Happy 2015!!

Hope you all have a New Year filled with happy moments and treasured memories. 

We have really enjoyed the holidays but I'm glad to get back to our normal routine.  I love celebrating with friends and family but I'm not much of a shopper.  I would rather be out walking a trail than the mall any old day.

These pictures are from our most recent hike back in November the day after Thanksgiving.  We live only about 50 miles from The Creole Nature Trail in Southwest Louisiana and usually visit here once or twice a year.

There's a wooden walkway with an observation tower where you can look out over the marsh.

I love the colors of the different grasses and the way they look blowing in the wind. 

This day the wind was very strong. 

I don't know the name of this grass but it must have been about 10 feet tall and very thick. 

   We were pretty far from this pond so I couldn't get a good picture of the ducks.  There are usually roseate spoonbills here also.  We did see one flying but he was so far away that I didn't get a picture.

 It was nice being able to get out and walk after our Thanksgiving feast!

We only saw one alligator and we could just barely see him.  He was all tucked in so we almost missed him completely!  I always thought alligators hibernated but actually it is called "brumation” which is somewhat like hibernation, but not really.  The alligators don't sleep during this process, they just slow their metabolisms down, becoming inactive and stop eating as they wait for the weather to warm back up so that they can go about their daily routine.  On a warm day during the spring or summer you can usually see quite a few of these guys.

With the cold weather moving in "brumation" is sounding like a good thing!  We're expecting a low of 26 degrees which is quite chilly for us!

Hope you are staying nice and warm and enjoying the beginning of 2015.

Alaskan Cruise - On to Sitka - Our Second Port of Call

We left Juneau at 6 p.m. and headed for Sitka for our scheduled 8 a.m. arrival the next day.  The scenery between the two places was pretty spectacular! 

The next morning I woke up early as usual.  For one thing sunrise was about 4 a.m.  At home I’m usually up at the first sign of daylight if not earlier so it was very hard for me to sleep past 4.  After having a cup or two of coffee to get me going, I headed out to the deck and took picture after picture as we cruised into Sitka.  The sunrise was just beautiful!

There were fishing boats all around us. 

Near Sitka there are many very small islands and beautiful homes.

I think Sitka was probably my favorite of all our ports of call.  It was so clean and pretty with beautiful flowers planted everywhere and Russian architectural design seen in houses, churches, and other buildings around town along with totem poles and memorials honoring the original settlers, the Tlingits.

We visited the Alaska Raptor Center where we were able to get some pretty good eagle pictures.  
I'll be posting these soon.

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 I love this time of year – the colors of fall but especially the food of fall – pumpkin, sweet potatoes, fresh apples, and almost anything with cinnamon!  One day this week I made Pumpkin Cornbread, Pumpkin Caramel Cake, and Pumpkin Bread.   I’ll share the Pumpkin Caramel Cake recipe soon – it was very good!

Oh how we love pumpkin season.  

You did know this gourd-ish squash has its own season, right?

 Winter, Spring, Summer, Pumpkin

Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer


Have a good weekend and enjoy this beautiful October weather!  

Juneau, Alaska - Salmon Bake and Mendenhall Glacier

After our morning excursion we headed over to the Gold Creek Salmon Bake which turned out to be quite a treat!  I wasn't too sure after reading some of the reviews, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Thankfully the weather was nice because it was all outdoors.  There are translucent canopies over all the tables and food areas so I'm sure a little rain would have been ok.

We had salmon grilled over alder wood that had a delicious brown sugary/maple syrupy kind of glaze that was very good.  The sides included baked beans, couscous, scalloped potatoes, several salads, cornbread, and blueberry cake for dessert.

After you eat you can go to the campfire and roast marshmallows.  I could have sat here all afternoon but we still had another stop before getting back to the ship. 

We couldn't leave this place without walking through the woods to see the Salmon Creek Falls.  Another beautiful place to stop for picture taking. 

