packed again for quick road trip

 i do go  back and forth...stay home feeling safe from Covid or get out exploring. in the end i work in a high risk area so i guess i feel like my exposure at work is far greater than any exposure on the road.  i will stay in a tent most likely, come in contact with very few other humans, no close contact without a mask.  i will sanitize often and wash hands when available. 

 i'm in a state surrounded by covidiots as they are called.  trumpy types who do not think covid is a big deal or feel it's a hoax or over blown or whatever. 

 these are from a trek to Homer a bit back

 today i will head to Valdez.  may stay at the KOA campground. haven't stayed there before.  perhaps less rabbits for the pups to chase. we will just enjoy the drive out, then hit a few beaches tomorrow and drive back the next day.  split it up, chill.

 bed early again and woke early again. do not think that means i'm ready for day shift switch.  just that is how it has worked this week.

 i wanted to change the cat litter and clean the house a bit.  hate coming home to a mess and my Covid Kitty co-owner may stop by for some cat play time. :-) 

 haven't gotten the counters off yet for the measurements on Thursday.  i think it's okay either way.  keep the sinks and running water for a bit longer. not sure if my previous handyman will be up for helping me out with this project. i'll ask.  maybe i'll get lucky.  taking apart plumbing is one thing, putting it back together is not something i plan on doing solo.

 next will be flooring.  i'm starting to wonder if tile with radiant heat might be nice for the Kitchen/living area.  hate to split up the flooring but the stairs/hall may be easier something else entirely.....may still do an area of tile by the door/dog door and then do the same flooring down and up stairs.  will probably look nicer.  why change the Alaskan way though...have different flooring throughout the house because that is what you found at the time and you are doing projects one at a time.  haha.

 did another mushroom walk yesterday

 this time we looped around Campbell Airstrip.  did the crossing over to the trails closer to Elmore Rd. we did see a moose and her twins close to the bridge. i wasn't sure if i could get past her as she and the twins were right by the trail.

 several bikes and walkers past her easily though so i made my way.  soon after she and the twins crossed over the trail. i had a macro on the camera. i have switched back to zoom for the road trip. 

 i thought she looked thin. liked this little baby moose checking out the float plane

 these were early morning as well.

 it's nearly 11 am and i'm starting to feel ready for a nap. want to let the dogs stretch and hit the grocery for some road eats.  saves me from eating out anywhere.

 make myself self contained.  would like to get the oil changed real fast as well.  so many things.

it's not a young car anymore so i do have to baby the element a bit mroe

 besides the baby moose there were baby ducklings at the lake this morning

 here is the family, settling in for a family shot.

 those twins were very well behaved and cooperative for young ones.  they did very nicely in the photo shoot

 Ivy is drifting off to sleep beside me. 

 the kitten is out on the swinging chair... a new favorite place.  he will be a bit bummed when i shut the dog run.  i just don't want to be fretting over him while i'm in another part of the state. i'm quite attached to the little guy. 

 this baby moose discovered this log and had it out for it.  it was a threat for sure!

 nice the little one was protecting his family from the dastardly looking log.

 the video i took of him went mini viral on a Alaska site on fb.  some guy kept trying to contact me to make the thing go even more viral i guess. not sure what was in it for him or for me.  i just ignored him.

 i don't really have the need emotionally for that....what happens naturally on the internet was fine by me. i think in the end it got over 500 views and over 200 shares.  the little guy is super cute!

 you never know what you will see out there on the road.  you will see nothing at home, though it is tempting at times to stay home and do nothing. 

 yesterday i did move some stuff around the garage and put some stuff out on the curb with free signs on it.  a few things have disappeared.  always interesting.  i put the old corner cabinets out there.  i had thought about putting them up in the shed, but opted not to.  they could be great for someones remote fishing cabin though.

 the ferry Tustemena.  i guess when the possible tsunami call came out the Tusty flew off the dock and headed out to deeper sea to ride out the potential waves.  that is what ships do.  go deep

 these are from the drive home and the stop at Deep Creek

 not too many piles of dead fish so the bald eagles were congregated

 so many. 

 always fun to see all these birds

 and the pups always enjoy their tennis ball time.

 there will be bald eagles to chase in Valdez no doubt....and lots of rabbits...pet rabbits that became wild.

 i guess they are protected now, which does seem silly.

 i would have thought the bald eagles would have thinned those rabbits out quite a lot

 like that her body is divided by the wave. her hips get pretty uncomfortable....i really need to make an appointment for her and get better pain meds.

 the rest are Tusker doing what Tusker does, chasing the birds.

 it doesn't matter to him if the birds are big or small.

 these are kind of big though. so far he's been pretty lucky...that luck may run out one day 

 so far he hasn't had any close encounters with porcupines either. 

