From Mew Gulls to Meow-Meows

Wow, another month gone by!   I wish I had all kinds of crazy stories to tell to fill the gaps of this blog.   However, really I've mostly just been stuck at work.  Most of my employees are heading back home for school, which means I'm back to working 90+ hours a week.    *sigh*  Gone are the easy days, where boredom lead to creativity in the stock room...

In the four summers that I've been working at the Park Mart in Denali, this is the first one that Mew Gulls have made a nest and attempted to raise chicks in our parking lot!   When we first spotted the babies, there were four of them running around the lot, peeping and almost getting run over by cars.   Their mom was VERY protective and would dive bomb the unsuspecting tourists that got too close to get a picture; and screech something awful when dogs or kids attempted contact with the chicks.   One night when I got off of work back in July, the mom gull was trying to herd up an errant chick for the night...

I found the chicks resting by the side of the Park Mart on my way to work one morning...

Before too long, we started only seeing two adolescent gulls hanging around. Why oh why would a Mew Gull have her babies in a busy parking lot??  The Mew Gulls usually make their nests on the small islands in the middle of rivers.   I 'spose cars and dogs are just as dangerous as foxes and the rising tides of the rivers.  The two siblings seemed right at home in the parking lot anyway...

No one at the Park Mart has seen them in weeks... I like to think they flew away to greener and wilder parts.

In other animal news... CATS!   Outside!  Both Hadley and Ernie have been enjoying the warm summer weather... sans leash!   Of course there will always be a worried mother inside of me knowing they're out in the cruel world, however it's totally worth it to see them frolicking in the tall grass and rolling around in the dirt...

Hadley had a little scare with a neighborhood dog and ended up a tree one day...

Before I could even enlist the help of the Panguingue Fire Department, she was back down all by herself:)

After a particularly long day at work, I turned down Antares to head home.   What should I see on the side of the road!?!!?   Moose!   Babies!  Any bad memories from the day past are instantly erased...

Today was my last off of work (hence the time to blog) for probably the rest of the summer.   I drove down the old cemetery road to take a hike.   I stopped at the cemetery for some moments of solitude that can only be shared with the deceased... 

Then I headed further down the bumpy dirt road to find a sweet hiking spot.   I encountered a newly married couple that had camped out for night and killed the battery in their car.   Luckily I had my jumper cables and was able to get them started again.   Any trip seems to turn into an adventure around here it seems!   They said their thank yous, and then I found an old ATV trail to start hiking down.   It was so amazing to just get back out into nature.   I swear, I spend so much time at work, sometimes I forget there's this whole other world right around me with beavers and caterpillars and just LIFE...

New beaver lodge

Old beaver lodge

So, now I'm back home and ready to relax and enjoy some of the sweet "fruits" of my labor... or schwag as the case may be...

Winter dreaming, on such a summer day...

Norther to the Future!

Happy 4th of July!


Summer is seemingly in it's depth, however it gets darker by 6 minutes everyday.   Though, this doesn't stop the sun from rising at 3:30 AM and "setting" at 12:00 AM.   Someday I'll see stars again... but until then, I've got Summah Road Trips!


Boyfriend and I took a trip up north into the Arctic.   

The Dalton Highway wasn't as rough as I was led to believe.   I had heard stories of blown tires and car parts lining the roadway.   The reality was a road half paved and half fairly packed dirt.   I'm not saying there weren't any insane pot holes or stretches of "road damage", however, overall it was a fun drive:)  

Healy to Coldfoot = 367 miles

Doesn't seem like much does it?  Looking at the drive (in yellow) on a map of Alaska makes it seem insignificant.   Ya know though, Alaska is HUGE.   It was definitely a LONG 367 miles. 

First stop... Finger Mountain.  Home to the Singing Vole and delicate alpine flowers.

I had thought the terrain would be more barren and desolate and vast feeling.  Again, just goes to show how huge Alaska is.   The aforementioned scenery is still hundreds of miles north of Coldfoot.   Instead, the landscape was filled with trees, mountains and of course rivers.

The Mighty Yukon at one in the morning...

Oh PFD Otter, don't you know...

The only wildlife besides the millions and billions and zillions of mosquitoes I saw was a black bear.   Please don't worry mom, he was many yards ahead AND I was safely in my car...

Walt did have the amazingly, unbelievable experience of FEEDING a wolverine however...:) 

The main feature of the Dalton Highway was most certainly the Alyeska Pipeline.   It followed us the entire trip, winding across the tundra, traveling under the roadway and disappearing through mountains.   

We camped out by the Pipeline one night...

                                2:00 AM                                           9:00 AM

800 miles of Pipeline, carrying 700 thousands of barrels of crude oil traveling at about 4 miles per hour... I got this..

The northern most that Boyfriend and I got was Marion Creek, about 5 miles north of Coldfoot.  We totally forgot to bring the pack raft that was the main inspiration for the entire trip, but we still had fun hiking around nonetheless.  Alaska truly never disappoints me.

"Hey, why are ya'lls mountains flat on top?"   Oh tourists.  

In closing, North to the Future!   And also, I'm sorry to the millions of our state insect, the four-spot skimmer dragonfly, that I murdered on the 700 miles of the drive...