SUMMER SOLSTICE

We've had a lot of trouble getting on Blogger and being able to save and post our adventures the last few days. I don't know if Blogger has been having problems or if our internet connection has just been too slow but it's working right now so maybe I can get something posted.
Sunday was the first official day of summer and here in Moose Pass, the weekend of the 20th and 21st was the 31st annual Summer Solstice Festival. We went down
Saturday to check it out and everyone knew we were OUTSIDERS (That's what they call people from the lower 48) because we had our umbrella. No self respecting Alaskan would be caught dead with one. If your going to live here, you deal with the weather. Besides, everyone we talked to told us how much better it was than last year when they had a very wet summer. Hummm, wonder what that was like since it's been cloudy since a week ago Monday with very little sunshine, then Sunday and yesterday it RAINED!!

Monday we decided we couldn't sit around another day so we took a ride to Hope. It's a very old "Gold Mining" town from the late 1890's. It's about 40 miles from here toward Anchorage on the South side of the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet. It is a very pretty drive on a nice two lane road. We got some real good views of "Sixmile Creek" and the Turnagain Arm. The tide was out and there were a lot of spots with the deep mud deposits left behind by the receding tide. We're going to look up the tide tables on the Web and try to get down there to watch the "Bore Tide" come in sometime before we leave Alaska.
Today we had some real excitement. We were sitting in the trailer waiting for the people to check out of Stellar Jay so we could clean it for the people arriving at 4:00 PM. Judy got out of her chair and looked out the window and to her surprise, there was a small black bear not 10ft from our trailer standing on his back feet checking out the mosquito catcher hanging in the trees. She turned around and hollered at me to grab the camera. Before I could get a good shot, he was heading back into the trees but I got a couple of shots of him leaving. How exciting. That is the first bear we've seen, although the local Alaskans around here have told us to be careful and to be on the lookout because they were around. I guess now we'll pay a little more attention to noises coming from the woods!!!