on the road to Valdez....from the wide angle

 there are some amazing waterfalls on the way to Valdez...well worth the drive down there super fun in the summer with the flowers in bloom.  these are columbines.  always a favorite.

 this is when silly me forgot to turn my camera back from black and white.  lupine in black and white just isn't as impressive as color.  will just have to drive there again next summer when the lupine are blooming.  :-)

 these would have also been more impressive in color but still pretty in black and white i guess.

 today after getting started late, way to usual for me lately....Blossom and i finally settled on doing a loop from Homestead Trail through a back trail over to Moose Meadow/Rovers run and then back to homestead. it was 3.3 miles and actually quite pretty.  a few fun flower sightings and for Blossom some new stuff to smell.  we haven't been there for some time and i'd gotten a few calls that her old tag was by the creek...the calls were a month ago so i wasn't too shocked to not find the tag, but worth a gander i guess.

 the calls came in right when Rio had surgery so it got lost...collected an old dog tag wasn't a priority. Rio is doing great and i am happy to report i will be getting checks back from the dog insurance for a nice chunk of the cost, so i'm happy about that.

 Worthington Glacier.  seems like it's receded quite a lot since i went several years back. not surprising but i don't have a good photo of the same angle to compare this to.  it was also a different season.  we must have gone much earlier in the spring that last time.  trails were less overgrown as well.

 plan for tomorrow is to make a day trip run to Seward.  next weekend i'll try for a drive to Chicken and maybe try and do a summer loop across the Denali Highway.  catch some flowers and different scenery.  we will see how things are going and time and all that.

 after our walk i headed to the Alaska Zoo.  it's not a large zoo and many of the enclosures could use a modernizing.  too much like cages and not enclosures...which is the newer way of zoos.  they do seem to be trying to make the places the animals stay more interesting and comfortable for them.  animals in zoos tend to get very bored.  always feel badly for them as the kids screaming stress some of them out.  the bald eagles today looked really stressed you could see the relation to the kids screams.

 there were a few super fun enclosures to hang out at.  the coyote's were cracking me up...there were a few squirrels jumping around the top of the fencing around their home and then leaping back and forth to a few trees inside. those coyote's were going nuts....just like all those cartoons of dogs and squirrels...."squirrel"...so fun to watch them chasing the squirrels around their enclosure.  the squirrels were plentiful at the zoo and seemed to know what they could get away with.  there was one squirrel hopping in and out of the owls exhibit, which seemed a bit risky to me.  not sure of the flight ability of the owl.

 seems like most of the zoo animals are rescues.

 they also had a baby seal, which is super cute and a baby musk ox.  i guess there are baby swans and a rescued baby moose which i didn't see.  cutest may have to go to the 3 rescued grizzly cubs.  they weren't out and about when i first arrived so i swung back through and they were up and playing.  did take some video so i'll post that on facebook...many of the enclosures have "cages" which are tough to really photograph through well.

 flowers by old Valdez.  they moved the town after the 1964 quake and subsequent tsunami.  it was devastated in the old town so they just shifted town.

 the docks are always good to check out.  i'm a fan of boats.

 otherwise it has been  a fairly lazy day for me.  got out in the yard for a half hour or so.  trying to get out there and do something nearly every day.

 well over my 10,000 step/day for this week's average.  only one day was i under 10,000 steps and several i was comfortably over.  do need to get back to the pool though.  i enjoy the pool and biking...just have to add it in.  means i need to wake up earlier and get started.

 thinking i should experiment with some coffee and see if there are any that i like.  they say it's actually good for you in small amounts.  moderation in all things...right.  on that note i should have opened a bottle of wine tonight.  instead i had some ice cream.  honestly the wine is probably healthier for me than the ice cream.

 posted a few pics on the chat of the walrus web cam. Diane was great when she was out there.  the two rangers out there don't interact as much on the chat, which isn't a bad thing.  they say hello each morning. it's just not something they are used to doing, but i think it really helps get people excited about the walrus.  it would be better if it were an expert.  often people go into those jobs not with any plans on dealing a lot with the public.  i mean they took a job on a very remote island.

