more holgate...little camera

 i'm snacking on leftovers from the paddle trip.  cheese and pears that never got used.  you always seem to take more food than you need.  at times they laugh as i have my snacks and stuff divided into little plastic daily bags.  this did work well when we got stranded on shuyak island for 3 extra nights.  not much leftovers on that trip. i think i had my emergency top ramen and a few rice crispie treats or something.  very little.  so that extra food can be a life saver!!

 my standard paddle shot. i love to get them with the tip of the kayak in them.  probably gets pretty old to look at.  may have to weed a few of these out.

 these are from that first sweet paddle in the ice.

 bob and tanya have collected a few kayaks now.  tanya loves hers.  it's some sort of composite.  supposed to be light yet durable.  we tend to avoid fiberglass as the beaches are super rocky which can really trash a fiberglass boat.  their double is fiberglass.  i think that was a craigs list find.  several friends have gotten their boats used.  always people spending too much money on a toy they rarely use and then selling it.  that is when the real paddlers can swoop in and get the deal.  boats can be pricey.

 i haven't bought a boat yet.  not sure i will.  gets tempting after using it so many times.  at the same time. often i paddle places where it's not easy to get your boat to anyway.  shuyak, glacier bay, next year when we hit misty fjords.  hard to justify a purchase only to have to rent a  boat anyway.

 self portrait.

 i always go crazy for all the reflections.  when the water is glass like this you just gotta get the camera out!

 bob, tanya and maddie rack up.

 we had some great calving activity that afternoon.  i took some sweet shots with my other lens, those should come up soon.  i figure i'll flip back and forth between the two cameras for postings this week.  have to think of some nice little hikes and road trips to take this summer as well.  we cram everything in during the summer months.

 did get in for my 8 hours overtime last night.  one super easy patient who i think i must have taken care of in the emergency room last week.  major medical issues and being homeless are bad combo.  guy was sweet enough both times i've taken care of him.

 looks like it will be a lovely sunset tonight.  rained all night last night.  good weather to sleep in and then late this afternoon the sun came out.  walked the dogs out at the jodphur trails of kincaid and then around to the dunes for a bit.

 even got some yard work done.  hard to tell.  all the old beds need to be ripped up and replanted with flowers and such. my raised beds could use some mending as well.  saw my neighbor and chatted a bit.  she liked my thought that we had 2 aprils and skipped may altogether.

 we are thinking that perhaps that rock out there is the one quinton climbed up after we lunched.  we were all a bit disoriented looking for what we called "quintons rock".  the place just looked so different after 10 years...could be our brains have gaps due to the aging process too.

 the ice was quite thick on that side of the bay that day.  it changes with the tides and weather.  warm sunny days means more calving and more ice.  scott decided to play in the thicker ice.  too thick for me.  i backed out, but he had a great time out there.

 we spent quite a bit of time in the area of the glacier.  totally relaxing and so much to ponder in life.  where better to ponder than at the face of a glacier?

 we all loaded with some glacier ice and headed back to the cabin eventually.

 got a second patient last night.  it's always amazing to me how much variation there is in the aging process.  this lady was in her early 40's really but i'd have guessed her at nearly 20 years more.  one thing i have learned is that drugs and alcohol and cigarettes will take away your youth...and your life really. so many people squander these years we are gifted to live on this earth.  such a sad waste.  my work is often a reminder to live life to the fullest, enjoy each day and notice all the beauty and kindness that exists out there.  also a reminder to be kind to others, up here you never know when you will run into people you have met or when one of those people will return the kindness or save your life.

 hopefully that overtime will not get eaten up by taxes and will help pay for the hotel and car rental in nome.

 i have family coming up in august too, summer is just spendy in alaska no matter how you split it.  there is still so much i haven't done and won't have time for this year.  everytime i plan one trip i find several more places i want to go to.  so far in life i've been quite happy exploring the state of alaska. i  guess i should be longing to travel the globe, but i live in heaven already and the internet is a great way to see the stuff you can't get to.  there are a few places outside alaska that interest me, like galapago's, iceland, africa, austrailia, antarctica...who knows what i'll see over these next years of my life.  i have it good...i don't think i'll feel unfulfilled if i don't make it everywhere.  paddles like this are why i live up here.

