Reed Lakes, to the Beaver Dams anyway...

 these are all from a hike in July.  so many photo's.  the colors are already starting to change a bit..these deep greens will soon be gone and instead fall colors will rule, at least for a few weeks before winter is upon us again.

 i enjoy my quiet life up here in Alaska.  not saying i don't like people but i just do well on my own most days. out with the dogs and my camera with maybe just a friend or two along for the walk.  i was never good in crowds.  never felt comfortable.

 the wildflowers were coming in great this day.  i love the wildflowers of AK, but i also love the mushrooms and it does look like it may be a banner mushroom year.  hopefully i can avoid bears in some of my favorite mushroom taking places.  the bears have been out and busy this year.

 the news that came back from today's search in Denali looking for the plane crash was not good.  the area is super steep so they dangled someone from a big military helicopter once they were on the crash site.  there were 4 dead passengers inside covered in snow.  if any had been alive at the time of the crash they no doubt succumbed to hypothermia, their injuries and shock.  hopefully, none of them suffered long if at all.  my heart goes out to their families who will be given this sad news. 

 they were all tourists from Poland so the consulate in the lower 48 was notified of the loss of these souls.

 the pilot was not seen at the scene of the accident.  makes me wonder if he fell. the terrain is apparently extreme in that location.  with hypothermia he may have decided he could climb, or he just fell outright. it seems they have presumed he is dead as well.  seems the most likely scenario.  so a sad day for many today. 

 i was just reading on the Alaska hiking trail that there was a suicide on McHugh trail.  a man shot himself and was gone before anyone came upon him. 

 the dogs and i joined a friend for a loop in Kincaid.  we did see one moose and calf but they were taking a drink on the other side of the lake from where we were.  my friend and i were both happy to have no animal encounters out there.

 my handyman came over to collect a check. figure it will work  better to pay as i go.  we will keep in touch and i will work on demo and packing up while we wait for the cabinets to arrive.

 starting to set up a temporary kitchen in the garage.  bought a little microwave.  will be a pain but it will be fine for the time.  now i need to pack up some boxes of crap, cook what i can that is in the cupboards and get prepped for the next step.  I'll need to put another coat of  primer on the outside, then get paint and paint the inside and outside.  figure I'll try and do some touch ups on the outside as long as i have to buy some paint anyway.

 need to work on selecting a date for the play several of us want to go to. should be fun.

 the wind really blew last night.  i figured I'd wake to broken glass all over and the window/frame did fall over but miraculously it did not break...and i was able to lift it up.  lowered the price on the sale in hopes to just get rid of that and the fridge. oven next i guess.

 my hair is up in a pony tail. I'm pretty excited. i chopped if off awhile ago but was feeling like growing it back a bit.  I'm sure I'll chop it off again. it does look cute short, just easier long...since I'm pretty lazy about most things girly.

 the iitoo went after a basketball player and a journalist.  both black....the guy is racist and he really does get the racist in this nation riled up.  the basketball player was being interviewed because he is using his earnings to educate young kids.  seems nice enough.  he said though in the interview that he would not sit down with this current iitoo to chat.  the i never watch the fake news but always watches the news he calls fake was offended and railed on his favorite medium, twitter.  he apparently railed over and over and over again.

 the man is racist and there is an element of his base that shares his views.  he got the votes of the white suprem contingent of our nation.  let that sink in...not only did they happen to vote for him, he clearly said and did things to get their vote. i always think that must be disturbing to those who are Repubs but do not have the same racist leanings. to be on the side of such horrible people.  at some point it seems the good hearted of the party would challenge this pandering to these people.  the potus is either totally racist or panders to them for their votes. i think it's both.

 incidents directed at gays, blacks and others are on the rise.  this potus uses his twitter feed and his rallies to rile up the base.  it is only a matter of time before worse happens in his name.  the nuts who follow him like a cult leader will take his hate filled rhetoric to heart.  they will kill journalists, they will take out members of the justice system and fbi in order to protect their chosen leader.

 this is one of the many reasons why words do matter.  words get turned to action.  lives get lost. 

 perhaps, the iitoo will discover that his words on these tweets weren't ignored by all and that they do matter.  he just threw his son under the bus.  his son worked with a foreign agent/s in order to get the dirt on HRC.  many, who abhored HRC, are fine with anything as long as she is not in office.  that would have been worse than breaking laws, that would have been worse than making a deal with Put.