 they were interviewing a ranger out at Brooks about the cams out there and how it has changed life for him out there.  of course, he said good things. was commenting that he was surprised that nearly every nation was represented with people watching the bear cams...i think just Syria and Yemen maybe had no hits on the cam...even the Vatican has regular watchers of the cams.

 he was also surprised by how the folks on the cams got to know the individual bears and at how observant they were about the bears.  they also spoke to a guy in Texas who watches the Bear Cam very regular.  he said he had become disabled after living a rather active life and had run across the bear cams when he was looking for surfing cams...since he'd done a lot of surfing in years past....he was hooked.

 there are people getting hooked on the walrus too.  i want them hooked!  the more folks that fall for the walrus the more chance the Annenberg Foundation will fund it for years to come.  i think i read they have signed on to do the bear cams for 10 more years....perhaps fearing that if they don't do it someone else will.

 maybe they will add a McNeil River cam for bears as well.

 as i said, i'm hoping the walrus get their attention as being popular and that the cams stay up for many years to come.  it will make my job as walrus advocate easier.

 fireweed...that will be blooming all over while i'm out driving in the next few weeks.

 need to make a few calls tomorrow before i head out to Seward.  roof and then my CA RN license. i've paid for it all these years but have not lived in CA since 1993...so perhaps i should change the status to inactive.  may be cheaper that way . it's always good to keep CA though i guess.

 Blossom enjoys the falls.  i left Rio in the car for this one.

 then i put both dogs in the car and climbed up a bit for some pictures.

 some guy wants to tear out more parkland and put in tennis courts near UAA...NO!!!!!!  hope nobody approves this.  ridiculous.  they keep tearing out the trees...so disturbing.

 can't wait until our idiot Mayor is out of office. he's been trying to get tennis courts in and also seems to be on board with trading land out so the Airport gets Point Worzonoff...no again!!  throw the bum out i say!! leave Worzonof alone.

 the black bear family that got a pardon from the governor and were moved, but not far enough away, have been causing trouble in Hope.  now 4 of the 5 members of that bear family have been killed.

 gotta love this Pope, Pope Francis.  he came out calling for action against climate change!!  even stating a human involvement in this warming process.  trouble begins with convincing many that this is even happening.  i think the belief is more universal in nations other than ours, but there seem to be some stubborn folks here who just prefer to look the other way and pretend that it's all just some liberal made up crap.  despite nearly 100% of the worlds scientists who study climate believing this is happening.

 hard to convince folks who refuse to even listen to facts.

 a family was moving from Texas to Fairbanks.  they had thought they cat had freaked out in Texas and ran off as they could not find their cat, it had gone missing.  nearly 64 days later as their stuff was unpacked in Fairbanks, a thin cat was found alive in the mattress of the family futon.  cat needed vet care but seems to be healing up.  tough cat.

 Blossom takes the time to smell the flowers!!  i've trained her well.  :-)

 this is a lousewort of some sort that she is smelling.  very pretty

 chasing her tennis ball and enjoying life.

 a group called the moose mama's find abandoned baby moose, raise them and then release them back into the wild in places with decreased moose populations.  some say they have had too much human contact to be able to do well....guess...die now as a  baby or get given a chance to survive by being released later.  as long as you release them in a better place than Hope.  they may still die because they weren't used to living in the wild...but i suspect most healthy animals would figure out how to live in the wild.  there are some you can't release after they have known humans...those would be the ones that would kill humans, like bears

 i think even some lions have been re-released though. there was a story of a lion that was hand raised by this one guy...if' i'm remembering this right. i think i heard the guy would go visit or did visit the lion out in the wild and the lion remembered him and still didn't harm him out there.  still seems like a bit of a risk to others.

