RVing in Alaska Day 2 Bus Trip to Wonder Lake

There several ways of seeing Denali National Park. The main road and the only road through the park is 92 miles long, the George Parks road, or just call it the Parks Road. It parallels the Alaskan Range and it is an amazing journey. During the summer, private vehicles can travel only the first 15 miles of the road to Savage River, and there are several pullouts for you to stop and take pictures. Beyond mile marker 15 at Savage River, you can take a bus, ride a bike, or go on foot, according to the Denali park web site. That is dependent upon what nature is doing in the park on any given day. If there is a caribou kill, or grizzly bear activity, there will be closures anywhere throughout the park that are posted on the Denali National Park website. Back to the road and traveling on the park road. You can see some wildlife usually, in those first 15 miles, but if you REALLY want to see some wildlife, it's a great idea to take a bus trip deeper into the park, which is what we did. Taking a bus trip is a great way and an environmentally friendly one, to see yet more of the park, and there are plenty of stops along the way for you to take photos and see things and use the bathrooms.

You can take a shuttle bus (not narrated) or you can take a tour bus which has a park naturalist on board who drives the bus and gives you lots of narration. Tour buses are tan, shuttle buses are green. We recommend taking cold weather gear and rain gear if you are there early in June, which we were there the first week. It started out cold (in the thirties when we left very early in the morning on the shuttle) and periodically it rained throughout the day. (it rains often in Alaska!)Here is a link to the different types of tours and shuttles. https://www.nps.gov/dena/planyourvisit/visiting-denali.htm

One of the stops on the shuttle bus tour

The shuttles are cheaper, make lots of stops just as the tour buses do, and in our case, we had a driver who did narrate and give us lots of terrific information. She was amazing! If you can be on the bus with Darlene Huss, you have a fantastic driver! We chose the take the shuttle bus to Wonder Lake, a glacial lake, four miles long and 280 feet deep, this is the next to the farthest bus trip into the park. In hindsight, we would not have gone as far as this as it was a 12 hour bus ride all day for 46.00 a person. The bus looks like an old school bus but has been outfitted with very comfortable seats. BUT--you could get off the bus at any of the stops, stay awhile, and pick up another bus if you wanted to to come back sooner. The number of hours was NOT a problem, there were plenty of stops, but at the end where Wonder Lake was, there was nothing there but TONS of mosquitoes, and BAD ones...no wildlife to see. No eagles fishing, because Wonder Lake was glacially fed and full of silt, and no fish were in it. No fish, no eagles. No moose, no critters. And by the way, you won't see very many eagles in Denali. Most of the rivers feeding the lakes are heavy with silt. So for the same reason there are no eagles at Wonder Lake, there are VERY few eagles in Denali National Park. However, we saw PLENTY of wildlife along the way, much earlier on in the park. Here is what we did see.....Right out of the parking lot leaving on the shuttle, we saw a mamma moose and two calves. The naturalist told us that moose calves have a 90% mortality rate. :-(  Moose eat 50 POUNDS of willow A DAY in the summer months!  We saw snowshoe hares, caribou on the gravel bars in the river, (there are about 2,000 caribou in the park). A little side note about caribou. Darlene, our driver, shared with us that caribou suffer the indignities of having a botfly infestation. Botfly larvae go into the muzzles of the caribou, then they grow and move into the throat, sometimes interfering with breathing. The caribou
about go crazy from the larva infestation and try to get on patches of ice to get relief from the flies...guess the cold ice helps. In July and August, they can be seen running wildly on the tundra, or shaking their heads violently or stomping their feet, trying to avoid the botfly.

We saw a Wilson's Warbler, a cross fox, which is a sort of hybrid fox with red and black fur, who crossed the road and went right along side of the bus, intent on a mission of some sort. He didn't even stop and look at us, must be used to the buses going along the road all the time. He really blended into the hillside!

We saw Dall sheep, kind of straggly looking and scrawny. We think they were young ones....It looked like a male in the front with his harem!

We saw THREE grizzly bears...a mama nursing her cubs....and one having a great old time in the meadow grasses...

 A magnificent creature, even from far away....

And here's the third.....