 he does live a charmed life.  :-) 

thankful for A.  the charmed life i also live  B the chance to get out and explore still despite the times C. that i have so far gotten by

enjoying the mushrooms...

 part of me feels obligated to go on grand hikes with grand views but then i am drawn in to my regular trails in search of mushrooms.

 not sure why the fungi fascinate me so much. i do not like to eat them, but they are amazing to me. 

 i finished up my work week.  this week it was RCU, CICU and then ER...i only was in ER until after 1 am or so then i was shifted to runner/door duty so that another could head to floor and take admits.

 i did score a new n95 mask. Covid is with us.  no way around it.  i am a bit less stressed than previously.  it's the reality, i can't run from it....so at some point you find some acceptance.  i feel less fear of getting it, but it's not gone, just more controlled i guess.  you control what you can in life, the other stuff you have to adapt to.

 RCU was fine. always busy at the front end there as those patients have a lot of evening meds/needs.  once they are settled it often chills. they don't need to get up to pee since their are on dialysis.  also many don't get up anyway since often they are missing body parts due to diabetes and poor circulation. 

 i actually thought i'd be there all week as they have several nurses out after an exposure to covid. the ER laughs as they are exposed to covid all the time and never get any days off  true enough, right.

 CICU is probably my least favorite in many ways.  it just always feels like i am working harder than my co-workers...am i given crap assignments there? just on a bad run there? i have always had bad luck with those dang sheaths so i have leftover PTSD from so many hours spent holding pressure on groin sites. i have to say the cath lab has made huge strides in these procedures and the outcomes are much improved...but i still have ptsd from the bad days early on i think. my patients were at complete opposite ends of the unit though so i was literally running back and forth all night. the sunsets/sunrises are from work in the wee hours

 slept a lot this week.  solid sleep between shifts and on my days off already both nights i crawled into bed early to "nap" and soon found it to be like 4:30 am. not my plan at all but i guess i needed the sleep.

 is work more stressful with covid and therefore more draining?  do i have a low case of covid myself and that is why i have slept so much.  it's a constant thing in your brain.  have i already had a mild case of this?  who knows.  no doubt we have gotten exposed at work repeatedly.

 how accurate are the tests?  how many asymptomatic cases do we come across. we wear masks but the possibility of exposure seems pretty high. how long does it really last on surfaces.

 my first night i had a co-worker that i found a bit tedious.  sometimes with certain people i feel like,"pick a mood".  she complained and bitched and then would be all happy. it's hard to keep up with people like that.  plus some folks tell long stories that are just not all that interesting...or they could be interesting but that person just doesn't have the story telling skills. some do some don't.

 by morning i think she decided we were bonding.  she decided to come in too close for my comfort and show me art she'd done on her phone.  she touched stuff in my work space....it's funny with covid i tend to become more protective of my work space. i wipe it all down when i arrive and then a few more times through the shift. 

 the mosquitoes are having a good year, as are the mushrooms.

 now i have hand wipes in the car so after i get back in i wipe off all the mosquito repellant wipe.  hate putting it on, but hate the mosquitoes more.

 these are from a long walk on the back trails late Friday evening. i'd slept in, woke briefly and then ended up napping until after 7 i think.  i didn't get to the dog park until after 8.  luckily we still have good light.

 Covid Kitty has discovered the hanging chair as a new spot to nap

 we also had lots of nice Covid Cat snuggle time this week.

 yesterday i did a long meandering walk out at North Bivouac. loads of mushrooms out there!

 i found several bits of blue wood, no mushrooms seen on them but i used them for photo ops

 i often stage mushrooms with whatever nature has out there.

 or flowers and blue wood.  these were fun shots.

 just love the magic of nature.

 it looked like it would be super wet and rainy...that was the forecast anyway. as it turned out the sun came out. i had to delayer, which also meant putting on more bug stuff.

 i finally called/met up with the counter guy about remnants. i took in the samples and he said he had remnants of those so he will come by for measurements on Thursday is the plan.  so that does give me some work to do on my projects.  i took a short nap yesterday and then headed to Lowes

 i will be wanting to prep the upstairs and downstairs for good measurements.  sounds like he can get those cut and installed fairly quickly. 

 i'm still debating a few day run out to Valdez though.  i may head out tomorrow if i can actually get a few things accomplished today as far as prep. 

 hopefully, i won't be too long without sinks.  not sure if my kitchen handyman will be able to help put stuff back together. plumbing is not my thing. not even sure i can take it all apart really. 

 doing the kitchen has given me some increased confidence. 

 bought paint remover so i can clean off those old cabinets and hopefully make them look new again.

 after that the next thing is working on flooring.  that will be obnoxious and a bother as it will be the entire house basically...downstairs kitchen/main area, stairs and upper hallway.  i really should get enough to do the bedroom upstairs as well. that carpet is so old!! with pets it's just nicer to get rid of all carpet. area rugs are cheaper/easier to just get rid of and replace.

 will have to just start removing the old carpet and fill trash up week after week.

 our covid cases are bumping up. the fishing industry has brought a lot of cases to our state.  so far i think the bulk are younger folks so that has kept hospitalizations down, but they are for sure up from what they were a month or so ago. we for sure have cases.  the 4th floor seems to be getting the bulk of the cases...