 moose though...i would think it would work  those bison that were released had been around humans.  the musk ox were as well at some point but a generation later that memory will probably be lost.

 survival of the fittest takes over.

 always pretty in the higher elevations.  this is at Thompson Pass out of Valdez

 pretty flowers everywhere....!!

 an attempt at getting a shot of the dogs.  haha.  Rio rarely cooperative with this

 views from the road

 and with that...i shall head to bed.

grateful for: 1.  ice cream....bad for me but so good 2.  baby everythings...they are so dang cute 3.  always for walks in the woods...

a drive to seward...more about the drive than seward.

 it was another pretty day so i decided to head to seward.  i'd thought about homer, but that is a long drive and i figured i'd test out a shorter run to seward first.  this was the sunset over turnigan as i headed back to anchorage.  i think it was about 9:30pm.

 got slow moving...as usual.  took the dogs over to jodphur parking lot in kincaid.  i started on the coastal trail there, but still a bit snowy/icy in parts so always fear rio slipping down the cliff so i backtracked and took another route.  the dogs got worn out and blossom got lots of tennis ball tosses in on the dunes before we left.

 lovely day so i decided to stop by the conservation center and have a look at the beasts.  the bears were very active....at least the grizzleys

 fun to watch them run around. the big 900 pound bear was so chill with the two smaller bears.

 loved him trying to get up.  jackknife sit ups..not easy at all

 but he did it!

 quite a few people out there today.  there was actually tons of traffic heading out turnigan yesterday.  those trails clear of snow fastest...and tend to have early bear sightings.  but all the trailheads were packed with cars and there were also quite a few out practicing their rock climbing on the sides of the road.

 signs of spring starting to emerge.

 didn't get home until after 10pm. was able to look at all these pictures but too late to write a blog.  besides, may as well let everyone enjoy the black bears from the other day.  we actually could see the cars and papparazzi from rovers run today. went with amy/sri and elizabeth.

 rovers was fine til the horses appeared.  hate that feeling of feeling responsible for another persons dogs behaviour. i have worked hard to train my dogs, but when other dogs misbehave everyone gets the nasty look.  i felt so bad.  horses are always supposed to get the right of way.  blossom was off leash on this not off leash trail, but she came right to me and i had her quick lead on..that rad dog collar, plus i had her spare collar in case.

 had a blast yesterday watching the wood bison.  they were quite active.  many of the younger ones were frolicing out there.

 things are looking better and better for their release into the wild to be happening sooner than later.  they've been hanging here for several years since being brought over from canada to repopulate alaska.  they used to roam further north and hopefully will roam again.  the musk ox were hunted out at one point and were re-introduced. overall those populations are doing well.

 less red tape many years back when the musk ox were released...that hasn't been the case for these guys. so here they are, waiting for release.  they'll have a feeding station until they start to get used to being totally on their own.

 a handsome bunch. i think there are at least 2 or 3 places that they wish to release them back into wild.

 loved this guy totally hoping off the ground in his frolic.  so cute!!

 i circled the park twice. just can't get enough.  it's great though as the animals really have large enough area to romp and play so they do.  probably will be even more room for the other animals they have once the bison move on.  great to see animals so active. i still want to stop and see the baby polar bear. perhaps tomorrow.

 want to check on road in denali national park too.  they are plowing it and anyone can drive as far as it's plowed before the season starts up.  it's great.  every year is a bit different as to what, if anything you will see, but usually you have to ride the bus out there.  this way you get at least the first 30miles or so.

 it's clouding up now.  it was still nice and blue out today.  i attempted to clean up the poop in the back yard, but it is all totally frozen in.  spring clean up could be messy.  wonder how good dog poop is as fertilizer.  these bison have unloaded in their enclosure.

 has been a good day to catch up on some of those chores that have been skipped for a bit.

 my leg is feeling better...almost normal so that is cool.  catch up time.  the back deck is a sheet of ice right as you walk out the back door.  haven't gotten very far on de-icing that today.

