each day an adventure in alaska: planes and family..

every so often i head over to lake hood and check out the plane activity. nothing coming or going on lake hood this day, it was cloudy/foggy out. i always enjoy checking them out though. above is the summer floats waiting out the winter. i think floats and skied planes are my favorite. below the plane is outfitted with ski's.

lots of pilots in alaska...people you don't expect to will turn out to have pilots licenses and planes that they fly around in. still spendy to get a pilots license and to fly for that matter.

looks great though. have often wondered if i'd be more keen on flying if i was in control of the plane. i do prefer these small planes to the big jets. i think i like that the landing gear is right there.

went shopping for cars today...hehe. very tiny cars anyway. ian is all boy so i figured he's hit the ripe age of 3 and he can now have little cars. they say 3+ . age 3 seems to be a cut off for many toys. he's arrived. so age 3, cooler toys, age 16 drive, age 18 vote, age 21 drink...i really think we should add that in.

just tanya and i for the monday walk another beautiful day out there. it was just us for coffee as well. i made brownies and everything. i'm thinking maddie will be happy. i always send some home with tanya for her after lunch treat.

soon the monday walks will be winding down. people are already starting to head off in other directions. hit some errands today. costco...always fun. did find myself eyeing people driving around in those little carts. not sure why, but it doesn't occur to me to view people in wheel chairs as packing guns. not that they can't and i don't know why they wouldn't, they are just like anyone else and maybe if i were in a chair i'd want the extra protection being possibly more vulnerable.
still a bit surprised at the events of this weekend where that poor guy at walmart was shot. who lets a service dog run loose in a store? it's all so strange.

it does make me think of the designation of service dogs now. before i think there were only seeing eye dogs and those were highly trained. now i guess there is some other designation for service dogs. seems like any dog can be deemed a service animal now. people have them due to stress or some kids with autism have dogs just to keep them watched. some have dogs that warn them of a seizure..there are seemingly endless reasons for a dog to be a service dog. some of these dogs seem more like housepets with no real specific training requirements. others highly trained. not sure they will allow the guy to have his service dog in prison and if they do, it will be on leash. doubt prisons accomadate service dogs, but i'm sure it's coming.

found myself more annoyed about that rookie musher abbott. an article in the alaska dispatch went into more details about what happened out on the trail. i saw her get her snow hook (brake) stuck in the snow when she left the main lake...it took forever for her to get it out of the snow and i was shaking my head and saying she wasn't going to make it to nome. she didn't. she scratched in kaltag.

the story in the dispatch says she fell at about 20 miles out from the start in willow and it turns out she broke her pelvis there. she then muddled through the next 600 miles or so. she was in terrible pain, she was crawling around on hands and knees to care for the dogs. at eagle lake she stopped to take a break as she was in so much pain. when she went to leave, her dogs wouldn't budge. after she hadn't moved for almost 24 hours the iditarod crew sent out a crew. the trails support team, plus a race official and also someone to take her team on into kaltag. my suspicion is that they had encouraged her to stop previously and she had refused. at this point they did not give her a choice and brought her to kaltag via snowmachine.

she said in this story that if they haven't stopped her she would have just kept going. people were writing all these comments like she's so courageous, a hero, amazing, inspiring....was i the only person who wasn't seeing her in this light?

i saw it as selfish and irresponsible to keep going forward. most mushers will tell you they are not interested in winning or even finishing if it's not in the best interest of the team in front of that sled. this is bigger than you and your ambitions and your goals. she spent nearly $200,000 in making her iditarod run happen and i think when you invest that much money on a one time trip you become even more determined to make it happen. it's a testament to the dogs courage and strength that they went as far as they did. a person who has to crawl around on their hands and knees is probably just standing on the runners and letting the dogs do all the work, eventually, they said bull crap.

i just found it annoying that nobody seemed to see anything wrong with how this all went down. that iditarod crew went out to find her with every intention of making her scratch...clearly she had no intention of doing it on her own. i love lance but those were his dogs out there. she was courageous to try the iditarod and train for it, but in the end it's not courageous to risk others lives, in this case the dogs, for your own ambition, your dreams, your hopes. it's selfish. the courageous thing to do was to bow out and accept your limitations in that moment. with a fractured pelvis she was a fool to stay out there like that. she could have easily thrown a blood clot or fat emboli. just not smart.

minor cleaning today, will have to try to have at least one spring clean event a week. i bought a new phone at costco. i know most people are getting rid of their landlines, but i still have mine and like having that option. my phones were crap. the one portable one had a super short battery life. these should be all charged up by morning and hopefully they will work out.

rio is snoring away behind me. she was a bit hesitant to go today. not sure why. she did fine, just slower than the other dogs. it's good for her though to get out and walk. she probably walks more than most mastiffs. she is tired tonight though. tanya's pups got into it with another dog out there. it's always distressing to her that her dogs do this. luckily mine are both very chill with other dogs and people. the lady wasn't very nice about it, which i can't blame her, it's always upsetting when dogs attack your dog. there was no blood spilled thankfully. the dogs are mostly talk, it's still not the best situation at times. we need cesar milan to come on the monday walks and help us!!

stopped by the shelter with various treats and newspapers for the cats. a girl at work has a super picky dog and she's tried all sorts of treats. the dog hadn't liked them so she asked if i wanted all the bags of treats that he refused. i told her i'd see if i wanted any and if not i'd just take them to the shelter when i dropped off more newspapers. then i cleaned out the area where i keep dog treats and added those to the bunch. not to many dogs in the runs when i cruised through. that is always a good sign, empty cages at a shelter. of course it could be they had put some dogs down but i'll just stick to the not many dogs in there looking for homes right now. i'd rather convince myself that people are being responsible for the pets they take in.

wheeled planes.

chatted with my brother jeff for a bit today. i was getting ready for the walk. always nice to catch up!!

this guy was mauled by a grizzly last summer and a story in the anchorage daily news was saying he's back out there running and headed south to do a half marathon in new york. see, that is courageous and inspiring.

the scars were impressive. they showed pictures. those grizzlys are big! he clawed the guys chest and that paw was huge!! looks like there is like 3-4 inches between claw marks, guess one claw nearly missed his heart. he also got chewed up on his legs and scalp. the one leg was trashed i guess. at the scene he took off his shirt to wrap his leg just to keep the various bits and pieces together. always amazing how people keep their heads together in these situations.

switched over to a few from last weeks monday walk i think. alone and out in the meadow area.

and stumphenge.

just looked outside. it's starting to cloud up. no northern lights seen. they are supposed to still be decent. there have been lots of photo's of them on facebook. i always enjoy the pictures.

this was after a fresh snow..still loads of snow hanging on the branches

the snow has fallen by now.

the rest are fun pictures from back in the day my brother has been posting on facebook. he found some old slides!

one summer our family went on a summer trip with gramps. not sure who else was along. we had houseboats and floated down the sacramento river? above i'm quite sun tanned hanging with my mom.

not sure when this one was. i'm older. teenager...we always had a station wagon. my uncle koyle is to the left of me, linda beyond him and on the other side of me is my brother joel.