each day an adventure in alaska: bears and baldies

more following of the mom with her cubs around. such a beautiful place. so many amazing places on earth. can't see them all but i'm happy to try to see many that exist in the area around me. Alaska is simply amazing and i'm always so grateful to be here and to be able to enjoy the beauty of it.

was living in South Dakota and i had just accepted a job in Alaska. i'd never been here before. i was out walking my dogs Butch and Baby Huey and started chatting with some random person out there in the park. i do that. anyway, it came up that i was moving to Alaska. i remember the person asked me, "what if you hate it there?". i remember saying i can always come back, but what if it's the best thing that ever happens and i pass the opportunity up.

playing safe in life may lead to a dull life, that sounds much more terrifying. you must get out of your comfort zone.

it is tempting at times to pack it up again and move to another area in Alaska. if the time comes, and the wind blows me some place again...i hope i am brave enough to follow the wind.

not as much sleep between shifts this week. it was rainy. oddly, before puppies rain was the best days of rest. the puppies tend to get a bit stir crazy as they are less inclined to play outside while i sleep. gross a bug just flew up my nose.

all those nuts on the internet that said i shouldn't get siblings, they'd never bond with me and would only bond with each other haven't tried to sleep or take a shower with this pair. it's gotten a bit easier these past weeks. this is night two where i'm just leaving them out to sleep and the dog door open. not ready to leave them out totally while i'm at work yet. i do leave them out with some restrictions and then my dog sitter stops by and puts them in the crates for the night.

they are doing well at the dog park off leash. getting better at not being annoying to other dogs. seem to be jumping on random folks a bit less. still not swimming, wading a bit more though.

this mom was teaching her cubs the art of fishing.

didn't see her catch anything yet. the fish were just starting to arrive. i'm sure it's mad with fish and probably more bears.

work was not bad though i did have those hold patients in the ER 2/3 nights. both nights they did moving at like 6:30 am, right as i'm supposed to be wrapping up to leave. i'm sure it's very annoying for the patients when they shift them. last night we shifted the patients to the back between 11pm and 2am and then turned around and shifted them back around 6:30. i was not happy about it and i'm terrible at hiding my feelings about things. i wasn't really ticked at the charge, who is really nice, just the system of how holds are handled. it's super frustrating.

oddly, i feel like if i ever do anything that puts my license in jeopardy it will probably be on a night i do these holds...not when i'm working in the ICU's. that seems odd to me, but everything just ends up being done half arse on the holds. you never feel like you are getting anything done the way you are used to.

my other night i got a break from the ER. the word of the night was "epidural" my patient i guess had absolutely refused one before surgery despite lengthy discussion with anesthesia...that was the first word out of his mouth as he woke up for me. too late, no backsies at 2 in the morning. he had a lot of chest tubes..i'm sure it was painful. we got him under control. sometimes those docs know a thing or two and you maybe should heed the advice.

got my walks in and watched a bit of the National Republican Convention. not much substance in that entire week. mostly, just an attempt the scare the crap out of people in convincing them to not vote for Hillary. one speaker even made reference to her being led my Lucifer or some such thing.

Ex Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz spoke and got boo'd for not endorsing the man who had been so hateful, rude and bullying to him the entire campaign. i was impressed....way to go Cruz. that takes some guts i'd say. still feel a bit like the Republican Party is imploding. not the best time in the history of the party.

like most i am not a fan of either candidate.it is time for the people to take back our democracy. too many folks for too long have slacked off. not voting,not participating. this is what it's come to due to that lack of involvement. if you sit back and don't participate the worst of it will rise to the top. not much we can do in this election but ride it out...but we, the people, of the United States must vow to participate and elect out those who do not merit being in the positions they are in and vow to elect only those who have the qualities worthy to serve. we must demand news broadcasts that are fact based not emotional/opinion/bull crap based. these 24 hour news sources have been creating and recreating the news for years now.

the far right and the far left...the extreme on both ends are the ones that act on their extreme views...those in the middle, i guess feeling no relation to either of the extreme sides, sit on the sides and do very little.

i suspect our nation will survive either of these winning. could be a super rough 4 years though. in some ways it comes down to who can you trust with the nuclear weapons..or who can you totally not trust with those. for me, Drumpf just shows no restraint, seems to have no ability to have a "time out" moment before swinging blindly in anger. he is for sure not someone that i feel safe having access to these weapons.

