Mountains- Photo post

 

The photo above is my son, right after he said "I'm glad I live in Anchorage, Alaska." Because sometimes we say things that are obvious. We are very glad to live here!

Yesterday, we went to Flattop. If you're ever in Anchorage, Flattop is worth the trip. Even if you don't hike. If you do hike, the bottom part of the trail is fairly easy. The top part of the trail isn't as well groomed and can be icy even in June but the main part of the trail is hiked by parents with small children and people walking dogs regularly.. If you don't hike, bring a picnic lunch and enjoy some of the most gorgeous views in the Anchorage area. It's a 5 dollar parking fee, and you drive past the zoo on O'Malley, and keep driving until you start seeing signs pointing you towards Glen Alps/Flattop, then just follow the signs.

After you park, you'll see outhouses, a ranger station and a set of stairs. The stairs take you to the trailhead. Because of the grade, I wasn't able to do it yesterday, my knees were hurting a little too much from gardening. But the Turnip Girl and William enjoyed climbing up on a gorgeous day to a place there was still snow on the ground.
Click the images for larger views!
For me? Well, opposite the stairs, there is a shorter path that's a very easy grade and marked with a log fence. You walk up that path, and there is a spot with a bench. If no one else is sitting there, you can have your picnic there, looking over the whole city. Which was very, very hazy because of cottonwood trees and dust yesterday. Keep walking that path, and you find a big compass rose.

Around the compass rose are wood strips at irregular intervals.

Follow the strips and you find names of mountains, the distance to them, and their elevation. So working around the side that wasn't affected by the haze over Anchorage there was Wolverine Peak. 

O'Malley Peak

The Wedge

Ptarmigan Peak (Ptarmigan is our state bird!)

And Flattop!

And come fall, this is one of the best places to go blueberry picking. Yum!!

I hope you enjoyed this photo post. It was a really lovely outing with my family.

Termination Dust- Alaska

A long time ago, at least as we measure it up here, Alaska started calling that first snow on the mountains "Termination Dust".

It was the signal that seasonal summer jobs were about to end, and people were going to get their termination notices soon. The surest sign that autumn in Alaska has started. Click on the images if you want to see larger versions.

Yeah, that. That's termination dust. Those are the mountains visible from my house today.

Here, let me zoom in. (I love my camera!)

So it's fall, because people who've lived here long look to that before we look at these.

I'm sort of disgusted. Seems like there was so much more that I wanted to do this summer, and now we are in a rush to do it. But winter is also full of good things, cocoa and snowball fights and the Northern Lights.

Fabulous week- with photos!

Mt. Susitna

The photo above was taken earlier this week. We hadn't planned on going to take pictures of Susitna, we actually went the other way for photos of ducks and other wild life. But while we were driving back into town, I was stunned by how pretty the sunset looked, and so we did stop for photos. Click on the photos to see larger versions.

I also saw this piece of graffiti-

Bee the love you seek, I love you all, Forever.

Here are some of the birds we saw at Potter's Marsh that evening.

Seagulls

Bald Eagle in flight

Ducks and a sandpiper

Remember when I said my raspberries had become a nice little thicket?

That started out as 3 canes 3 years ago. Next year should be amazing with all the second and third year canes. We plan to plant some of the smaller canes at my dad's house.

Raspberries and strawberries from my garden. Yum yum! The strawberries started a few years ago as a single hanging basket from Wal*Mart that my husband got me because I really, really wanted strawberries growing in my yard. They needed transplanting fairly quickly, the original plant wasn't in great shape. But it sent off lots of runners. I replanted some of the runners in 2 spaces in my yard. They've been coming back reliably ever since, and sending out more runners. So now I have 2 strawberry patches. Everyone loves to see the strawberries ripen. They are so sweet and big!

In fact, I'm going to go have some soon!

This weekend is our annual Greek Festival, it's always a lot of fun. Baklava and tiny cups of rich, dark coffee, music and dancing. Then Monday Michael has a job interview. My fingers are crossed!

