nome day 2,another installment. flowers and scenery!!

 home sick.  my sinus cavities have taken over my brain, rendering me extremely sleepy and snotty.  took my walk out on the airstrip.  it was a totally slow walk.  my walk is always the gauge for me.  i have walked those miles so many years that i can tell where my body is by the walk.  today...weakness, total and absolute.  so i called out.  love these cottonball flowers.  so cool looking out there.

 the scenery was amazing out there on this road.  loved the beach on the first road and on this one the flowers and scenery were awesome!  that is salmon lake in the distance.  big lake.

 not much activity.  if that lake was in california or pretty much anywhere in the lower 48 it would have boats and activities all over it.  love the solitude of alaska.

 took a nap after my walk.  crashed.  the dogs were happy after they had walked so they are always chill with me napping.  they just like to be around. so chill.

 had a dream that i had called out of work but then had gone in half blitzed with this bug anyway.  i had an assignment, but never got to it.  was waiting to be allowed to leave again.  they were going to take my vital signs and all that.  i suspect this sort of dream goes back to my sick guilt.  i've always hated calling out sick.  i've started to realize that it's better to just call out than to suffer through some days.  i tend to get sicker if i don't stop at the first sign. my body wants rest, so i give it rest.

 i remember being on the plane with all those snot nosed kids heading to kotzebue and beyond.  those kids are tough, totally more bug resistant than i am. so if they are sick they got some icky bug.   i knew the plane was a germ factory and that i may end up sick.

 ice on the lake still.

 stopped in for mexican meal for a late lunch.  is it feed a fever, starve a cold or starve a fever and feed a cold...can never keep that straight.

 fishing this weekend.  turning out to be more spendy than expected and we have to leave at some ungodly hour.  i'm not an early morning person....more of a late night girl.  on vacation it was nice being on my own normal schedule for the most part.  up late, enjoying the all night light.  works for me.

 these purple flowers were all over.  it is funny how certain flowers grow like crazy in certain areas so all this colour pops out in sections.

 our plane out and back was converted into a cargo plane.  guess they make more money on stuff than humans.  so the inside of the plane was split.  the partition was mid to the front of plane full of stuff.  kinda strange to never see the pilots. you enter from the rear of the plane.  i remember having this a few times when i was in ketchikan as well.  probably a weight thing to load the center of the plane rather than the rear of the plane.

 my brother doesn't like small planes so no small plane trips while they are here.  i'm not keen on big jets but there isn't really any way around them unless you never go anywhere.  hope they have some good views from the air as they come or go.  alaska from the air is pretty amazing.

 didn't get to see nome coming in.  i always like to see a place from the sky.

 one of the river crossings.

 not sure if you can see the white #40 on the front bumper. all the rental cars had a number like this so everyone in town totally knew you were an outsider.  kinda funny.  that is my road trip companion for the weekend.  never named her but she got me where i needed/wanted to go and kept the mosquito's out.

 sneezing all day.  wish it actually helped clear out the sinuses.  oh well.

 pretty purple flowers..love it!

 those hot springs also had some old buildings that would have been cool to see.  oh well. they were once gold rush buildings and then a catholic group came in after the epidemic left loads of kids orphaned. they took in the kids.  it was open from 1918-1941.  eventually the native corporation took over the grounds.

 sounds like life was good out there for the kids.  that is not always the case with many of the catholic interactions with the native people.  several priests were sent up to remote alaska villages after being caught in other cities taking advantage of kids.  they weren't rehabilitated at all just dumped in alaska.  many native kids were subsequently abused by priests up there.

 i went just a bit past the pilgrim river bridge.

 more flowers...always makes you so happy.

 finally watched, "life of pi" last night.  really great flick.  loved it.  figured i would.  interesting.  sometimes it is easier to make up a tale to cover what really happened which is too traumatic to believe.  loved the scenery in the movie and all the great effects.  wanted to kill the hyena.  horrible animal.  felt so badly for the other animals. great tale...

 the muskox were killed off in the early 1900's.  they were reintroduced in 1930.  it began with 34 musk ox from east greenland.  they must have been quite confused.  first they were dropped off on nunivak island.  in 1970 they took 36 from that original group and dropped them off off of teller road.  another group were dropped off as well near teller.  there are estimated to be 2000 animals.

 had to take pictures of the emergence of trees along the road.

 i believe these are buttercups of some sort.  tundra style.

 i must look odd to anyone who passes by. down on my hands and knees taking pictures of flowers.  i'm still not the best macro photographer, but it's cool to try and see what comes of it.

 the wind was blowing as well, which for these tiny delicate flowers means they are moving a lot as i try to snap photo's of them.

 there are much better photographers out there.  ultimately i have come to enjoy the story the pictures tell more than the pictures themselves.  i enjoy telling the story.  giving people a glimpse into a world they may never have a chance to visit.  i look for that in blogs i read as well.  we can't all see every beautiful place on this earth so it's great that we can all go out in different directions and report back to each other.  totally fun to seeing the world through others eyes.

 how many people drive these roads and see them totally differently.  we all focus on different things.

 many of these flowers aren't in my regular alaskan wildflower book, by verna pratt.  i think i need a tundra flower book.  i finally bought a book on lichens but who knew how many thousands of lichens there are in the world.

 my lichen book is just north american lichen and there are almost 800 pages.  it's one of those big coffee table books.  it was a huge undertaking though by the people who went about putting it together.  took a lot of work and dedication.

 a lichen is a strange thing, an organism of sorts. it's a combination of a fungus with some sort of other organism that can make food through photosynthesis.  cool to have an organism that is dependent on another. we are dependent too, but often too stubborn to admit that we need others. lichens just are. frequently lichens team up with algea and fungi to exist.  it's confusing for me just trying to read about it all.  such a tiny and simple appearing thing is really super complicated.  so much variety in looks, shapes and colours.  

 wildflowers are much simpler.  drop a seed and they grow.

 some people eat lichens, they are used in dyes and they are used to monitor pollution.

 they are apparently quite sensitive to air pollution. we don't have too much of that up in alaska. in the middle of winter we can get some poor air quality due to all the wood burning stoves on a cold night.  we've also been known to have bad air quality after a nearby volcano erupts.

 i know i took some lichen photo's. i think a few show up in this post, but today was more flowers than lichens.

 this rock is covered with various lichens.  seeing how bad i am at naming flowers i won't even attempt to name the lichens.  they are everywhere though.

 lichens were one of the reasons i wanted a macro.  there is just amazing tiny stuff out there if you stop and take a look.

 just watched "juno" haven't seen that for awhile.  will hit the sack soon.

 some blue skies again while i was out walking today.  we got cloudy this past week but not that much rain fell.

 stuff is growing though.  not to worry.  the fireweed is flowering. seems to start flowering around solstice and  it's said that when the flowers reach the top winter is not far off.  summer is exhausting.  not sure about this kaktovik thing yet. not really looking good.  spots fill up fast and it's spendy. i probably have enough on my plate, would love to go though.  one of these days i guess.

 view through my cracked side mirror.

 these are some better lichen photos. combined the lichen with the flowers.

 orange licen and some black lichen too.  it's all covered the rocks.

 white flowers and below that is another type of lichen i believe.

 who knows what these little guys are.  they are tiny!  maybe a fungus?  maybe a lichen.

well, that is enough for my brain for one night.  guess i shall blow my nose and hit the sack.