End of July Flowers

Until today the name of this lovely little flower had remained a mystery to me. Now, thanks to Heather W., it has a name: Dane's Blood, which is a type of clustered bellflower(Campanula). In other words, it's related to the one below.

Columbine

Governor's Picnic - Anchorage (Photos: GG Goss)

Photos from the Anchorage Governor's Picnic are by GG Goss and used with permission.

Piper's hair is courtesy of a booth at the picnic, btw.

Governor's Picnic - Wasilla

It has become tradition that the Governor of Alaska hold a Governor's Picnic every year. This year, they're being held in Wasilla, Anchorage, and Fairbanks. The site for the Wasilla picnic was Idita-Park.
I've seen this truck at several other events, but always love the artwork on the doors.
Lots of old and/or unique cars on display, including those representative of the Northern Lights Raceway, which is sorta between Wasilla and Glenn Hwy. off of Parks Highway. It's a gorgeous setting and well worth a visit if you've never been and like fast cars with personality.

One of the freebies being given out, no lie, at the event was roses, being prepared here.

I stopped early, then came back, but this was the area of the speaker's stand where our military was recognized later by the Governor.

The building adjacent to the park is the firehouse, which seemed to be showing off it's high-tech toys. They lifted the bucket up and down a couple times but not sure why. Maybe some intrepid reporter getting a bird's eye view of the gathering in the park?

This is one of the copters used to air-lift those in need to hospitals for care.

The view from the park.

This plaque stands near where the ceremony for the military was held.

Given Gov. Palin's newsworthy-ness, the media was out in force. I even saw someone who appeared to have CNN credentials.

There was musical entertainment throughout the afternoon.

Primrose? Rosie? At least I'm assuming that's the character's name as it was associated with the Primrose Retirement Community table. I met some of the residents and workers there at one point and really enjoyed talking to them. One of the residents I met was 94 years old and, I swear, had more energy left than I did.

Just part of the crowd. I've heard estimates of 1,000+ people passing through the park at some point.

More crowd and, see those balloons? Oh, man, the pop-pop-pop of bursting balloons was a regular sound all afternoon.

Can you tell I live in the Duct Tape Capital of the World?

Many of the local businesses were out in force trying to lure us into their stores with freebies. This is the Walgreens' table and, yes, I snagged a few freebies. Loved this store in Florida, so hope the new one here is as good.

By sheer luck, I happened to be loafing near the area where Sarah Palin entered. Here's Sarah and Piper as they arrived. They were quickly surrounded by a large group of police and what appeared to be private security folks. People looking very serious, anyway. I wasn't as close at it looks. Using the zoom.

Sarah's reached the crowd's edge at the point and is about to be surrounded. The police and security folks kept her moving at this point. I quickly decided I wouldn't be able to cut it as a celebrity cos the crowd pushing in on me would have freaked me out. I even felt squashed getting the next few photos, which I snagged on my way out.

The sweatshirt says, "Once a Patriot, Always a Patriot".

Okay, Sarah, can I have your earrings? I love turquoise, which the stones appeared to be.

The sorta hazy areas you see in these pix are where someone stepped in front of me briefly, quickly moving on before their form fully registered on the camera. Kinda weird, I know, but tho' I've done a good job of cropping out the other people here, it was a mob scene, so lots of that going on. Having had enough of the crowd, I escaped, but not before passing....

Okay, so where was Bruce Wayne hiding? Found his car, but never saw him or his alter ego, Batman.

Randomness in Wasilla

A little of this and a little of that

(Click for larger view, which is true of all entries)

An accidental snap that I quite like. Maybe cos it shows my occasionally off-kilter view of my world?

Columbine in my yard

Flowers at Windbreak, aka Trout House

Fireweed reaches for the sky.

Windbreak, I think.

I've got clover out the ying-yang this year. I like to think of this one as my Alaskan Crop Circle, tho' someone else noted it could be an Alaskan Fairy Circle, too. How cool is that?

Wasilla Lake: He must have been thirsty.

Cloudy day

I think the last three were from the Windbreak.

Not sure what this is but it's in my front yard.

Ego alert!!! Seriously, how cool is it to walk into the library and not just be able to find my book "Backstage Iditarod" on the shelf but find it shelved right beside of Gary Paulsen's "Winterdance," one of the books that started my journey to Alaska?

Fireweed outside my fence.

Flower baskets hanging in Wasilla.

Soaring free above Wasilla Lake

See the bee? I was stalking the bee.

The bee was winning.

What the....????

You sometimes run across the strangest things in unexpected places around here.

The scary thing is that I just chuckled and kept driving when I saw this, then realized I really should take a photo and had to back up.

A bit hazy, but still a lovely day at Wasilla Park.

This one seems to be in an odd place, sorta in the middle of the park at Wasilla Lake, but I must remember to come back in the winter and try for a photo of the contrast of the red against the white snow.

Taken the day of the Governor's Picnic, this side shows an excerpt from the Constitution while there's part of the Bill of Rights on the other side. It sits in Idita-Park, just down the hill a bit from me.

There, I think, were in the library flower bed.

Old cars on display at the Governor's Picnic.

I'm walking from my car to Idita-Park and snapped this as I crossed a little bridge.

I'm seriously bummed that tho' I found his car, I never did catch up to Batman at the picnic.

What can I say? We are the Duct Tape Capital of the World, after all?

I never caught up to this little red van when it was parked, but thought it was darn cute and a nice advertisement for Alaska's 50th Birthday of Statehood.

As long as I've lived here and as many times as I've been by this sign just west of KGB Road, I'd never snapped a photo of it until now. So, is it saying that Iditarod HQ is the "Sled Head-quarters"?