eaglesshortly after our dad died came Christmas - I was given a stocking stuffer gift from Sally, a little macrome' Santa's head with googly eyes and a pair of glasses. If you squeeze it, it opens to reveal a Hershey Kiss.
She had cut out our dad's face from my favorite photo of he and I (a photo I keep with me on the road which you can see reflected in the windshield in the photo below) and placed it over the Santa face. Santa Dad has ridden in all my cars, first the mini-van, then it was shifted to the pickup when I brought that to TN, and then I was asked to get it back home so Holly could could carry him along for a while. Well, about the time the photo of dad and me was taken, I had just bought my first car and he was begining to realize that I liked driving even more than he did! We talked often of how nice it would be after high school if he and I went out to Alaska and then down the west coast to Mexico. Well we never made it. But Santa Dad did! Here is Santa Dad on the dash as I cruise past Santa's workshop in North Pole, Alaska!
OK Hol, he's yours next!
And also on the road . . . LOL! Be VEEEEEEEEWY QWIET, I'm huntin Wabbit!
Yesterday, because I was close enough to try it, I challenged another 300 miles of bad road and before it got too bad and I turned back, I made it to the Arctic Circle!
That road also pretty much parallels the Alaskan Oil Pipeline running from Fairbanks to Barrow, AK.
Back southbound rain clouds came in and I decided not to camp at the Yukon River :
I made it back to F-banks for a midnight snack at camp. Tired of these daylight midnight pix yet? I am!
In the morning it was south to the Denali National Park - on the way this is looking east at the Salcha River Valley
Just can't get away from those damn truckers! Here I am representin' North Dade FD in the real north!
Denali (the native name for Mt. McKinley) National Park stretched about 120 miles along the Alaskan Range with the 20,000' high peak at the western most end. In the park, however, you can't travel there by car - you have to book a $40 11 hour ride on a bus. No thanks. You can go in about 19 miles and here is part of the interior
I'll jump ahead to say after leaving the park I continued south towards Anchorage on the highway that parallels the park to the south. I was unimpressed by the fact that McKinley was obviously not as big and stand-outish as I had been told - I didn't see any peak I could easily identify as Denali! So I continued south until 30 miles later, my rearview mirror suddenly filled with a big honking MOUNTAIN! Needless to say I turned around and sped the miles back only to reach it and find that it had only briefly appeared out of its usually cloud cover! I sat there for 2 hours and this was the best I could do :
That is NOT Denali (McKinley) in the foreground, that is it 30 miles farther back with its mid-drift revealed but its peak covered in clouds!
OK, now for the money shot! I was driving along chosing some scenery to put to music when I glanced at a lake to my right (the north of the highway) as I traveled along the edge of Denali National Park. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a bird sitting on an iced over part of the lake. Two birds. One was big old gull.
The other, I'll be damned, looked like a Bald Eagle! I swung to the shoulder, grabbed my camera and huffed back about 200 yards til I spotted it again. I then moved another 20 yards throught the brush trying to get as close to the shore line as I could, as I got closer, I spooked him, but not til I got a great shot (this is cropped)
Ice Eagle :
He flew off and I got two blurry photos and then I stood around to see if he would return - he didn't and I backed out a little only to spot him again flying low across the water, this time with a fish in his talons. I tried to see where he went but lost him. I went back to the shoulder of the road and started hiking farther away from the car in the direction I last saw him - maybe he took it to the shoreline to eat? Another 200-300 yards and I heard the distinctive cry only to look up and find him and his mate perched at the top of a pine just 10 yards away (though about 50 feet high!). The shot of them together, and then I cropped a pic of just
his (?) head. Maybe they are two immature males? Cllecr or Hypnagogic? Barryk?
My best nature shots by far!
Denali Eagles :
Eagle Eye :
Wow, trip of a life-time fo-sho!
