fall colors and dogs

 more from  the road.  had to snap above pics fast.  Ivy is not one to stay stationary for long.

 Tusker is just one beautiful dog.  he's beautiful, Blossom is adorable and Ivy.  her coat is so soft and her personality just sucks you in!  3 amazing dogs. i am so blessed.

 very grateful every day for my love of animals and connection to them.  this life could have been a very different and lonely life had it not been for the animals that have shared it with me.

 they are friends, they are family, they are always and forever true, non-judging and adoring.  it's great to be adored...rare too as you get older.  no human has adored me for a long time....these dogs do though.

 i really should be out there walking.  we hit the dog park yesterday.  lazy post drive day.  well not too lazy.  i got a lot of stuff done.  worked in the yard a bit, groceries.  still have some unpacking to do.  skies are blue so i should get the tent set up to dry and pack up for the year possibly.  may want to do a few quick trips still.  hoping for dog friendly hotels though. will i find that with 3 dogs though?  we shall see.

 i have a stretch of work this weekend though.  work 3, off one then back for 2.  boo.

 had a work nightmare last night.  in my dream i was sent to the 5th floor at work to be their tech.  in order to do this they gave me gobs of paperwork to do.  check offs to make sure i, a nurse, was aware how to be a tech.  at some point, in this dream, i wasn't in the mood for this and i left, presumably on a break but i got in a car and drove.

 as happens in many of my dreams i became lost, unable to locate the car i had parked or get back to work.  i was way past my 15 min break time and i knew i would be noticed absent from my nursing tech duties.  kept thinking i better contact Faith ( a co-worker in peds) and let her know i was lost and wasn't going to make it back to do vital signs.

 in the dream i was thinking the worst.  i'd be fired for leaving, maybe i could claim i had a mental breakdown, surely they couldn't fire me if it was mental.

 i woke.  these dreams are always a  bit stressful. me racing around trying to get back to work is how they tend to go.  hopelessly lost.

 what does it mean?  am i a lost soul searching forever?  am i just stressed about my stretch of work?  anyone know how to analyze dreams out there?

 grand views from our walk...we didn't see the glacier from the walk but it did start to show up once we began driving again

 chasing the fall colors.

 i think i do that every year now.  it's a wonderful time of year.  then all goes quiet and brown as we wait for the snow to fall.

 this appears to be a pingo that has broken away. so the inside of a pingo really.  what is a pingo.  they are mounds formed by ice formation,pushing up on the earth i think it is.  would have to look it up

 this house has an incredible view.  many places up here are in a state of disrepair or a state of never quite completed.

 there is the glacier.

 Sunday is Sept 11. the news is starting to fill with memories of that fateful day...life changed.  some freedoms lost, wars began, for sure a shift in life before and after this day can be noted as you look back in time.

 on that day i was with a friend in a car packed with my stuff and my pets.  i was moving from Ketchikan to Anchorage.  we were out in scenery like this and completely out of touch with what mayhem was happening in the world

 we were off the grid, out of even 911 zone.  i recall talking as we marveled at the beauty we were surrounded by...had another war started, had nuclear bombs been dropped.  we had absolutely no idea what we would find out once we came to civilization again.  the future seemed completely at a point of complete unknown...and we just drove.  it was so very odd.

 we crossed borders and we heard another hijacked plane may have been headed for Whitehorse in the Yukon.  it turned out to be a missed communication but there were a lot of stranded Koreans at the hotel we pulled up to.  thankfully we had a reservation and a room.

 my stuff didn't arrive for weeks so i saw very little actual news coverage except in the hotels at night.  even after i got to my new home, it was just NPR really for news.

 was just reading an article today about those who jumped/fell to their death from the towers that day...how they aren't really spoken of, how nobody has really tried to find out who those poor, desperate folks were.  nobody wants to brand these deaths as suicides.

 they really aren't.  one person who survived ultimately recalls people walking around in a daze, their hands covering their faces at times.  some just fell out of the open gaps left in the buildings.  some were probably unintentionally shoved out as those who remained pushed towards fresh air.  still others chose to take that leap over burning to death.

 impossible to know those thoughts in those last minutes/seconds of life.  not sure i'd want to see someone really try to focus on it.  they are all victims of the heinous events that happened that day.

 the report said estimates are around 200 souls fell to their deaths that day.  one fireman on the ground died after being struck directly by a victim.  he passed but the other firemen that took him to the hospital that day lived because of this.

 the article was saying the news media purposely avoided showing the falling souls.  can't blame them, i do recall seeing it briefly in our hotel.  some things are enough to hear, seeing it can't be helpful at all.  it was not a choice any of them made, ending their lives.  any of them who did jump to their deaths, i wouldn't say it was suicide as much as desperation in a horrific moment.  there is no time to think, you act.  what a sad day.

 it's so horrible that there are these terrible people sharing our earth that would do such things to others.  so callus, so unfeeling.  there seems to be an awful large number of folks to follow these ones that take their unhappiness and anger out on innocent lives.

 where is the hope?  what is the future?

 as i drove away from Anchorage the other day, i felt myself relaxing.  the tension left my body.

 nature has that effect on you.  we are filled up just being in the beautiful places.

 what an incredible earth we have.  such grandness, such variety. so many tiny details.

 i think of that often.  why so many different brushes or trees or butterflies or lichen or mushrooms...everything. there is so much variety.  those who love a God must know that if a God created this grand planet we should protect it.  clearly, all the attention to the details and the variety shows a depth of caring unmatched by any mortal.

 why won't this God come and stop the madness...something i always wonder.  why does such suffering happen?  i have no answers.

 i only know when life gets overwhelming the best thing to do is find a patch of nature, any patch and revel in the glory of it.

 so grateful i was able to do just that these past few days.

 amazing colors and reflections.  grand skies, rainbows...

 another place that i'd love to just stay at for a week every year.

 i better get myself fed and these dogs walked.  should get out the weed whacker thing.  the grass is growing at a much slower rate now that the sun is leaving us much earlier.

 the pups had fun at the dog park yesterday.  the danes were there.  they love the great danes, especially Ivy.  she gets so excited.  imagine her wrestling with great danes.  she started that at about 4 months i think. silly girl.

 my knee has been a bit sore...i've been a slacker at the gym.  i really need to get back on track with my work outs.  swimming and the elliptical are great for my knees and joints.  time to get that back on.  also need to refocus on training pups.  excited to have classes start.  that tends to inspire me in my training.  where shall we walk today...hmm.

 the bridge.

 those last 30-40 miles of dirt road can be a bit long on this journey.  it's so worth it each year though.  parts of the road were a bit rough but overall not bad.

 off to walk these pups...enjoy your days.

thankful for:  grand views, crazy autumn colors, pets that keep me sane, firemen that risk their lives to save others.