After 2 months away, I got to leave work four days ahead of Dave. I opted to visit a dear friend in Alaska and meet up with Dave for our long journey home when he got off work. Our friend Karen is an Ice friend from Marble Point in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica where she used to cook and Dave and I refueled helicopters. I stayed in her one bedroom one living room cottage next door to her cabin.
Dave and I have both stayed in Karen's cabin (behind us in this photo). It has a spectacular view of Denali and is always frequented by a wide variety of birds. We did a little weed picking this day.
Because she's close to the river, and in Alaska in general, there is always a need for a mosquito tent for outdoor time. We had dinners in here which was perfect for Covid and quarantine.
I had a blast watching the tree swallows and two woodpeckers flying about and eating all day. Beautiful!
We drove into town and admired the beautiful views along the way.
After a coffee, we went on a fern rich hike.
What a gorgeous place!
A sight for sore eyes after six weeks on a barren island.
Forget-me-nots in Talkeetna. What a soothing and wonderful time with an incredible friend. I'm thrilled that I went and there's nothing like being with a wise girlfriend in a beautiful setting as the cure for 6 weeks with oilfield guys. Just the best!
Straight home to summer with Dave. Breathtaking!
These lavender blossoms were in Boise. We had a couple sets of appointments there.
These beautiful poppies were in full blossom all over McCall. I picked some seeds from these for later.
We hiked the fish hatchery/rapid river trail until we saw a snake on the trail that turned us around.
This one is always gorgeous, every month of the year. It's 45 minutes north of us in Riggins.
We also sat by the salmon river in Riggins to enjoy some warm weather and sunshine.
Before the crowds, the summer in McCall was looking picture perfect.
Flowers near the lake.
It is another construction heavy year with a lot of big projects. They buried the power underground while we were gone on some of the main roads, including in front and behind our condo. It looks fantastic! They're also working on repaving the road and putting in sidewalks on both sides with paving stones, beautiful street lamps and even decorative trees!
The lupines in front of our condo were rich this year. We also saw yellow lupines in town this year!
We had North Beach to ourselves!
We also enjoyed the solitude of Rotary Park Beach. It has incredible views of the mountains.
Picking weeds on our property: 3 days of 3 hours each and there's still a ton left. A work in progress.
We hiked the North Fork trail in search of morel mushrooms. No such luck, but a gorgeous hike with beautiful views of the river along the way.
We also hiked up to Josephine Lake off of Warren Wagon road to try to catch the beargrass in blossom, which normally happens the first week of July. Spring was late this year so we saw some glacier lilies, a bit of snow and some shooting stars (the pink ones). These flowers are among the first to blossom after the snow melts.
Shooting stars, and below a patch of snow on the descent.
Our 2.5 weeks at home flew by in a flurry of color. We heard we missed a particularly wet spring with constant rainfall. We are so lucky and blessed to be able to see the fruit of all that rain in the richest most colorful blend of wildflowers everywhere we hike and bike.
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