each day an adventure in alaska: how lazy can one human be? very lazy indeed. still smiling though.

it's a bit of a blah day so i'm trying to get motivated. the dogs are sleeping behind me.

this stretch off i have been working on getting Sunny clipped. figure a good clip before the temps really drop then let him grow a bit longer over the winter. we shall see. above is the moraine of the Root Glacier.

got my Christmas cards created so those are on order. may try to start on the calendars for this year. will go through this year and select photo's. if needs be, i may go back over the years and add a few of the old favorite memories in there. just to mix it up a bit.

just when i debate an extra shift i get hit with a busy/exhausting shift. did holds in the ER on my last night. lots of hold patients but it seems mine were the only ones getting beds. i'd get them settled on real hospital beds then they would get a room. i'd take them up on the bed and then bring back the bed from that room for my next patient...

ended up with a bit of a shin splint on my calf. really just notice in on longer walks now. it's been raining off and on or a little snow at times. it's been dreary out there. some sun in the afternoons at times though. always nice.

i've been slow binge watching this netflix series. in the dark i think it's called. it's kind of annoying, at least the main character is. she is blind and uses all the people in her life. she gets fixated and won't let stuff go and then demands those close to her do as she asks. they all end up in far worse trouble because she takes them into situations that end up destroying them all...yet she never seems to wake up to her part in it all.

humans like to be helpful to their fellow humans. however, this can be to their own detriment. in this series it's taken to the extreme. her friends are now wanted for drugs, fraud, murder....all because she can't and won't let anything go and has no fear/caution or concern for how her decisions may turn out.

i'm sucked into watching it at the same time as i am annoyed by it.

her blindness is something she tries to act like has no impact and yet she uses it to take advantage of the people around her.

so a few days before i head back to work. tomorrow i will be dropping Element off for it's new tires and probably an oil change. i think this time i will just return home rather than walk there and dodge the homeless population.

gas prices are again up. may have to pick up shifts just to pay for heat this winter. we did get a hefty pfd this year so that will help this winter i guess. dang opec. the nations with the most gas/oil tend to often be the ones with the worst and most corrupt governments. the world is a mess right now. all over the place.

russia got some drones/arms from iran so they are hammering Ukraine more again. iran is still fighting off it's internal rebellions. the people there are sick of their theocracy just as our nut job christians are trying to make this nation a theocracy. it's all crazy.

the gop candidates are mostly nut job conspiracy theorists, election deniers. they have no plan to improve things but just run on absurdities, which seems plenty for their followers. they have vilified the left as of the devil, quite literally.

i just get up and walk the dogs. my simple life keeps me sane. often feel i dodged a bullet being single. so often in those earlier adult years i was made to feel like a failure for being single, for never marrying. more i feel like it's the secret that none of them wanted us to figure out. independence is a great thing. nothing is perfect but there is a lot of pain in relationships out there.

i just do what i want when i want or i do nothing and am fine with that. the dogs and cats are very adaptable to whatever we have going on any given day.

get the dishes and laundry done, basic house cares, remove the dead shrews/birds and whatever the cat drags in.. he is a brat!

monday walk was fairly short. took the gasline/powerline/tank route. shin splint and crap weather.

one walk the other day it was pouring but soon the sun came out and it was beautiful.

really hard to know these days. been like living in Ketchikan again with all the rain.

today a bit of a headache and unhappy gut. so i figured i'd blog and see if i could get the head a bit happier then head out. less daylight these days.

still enough that i do have some flex in time.

more of the moraine. it's a huge one. in the time of the mine the glacier would have been much higher and in front of the mine. what a crazy place it must have been back in those days. it is said they couldn't see there were mountains on the other side..i'm sure that's not really true as they would see it if they hiked up to the higher mines, like bonanza, on their side. from the mine in Kennicott it would have been only the glacier that you saw...a nice view then and now.

watched another short series about the earthquake up around Everest a few years back. avalanches killed several at one of the base camps. there were many more at an even higher basecamp. they were trapped and scared i'm sure but in the end it had been a safer place. they had to be removed by copter though as the route below them across the glacier was now too unstable.

there was a small village closer to Everest that was completely wiped out. there was a small group of survivors from the area that were collecting at a viewpoint over the village. the before and after shots of the village are horrific. just complete gone. some Israeli's hiked down to the village supposedly to look for food but they found a trunk filled with cash. they had broken the lock, though one guy later was "not sure" if it was locked or not. i find that hard to believe. who loots all that cash and then brings it back up to the villages who's dead families were all there. it became a big source of anger and tension with the locals. it was really just a rude act.

the villagers were also ticked that these tourists had a sat phone but hadn't told them. the Israeli's eventually feared for their lives and requested a helicopter come extricate them and bring weapons to ensure their safe travel out. in the end the copter pilot that came, another Israeli came without any weapons and made peace with all by promising to get everyone out to safety.

i had heard about the tragedy but it was an interesting show.

had to add one of my rocks to the pile out there.

i haven't been to Ruth Arcand Park for ages. there were kids there this summer and signs posted about a coyote attacking a dog. who needs that. i'm not sure Sunny is ready for too many moose encounters either. haven't been up to powerline...the first time in years.

do feel like i have done so much less this year. the gas prices were a hindrance. kept weighing how much i wanted to pay to take a walk. stayed local a lot

this from a spring trip down south. the ruts were super deep. a car made the attempt to drive down this soon after we headed off of it. no idea how that went for them. i can't imagine very well though. not their smartest move.

Sunny got to learn about the big ocean and beaches this spring and he was a fan.

he sure has grown a ton. so much taller than Ivy now. she does seem very happy with him as a companion. still miss Tusker a lot...happy to have added this little ray of sunshine though. i suspect Tusker had a little something to do with that. i suspect our pets are watching out for us...maybe more than any family that have passed before me. such a tight and unique relationship we have with our pets.

we are so intertwined in each others lives. animals have such loyalty and devotion. levels i can't imagine ever obtaining with human relationships. perhaps that is more about me than the other humans but that does seem to be how my life is.

i grow more dependent emotionally on the pets the older i get.

the pets are just a constant in my life. here when i wake up and when i drift to sleep. they give me reason to get up each day. to get out on those trails. sometimes to work...as i have to make sure i have enough money to keep them cared for.

Portage Lake.

i went fairly late this year and though there were walkers out there, it never felt totally safe this year.

i do need to get braver again. i feel like covid took a bit of that from me. the anxiety of it all made me more fearful. i feel it's time to push back on those aspects of living through a pandemic and strive to return to the me who was much less fearful and more fearless. i won't be climbing Everest any time soon. that level of adventure was never in my personality. i'll leave that for others. i do get though as one woman from iran was saying. sometimes you have to push yourself way beyond your comfort level to find out how powerful you really are. when the copters came to rescue them and she was pushed forward first because she was a woman...she said it was one of the only times in her life that she was happy to be a woman.

growing up in iran she had been given dolls tp play with but she really wanted to be out riding bikes and climbing trees. she had gotten into a lot of trouble once for doing just that, climbing trees. they don't get pets there either. what a sad existence at so many levels.

sunshine in the spring. looks good on these pooches.

rare leash walks. need to do more and get more training time in. i've been doing a bit of this at the dog park with all the distractions there. it does help him learn more i think. carrying the good but stinky treats.