Boot Camp Alaska Style

Oh boy, in the two weeks and two days since I have been here we have walked, and walked and walked some more. 
There is a hike here where you climb Flat top mountain, it is rated as a moderate climb, which we thought maybe was do-able, seeing that my knee is still not super-duper, and my surgeon said no mountain climbing, moderate seemed within range.

It was a very wet, soggy day, and things get a little slick on the ground, there is alot of shale rock on the paths, and it can be tricky to walk on.  Spotted this flower on the way up, I still had energy to get out the camera.

Well, this was on the way back down, there was no way, lots and lots of slippery steps and rocky steep slopes.  I felt so disappointed in myself, thought wow, should be able to do this, but Doug was smarter then me and put a stop to it, so we went and ate pizza.  Found out later a soldier had fallen climbing that evening and had to be air lifted out, maybe before we leave this can be my Mt. Everest and we can get to the top, if not, thats okay too.

On Sat. we drove to Seward which is the most beautiful drive ever, next time will have to take pictures.  Seward sits in Resurection Bay and was established in the early 1900 as a gateway for the railroad.  If you drive to the end of the road, literally, you can hike the peak down to the bay.

This was tough too, Sofey and I held Doug up a bit, but it is a gorgeous walk, lots of up and up, and then lots of down, there were several of these walkways which gave you a bit of a break.

This is the view of the bay as you reach the top before you start going down, with my hinged brace I felt pretty confident that we could make it to the bottom, and then back up, it was just to beautiful not to see what was at the end.

This is what greets you when you reach the meadow at the bottom, breathtaking, and the water is soooo clear, and so cold.  The climb back up took a bit longer, even doug was worn out, would do it again tomorrow.

Does this not look like just what a fishing boat running through the bay to head into the harbour at Seward should look like?

Sofee wants to be a mush dog, dont know if the Iditarod is ready for that.

There is no good reason for this, other than there is a really cute quilt store here, and this involves wool felt and cutting things up.  When the man of the apartment came home and saw it he was like, hmmm, wow, thats like, what is it?  Answer, a candle mat, the kit said so.  Response, much laughter.

It has been along time, since I have tried to paint or draw, really not sure if its something that I should keep up with, but maybe I'll get better with more practice.  Or maybe theres alot more candle mats in my future, I see christmas presents.....

Selfishly, I consider this God's gift to me every night before sleep, this is what midnight looks like here, wish you all were here to share it.

My View of Alaska.....

 So, I think that my Alaska feet are finally under me, the first weekend, what with the unpleasantness of the car break-in and all sort of threw me, but now we are just truly enjoying it.  This is the view of Cook Inlet out of our living/dining/kitchen area, its a super wierd apartment, but with this to look at, you can deal with it.

These mountains you can see are the Alutians, my son is over there somewhere, is nice to know that the same sun is shining on us both.  In the other direction you can see Denali in the distance, it used to be Mckinnely, but has had a name change, hopefully we can make it out there, dont know how in the world you can see everything, theres just too many beautiful places.

This is Miss Sofey's park, she has made alot of friends, especially a little burnese pup that is just so cute, having this so close is the only way living in a city in a apartment is workable with a dog, granted, this city has alot of greenspace and she and I can walk from our place to downtown in about 5 minutes, she goes where I do, and people in town know her name, the lady in the tea shop even let her come in.  Anchorage is a nice enough town, definetly a tourist place, but small enough to be easy to find your way around, once I found the starbucks downtown, it was all good.

One thing that I really love here is that down the whole Cook Inlet they have made a trail that goes for miles, its where we walk every day, when the tide goes out it has a huge mud flat, and there are alot of really strange birds and lots of bird watchers.  We saw these guys one night, dont they look like emus?  They are sand cranes, but just to make doug laugh I told some bird watchers we passed to make sure not to miss the sand emus that were out, he dared me so I had to say it.

What a shock, I found the yarnie places, this is hand dyed by a woman here, just thought it was so pretty, someday, it will be a pair of socks.  The hardest thing about being here is not really having a ton of stuff to take care of, its alot of open time, which I am trying to sink into and enjoy, because these times dont come very often, and of course I have himself all to myself, which is really wonderful.  Next post should have more glacier pictures, and maybe a project or two!