September 2015 – dehayes.blog

Forgive Me, Please

By smd on September 28, 2015 • ( 4 Comments )

So terribly behind on the blog and photo update from the Alaska trip. Just a bit overwhelmed with all the photos but I will get there.

I've also been enjoying my video games, and it sucks you (I guess that's me, in this case) in like a good book 🙂

Lou, however, is starting to look at his photos. Here is a gorgeous one he shared, of fall in Denali:

In other news, Emily stopped by yesterday and brought her new pup – Murray. He got along well with Natasha and Stitch and it was great to see Emily. She landed a full time teaching position and is doing well.

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Apple Update!

By smd on September 19, 2015 • ( 4 Comments )

The fruit, not the computers … Lou has some work cut out ahead of him for the Apple Trees he planted last year. Here are a couple of photos with his comments:

One of our new apple trees

Pretty good sized apples – Can't decide what to 1st, or 2nd……….or 50th!

The Alaska Trip Report is still a Work in Progress!!! Someone took too many photos 🙂

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Yes, We are STILL Alive …

By smd on September 15, 2015 • ( 1 Comment )

I understand there have been a few complaints that I am behind (again) with the blogging. No good excuse, other than recovering from Jet Lag and a zillion photos to go through. AND … it would be nice if Lou would share a few as well!

Mij left on Sunday, so the pups are wondering what is going on with just Lou and I here. Thanks again, Mij – it’s nice to be able to go away, knowing the dogs are well taken care of and entertained.

I am working on photos from our trip, and hope (yes, really) to have more posts up this evening or tomorrow.

All About A Bear – Silver Salmon Creek Day 2 Part 1

By smd on September 7, 2015 • ( 4 Comments )

First – we made it home safely yesterday afternoon with no flight issues. Everything was on time, it was just a long day/night as we were traveling for 22 hours. We crashed yesterday after saying hi to Mij and the pups.

25 Aug 2015, Tuesday

We are now going back to our bear viewing trip – photos in this post cover the first half of the second day. We had a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs, fruit, and toast at 7am, and were on the trail before 8:15am. We didn’t have far to go to find a bear. This one is known as “The Orphan,” and he (or she – can’t tell unless you get way too close or you see them pee) entertained us for over an hour.

The Orphan was down on the beach – we hoped he was clamming, but we never actually saw him dig up a clam. He did, however, find a flounder, and then another seemingly dead fish that he quite liked. You’ll notice in the photos below that he made sure to let us know it was HIS fish. We tried to stay a good distance away, but he did walk by us at one point as he searched for a new area to dig into the mud.

If you look closely, you can see the bear in the distance as we get ready to set up our tripods:

An interesting jelly fish (or some such thing) lying on the beach as we trek to follow the bear:

I know that’s a lot of photos of one bear, but we watched him for over an hour, and then had no luck finding any other bears out and about. Coverage of our trip will be more complete than some might need, but I don’t plan to do a separate blog/report like I did for our Adventure in 2013.

We went back to the lodge for lunch – it was nice to go back for a break. As always, lunch hit the spot. First, a photo of one of the river crossings – most of the guys had to get out of the carts to walk through the water so we could make it up the hill. This was, without a doubt, Lou’s favorite part:

Yum – cookies! We had a short rest after lunch, needing to wait for the tide to change so we could go back out. The adventure for the afternoon was special – you can find out all about it in tomorrow’s post 😉

Click HERE for the next post.

Alaska Update

By smd on September 5, 2015 • ( 2 Comments )

Hello all! I know some are wondering if we are still alive and well. Answer is … Yes!!! We were without internet access for our time in Denali National Park. Arrived back into Anchorage last night (Friday, Sep 4th). We fly out this afternoon (Sat Sep 5th), but won’t get home until Sunday morning. It will be a long day…

The plan is to backtrack and update the blog with highlights from our Bear Viewing Trip at Silver Salmon Creek, then follow with the report on Denali National Park. This update is just to let everyone know we are still kicking, and had a great time.

Following are a few photos of our drive from Anchorage to Denali last Sunday – Aug 30th (which seems like a month ago). The weather at Denali was terrible for the week before our planned arrival – rain and snow. In fact, we weren’t sure we were going to be able to get to our Lodge, which was 90 miles on an unpaved road back into Denali National Park. Our plan for Sunday was to get as far as the entrance area to Denali NP, where we stayed overnight at a hotel. The weather was nice for our drive from Anchorage, but we did get some snow once we hit Denali Park Village – more about that later.