Oh - and we did run into a bear on the trail.  He didn't seem to be much of a trouble maker though!

Next stop - Mendenhall Glacier

We had our first glimpse of the glacier from the highway.  It's one of the few glaciers in Southeast Alaska that you can drive to.

Glacial ice at the face of Mendenhall Glacier has flowed for 200-250 years on its 13 mile trek to Mendenhall Lake.

We took a little hiking trail to Nugget Falls which is to the right of the glacier.  The waterfall drops 377 feet onto a sandbar in Mendenhall Lake.  It was so pretty to see the beautiful falls with the glacier in the background.

There's also a very nice visitor's center at the beginning of the trail but we didn't have time to go inside since our ship was leaving Juneau at 6.  Oh well, another reason for us to go back!

“A man who keeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificant by and by.”   

― Mark Twain

 

Thanks for stopping by and for all your nice comments.

We’ve already had a couple of cool fronts here in Southeast Texas and can’t wait for another one! One more week til Fall is officially here!  Hope you enjoy some peeks of fall soon wherever you are.

Jeanne

Juneau, Alaska - Our First Port of Call - Part I

While cruising the Inside Passage and nearing Juneau we were surrounded by beautiful scenery in all directions. 

Alaska's capital, Juneau, covers an area larger than  Rhode Island and Delaware individually and almost as large as the two states combined, but the population is only about 31,000.  There are no roads connecting Juneau to the rest of Alaska so the only way in is by boat or plane.  Ferry service is available for cars coming in.

We docked at 7am and departed for our first adventure of the day.  We went to a summer sled dog training camp where we learned all about dog sled racing and what a big thing this is in Alaska. 


For so many years dog sledding was used as the main form of transportation but now with planes and snow mobiles dog sledding has transformed into a huge sporting event in Alaska.  The annual Iditarod Race held in early March starts in Anchorage and ends in Nome.  It is often called the "World Series of mushing events"  or "The Last Great Race on Earth".   

Taking a break.  The white one was so eager to go! 

They all had their own little house with their name painted on it.





 



We even got to ride in a cart pulled by dogs.

This was my favorite.

They really seem to love getting their turn to pull the cart.  They each pull twice and then get to rest and a new team is hooked up. 
 
 You can learn more about Ititarod HERE.

  

Basic Musher Commands

Hike - Get moving
Gee - Turn to the right
Haw - Turn to the left
Easy - Slow down (accompanied by gentle pressure to the brakes)
Whoa! - Stop (accompanied by heavy pressure to the brakes)

 

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"To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful places in the world." — John Muir

Hope you have a good weekend and enjoy some time outdoors.  We've been sitting outside a lot lately watching the humming birds as they get ready to head south.  They are very entertaining! 

Jeanne 

Tracy Arm Fjord and Sawyer Glacier

After cruising through a very foggy Pacific Ocean where we heard the fog horns blow every two minutes, we finally started seeing clearing skies and mountains off in the distance.  We were in Alaska!!   

Stephens Passage was where we first started seeing beautiful scenery and whale action all around us.  

We started seeing an occasional ice berg as we cruised through Holkham Bay and headed towards Tracy Arm Fjord, which was one of the highlights of our trip.  The Fjord is probably about ½ mile wide and is surrounded by steep mountain peaks that reach over 7,000 feet.  They are covered with lush green trees and shrubs and many waterfalls. 

  

 The smooth as glass water is a beautiful jade color and is dotted with lots of floating icebergs.   

At the end of the fjord we came to the Sawyer Glacier and were able to see a few big chunks of ice break off and fall into the water.  The sound of the ice breaking is like hearing a gun shot.  Pretty amazing!

After leaving the fjord we headed north towards Juneau and were treated to a beautiful Alaskan sunset.  Unforgettable is all I can say!

                                

 

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…. [we left] feeling that, whatever the future might have in store, the treasures we had gained this glorious morning would enrich our lives forever.” ~ John Muir, Travels in Alaska 
 

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