I've been working on a pattern using ruffle yarn. It's a lot of fun.

Sleeping in the Land of the Midnight Sun

Thank you Fred Meyer's and Kroger's stores for sponsoring this post about difficulty sleeping:

Many places have a mountain they call the Sleeping Lady, this is ours. Mount Susitna.The photo was taken from a place that looks over the inlet in downtown Anchorage.

Sleeping in the Land of the Midnight Sun can be hard in the summer. The sun comes up around 4:30 am now, and goes down around 11:30 pm. Dusk and twilight last a while so there is very little true dark in the night. The sun makes people think it's earlier than it is, and kids are out playing until sunset, neighbors are grilling that late too sometimes.


When I was a kid, I loved it, instead of reading under the covers with a flashlight, there was enough light coming in my windows to read by that. After the dark and cold of winter, playing in the sun until it was late was wonderful.


As an adult, it's a bit harder. There is more reason to keep a regular schedule, but sometimes it's very hard to get to sleep. It's still daytime!

Tips I've found work for me:

• Keeping a regular schedule of sleeping and eating. Eating is part of how my body sets it's clock, so when I get busy and don't eat on a regular schedule, it does affect my sleeping schedule
• Go to bed! Even if I don't feel tired. If I stay up later, I might sleep later.
• Mind games- laying in the semi-dark, when I'm not feeling sleepy enough to sleep can be hard. I've found playing games in my mind helps. Alphabet games like trying to name a flower that begins with each letter of the alphabet, alternating male and female names through the alphabet, building structures or trying to draw fractals are all tricks I use. Your own interests might be different. Try making up a cake recipe from scratch, or counting in prime numbers. 
• Breathe - breathe deeply and evenly like your sleeping. Using this with playing games in my mind with my eyes closed is usually enough.
• Rolling eyes- Your eyes move a lot while you're sleeping. When you close your eyes, trying looking down and see how it changes your breathing, then try rolling them up and see how that changes your breathing. Don't roll them uncomfortably like you're trying to see your brain! Just a little bit of movement helps sometimes to relax.

Occasionally it's necessary to take something to help get to sleep. 

Fred Meyer's coupon for Vick's ZzzQuil . ZzzQuil is not for pain, not for colds, it's a non-habit forming sleep aid. 

I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective. All the opinions expressed here are my own.

Sunset, mountains and ice- photo post

The Seward Highway out of town is considered a scenic byway. Of course, most of our highways are scenic. But heading out to the Valley, there aren't places to turn out so you can gawk at the scenery between Anchorage and Eagle River. Between Anchorage and Girdwood on the Seward Highway, there are lots of turnouts. You go through part of the Chugach National Park. I've posted photos in the past of some of the scenery in summer. Last night my husband took me out specifically to get photos of the sunset and of the mountains in winter for you.
Click on the images for larger versions. I resized them to 50% for quicker loading.

This highway has railroad tracks and the inlet on one side, and one the other, you butted up against mountains and cliffs. There can be avalanches sometimes, but the state posts advisories if they think it might be a problem.

During the summer, those cliffs have little water run offs and climbers. Now I'm going to be quiet. So you can just enjoy the scenery.

Hope you enjoyed these photos! 

Winter around my house- snowy photos!

The other day when I went down to check the mail, I decided to bring my camera with me. It's a half block to my mailbox. Click on the images for larger versions.

If you look to the east, you see the Chugach mountains. I've lived in Anchorage all my life, and they still make me breathless sometimes. The sharp edges, the weather changing there first. They aren't particularly high mountains, but they seem very high because they don't have the long slow slope other mountains have. They come up sharply and suddenly.
We call the snow on them "Termination Dust", the phrase comes from the days when people got their termination notices for seasonal jobs, and seems to be a very Alaskan phrase. When the termination dust comes halfway down the mountains, it's going to snow in Anchorage soon.

