each day an adventure in alaska: here come the bears!!

this was all on the extra day we had out in Hallo Bay...as you can see the weather appears perfect. the wind was blowing from the west though so that made it dodgy for planes to land on the beach since the beach is sloped and the wind coming from the shore to the ocean could flip the plane hitting the wing that is up.

Jerry one of our guides and Rolf, another guest. we are watching bears come down the beach.

you can watch along with us

just finished 3 nights of work. not a bad stretch. 2 nights in the adult ICU and then a night on 5th floor, the nose bleed section of the hospital doing a 1:1, where i just sit in a room being paid way more than a person should be paid to do such a thing. oh well, i guess it's cheaper than the law suits from patients falling.

i must say that in truth if it comes between be getting kicked and slugged vs you falling out of bed...say hello to the floor. thankfully, there are chemicals to help decrease rate of possible sluggings and kicking incidents so then you have to just try and stay awake in a dark room all night watching a person sleep. not easy.

it was a glorious stretch for one very good reason...i actually was able to get like 5 straight hours of sleep between shifts. tried the pups on a few hours home uncrated. put chairs to block kitchen a bit and closed a few doors, but nothing has been eaten. left pups in that state and hoped the house would survive without consequence...hooray!! walked them right after i got home and then went up to my own bed. i have the upstairs bedroom and bathroom gated off.

may have to do some crating again when my niece comes in a few weekends.

cool just to watch these guys walk.

the pups are currently outside playing. not barking so i guess that is okay. not being crated yet probably means they can wear each other out more.

i'm not saying there will be no further destruction by the puppies, but they are seeming to be much more trust worthy...at least when they are sufficiently worn out

they were a bit over excited as we tried to start out walk today. i'd forgotten their water thingee's so i tossed the car water bowl into my pack and stopped at the little hot dog stand near the chalet in Kincaid to buy a few bottles of water for our walk down to the beach.

tried to get them all sitting for this exchange. not that easy, especially as the area on the weekend is crawling with people and tourists (who are people too) plus it looked like a wedding party at the chalet...and then there was the jerk with the off leash dog.

at first i had no idea who belonged with this dog. it had an electronic collar, which is frequently people's last resort at an attempt to get a dog to "listen" to them without actually having to train the dog. this dog came and started running tight circles around me and the dogs...

then it started growling and snapping at the pups...owner? where is the owner? finally a guy is standing there doing nothing. i asked if he could control his dog and he made some snide comment about me not having control of my dogs, who by now are jumping all over and getting me twisted in the leashes.

i pointed out that at least my dogs were on a leash and that there was a sign just 15 feet away which said all dogs must be leashed here. then he said, "welcome to Anchorage" like i'm some newbie and that even if there are signs posted you don't have to follow the law in Anchorage ever. he'd been calling his dog at some point but the dog wasn't listening at all. it finally moved on when he came in closer or maybe he shocked it, who knows. i was so irritated though. feeling like somehow he felt i was the one in the wrong for having my dogs on leash.

it was hot at the beach. the dogs ran and ran through the mud getting coated and then they ran up to the sand on the top of the beach and totally coated their muddy coats with sand....

was hoping to investigate if there is still a whale carcass out there. didn't see it and the yellow jackets were pretty fierce so i ended up heading back up the hill earlier than i had originally planned. dogs still had a great time and were pretty worn out. a much more pleasant walk up the hill than down, though actually once we got past the many folks at the top by the chalet they did reasonably well.

stopped at the monster dog wash though... all clean. 3 dogs in less than 20 minutes!!

my lawn mower started making awful popping noises and then gave up. tried to "mow" with my weed whacker. probably not my best plan. my lawn mower was second hand and i figured it wouldn't last long. may have to finally actually buy a lawn mower. still some summer left to go. once i do i'll put that one out front with a free sticker and see if anyone bites. nobody took the push mower when i put that one out there.

this little cub got curious and decided to come in and check us out. his mom was never concerned with us but the second time he came even closer and she did eventually come give him a bear talking too and led him away from us.

here he is heading closer and closer to us

made for some nice baby bear pictures though.

the big sniff..could be our lack of showers, you think?

the other cubs didn't make the trek up the beach to check us out

this is maybe 20-25 feet below us where he is sniffing.

checking out the buoy that marks where the camp is.

then the rangers were shooing the little guy

bear butts

off they go down the beach.

bear tracks...they were everywhere and i know i took loads of photo's of them. did get through this memory card but i have a few more cards of pictures..yes, i went a bit crazy!!

we followed the bears in a few minutes down the beach and watched them in the meadow

pretty...love the fireweed

just lovely and peaceful scenery to view bears in without crowds.

would still enjoy going to Brooks one of these days for a different viewing experience. also would like to head out to valley of 10,000 smokes and see the effects of the volcanic eruption that devastated that area over 100 years ago.