Living in Alaska - Life in the Last Frontier

In this journal entry, I promise to make up for the lack of photos in my last entry. I’ve taken hundreds of photos over the past several days. Every single day, the landscape seems to change. Summer is fading away, and autumn is taking hold of the leaves at the tops of the birch trees. It’s truly a beautiful time of the year - I just wish it lasted longer (or better yet; came later).

A few days ago, I stepped out front with Sedona, and watched the trees gently waving in the morning air. A slight breeze was blowing, and a few golden leaves drifted down to the ground.  I turned in place, looking above me at the beautiful blue sky.  Hanging in the sky above one of my birch trees was the moon. It was bright in the morning sky, despite its half face. Since it has been awhile since I photographed the moon, I thought I’d give it a shot. The photo at left is the result. The image is cropped from it’s original size, but I like that you can see the craters. Someday I’d love to photograph the moon using a telescope.

On Sunday, Steve and I decided to go out to breakfast and then attend a movie. His choice was the movie “Tropic Thunder” - a comedic spoof about war movies, starring Ben Stiller among others.  While it wasn’t my first choice, I hoped it would warrant a few laughs.

For breakfast, I was craving Moons Over My Hammy from Denny’s. Unfortunately, when we arrived at Denny’s, there was a line waiting to be seated, and we only had about an hour before we had to be at the theater.  We knew it wasn’t going to work out, so we changed the game plan and instead drove through Sunrise Bagel for breakfast sandwiches. We ate our sandwiches while driving around town.

I didn’t care for the movie at all. I just didn’t think it was funny. Much of the humor went over my head, although Steve (and a large group of young soldiers sitting behind us), laughed out loud frequently. I guess you have to be either A) a guy or B) military to “get it”. We should have waited for it to come out on video.

After the movie, we stopped by Home Depot to pick up a 4×4 pressure treated post. A few days ago, I told Steve that I needed to move my bird feeders closer to the deck before winter comes. Once it snows, I won’t be able to make my way out to the feeders without donning my arctic boots and snow pants.

Last year, I just tossed seeds right out on the deck. While the birds certainly didn’t mind dining on the deck, it left a huge mess when spring arrived, and bird poop was everywhere.  This year, I wanted to try something different. Steve and I came up with the idea of using a big flower pot to hold a 4×4 post.

We used gravel around the post to hold it in place. We had some leftover shelf supports from our bedroom closet, which worked perfectly for hanging the feeders. I found the “outhouse” birdhouse in my craft box, and just had to mount it to the top.

Best of all, when winter is over, I can move all the feeders back into the trees, and disassemble the ‘winter’ feeding tower if I so choose. The birds have been loving it, and Airborne has been enjoying the show too.

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I took Sedona to Chena Lakes for a walk a few days ago. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous over the last two weeks. I was happy to see several families at Chena Lakes, picnicking and canoeing/kayaking. The sun was warm, and a slight breeze was blowing.

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Yesterday was an amazing day! It was the closest to perfect as a day could be.The day started off chilly (low 40s), but warmed up into the mid 60s before 1pm. Steve and I did a little work in the yard, raking twigs and sticks into the woodline and finishing the gravel path that leads from the garage door to the back deck.

Later in the evening, we drove to The Salmon Bake at Pioneer Park, to meet an online friend of mine and his wife. Stan and Barbara are on vacation here in Alaska, with a tour company. They’ve already been to Anchorage and Valdez, and were in Fairbanks for two days - enjoying a trip on the Riverboat Discovery and panning for gold at Eldorado Gold Mine.

Stan and his wife hail from the Albany NY area, and have never been to AK. We both had time in our schedule to meet for dinner, and the tour company had everyone booked at the Salmon Bake anyway.

It was nice to meet an online friend in person. I already felt like I knew Stan, despite only conversing via email and blogging. It’s amazing how many friendships have been forged as a result of blogging and online communities. I have many friends who “live in my computer” at the moment, but who I would dearly love to meet someday.

After dinner, Steve and I drove up to Murphy Dome. A few days ago, the Newsminer published photos of folks picking blueberries up on Murphy Dome, and the colors of the foliage in the photos was beautiful. I wanted to see it for myself, so we made plans to drive up there after dinner.

The sun was dipping towards the horizon, so the lighting was perfect as we walked from the parking area at the top of the dome to the first Tors rock. The landscape was a tapestry of colors - from red, to orange, to yellow, to green. It was spectacular, and several times we stopped to just stand in place and look out across the rolling hills.

By the time we walked down to the rocks and back, the sky was steaked orange, yellow and pink. Sunset was indeed underway. Every few minutes the light changed, and I shot more than a hundred frames. As we drove down from the dome, we chose to take the long way home and savor the beautiful sky.

By the time we reached Nordale Road, the sun was below the horizon, but the sky above was brilliantly lit with orange and yellow light. There are several large ponds along Nordale Road. During the spring and summer, they reflect back the beautiful sky and trees which border them. Last night, they were reflecting back the colors of the night sky.  It was stunning!

	“To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.” ~ John Muir ~

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Before I end this blog entry, I wanted to tell you that THE DENALI PARK PASS came in the mail on Saturday!  WOO HOO!! We can’t wait to go!!!