 turned off news as they have stopped reporting news again and are instead spinning.  there is still news to report, but they get so stuck on one news piece and are incapable of moving on from it before they have made every attempt to creat news stories to keep the viewer in.  it's always annoying to me.

 hoping to get to the pool tonight. i feel ready. it's five so i will try for 6pm and get a few laps in.  time to get my arse back in shape.  no more excuses.  need to do some jack knife sit ups like that bear was doing.  haha.

 the musk ox were pretty active as well.  was a bit bummed as they have a few new tiny babies but they've kept them inside as it's still getting chilly at night and they don't want them to be chilled.

 this must be a younger one...perhaps last years baby. getting older.  both males and females have the horns though.

 these are elk.  took me a minute to figure that out.  at first i thought they were caribou, but then i knew they didn't look like caribou.  don't think i even got any photo's of the caribou.  the black bears were feeding.  i'm told they actually prefer dog kibble.  so they were right by fence and in the shade.

 this guy looked handsome.

 didn't like me being there.  blossom sat up front and enjoyed watching the animals.  not too many places you can take you dog into like this.  she did bark at the bears a few times.

 the bears didn't seem to notice her barking.

 i think the big guy did notice me sitting in my car eating my subway sandwich. he started sniffing and headed to the front of the enclosure. oops...so i put it away.  bears have an amazing sense of smell.

 i'm happy i don't have that keen sense of smell.  most stuff in my work it's a perk to have a lousy sense of smell.

 the ice is thinning everywhere.  they have a little pond/lake under this ice and they were walking in water in some places.

 blossom was thrilled when we got to seward and hit lowel point.  she got to go swimming in the ocean.  it was a real treat for her.  rio also went wading.  there was an otter out there being lazy.  didn't get much of a picture of it.  i left out several pictures as i had so many from the animals...so hopefully i can load those in tomorrow some time.

 decided on second loop to try a few black and whites on the bison.  i forget sometimes.  like that bear the other day in the tree...i should have attempted a few black and whites..i love black and white so much.  just way cooler for some reason.  retro.

 thought they turned out cool.

 i will for sure return here.  pretty cheap and a great way to get good views of the animals.

 this is a house that once was part of the community of portage.  the wildlife conservation center sits there where portage used to sit.  the big quake of 1964 caused a tsunami.  the ground went down like 10 feet and there are dead trees all over leftover from that day.  eerie...so many years later.

 these are in seward.  it had clouded up there so black and white was a fun option.

 this boat and house are at lowell point.  not sure that boat ever leaves that spot.

 have always liked this little bird house at the main harbor.  it's right by the restaurant that i was choking in last year.  i didn't go back there.

 various boats in the harbor.

 most of my boat pictures didn't come out as hoped.  i think i was getting antsy to get on the road back to anchorage.  i'd brought food for the dogs though so i fed them after they played at the beach. they were all happy for the drive home.  even rio layed down and relaxed for most of it.

 rewarded with these great sunset views soon after getting back on  turnigan arm.  these are just past portage, before girdwood.

 these are actually from drive out.  blue skies.

 always great to see trains ...they add a little something extra.

 a few back at the wildlife place. this is actually the end of turnigan arm.

 the moose were all laying around so i took a  picture from above them. kinda fun. they haven't been overly active either time i've been there.

 more refuge shots.

 part of the bison enclosure is under water from the melt.

 these are closer to seward. i think this is kenai lake.

 rail tracks out of seward.  no time for exit glacier to see what the melt is there.  will have to get my arse moving earlier next time i head out there.

 again out of seward.  a bridge crossing.  the river below. just liked the colours of the evening.

 back at kenai  lake.  partly frozen, partly open...the frozen bits aren't safe to be on anymore.  winter is retreating and soon we will green up and it will all  begin again.

maybe tomorrow will be final monday walk of season. we shall see.  i should grab a bag to toss in and clean up our tree for the season.  it's time...
quick power nap and then off to swim.  the water will feel so great!!