Dumpling Soup (TJs cookbook series)

Dinner tonight, courtesy of Trader Joes Cookbook (thanks Kim!). I substituted my mom's homemade pork gyoza for the TJs gyoza, and sauteed them with some sliced onions and frozen Harvest Hodgepodge. In the meantime, I heated up a carton of the TJs freerange chicken broth, two eggs, a little soy sauce, and wakame (seaweed) in a pot. Added the gyoza veggie mix to the pot when the gyoza was cooked through. Added a bit of sesame oil, and voila!

Tall ships festival (San Pedro)

Operation banana

Kitty fishing

Flora of Colorado

Kirkland museum

One of the first things I did during my sojourn to Denver was visit the Kirkland museum, chock full of decorative arts of mostly the 20th century, as well as works by its namesake, Vance Kirkland. I had no idea of who Kirkland was prior to my visit, but he is apparently Denver's premier artist, who is possibly most famous for his "dot" paintings.

Kirkland would suspend himself from the ceiling via these straps, so that he could hover over his works in progress and create his perfect dot shapes.

Works by other local artists were on display as well.

Old Bryn Mawr dormitory furniture (circa 1938)

Musk Ox Farm

If you are not aware of this already, musk oxen are some of the neatest animals ever. In Alaska, they're mostly confined to Nunivak island, but you can also see them at the musk ox farm in Palmer, where their unusually warm and quality qiviut are harvested as a source of subsistence income for Alaska's native populations: workers pick up the wooly hair and give it to the native people to knit really expensive things with, so they can earn a living.
In the wild, each herd has one dominant male. This male is responsible for siring ALL of the calves. When encountered by an enemy, the herd forms a ring. The males (and some of the strongest females) face outwards, with the babies and females tucked in the middle. They will then send out their dominant male to fight the enemy. When he tires, he returns to the ring, and the next dominant male is sent out to continue where the first left off. It just so happend that the several-years-dominant male at this farm was recently deposed by an ox named Goliath (here he is below, stoically keeping watch at his fence).

Making eye contact with these guys freaks them out, so you're never to bend down to their level.
This guy is named Ferdinand. He was really itchy and was scratching every part of his body against the fence.

Happy birthday Kim

Cyndi's center-filled birthday cupcakes - so cute!

What is missing here is a picture of the tray of 1000 pb&j crustless sandwich ravioli rounds...

O'Malley in the living room



Although my plan limited the catnip mcnugget doobees to four (one for each cat is more than enough, right?), Jana in all of her deviltry thought that it would be best if the cats were extra extra tweaked for the night, and brought six more! - and in addition, a way awesome fishing-pole-like contraption from which the nuggets could be dangled teasingly in front of them. I suppose its only fair to note that she had no idea I was bringing nuggets as well - but this doesn't change the fact that she still wanted them more stoned than I. In the end, it was mcnugget madness.



Jerry sniffing at the catnip mouse while O'Malley looks on...

Hatcher's Pass

Hatcher's pass (near Palmer) consists of an old mining town, as well as some highly recommended hikes which we unfortunately weren't able to do since we were short on time - you can supposedly find berries to eat along the way...
I finally saw a couple of hoary marmots (I had all but given up on seeing them at this point) on the way to the mining town.
Ruins

Denali NP

On a hike on the outskirts of Denali NP - we saw this moose and its calf peacefully enjoying their bath in the lake... We ran as fast as we could down the trail to the lake, and stealthily approached them for a better look - they were not alarmed, although we were quite close. It was quite magical. Naturally, our camera batteries ran out so we couldn't take any pictures of our encounter.
From the shuttle bus, which we took to Eielson visitor center, about 4 hours into the park. You can ask to stop virtually anywhere and go off on your own for as long as you wish.

Dall sheep on the hill (see other post for other animals seen from the bus)

Matanuska glacier

Drive to Matanuska glacier, one of the glaciers that you can pay private landowners to walk upon. Getting closer...
Glaciers are really slippery to walk on. I tried to stay on the gravel as much as possible.

Scenic Alaska

White peaks from the plane
Seward highway w/ Alaskan railroad
Random seaside road in Seward


In 1964, Alaska had a 9.4 magnitude earthquake - the earth sank 7 feet and the salt water killed the trees, which you can still see standing in the marshes along the road near Portage...
Random shots from the road...

Alaskan flora

Alaska fireweed (fireweed flavored ice cream is rather tasty too!)This gorgeousness can be found along the upper section of the Healy overlook trail (Denali Natl park entrance)Flowers of the delicate Alaskan tundra (Eielson Visitor Center area, DNP)
It apparently gets really purple later in the summer, with flowers like these, and a couple of other purple varieties:
Random bits of nature captured on the journey...

Kenai Fjords National Park Pt. 2

Kenai Fjords National Park visitors center
Pretty views on the Harding Icefield trail
Who did that?
This is fairly common too (Moose!)
This is where we had to stop, since there was alot of water gushing over the steep trail... It was 3.5 mi to the icefield, but the staff told us that the trail was still snowed over at 1.5mi in... Hard to believe, with all of the lush greenery early on!