mostly black and white

 finally found stuff to take pictures of today so now i'll have to split them between today and tomorrow i guess. always too many pictures.  was fun today though.  the black and white goes with the melancholy mood of this past weekend.  too much sleep.  not enough social interaction...i guess some would call that a bout of depression..i just call it my melancholy.  i tend to hide away, hang out in solitude.  take photo's, chill with the four legged.

 these are at the dunes.  first i attempted to hit the beach at kincaid, but the trail was totally ice and not easy to walk on ice, even with the cleats.  so then i headed to the jodphur trailhead and out to the dunes and a bit beyond.  blossom got tennis  ball time in.  rio didn't have to battle too much ice and i could get some pictures taken.

 good for all of us mentally.  i guess i could just take a pill and avoid all episodes of melancholy, but it's part of life and i have no desire to kill myself or cause harm to myself or others so i guess i think it's best to just let it run it's course, do the things i have learned to do to reboot.  i'm gemini, i'm a bit of the artist.  i get better pictures, poetry when i have a touch of the melancholy. besides, who wants to be jolly all the time?

 life is ups and life is downs.  the stress of making changes hits us all differently.  i tend to be a creature of habit and i also tend to be one who ruminates on stuff.  other people are more hit and run i guess.  it's been more tough to get my rumination time in as that i do while walking.  being held inside by weather just makes the melancholy worse, so it was good to get out for a bit today.  driving is good for my soul as well. so after our walk i drove down to turnigan arm and watched the tide go out and the sun go down.

 it is getting later and later.

 got a wide angle lens finally.  so these are all with the new lens.  clearly, i will have to practice more with it.  always when i get any new toy for the camera's i wish i could return to all the cool places i've ever been and see it through this new lens or that camera or whatever.

 the dunes are always stark and beautiful.  such a strange place just sitting here randomly in anchorage.

 blossom had a great day out there. of course, she would happily have walked that horrible ice to the beach a well.  it all worked out great though i think. this was fun.  would have walked further out trail with rio, but she decided to come walking.

 i try to let her decide when ever i can.  today she got to car but wouldn't get in so i finally started back to house with her.  she got on deck but again, wouldn't go inside...back to the car...finally she jumped in.  funny dog.  the things you do for the critters in your life.

 i may need my ibuprofen tonight.  i can feel my muscles.  first my back and now i can feel everything.  did make it to the pool again...hopefully i can get back to being better about the laps. i do always enjoy my pool time.  ran into a couple i worked with in the icu years ago, fun to stop and chat for a few minutes.  super nice folks.

 love that first picture in this series...just the sky behind that tree.  fabulous!

 always good to be on the coast...no matter where you are.  i grew up going to beaches and lakes just aren't the same for me.  i need the sea.  its funny how people are either ocean people or lake people.  not to say i don't like a lovely lake, just that the oceans give me just a little something extra. hoping to get up to some of my favorite tarns again this summer.  i do love a tarn!!  maybe i can get my brother and his family up to some tarn country this summer.  they are planning to come. i hope they make it..it's so pretty, great to share it with family and friends who make the trek.

 the trail along the water was icy and it's a pretty steep drop off, which was why i didn't go too far with rio.  blossom makes me nervous as well since she seems to have no fear.

 her whole life i've had these random, horrible dreams where she falls off a cliff or some other awful calamity.  have no idea why...?  i never have these sorts of dreams with rio and never have had them with other dogs,but they are terrible.  my poor pup!

 you can see the ice on the trail up there. liked it in black and white.  i really do love black and white.  so fun and i just love the look of the shots.

 there is a motorcross area in that hole to the left...it actually looked pretty with all the ice out there.  i guess there is a group trying to make this area accessible to snowmachines in the winter.  i'm not big on noisy machines in parks.  i also think it's a small area and fear they would start going out of bounds.  my dunes could be ruined.

 loved the roots on this tree.

 my street is still totally ice.  i did a short slide into my driveway as i came back from my swim.  oops.  i think someone said their car slid out of their driveway. luckily i don't have much of an incline/decline.  i can't imagine how this ice is for some people.  that is for sure a factor as i think of where to hike this week.  wanted to hit prospect but it could be treacherous.  could drive out to hatchers...not sure where i'll go tomorrow.  mostly i wake up and see what the weather brings.