 these are from the cabin area.  after our paddle we chilled above the beach outside the cabin before heading down and building a fire.

 we all love a good campfire and i think we had a few good ones last week as well.

 this maddie, george and myself making ice cream for root beer floats!  the ice cream turns out great.  i've been unable to get the lid off to clean it since i got back.  will have to locate some  manly man to assist me with this i guess.  old ice cream is apparenly like super glue.

 maddie made sure we all got in on the game of shaking the ball to make the ice cream.

 once that sun drops down below the mountains it does get chilly so the fire feels great!

 george, tanya, maddie and scott above.  maddie and scott below.

 the ice cream!!  so tasty!!  i'd brought that growler of root beer from the bear tooth.

 the clouds started coming in that night late.  we never had one of those pink sunsets on the glacier.  i know we had one last time we were there.  still cool out there to watch the day end.  it's after 11 and i'm still waiting for the sun to set here now.   i think it is actually going down now.  there is some pink/orange by downtown area.  it's still light enough you could set up tents easily without any other light source.  you could easily read on my deck as well.

 lots of snow still on the path to the cabin from the beach.

 maddie entertained us all weekend.  bubbles. when the bubble level got low i taught her to reload with salt water and it seemed to keep working.

 we also built cairns on the beach and then the guys sat in their beach chairs and hurled rocks at the cairns to knock them down.

 george won for the largest and longest lasting cairn.

 my feet got wet washing out the ice cream maker that first night in the beach water.  maddie was given me the spa treatment with warm rocks.

 view from inside the cabin of the glacier as i got ready for bed that night.

 more cabin shots.

 maddie loves her some bacon so we had two mornings of bacon.  okay..i love me some bacon when i'm out camping too.  i have a slice here and there, but out camping you gotta cook up the bacon!!

 lucky we didn't draw in that black bear with this smell!

 i'm a sucker for cairns as well.

 back out on the water the next day.  we were all pretty convinced that though it was cloudy the sun was trying to make it's way out.  we were all pretty wrong about that.

 this was as close as we got to mr sun.

 it didn't start raining until we were pretty close to pederson bay.

 well, maybe not that close to pederson, we did enjoy an hour or so of no rain and just clouds.

 various intertidal area's reflected.

 ice and paddlers.  we all kinda fanned out.  we did get to see several mountain goats on the cliffs above us as we paddled.  a few of them had little babies.  so cute!

 thinking these ice bergs were from aialik glacier which is beyond pederson. there is a glacier pederson, but i think it's no longer tidewater.  we all saw a small fire when we were in pederson but didn't really realize that there was a lodge out there with like 10 cabins.  they are really hidden, which is nice.  they must look back onto the glacier.  as we water taxi'd out we past pederson bay and dropped off mail out there.  then we headed to aialik to pick up kayakers.  so it was nice to be able to get over and see aialik glacier, which we hadn't done 10 years ago.

 tanya takes some time to paddle on her own.  so peaceful.  we didn't have much wave action though despite the rain which is always nice.  i'm cool with rain. i'd rather avoid the wind though.  paddling in choppy water can be tiring and less than fun.

 we have arrived in our destination of pederson bay...this is where maddie was "babtized" but we opted to not eat lunch here nor get out of our boats.

 soon after this we battled the currents trying to get out of pederson bay.  got pretty shallow in parts and the current was trying to beach you out there.  could have been a mess, but thankfully, we all got out with some strenuous paddling and encouragement from each other.

getting close to midnight so i should hit the sack.  may pop in a movie. almost caught up with the paper, do have some magazines to catch up on.  just a few hiking days to enjoy before i head back to work again.  maybe i should make my way to eagle river tomorrow for a stretch...always pretty up there.  who knows.  i really should work on the yard and plant some lovely flowers. hmm...wake and do a weather check and make a decision then.  good night.