Blogs from Alaska, United States, North America - page 220

i have been house/animal (1 blue/gold macaw, 2 african greys, 1 golden lab, 1 shepherd, 4 assorted fish) sitting for a couple of friends that flew off to vegas to exchange nuptials. silly people left me with keys to a riding lawn mower. i have not driven one in these 44 years and it showed. i didn't do to bad to get it started (despite the perfunctory and half listened to verbal instructions-and the lack of manual which i'm sure to have ignored anyway), even having to jump start it as the battery was dead (that F250 started her right up-just kidding stevie). the only problem, and this might be considered huge if one is bothered by the price of gas, was that i drove for some minutes before i realized i wasn't actually cutting anything. ... read more

This morning was brilliant sunshine. Today’s aim was to drive the long trip back to Anchorage including some stops of interest before flying out late tonite and overnite for Denver then immediately onto Los Angeles where we are stationed for a whole day before the really long flight home. Today’s features included two wayside stops to see Mt McKinley and a chance black bear sighting. Both Denali viewing points were at either end of the Denali State Park which is another special area but run by the state of Alaska as opposed to the national park run by the federal government. Both viewing points were spectacular because we had a sunny day and clouds were almost non existent. The South site was interesting because we were high up on a cliff overlooking a vast wide river ... read more

Today’s critter sightings- we finally caught up with some Snowshoe hares near one of the currently unused winter ranger stations, this one was not far from Savage River and the Parks Road in the Denali Wilderness. This is a log cabin in the bush. Outside there are half a dozen wood dog kennels. The outside window battens of the cabin have long nails protruding thru to the outside to stop nosy grizzlies from taking a further interest. It was near here, amongst the very soft under foot, sphagnum moss undergrowth that we saw a few of our hares and got some pictures. Up at Savage River we went for a walk and found X critter (don’t know his name at the moment - you try and guess for us). He was eating grass near the bank ... read more

A couple side trips while in the Anchorage Area....... read more

Well last night’s sleep was interesting, it never got really dark and twilight was probably a better way to describe the 4 or so hours of night. This morning we caught the 10:30 am 6 hr return bus into the Denali Nat Park and almost immediately, critters started appearing. First a gray wolf (gray to white) trotted on the road just in front of our bus for about 50m before catching a small rodent and disappearing into the grassy undergrowth - we know wolf sightings are quite rare so what a start to today. Then we came across a mother grizzly with two 2 year old cubs (they are all light brown to cream coloured) and she also trotted along in front on the road for a while, soon after that we met up with a ... read more