Snowy Day View

This was the view on Friday as Pat and I headed toward Anchorage to catch Day 1 of the Rondy. Honest, there are mountains over there, big ones, but this was what we were seeing as we headed out Parks Hwy. toward the Glenn and Anchorage. To see the Rondy shots, see http://backstage-iditarod.blogspot. com

Tuesday Afternoon in the Cold

Since I was driving right past Iditarod Headquarters, I made a brief detour into the parking lot and snapped a few pix.
This seems to be a model of the safety cabins that have/are being built along the trail.

I thought there might be a musher hanging out for EKG's but not much going on out there.

On the other hand, I'm wondering whose car is slowly being buried in the snow. Maybe a vet tech's car? They may be off to the Kenai or Fairbanks doing testing. Oh, won't they have fun when they get back.

Cruising further out the road and off the beaten path just a bit, I love this fence.

And, finally, some pretty scenics of the mountains.

Hearing the "Call of the Wild"

http://www.johnhartstudios.com/ckennel/2011/02/monday-february-21-2011.php

Off to the big city

Anyone wanna guess where lunch was today?

Inside Humpy's it's quite festive.

The ultimate goal today was to go to 6th Avenue Outfitters, which is across from Anchorage's Town Square. Unfortunately, no sooner had I discovered that their ice sculptures were, indeed, still intact, then the Olympus camera decided it'd had enough of the cold (single digit temps, tho' on the plus side!) and went on strike, tho' managed to snag this one shot after warming up the batteries in my pocket at lunch.

Heading home, the mountains, straight ahead, are calling me home.

The view as you drive from Anchorage to the Valley is always spectacular, even moreso when the skies are blue and clear.

The view from the PetSmart in Anchorage.

Panning the camera around to the right just a bit...

"Unzooming," if there is such a word, for the wider view across the parking lot to the mountains beyond.

An A.D.D. Kinda Day

I've often joked that I was A.D.D. before there was such a thing and today's photos sorta illustrate this as I zigged and zagged from one thing to the other. Pretty day, tho', and I had fun, which is the important thing, I'd say.

The view heading down the hill.
The view from down the hill as I'm closing in on the Main Street intersection from a side road.

Oh, pretty buildings.....look, look, look!

Oh, pretty lights in the pretty fake-front building...look, look, look!

Oh, doggie tracks....look, look, look!

Oh, Betty's spruce tree...look, look, look!

Oh, SUNSHINE!!!! Look, look, look!

Oh, blue skies....look, look, look!

Oh, mountains ... look, look, look!

Oh, snow hanging off the roof... look, look, look. And this one reminded me that it was cold out there, so I went indoors and downloaded these to share before I saw....Oh, shiny! Er, before I saw something else to distract me. Ha

I needed a "mountain fix," so....Hi, Hatcher Pass!

This one's for you, Kathy. If you look closely left of the path, you'll see that someone else forgot the rule about staying on the nice, hard packed path, too.

Somewhere under all this snow is the mighty Little Su.

Most of you won't know what I'm talking about, but for those who do, dang it, the "Hobbit Tree" is gone. Too snowy to tell if it was taken down or just gave way under the snow and all the winds of late, but I missed it immediately.

Sunshine, lots and lots of sunshine.

View into the sun and down into the Valley.

Nearing Hatcher Lodge

The big building is the Lodge, the smaller ones are rentals for skiers or whoever wants to explore a bit more.

Even the dogs were having a wonderful time and, no lie, one of 'em was named Juno.

Click on this one to enlarge it and see if you can find the line of folks making their way up the slope with snow boards.

Oh, okay, this zoom should help.

And even more zoom....

I sat there watching for a long time, hoping they might get to the top an decide to come down somewhere where I could see 'em (I had the Flip camera) but they kept going out of sight from here. By the way, only two had made it to the top by the time I saw 'em the first time, then went on up to the parking lot just past the Lodge, snapped around there, and made my way back down here....to sit some more. I don't know the elevation of this particular mountain, but it's a huge climb!