Fun-filled Weekend

Saturday morning started out not-so-great. Nothing major, my patience with the pups was just wearing thin. And, I was tired of being stuck in the house. When Brent got home we decided to flee this popsicle stand and get out of town to do a little hiking/exploring. Since Willie is not-so-keen on traveling via vehicle quite yet, Ches got to sit in the passenger seat, and she thought she was super special. Which she is.

This is Donnelly Dome. Brent plans to reach the top of this mountain some time this summer. It's larger than it looks, I promise. Much larger. Since there is still snow, we decided to just visit some of the foot paths at the bottom of the Dome.

We decided to check out Donnelly Creek Recreation area to see how much snow had melted, and how deep the creek was. It was nice walking but there wasn't a lot of challenge, or much to see. We did see this cute little cabin. It is just big enough for a stove and a full-size bed. I think we might put one out back for a guest house. Wanna come visit? :)

This is part of Donnelly Creek. It still has some ice, but the water was flowing pretty good in the area closest to the road. Ooh, not long now...

This is the area where we were actually walking. It was pretty easy going, except for the snow. It's patchy, but the areas that have snow are still deep in some spots. It was a nice hike, we saw a hare, lots of moose nuggets on which Willie made himself a snack, and at the end as we were leaving we spotted a very fresh dropping of bear scat. Good thing we were heading out. It was a beautiful day, the temp hovered around 46 degrees and as you can see the sun was magnificent. Ooh, spring in Alaska is nice...so far.

As we were heading back to Delta we came upon this herd of caribou. They have the goofiest run, you really have to see it to appreciate it, but it's hilarious. There were about a dozen, but these are the only animals that stuck out in the open, the rest headed for the trees. So I snapped a few pics of them. They are very pretty animals.

As you can see here Willie was beat! That was a lot of hiking for that little guy. He crashed on the floor behind the drivers seat and slept the whole way home. A very peaceful ride home.

Sunday morning we woke to another nice day. The temps were slightly lower in the low 40's. We had planned to drive to a lake outside of Delta towards Tok but since Willie kept us up most of the night, and isn't the world's best traveler we decided to head out to the same area we were on Saturday and check out a couple other paths.

We hit our first path which led to a lake that Brent was determined to see. We came upon a couple of drop offs early on and I was ready to throw in the towel, but Brent was not. So we stumbled around until we found a walkable path downward.

Just as we hit a field near the lake Brent stopped short and told me to back up slowly. I followed his orders which staring straight into the face of a big ole moose watching from a stand of trees about 65 yards from us. I backed up slowly, as Brent tried to reign in the pooches as we continued to back up the path. Finally the moose retreated and continued to watch us from a safe distance until we looked up and he was gone. Thank goodness.

With that over we decided to forego our trip to the lake, as that was the direction that Mr. Moose had headed off in. So we decided to wander around the field. As we were crossing a large patch of snow we noticed some very large, very fresh bear prints. And we high tailed it back to the car.

On our new way up the hill we let the kids root around in a couple of caribou carcasses, which Willie thought was the best thing ever. Ches was rather uninterested, and just continued to sniff the ground in hopes of a hare to chase.

After we left the first path we headed up to a nice, leisurely trail which had a lot of snow. We walked up and down the rolling hills, and the pups loved it. LOVED it. All in all a nice day. On our way home we stopped to fill on gas and pick up fixings for dinner at the IGA.

The rest of the day was spent catching up on ESPN, reading The Shell Seekers, and periodically napping. A very good day indeed.

Have a happy day!