 did get myself back to a decent schedule.  i was asleep soon after midnight and back on a more normal schedule..for me anyway.  i could have gotten my day moving quicker i guess.

 must be good soil somewhere under the sand for these trees i'm guessing.

 the dune is pretty large though and at the back end it drops off fairly precipitously.  tanya and i took a wrong turn and had to come up the back end one time....that was a thigh work out.

 there are some interesting trees out there, the wind must get blowing pretty good and impact how they grow.

 moose poops and moose tracks around but no sightings today.  they are probably avoiding this ice as well.  the gods are being kind to the animals it seems.  we had so much snow last year and so many moose died.  the road kill numbers were awful but with so much snow many moose ended up cruising the roads and trails to save energy.  this didn't go well all the time for them.

 i think many also had a tough time getting the calories they needed.

 not as many moose in town for this time of year.  i suspect with such a small amount of snowfall they have been able to stay out of town and still get plenty to eat.

 rio enjoys her day on the dunes.  always tough to get a picture of her.  as i attempt to take the photo she becomes concerned that i'm far away and she starts to walk towards me.  being blind makes her pretty dependant on me.  silly dog.  dogs certainly don't understand my need to take a photo.

 blossom is a bit more obliging.

 crazy growth at the base of this tree.

 this place wouldn't look nearly so cool if it were all coated in snow.  you could see the ice on the surface of the dunes at times though.  certainly a different texture than the dunes of summer.

 blossom with a cool windblown tree.

 some old chunk of a car.

 a better photo of the cool windblown tree.

 you gotta be tough to grow here.  i'm kinda  a dune girl...i can stand strong and powerful against the wind.

 would love to see what this place looked like 30 years ago, 50 years ago, before the earthquake...

 another view of the motorcross area.

 these are all on turnigan arm.  there is a train that runs along the waters edge.  i have yet to take a ride on this train....perhaps another fun thing to do with the family when they come.  depends on how long they stay, when they come....what they want to do and spend i guess.

 tracks always add a little something to the picture.

 the landscape is level, the tracks are not.  i've gotten more particular about my landscape being level.  i remember reading somewhere, something about these "great" photo's people take but they are all crooked.  suddenly i took closer notice of my photo's and true enough it does tend to ruin a beautiful photo to have it all unlevel.  so this one bugs me a bit, but the reality is that it's the tracks that are off, not the photo.

 beautiful sky today.  i can't complain.

 the tide was retreating as i arrived.  it goes out very fast;...and in just as fast which is why they ask people to stay off the mud.  you can easily sink into it and then not be able to retreat when the tide rolls in.  the arm has an impressive bore tide at times.  i've always been terrible at guessing when the good bore tides are.  supposed to be like 2 hours after the low?  anyway..the best ones i've seen i just saw by chance.  they are impressive and i love to watch the people out there kitesailing the bore tides.  looks like fun.

 the dogs were in the car so i tried not to keep them waiting too long.  this are at beluga point.

 this one below you can see the tide line on the rocks.  probably have to make it larger.

 loved this tree.  it just screamed take a black and white photo of me.

 gotta toss in a few with colour just cause that sky was so pretty.

 trees just lend themselves to photo's...

 at beluga point you can just make out a few places where the old highway passed through.  this is one of them.  there is a yellow stripe down the center of some old asphalt.

 chatted with a friend down in ketchikan. there is much i miss about living in that small town.  lots to love about living in anchorage as well.  fun to catch up a bit.  they had those big quakes recently.  those big ones don't seem to happen very often down there.  it's actually a pretty safe place to live.  never heard of any tornado's or hurricaines.  lots of islands in front of revillagigado to protect it from tsunami's.  very few active volcano's in southeast and the rare earthquake.  all that rain protects them from fires mostly too.

 temperature is always great too.  rarely below 20 or above 60.  we cooled off a bit here tonight.  under 20. yeah!!  now bring us some snow!!

 more talk of it....i will believe it when i starts falling down.

 a few of the sunset tonight.  took many, but really many looked the same with this camera.  will put more in tomorrow i guess.  nice to get behind again on photo's. such a dull photo weekend with all this ice and wind and such.

 the sunset got prettier as i drove away, but it was time to get home.

will attempt to get to bed again at a decent hour so i can enjoy my last day off of work before heading back on thursday. enjoy and goodnight.