 Covid Kitten sleeps on me.  who can move when they have a kitten sleeping on them.  he's so cute.  keeps growing.

 he's 9 months...so more growing to do.

 he is bigger than Miss Breezy Chatterbug.

 they seem to get along well. yesterday, Miss Breezy was downstairs hanging for a little bit....i had to remind pups to leave her alone.  she panics, which i think makes it more fun for them to chase her.  Covid Kitty just holds his ground so they have just learned to ignore his movements around the house.

 kind of like when i was a kid and my brother would tease me repeatedly...my Mom always said, "just ignore him and he'll stop".  i was incapable of ignoring him to ever find out if that was true...i think the attempts i made at ignoring him just made him increase the activity looking for my breaking point, which i always had.

 our seafood industry is like the meat packing industries in the lower 48...an easy place for covid to spread. our state is a red state so we have an abundance of anti-mask Trump supporters.  they are quite rabid at this point. 

 trump stokes the fire by trying to cause violent protests that he can then swoop in with federal agents, from where no one seems to know, and act the "law and order" potus....never mind that these things are happening under his watch to begin with.  he has zero negotiation skills nor does he care to negotiate.  the right as a whole has had zero interest in negotiation for years though.  they seem to believe that their way is the way of God so only their way is right.  the left has been demonized as being of Satan so in need of destruction. 

 many on the right see a liberal as the lowest life form at this point.  they would rather embrace dictators than give an inch to the left of society.  they demonize us all.  the tedious co-worker from the other night at some point started a conversation where she said the word "liberal" like all who are liberal are the lowest life form. i stopped her immediately and told her not to go down this path of conversation.  she just spoke the word liberal with the highest level of contempt and hatred...making it even odder that she was later acting like my best buddy. was it because when she had to give d50 to her patient and was too scared to i had just done it for her? 

 i am not on the side of this political battle that is doing the work of Putin and the white supremacists....that is the right. it's always important to choose the right side of things...who is on your side should be an indicator of whether you are on the right side or not.  those are the folks who support Trump...it should give folks pause but so far they find ways to pretend that these elements have nothing to do with them.  if they vote for trump a second term after all we know of him at this point...it is all on them.  i am fast losing respect for his supporters, for how they have ignored the facts surrounding him and ignored all the horrible things he is doing to our nation....if you vote for a racist, misogynist, liar and con man....you are accountable for his actions.

 they cannot act naive about it.  the information is out there, readily available.  they have chosen over and over to ignore it and downplay it.  to scream hoax, and fake news and they are just out to get him and conspiracy this and that....

 a 93 year old man was convicted this week in Germany of crimes from the Nazi regime.  he was a guard at a concentration camp.  there is no grace period....he won't do any jail time but the point is all who went along with these atrocities have accountability.  silence is not justified, silence is to be condemned. 

 there was a 7.8 quake the other night on the Aleutian chain near Chignik.  there were tsunami warnings after so many were moved to higher ground.  interesting and spooky to see video's of the cars/rv's leaving the spit in Homer. the area around Anchorage make us low risk for a tsunami here. i was at work when it happened, felt nothing though i guess  few did feel it here.  i found out because a friend in the lower 48 asked if i was okay and i had no idea what she was talking about. 

 i may have to lay down for a bit and re-start the day.  want to get a few more things installed in the garage.  there is a chest of drawers that i ended up not using in the kitchen...i probably could have returned it, but at this point i figure i'll put it in the garage and then have this counter guy just put a top on it. 

 not sure where i will walk today.  the weekends the trails get so packed. if it's raining that will decrease the traffic...most are fair weather hikers.  it's also cooler in the rain.

 more mushrooms!! 

 may do a big loop at Campbell Airstrip so i can get more done at home...maybe plan for a trek out to Valdez tomorrow...if i get enough done.

 loved these two mushrooms.  seemed like the one was protecting the other.

thankful for A. mushrooms, fungi and lichen...so fun B. the health to be able to enjoy the outdoors C.  the fur companions that have made covid survivable.  animals never let you down...humans do sometimes.