Goodbye and Hello

It was up early on our last morning, and pretty hard to find smiles:

 Heather, Steve, Susan

 Mac, Cally, Susan, Steve

Mac, Cally and Heather

28 hours after leaving Susan, Steve and Heather's home, we finally reached our place. After a fair bit of dozing in the sunshine we headed out for a walk to make sure no one had stolen Raglan beach while we were gone.

Last Afternoon

 

So what do you do on your last afternoon with your friends who you haven't seen for over 10 years, and won't see again until no one knows when?  Well, when your friend is a children's librarian you play with the left-overs from a children's summer programme activity, of course:

 

  

Thanks to Mac for these gorgeous photos.

Talkeetna

Thanks to Susan, despite having accidentally deleted a bunch of photos, I have a picture of Talkeetna where we spent our first night in Alaska. Thanks, Susan.

The Lady and the Tramps - and a Raven

So Heather insisted that we do this crazy tourist thing that she supposedly had wanted to do for a while. Susan agreed, so I felt I had no choice, but said Heather had to decided what I should wear - that was a bit of an error of judgement!  Still it was kinda fun, despite a feeling of desperate insecurity over whether I would fall off the very unstable box on which we were sitting, and / or whether my tits would fall out!

Afterwards I finally managed to get a photo of a raven - we had seen them lots, and we had taken some lovely photos of some in Juneau, but those were among the photos I accidentally deleted. The are rough and ready, very assertive, but gorgeous creatures.

Hummers in Fairbanks

Greg told me to watch out for Hummers, so this is especially for him:

Baby Hummer (note the number plate!):

Hummer:

Stretch Hummer - available for hire:

Alaska - Around the Seefeldt Home

 

 The Seefeldt house stands on a two acre section, surrounded by grass and trees. Because of the weather  people don't have flower gardens as we know them. many, including the Seefeldts, have potted plants and hanging baskets, and Steve has a thriving vegetable garden. The property is surrounded by native trees and plants including raspberries. It is very different from my accustomed environment, but very lovely too.