If you get lucky enough, you might get see a beautiful view of Mt. Denali. It's so covered up with clouds on so many days, only about 30% of the people get to see the summit. We did! See the mountains down low. Keep looking up and up, and there's the BIG ONE. Denali. We saw the summit on many of the days we were there. The views were spectacular. This photo just doesn't do it justice, but it shows the difficulty of photographing through and around the clouds coming and going constantly.

If you get lucky, you might see a wolf in Denali. Only 3-4% of visitors to the park ever see a wolf. We didn't, but we did see a rainbow on our way home from the park today, a beautiful finish to a long but wonderful day!

We thought that was the perfect ending, until Sparky saw this on our way out of the visitor center parking lot, as we were getting back into our car and heading out back to our campsite.....People were driving right by him and not even seeing him! He was in the bushes in the middle of the parking lot on a hill! Sparky made Eldo turn around and go back around twice. What a terrific day we had!

Next on tap, we leave Denali and head to Seward....See you later!

RVing in Alaska...Day 1

Our first day...We had picked up our Coachman Freelander 2015, 27 foot RV in Anchorage and decided to pick up a few groceries before heading out. It was late in the afternoon, heading towards evening, and our plan was to drive till we got tired. We had our Milepost atlas, and we knew of several stopping points that would be all right for our first night. We stopped at a Fred Meyer grocery store which was a really nice store, it had a terrific deli to stock up a bit. The rig had basic utensils, a toaster, a frying pan but very little silverware and dishes. There was no dish towel or dish soap, but there were plenty of linens and blankets for the cool Alaska nights, so we were happy about that. And off we went...

Remembering that in early June, sunset in Alaska was around 10:00 PM, we were not worried about driving after dark! After about 96 miles, however, we were pooped! We stopped in Talkeetna, a small town with a Tesoro gas station ( very common chain in Alaska) which had a little side RV site area with full hookups. There were about 7 or 8 sites. The mileage marker was 98.8. We would not recommend to anyone staying at this RV site even though the sites themselves were asphalt and level and had trees in between them. The gas station was a truck stop and in the middle of the night, rigs were pulling in and parking directly behind us in the long lane leading to the gas station. So it was very very noisy. We complained the next morning and the staff apologized. They said truckers were not supposed to pull in for the night behind the RV sites. Yeah, right! Try telling some burly truck driver not to park behind an RVer! We pulled out and headed for Denali, our only definitely planned stop for the nine day trip. We had reservations for three nights at Riley Creek Campground which was dry camping, no hookups. To get there, we traveled the George Parks Highway, or the "Parks" highway, a 327 mile highway from Anchorage to Fairbanks. It's a National Scenic Byway and passes through some of the most amazing scenery we have ever seen. It's a good two lane highway and has had improvements made to it recently. It's the most direct highway access to Denali National Park.

On the way to Denali, we started seeing views of Mount Mckinley, or Denali, in the distance. Denali is 20, 310 feet high. Some of the best views along the way are in Denali State Park, which you pass through on your way to the national park. We were really lucky to see the summit, it's rare to have completely clear views we learned later. We stopped off at the Denali Viewpoint South,  at milepost 134.8 and saw this.... First you see the mountains, and then, the BIG ONE!

The Denali Viewpoint South has a beautiful walking trail up to a better view of the mountain, and a glacier gorge below. There are restrooms here and RV spots to spend the night for a fee of 15.00. All along the drive, Sparky was consulting the Milepost 2016 atlas, getting great tips for driving and viewing wildlife.

Here is an example of how great this atlas is. The "A" refers to Anchorage, the 185.6 means that you have traveled 185.6 miles from Anchorage:
 "A.185.6 East Fork Chulitna Wayside to east, 0.5 male paved loop to rest area and overnight       parking with picnic tables, concrete fireplaces, picnic shelter, toilets. Popular stop for RVers. This wayside is located in a bend of the East Fork Chulitna River amid a healthy growth of Alaskan spruce and birch."  We stopped here for a picnic lunch, and it was wonderful!

