the bubbles are back...and i'm on a cloud tonight!!

 ended up walking with Gretchen out at Eagle River Nature Center today.  thought it may be a good place to see some ice....the temperatures dropped today.  we've got some good bubbles starting up! the ice is always fun and i have lots to learn about how to take photo's of it.

 got a super fun email from national geographic tonight.  the selected my fox picture from round island for their daily dozen.  it's pretty dang cool...!  i feel pretty honored actually.  they get thousands of pictures submitted from around the globe every day so that the editors took note of one of mine is pretty amazing!

 it will be posted on their page for the entire day and anyone who wants can vote for my picture.  last i checked it was ahead, but just barely.  they consider all of the pictures with the most votes for potentially being published in their monthly edition.  that would be super cool!!

 so that is why i'm on a cloud tonight.  i did take a nice tub bath to relax me.  hopefully i shall sleep peacefully and collect fun votes as i dream away...

 am also hoping for no strange dreams tonight.  i'm on a roll of odd dreams this week.

 this morning i was awoken by a very strange dream.  my friends gail and mack were my patients in the adult icu, both of them.  they had both just had open heart surgery and had all the various tubes and such.  gail was quite spry post op but had lots of chest tubes...the strange thing about her chest tubes was that they were super long and set up like one of those hamster cages with the tunnels everywhere.  the chest tubes went under the bed, over the bed...she had two beds, lengthwise and the tubes crossed over both beds...there were even  2 aquariums with actual hamsters in them in her chest tube circuit.  one of the hamsters was quite pretty...it had orange and black tiger stripes on it.  i left the room and when i returned they had somehow switched beds and all these tubings were criss crossed...i had to untwist them all and then mack passed out.  i was yelling for help and then i woke up.

 had my annual check so i never got back to sleep and had to book it to the doctor by ten am.  no lumps, need this, blah, blah, oh and i almost got attacked by a bear.  had to add that into the medical history.  haha!!  have seen my doc for quite a number of years.  i think he enjoyed the bear story.  a nice break from his otherwise mundane day.

 grouse. no moose sightings today.

 thought these two below looked like ice mushrooms...i'm still seeing mushrooms.

 lots of cool ice by the rivers edge.  the bubbles were up further near where the beavers make their damns

 not sure when the snow will come, but i'm cool taking some fun ice photo's for a bit.  back to work for the next three nights.

 the alaska dispatch had a story tonight that this pct on peds was just arrested for molesting teenage patients there.  thankfully, i never worked with him so the patients i was responsible for didn't have anything happen on my watch.  it's terrible, you just never know about people. what a mess that will be for the hospital and i feel terrible for the patients involved.  just makes you sick.

 i was happy to get good news after seeing that.

 these are all taken with my little powershot.  probably should have switched to the other lens on the rebel for better photo's.  nice to have a social walk too at times.

 just love all the cool ice designs. nature is pretty amazing.

 these are at the beginning of the trail.  bright sunlight today.

 i was going to take rio and blossom around the bog this evening but i forgot about the time change and that sun was setting so much earlier.  went to visit a friend, shell for a bit.  she will be having rio while i'm in texas for thanksgiving  so she wanted rio to check out her new apartment.

 rio opted out of todays walk.  below are the bubbles with the powershot. the first were with the zoom on the rebel.

 we didn't see any bears or signs of bears...just signs warning us from going on certain trails to avoid bears.  doubt they are too active at this point out there, but there are still bears about due to the warmer weather.  this chill down may encourage them to den up though.

 beautiful day out there.  the northern lights are supposed to be decent the next few nights.  i'll be working and tonight i doubt i'll go chasing them.  in addition to my kindle power cord i need to find where i stashed my tripod.  a brain is a terrible thing to waste!!

 this was just the ice from a mud puddle

 yes, the water is cold, but that doesn't stop blossom from wading out for a little swim.

 our turnaround point for the day.  in total we went about 4 miles i believe.

 liked the ice leading to the view...didn't like the blue tones, but i tend to get that with the powershot more.

 still cool ice

 love the ice and rocks

 soon this river will be pretty much totally frozen.  i'm not one to walk on frozen rivers...don't feel they can be trusted. i'm even a bit nervous walking on frozen lakes.  basically i can be a bit of a wimp in general.

 these loaded sideways, but who can tell really

 this one here made me think of a walrus with spectacles.

 my walking partner for the day.

so the good and the bad...have a great day!!