Late Fall Yaak Attack

Over the weekend, the 'rents and I headed north to the Yaak cabin to meet some of the family and celebrate Dave's birthday. Number 1 had his chainsaw in tow, so we woke up to a world famous Dave breakfast and set out to clear some fallen trees on the property.

Here you see DZ Sr. in his prime habitat.

Burning the slash pile.

 Number 1 cutting the trees into fire logs.

The tractor that served as our jungle gym when we were little.

Choppin' firewood.

Stokin' the bonfire.

Our after work/pre-dinner stroll to the West Fork Falls.

After our stroll we returned to the bonfire to have our pre-dinner "cocktail hour" before we all sat down to a delicious steak and potato dinner with fresh garden carrots from the neighbors and a smorgasbord of desserts, including Riley's homemade apple pie, bacon apple pie, and pumpkin dump cake. Mmmmm.......

Shavin' the Mushroom!

And so it begins! The festivities have officially begun with the carving of the pumpkin. :)

My flower pumpkin.

 The side view - kind of blurry but you get the idea!

Piano Pat!

Deb and I took a drive to Great Falls a few weekends ago to visit our friend Helen, catch up with Kelly, and see the Sip n' Dip Lounge!

 Miss Piano Pat herself! 

 The fabulous art of Great Falls.

Here you see the Rainbow Trout Fishalo.

 Sippin' on Green Rivers and milkshakes at Snyder Drug.

 The bartender at the Sip n' Dip would NOT allow

Sheela to go swimming with the mermaids,

so Helen and I took matters into our own hands!

 Piano Pat in action! 

The beautiful Rocky Mountain Front.

The last days of summer . . .

This post a long time comin'! The last weekend of warm summer sunshine was filled with lots of outdoor activities! My friend Megan and I took a stroll up to Lower Geiger Lake and then headed for an afternoon float down the Kootenai. Awesome summer day!

Sheela at the lake.

There's a whoooole lotta pink happenin' there!

Moose or elk trax? Sheela for scale!

The fat fish that Meg caught!

Girrrrrdwood.

Well this post ended up being pretty boring. I was going to go take pictures of houses at night so folks wouldn't see me creepin' on their house, but I didn't get around to it. Here's what I have so far:

Quite a few of the houses in Girdwood are oddly shaped and have lots of strange additions that look like they had no blueprints for and they just wung it. I finally figured out that the houses are shaped the way they are to shed snow.

 

This is my most favorite house in Girdwood!!!

Gull Rock

The weather has just been so awesome here we decided to hit the road and head over to Hope for a hike. I love the drive to Hope, so that was why we chose Hope as our destination. There are two hikes to choose from right out of town, one is long and mellow, the other is less long and really difficult, so we chose the easy one, Gull Rock, which is about 12 miles round trip. My dogs were barkin' by the end!

Looking up Turnagain Arm while the tide is WAY out.

Looking west of Anchorage. That dark mountain on the

left hand side is called The Sleeping Lady, or Mount Susitna.

There's a fungus among us. 

It took us almost 3 hours to return from Hope, which

is normally about an hour drive. The fish are running

so this is pretty typical traffic on the Seward Highway at 

this time of year because there are so many fisherman heading

down the Kenai Peninsula for dip netting and fishing.

The Fourth of Joo-Lie.

The forecast for Prince William Sound was looking good for a boat trip to Cordova. . . Too bad NOAA was WAY off! We went to Whittier after work to get the boat ready, but it took way longer than anticipated so we ended up sleeping in the harbor, which turned out to be sa-WEET because we caught the firework show in Whittier that started at 12:00 a.m. on the 4th!

We set out Thursday morning and the weather turned sour quickly and the ocean got really rough, so we decided to hunker down about three hours outside of the harbor in Surprise Cove and ended up staying there for the next 4 days due to a "Small Craft Advisory" from the coast guard. I have to admit that it was pretty nice to just relax, sleep in, and read books! We packed up the dingy and explored the cove when the rain let up now and again. We had to go check out the jellyfish, harbor seals, and waterfalls! On our return trip to Whittier, the sea was calm as could be and the sun started to pop out! It got so nice by the time we back to the harbor that we stuck around and cleaned the boat and soaked up some rays.