still may do a write in of Elmer Fudd. my state will probably go to Drumpf anyway so my vote seems a lost cause in this case, but i will still vote...my sister tends to vote Republican in a Democrat state though so we laugh that our votes are lost in this system we have. most of the time the decision on POTUS is made before our polls close. i really wish they'd give no information about how the polls are going until all are closed across the entire nation. i also wish for term limits...oh well. can't have everything.

mama bear caught something in the air and stood up to investigate, then the cubs joined her in the investigation. then, they booked.

we never saw what had spooked them but they ran all the way through the meadow, down the beach and past our camp.

our guides told us that a big boar had made a move to attack her cubs a week or so before we arrived and they hadn't seen her since

another interesting note to me on the convention was that when Drumpf's daughter was introducing him...she said she doesn't necessarily vote Republican or Democrat in elections...blah, blah. just kind of funny to have someone speaking at the convention that admits to not really being a member of the party. i suspect Drumpf has no loyalty to the Republican party. If/when he loses i suspect the loss will not ever in his mind be related to anything he does and instead he will blame all those around him. the party, cruz, his vp choice, hillary. anyone but himself.

so on to the Democrat convention...will there be more substance or will they just try and terrify everyone against voting for Drumpf.

i think i lean towards Hillary's pick for VP over Drumpfs for sure...this goes along with my pick your favorite VP and hope that there is some sort of death in office of the POTUS...not an assassination, but you know natural causes. heart attack, sepsis, massive stroke. that is the sad state of the election process for POTUS this year.

you could smell the smoke from the fires out at McHugh through the vents of the Hospital. the rain came down pretty heavy yesterday so hopefully that knocked it down a bit. when i left for my walk with the dogs the rain had stopped...that didn't last. we were all pretty soaked by the time we got back home. once you are wet you are wet though.

we had easy take off's and landings on the beach out here at Hallo Bay. another place this company takes folks out Bear viewing is Chinitna Bay. i guess a few planes had some issues. nobody hurt but the wind must have caught them in a bad spot. one was taking off and one was landing, both ended up on their noses. as the sand dries out it gets softer and tougher to land on as well. wet sand is harder.

not sure what happened out at round Island. saw on the chat line a disturbance caused by possible helicopter? they are not generally allowed there this time of year. unless there was some sort of emergency. not sure what happened.

the boat must be running again out there. the little island above is called Eagle Island and below that disturbance in the sand is caused by a bear digging out a soft spot to take a nap.

our other guide, Lance with mama bear over there. the babies are resting slung over logs. so cute.

we were headed up the beach. we met up with Lance and i actually suggested a spot to just go sit and wait...Lance took me up on the idea and later told me i'd made a good choice. that put us right where the bears ended up going and we got some nice baby bear action. so cute.

looks like it will be a good berry year this year. there are already berries out there ripe and ready to pluck. i snacked on a few from my yard this evening. the pups are quickly becoming fans of the raspberries.

the pups have joined me in the office. Blossom is outside enjoying the coolness on the deck.

i think Blossom is totally loving having a dog door.

bears on the beach. how cool is that.

reading the paper finally...i had headed to work as Drumpf starting speaking. he was getting louder as he spoke but i think he stayed with the teleprompter...and then the next day. he did his usual lack of self control tirade. Cruz was a big part of his angry tirade i guess. there are a lot of folks in Texas who like this guy so seems like it would be better to be less angry and nasty about it all. he may not have all the votes in Texas locked up yet.

there was a first case of Zika virus found in Alaska. it was in Sitka. sounds like it was a tourist perhaps who had visited Central America before coming north.

fish must be running at Campbell Creek. warnings of possible bear encounters and to avoid the trails. they won't close it, but i tend to avoid it this time of year for the bear reasons. may make another run to look and see if i can see the whale carcass out at Kincaid. will have to check tides. guess it's pretty massively stinky though.

a boating accident in Kobuk took 2 lives. Grandmother, son and Grandson, age 4 had taken the boat to go berry picking. at some point the boat got caught in a circling current. the adults fell out of the boat into the cold water. the 4 year old stayed in the boat and eventually the boat grounded on the side of the river and the little guy climbed out and was later found standing on the beach of the river. always sad these stories.

not sure if the pups will settle in and sleep tonight. if not i'll just crate them up. at some point they will learn to settle on their own for the night.