Eagle River Nature Center Adventures

The boys and I went to the Eagle River Nature Center in a narrow canyon of the Chugach Mountains East of Anchorage this past September. The leaves of the Aspen were bright yellow-orange in stark contrast to the deep greens of the black spruce trees, the fireweed had gone from bright pink flowers to magenta stems, and the wild roses had dropped the petals leaving only the hips behind. To my surprise, there were still some salmon in the stream and where there are salmon, there will be bears as evidenced by their "droppings". I guess I could have taken a photo of it for effect, but I didn't, so you can breathe easy now. LOL Anyway, we went on a short 3/4 mile loop trail from the Eagle River Visitor's Center that takes you down to a boardwalk viewing area where you can watch the salmon swim and/or spawn. There is also a beaver den in the river, but we didn't see any of them froliking in the water.

Here is a picture of the view from the boardwalk. It's breathtakingly beautiful.

This is as close as I could to getting my boys to smile for the camera. LOL

.Cedric and Blake watching the fish

.Salmon swimming in the currentCedric pretending to be a salmon swimming in the water.

Cedric and Blake boldly march down the trail.

Blake didn't take these binoculars off his eyes for almost the whole walk

Lunchtime....finally...they worked hard from their grub. LOL

After filling their bellies, the boys got silly.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Halloween is usually snowy, cold, and/or blustery in Anchorage. That was not the case this year. Cool morning showers gave way clear, sunny skies and relatively warm temperatures for this time of year. My car read 45 degrees! What does this all mean? Well...this is the first year I was able to take both Cedric and Blake trick or treating around the neighborhood. We went to a few neighbor's houses, then came home to watch all the other trick or treaters and to eat some of the loot....errrr...I mean so the kids could eat some of their loot. ;-) Here is a picture of Cedric and Blake fresh from collecting their trick or treat loot.

Cedric in full batman regalia

Jim and I dressed up as 80s punk rockers. Why should the kids have all the fun?

Jim in his full costume. Some of the kids thought twice about taking candy from him. More for us! LOL