You've seen lots of photos I've taken around this wooded lot that's across from my mailbox. Well, if you had a wooded vacant lot that pretty and close, wouldn't you take lots of photos?

The lot has a path through it. From there it looks gorgeous. Unfortunately, just as you hit that clearing you can kind of see in there, you find that people dump things in there. Big appliances and the like. However, it's still nice to walk through there during the summer because it's a habitat for lots of birds. You can hear wrens sounding lovely (and hardly ever spotted), get scolded by ravens and get the gossip from the magpies. My husband and I will walk through there hand in hand, and I'll stop every so often to snap a photo of a magpie or a wild flower. Looks gorgeous all snowy doesn't it?
About a half hour later, at just about 4:45 pm, it was sunset. Check out those colors! Aren't they beautiful?

I also put the snowy path photo through Paint It just for fun. I love using Paint It on snowy photos.

Corel Paint It! Photo is only 9.99 from Amazon.com (affiliate link) and it only makes painterly effects from photos. I think it's a fun little graphics application.

Since we decided to give Black Friday a skip, I told my daughter we would go to the thrift store today. I scored very nicely on the 70s craft books and magazines I love, she was thrilled to find a fantastic holiday dress and a bag of fabric scraps. We also picked up shirts for William and Michael. Michael liked his shirt. It's the same basic style as his favorite black and red shirt in black and gray. William's shirt is another genuine Hawaiian shirt for his collection.  Thrift stores are so full of awesome.

Alaska- I love living here (photos)

a sign at the fair

Saturday, our family went out to the Forest Fair in Girdwood. Girdwood is a tiny resort town with a strong art community that's about 36 miles away from Anchorage. The drive is incredible with the inlet on one side, and mountains on the other for most of it. Then when you get there, you're in a valley between mountains.
Forest Fair takes place in the woods of course, a trail in a wooded area lined with local artists, food and with 2 stages. It's very crowded with people dressed in tie dye, handmade colorful skirts, kilts and lots of embroidered details. I'm afraid I didn't get photos in the fair because well.. I was busy! Enjoying food, art and music.

Kids play area right outside the fair grounds.

The fair has few rules to remember.

We wandered the paths, looking at things and sharing snacks so we all got a taste of the various foods. The family favorite was Talkeetna Spinach Bread. A nice crusty bread spread with a garlic-y spinach spread and cheese and roasted until hot and melty.

 Rogues and Wenches were on the main stage, much to the delight of William. Most of the performances we catch by them are happenstance. They are at a fair or show we go to. I think it's time to start paying attention to where they play. Both Turnip Girl and William enjoy them a lot.

William and the Turnip looked carefully for something to bring home. William was fascinated by an artist who made things out of scraps of hardware, pipes and other salvaged materials. He picked a little dog statue that was made with pipe, a faucet and other pieces and parts.

The Turnip checked out every tie dye booth in the place. She loves tie dye, hers, other peoples, tie dye just makes her happy. She found a thermal long sleeved shirt in various shades of blue, standard spiral design that she loved.

I got a cup from Silverbear Sundries that you know will wind up being a prop in earring photos later this year. I also got a couple bars of soap from her. She had a FB special, if you mentioned you saw her announcement she would be at the fair, she gave you a lip balm. Since my family all loves her lip balm, we mentioned.

Remember that part of the road that I said looked like the path to fairyland when I was a kid? Click on these photos for larger views.

On the way back we stopped at Bird Point, which is a viewing area on the highway. It's one of the places you can view whales if you're there at the right time. There were sparrows darting around, and we spotted this nesting pair of ravens. This is taken at max zoom, they were pretty far away. I used Michael as my tripod.

Lichen! I asked a friend who really enjoys some of the detail in the macro shots I take if she liked lichen. She said "Lich'en? I love'en!"

This photo hasn't been resized or cropped. So if you click, it's huge. I hope you like it. It really is that beautiful.