

had to take a few in black and white.

from the other end of the road.

it was a nice relaxing get a way. for sure a bit of a drive though.

i think the big red building was one of the general mens quarters.

will have to get my blood drawn some time in the next week or so i think. annual check up stuff.

make sure i stay as healthy as i can. would like to keep walking for years to come. i started walking and exercising in my early 20's. with all the respiratory issues i had in my teens and early 20's i'd found i was short of breath pretty easy. walking and exercise worked out to be a good way to improve my respiratory status...moving out of LA also turned out to be beneficial.