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Monday, September 27, 2010

AK Memories

I have finally put together my photo album, it ended up with 400 photos. We took most of the photos to Walmart to be printed and a 100 photos to Walgreen, Walgreen's photos were much brighter.

I have also made my fabric memory book.It has five pages and the finished size is about 7 by 12 inches, the pages increase in size front to back so the trims of each page show.

I printed a few of my photos of Alaska on fabric to add to the pages.


Each page has a trim that reminds me of the trims the natives use on their costumes.



This one has a sample of musk ox yarn, that I knitted up. It is very expensive yarn, it is supposed to be the warmest and softest of the wools. My little sample cost $3.




I have beads, antler buttons as well as my pin collection on the pages. The fabric I bought from quilt stores in Alaska and each has an Alaskan theme.

I backed each page with interfacing rather than a batting so it would lie flatter or hang nicely.






The pages are hinged to a piece of antler using ponytailers.

I enjoyed making my memory book, it went together quickly.
I met up with my girlfriends Thursday to have a nice visit.
This morning we picked up the RV from Freightliner where we have the oil changed then we took it for two new front tires, one had developed bubbles. So most of the RV maintenance is done, I still have to clean it good.
Our weather has been perfect the last few days and looks to continue for several more. Ken has been cleaning up the flower garden and the yard. We'll have several bags to take to the town compost place.
So we have been busy, but we are enjoying the fall weather too.
Happy Birthday Jim!!!






Monday, September 20, 2010

Smithville birding

We heard about a stray bird usually found in Alaska had been seen at Smithville Lake.
So Sunday we decide to go over and see if we can spot it, it's supposed to be a long-tailed Jeager.
We see hundreds, maybe thousands of Monarchs in the air and on the flowers but few birds.
Butterflies were everywhere, like these little hairstreaks puddling. Still no Jaeger we did spot the Ospreys it is supposed to hassle and a Forester Tern.
We had a storm go through Sat. night, at our house we had some rain but other parts of the north land had hail and micobursts. Smithville Lake was hit with one of the micobursts part of a marina was hit.
Today, we heard on the news about a fire in Harriman, UT where Ken's son lives. It turns out two of the houses burned were right behind him, his house is fine. Luckly they were not home at the time of the fire.
I'm still working on sizing pics to get printed, I'll have more then a 100 to get printed. The best of my photos I have on my flickr site, remember you can just click on one of the pictures or the flickr bar to get to my site.


Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Back in MO

We are back home, it's nice to see how our flower garden fared without any tending, not bad actually, it's a bit weedy as expected. It is also nice to see the butterflies, we haven't seen many on our travels especially the beautiful monarchs. It's time for them to migrate south.
I have started to catch up on the laundry, I hadn't done any since we left Skagway. I'm also unpacking all the things we collected on our trip and then I'll get busy and give the RV a good cleaning.Here's the bits and pieces I collected on our trip, I have around 40 pins, fabric and bone buttons for a memory book I going to make. I'll put many of the pins in the book and some on a wall hanging I made a few years ago.
I'm not sure if the cats are happy being home as they have been hiding and off their food. I'm sure that it won't be long and they will be back to normal, just in time for us to head south.
It's nice to live in a small town where the postman will automatically start bringing your mail to your box . We weren't going to start up our delivery but we got mail today.
(Ah, thunder, it seems cool wet weather follows us. )
I'm working on resizing some of the thousands of photos I took on our trip to make prints, I like to have prints in a book I'm old fashion in that way. It's hard to pick out only 100 or so from so many photos.
I did make a couple of Walgreen photo books for the grand kids, one was about Grandpa's trip to Alaska and the other about Eddie the duck and the friends he made on the trip.
I just watched a cute short on the CBS news on birding, the great Texas competition of who can spot the most species in a 5 day period. A Mr. Baker is usually the winner this year he had over 300 species. That's almost our lifetime total. The birds are migrating, time to get out there. I haven't taken time yet to total up the new birds we saw on our trip, but it will be over 40 new species.
Well, back to selecting photos.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Pausing in CO

We had a nice visit with the grand kids in Vegas and we are back on the road.
We traveling on I-70 and started at it's beginning in UT, the scenery was awesome I just wish I my photos I take thru the window would show just how beautiful it is.
Tonight we have stopped in Fruita, CO the gateway to Colorado National Monument. We had time before dinner to take a short drive thru part of it.This is a photo of Independence Monument.
Colorado Nat'l Monument will be celebrating it's Centennial all next year.
We are going to stay another day if we can keep our space for another day and explore the rest of the park.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Vegas visit

I have finally got the chill out of my bones from our trip to Alaska. It is in the 90's here and I'm enjoying the bright blue sky.We have been visiting Ken's daughter and grand kids, we've gone to Costco and a soccer practise the two younger ones play, the older one did but now would rather read a book.
We are staying at Sam's Town RV park, haven't gone into the casino yet it's just a close and convenient place to stay. I think we are heading north tomorrow.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Ely, NV

We took a ride on this train this morning, it was a short ride but Ken had a good time getting photos. Then this afternoon we drove to and through the Great Basin National Park. Nevada's tallest mountain is in this Nat'l park, Mt. Wheeler, it has a little permanent ice a reminder of the glaciers that once covered the area.
We spotted a couple of new birds the Mountain Chickadee, and Crossbill.
When we visited Antelope Island in Salt Lake we saw 3 new birds. Antelope Island is a large island in the Salt Lake and it is a Utah State Park. It has a large herd of bison and antelope and an interesting history of cattle and sheep ranches.
We didn't take a dip in the lake there were a few out.
Nothing really lives in the lake but brine shrimp which many migrating birds love, we saw ibis, curlew, stilts, avocets and a new shore bird for us phalaropes which are really fun to watch as they swim around in a tight circle.
Tomorrow we head south again to Las Vegas for a couple of days to visit more grandchildren.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Salt Lake

We are now spending a few days in Salt Lake.Here's Grandpa enjoying his grand kids and he has another grandson on the way in a month and half.
During the day we have been going out on our own, we visited Bear River National Refuge but was disappointed it's auto tour road was closed for construction. We did see some Cranes, Ibis and pelicans fly over and we learned that the area is a nesting spot for the White face Ibis and the Avocets. We will have to plan our next visit for May to see the migration.
We have also gone to the Golden Spike Nat'l Historic Site and watched a demo of the steam engine Jupiter.