 so many are so amp'd up on the conspiracy theories they have heard over and over by shock jocks like Limbau, Jones and Hannit that they really believe the lies that have been fed to them over and over.  lies that exist with little to no truth behind them.  once you have made someone the devil it's hard to turn that back.  strange that the same who believe these lies believe all the lies being fed to them still by this administration. 

 lies that are exposed by facts.  Gates totally gave up Man today in court.  he admitted his own guilt but also came clean about Man.  even if you just don't listen, the truth is out there. 

 it's like climate change too.  just because some shock jocks and politicians deny it doesn't mean it's not happening.  rather than believe thousands of scientists these folks chose to believe a small faction of American politicians and religious leaders.  really? does that even make sense?  how is it possible that all the science across the globe...not just Americans, not just Europeans, but scientists everywhere believe there is a global warming situation happening...everyone but the GOP sees it....how is that possible?  by and large, it is an accepted scientific fact.  it's not a belief, it's not a religion...

 i remember a co-worker one day went to toss an aluminum can i had set aside to toss in the recycle bin.  i stopped her and told her i was going to recycle the can.  she looked at me and says,"oh, i don't believe in recycling".  i was shocked.  i remember i just looked at her and said, "recycling isn't a belief or a religion, it's something you choose to do or not do".

 people can choose to ignore facts, they can choose to ignore words but that doesn't make it so.  the earth is in a warming trend, words matter. Mueller will make that abundantly clear. not that the iitoo will see clear the truth.  at this point i really just do not believe he's capable of knowing truth from lie.  his tweets show him to be fairly untethered from reality. 

 the gop is trying to do as much towards their agenda before the rug is pulled out from under them...before it's discovered that the emperor has no clothes.  i have hope the base will eventually see the truth of him.  that he has no interest in them except in their devotion to him.  as long as they are devoted to him he will love them.  he is loyal to them only if they are loyal to him. if there is any crack in their love and devotion for him, he will turn on them as he does all of them.  he is a total narcissist.   all of this is a big show to him.  that is why he keeps doing these rallies, over and over.  the one in Ohio he wasn't even invited to, he just needed to be around the cheers and the devotion.  in truth he is terrified of being found out.  he must keep them locked in and adoring him.  he must not let them see that the truth is out there.

 he is unraveling.

 the gop has failed to control him.  in their greed they will go down with the sinking ship of this inept leader. 

 his base loves him and they have no idea how to deal with the base and the racists....how can they keep their votes but separate themselves from the madness of it all.  truth is they can't. the fall out from this is on them. 

 little photo op with the pups, thanks SH for the snaps.

 Ivy kept following the tennis ball. 

 wildfires burning in CA. the iitoo posts something about the fires being the fault of the environmentalists.  everyone is the enemy to him and his flock. clearly they do nothing wrong and everything they believe is the truth...obviously because they have God on their team. it's the most insane thing to watch and talk to these people.

 the walrus cam is having technical difficulties. i hope they can get it back up for these last weeks of the season anyway. would be a bummer if it went down and that was it for the season. 

 always love the wild cotton.

 i hear there is a lot of water up there right now.  snow melt plus the rain must have been falling. 

 it was a bit wet out today so I'll see if i can get that second coat on over the next few days. 

 somehow i ended up with a tennis ball at my feet.  haha.

 that Ivy Rose is ever hopeful. they are both sleeping right now. 

 something has for sure happened in the past few months.  a mellowing in the dogs, both of them.  I'm cool with it, it's just funny to see this change.  the puppies are becoming mature dogs.  you always miss the puppy, but thankfully dogs are always puppies.

 almost to the beaver dams

 erratics...rocks left behind by receding glaciers.

 caribou moss tops this rock

 the earth is always changing. the seasons up here are rapid and pretty exciting...and then winter comes and everything just slows down. 

 i like the bundling up, the cabin up life.  i like the ice and the snow and i love the rapidly changing seasons that come between winters.

 i need to finish paying for my Denali trip.  no planes involved in our trek out there.  just a bus...hopefully we have decent weather and beautiful fall colors. 

 then i zip home, pack car and head back to Byers Lake for more fall color enjoyment.

 footprints.

 and this is the handiwork of beavers

 SH takes a few more family shots.

 Tusker lost his dog tags someplace in the last 24h ours i think.  i may have a spare since they were losing them on a regular basis as pups. maybe it's at the dog park.  better head to bed. 

thankful for: A.  friends to walk with  B. crazy days of summer C. the return of the mushrooms.  looks like it could be a fun year of mushroom hunting!