Out and About

I feel like we spent a lot of last summer confined to short walks and the indoors since it was so hot and smoky. This year, we are sharing more of our beloved local spots with Miss Raven for the first time. Despite the rain! Here is our neighborhood trail. I can leave my desk, be home, change my clothes, and be on the trail with my girls in 45 minutes. Life is good!

About a month ago, we went to Chena Lakes, which is a lovely park system based around a largish artificial lake. It was all built in response to a terrible flood that covered Fairbanks in 1967. The people of Fairbanks saw the Chena River overflow its banks, and said, "Dam it!" (sorry!). Anyway, the Army Corps of Engineers constructed a 7.1-mile long earthen dam that controls nearly 1,500 miles of watershed that would otherwise freely flow into Fairbanks. At the time that they constructed the dam, they also created a manmade lake, and a very lovely park. You can go to the "Lake Park", where you can rent canoes and paddleboats, and they stock the lake witih fish. Or you can go to the "River Park" where you can walk along the Chena and enjoy lovely views and a gentle walk through the woods with no climbing.

Aaaaaaanyway, we had to abort that walk about a month ago since Raven had the porcupine encounter. We finally succeeded yesterday, although we happened to bump into a high school cross-country race. What a surprise to find that quiet place overflowing with cars and people! But I figured it was still Interior Alaska and we could probably find a way to take our walk without disrupting the race. Sure enough, I asked one of the folks directing traffic and he said that it was perfectly fine, and in fact the race was about to end in about 15 minutes. So I parked on the side of the road, and we stood at the finish line and cheered in the last racers. They seemed like a nice bunch, and when the race was over, the girls and I took our walk. We got back an hour later, and the place was immaculate--all of the flagging that they had put on the course was gone, there was not a single scrap of litter, and all of the cars that had overflowed the small lots and lined the roads were gone. My little Subaru was weirdly parked all alone on the side of the road outside of the empty parking lots.

The water was high!

Raven ponders the high water.

Cricket ponders the high water.

After our walk along the River Park, we had some more time to kill before our next commitment, so we took about 20 minutes to walk along the top of the dam. It was dam pretty up there!

Wow, look at the floodplain!

There we were just a-walkin' down the dam, singin' doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo.

This small storm cloud kept moving around. We only just got sprinkled.

Another view of the floodplain.

Mmmmmm cucumbrrrrrz!!

We love cucumbrrrrrrrzzz!!

The cusp between summer and fall

Late summer is my favorite part of summer. The dragonflies have come out, the mosquitoes have thinned down, the mud has dried up. Time for berry picking! Blueberries first. My friend SM has adopted Cricket's sister, Bedbug (they were an entire litter named after bugs). Bedbug, like Thistle, was a star leader, and she has embraced retirement with gusto. She sleeps in and takes gentle walks. She looks a lot like Cricket, only with pointy ears instead of flippy-flappy ears. She's also a good berry picking companion:

Also, like Cricket, she is a qualified and very loving therapy dog. We met at the Denali Center a couple of times. Aren't they cute?

At one point I took a break to have a PBJ, and dropped it. Well, I'm not a picky eater nor germaphobe, but this time I picked it up and found it had landed perfectly onto a moose turd! So I had to tear off that part.

A good berry year! We are grateful.

I also took Raven on my favorite hike for the first time. We missed out on a lot last year because it was so hot and so smokey. But this was my first hike ever in Alaska!

Pretty and tough bluebells, growing in the mountains:

Even Cricket needs some shade on a hot day:

Look at this view though!

This is Wickershame Dome, a hike for another day. That trails has low, muddy spots. I think we will wait until fall after several hard frosts, and it will be frozen.

The trail continues onward, but it was our turnaround time.

A trip up the Elliott Highway always means pie! But I'm still being covid-careful, so I'm not lingering in truck stops. Pie to go!

Do you think Cricket enjoys her life with us? I sure hope she enjoys her life with us.

What about Raven? Do you think she is comfy? I sure hope she is comfy.

Look, the hillside on campus where I park has in just a few weeks gone from pink fireweed to fireweed fluff:

Fall is already becoming apparent in other ways:

This is a favorite trail of ours. Part of the Equinox Marathon route.

A pause where you'd pause on the marathon. Right after this steep drop. There is an aid station right here. And you'd pause and say, "Phew! The worst part is over!"

Such a pretty trail!

Look! Cranberries are almost ready! But they don't get truly sweet until after the first frost, so we wait until those hushed first days of Fall come.

I got a plant ID app, and it says this is called "marsh felwort":

And while the blueberries are ripe, so are the raspberries. These are right in our yard, and I have to beat Raven to them!