Friday Theme * 3 again.. - Water, Right Now, and Green is Delightful

Friday Theme - Water

This is the second time water is on the Friday Theme list, but no worries, I love water and have lots of pictures of water. When I was back in Sweden for a short while I took lots and lots of pictures of water, mainly cause Stockholm, my hometown, is surrounded by water. When we left Fairbanks we hade temperatures below 0F and snow on the ground still, We arrived in Sweden with around 40F and sunny sky.

One day we went out to the archipelago and I took some nice pictures of Waxholm and the surroundings. Stockholm really is beautiful. Waxholm below, a beautiful little town.

W and I walked a lot when we were in Stockholm, public transportation is expensive, and if you are not in a hurry why waste money when you can explore your surroundings, and enjoy being outside. Ok, not everyday was beautiful and sunny, but you get the picture.

Friday Theme - Right Now

Since we got back from Sweden me and W has tried to make the most of the last time W has here in Alaska, in a couple of weeks W is moving to Wisconsin. I will most likely end up there too, but that is a long ways into the future. We have been on a couple of adventures. Like biking in Denali,

It was so beautiful, such a warm day. We biked around 15 miles, and then we turned around. Lots of tracks, like this wolf track (above). Wolves are so BIG, but so are also bears!

It was awesome, until we almost biked into a grizzly, and had to take the bus pass that point. On the bus I took a good picture of the bear. And we decided that biking in Denali wasn't really that nice any longer.

Both me and W has had bear safety training and we know what to do if you do run into a bear, and we did have bearspray, one can each. The whole situation was really unfortunate though, with 2 tour buses blocking parts of the view, the left side of the road being a vertical hill (as in the bear or us could not take to the left), the road was up a hill around a bend and the view was awful. Either way it turned out well.

It was such a beautiful day, driving down to Denali the leaf-out hadn't happen yet, but on the way back it had already happened.

The weekend after that we went down to Talkeetna, for a little more mellow adventure. We got great views of Denali, again.

Imagine all tourist that come to Alaska and don't get to see Denali. Denali is big enough to create its own weather pattern. Other parts of Alaska can can be really cloudy too and if you don't know, you would never realize that there in fact are mountains around. One second the mountains are there, and the next they are gone. When my parents came to visit there was a lot of times when I had to say, "no really, the mountains are there, I promise".

Talkeetna is a really artsy town/community. During the summer it explodes with tourists that are stepping off the train to get a different view of Alaska, or mountaineers whose only wish is to concur that big big mountain, that is big enough to create its own weather pattern. Denali isn't the one of the hardest climbs per say, but it is very challenging weather wise. Every year in the summertime you read about mountaineers who die trying to conquer Denali. And you say: how many have died so far..this year including this guy. It always adds up to a too high number at the end of the summer.

After Talkeetna we went to Byers lake, which I had never heard about, but it was a beautiful place. Kind of hidden in the woods, and we stayed at the nearest cabin to the parking lot.

The loon made an appearance every now and then which further amplified the spooky feeling we got walking around the lake.

We also spotted an angry otter with a fish, he was hissing at us as we walked by.

We had a wonderful weekend

Friday Theme - Green is Delightful

As I mentioned above leaf out just happened a couple of weeks ago, around May25th to be more precise, and that is extremely late. The trees have looked dead since October, that is around 8 months without green plants... But now when summer is back, we can finally experience that wonderful green and lush colour again

Oh well, that turned in to a pretty long one. Hope you all will have a wonderful week!

Friday Theme, Abstract

No, I did not forget about friday theme, actually I started early (7.30) friday morning with this post, but this Friday theme was a little tricky again so I never had time to finish it before I had to go down into the lab, and yes, now its Saturday again. It seems like the weeks past so fast. This Sunday I am going to watch the start of White Mountains 100 so I might have some pictures to share next week.

Anyway, back to Friday theme which is "abstract". Sometimes when I have a hard time figuring out what to post for these friday themes I go to the dictionary to read the definition. So we are focusing on shapes, patterns, lines, the form, structure, colours and everything in between. Something that is being captured in a way it would usually not be seen. What I love the most about these themes, is that it is totally up to you how you want to present the theme, the photographers eye.

I took these pictures below when we were going down to Cantwell to backcountry ski last weekend. It was early morning and the sun was just rising and created this beautiful light. And as we approached on of many bridges I reached for my camera and snapped some pictures. It has evolved that way, cause W is always driving and he doesn't want to stop at every single pullout, so I am used to taking pictures from the window. And a lot of my really good pictures have been taken through the window in the car, in motion. Sometimes I pull down the window, but with -20 to -40 degrees, that is not always an option anyone likes.

We crossed at least two bridges, this one below is the second:

Wow, now when I think about it, I do have quite a few pictures that are abstract in their own way:

I do have a tendency to take pictures on shapes, and forms:

I love taking pictures from the plane:

Buildings often make interesting patterns:

Stairs, and also structures inside buildings:

But, nature is the best in making interesting patterns:

Flowers do a great job:

Before the storm in the watershed I work in:

Naked flower in the wintertime:

Layers of ice makes patterns when it melts:

Have great weekend, Im actually really hoping for spring soon since the temperatures again are down to 9 F...

The trip down south

    I started to plan the trip down south quite a while before my patents actually did arrive, I think maybe as early as may. There was a lot of talk about what should be included and the costs. Alaska is really expensive if you don't live here, the hotels and the tours. I wanted to include Seward and a train ride from Anchorage or at least Talkeetna, but that got scratched from the list pretty early. We started our trip on a Saturday, not too early maybe even a bit late according to some... The first stop was Denali, me and Winslow were going to camp, and mom and dad got to stay at the Grizzly Bear in. On the way down we stopped at the 49th brewery outside Healy for a late lunch and then we continued the trip.

    Once in Denali we decided to set up camp before driving the parents to their hotel, and on the way there we got our first wildlife viewings!

    Next day we went up early in the morning and started the bus tour into Denali, unfortunately it rained the whole day, but that didn't stop us from seeing wildlife again. And the view itself wasn't too bad.

    The next day we were all pretty tired and started the car ride to our next destination, Palmer and the state fair, and most important, Avett Brothers!

    Palmer is a beautiful little town, or maybe I should say the setting is beautiful. It's surrounded by mountains and the pretty balmy (yeah Alaska balmy) evenings brought beautiful sunsets.

    We also went to the musk ox farm, anchorage and Wasilla (that's where Sarah Palin is from) to visit a good friend of mine. We also went to Matanuska glacier, really lucked out about the weather, sunny and blue sky.

    But, as I mentioned earlier the visit to the actual state fair and Avett Brothers was one of my highlights, especially when I saw the two brothers come walking at the fair right by me, and I finally got courage enough to walk up to them and ask if my mom could take a picture of me with them. That made my day!

    The journey continued south and we had a rainy drive down to homer, and I was worried how the fishing would be for Winslow and my dad the next day. My parents got a nice welcome to their B&B

    To our surprise the weather cleared up and the men had an awesome day out on the ocean and came back with 33 lb of halibut (including one cod).

    Meanwhile me and my mom explored Homer and by the afternoon we had lovely weather.

    That together with a wonderful dinner and sunset.

    The next morning we had a wonderful sunrise, and had to prepare for a 12 hr car trip up to Fairbanks.