And here's another one from the atlas, this notation was found on the Seward Highway section of the atlas. The numbers designate 109 miles out from Seward, and 17.8 miles from Anchorage:
"S 109.2  A 17.8  small paved turnout to the west. Fresh water spigot out of rock wall across the highway. (A dangerous spot to cross the highway on foot; lots of fast moving traffic.)"

And can you stand one more? (113 miles from Seward, 13.9 miles from Anchorage)
"S 113.1 A 13.9.  The first of several informal gravel turnouts used by rock climbers on the east side of the highway. Watch for rock climbers practicing on rock walls alongside the highway for about the next six miles southbound."
   
Riley Creek has a nice campstore, and the sites are level. There are three loops, we stayed in loop A. No complaints about our site...It's shady all over the campground, and the camp host told us there were at least two mama moose with calves roaming the campground, and if we were lucky, we might see them early in the morning or at dusk. The camp host also said she had been charged by the mamas several times when she was just out checking out the camp sites! Sparky was a little nervous about that, but during the whole time we were there, we never saw the moose until the last day. Our plan was to take the Denali bus trip the next day deep into the park so we settled in to the campground and decided to explore the nearby town of Healy. You can walk to town from the Riley Creek Campground in less than half an hour if you don't want to try and find a parking place for the RV, which can be problematic if you have a rig over 25 feet. We found a great place to eat called Prospector's Pizzeria and Alehouse. Terrific atmosphere, and the pizza was great! Sparky loved the antler chandeliers, and the whole place definitely had the Alaskan vibe. AND--they had 52 craft beers!

Come back and see us for the trip of a lifetime to the interior of Denali...Sparky hopes to speed up the events and blog more often to cover this trip.  Bye for now....

RVing in Alaska

So you are thinking about renting an RV to tour Alaska? There are a couple of ways you can do that...You can drive a new unit from Iowa or Elkhart, IN. You are basically delivering the RV from Iowa or Indiana to Alaska and you have two weeks to deliver it. Any time after that, you pay about 100.00 a day, according to one such arrangement. So you are paying the RV company their shipping charges and getting a vacation rental RV out of the deal. You pay for fuel, you pay for insurance, but you get the use of a new rig to go to Alaska, along with any possible snafus that come with driving a new rig long distances. And we heard of such an instance when we picked up our rental. A couple drove a brand new RV from Elkhart, IN to Alaska and on the way, had some major problems with the wall and the slide out coming apart, and a few problems getting someone to fix it on their way. But they were able to overcome that obstacle and enjoyed their trip nonetheless.

We aren't familiar with the arrangements to rent and deliver an RV from the midwest to Alaska, but do know that Winnebago, out of Iowa, is one of the RV companies which you can do that.

Eldy did lots and lots of research on the second way to tour Alaska in a rented RV. That way is to rent directly from an RV rental place in Alaska once you get there. We are not going to name the particular place we finally chose, because of all the legal ramifications that are involved with rating or  discussing our experiences, but think you will be able to figure it out by the time we are done. We chose to fly to Anchorage and rent an RV from there....

Now when you research different rental companies, and there are LOTS of them, there are all kinds of different charges for different things. Eldy investigated FIVE companies. Some companies charge for EVERYTHING in the rental--they charge you for linens, they charge you for kitchen ware, they charge you for a coffeepot, they charge you for extra insurance, some will charge for generator use by the hour, lawn chairs, cleaning charges, etc. Eldy found a company that did not charge extra for any of those things, nor did they charge for extra mileage. The price included UNLIMITED mileage, which was fantastic. Their rate also was half price, 160.00 a day up until June 15th. That included EVERYTHING, except for 11% Alaskan taxes. Good deal! Be sure to ask what models the company is offering. Some say "all new 2016-2017" but you don't know exactly what you are going to get till you get there. We were excited and booked an RV for nine days! Eldy then researched and researched air fares and the best, most economical way to fly.  He found a fare from Orlando to Denver, then Denver to Anchorage, for around 250.00 per person,  then double that for round trip. We thought that was pretty decent. Coming back, we flew Anchorage to Chicago, then Chicago to Orlando. He managed to find a flight to Anchorage that got us there at 2:30 PM Alaskan time so we could get an orientation for the RV and then be on our way....When Eldy researches, he truly researches. He investigated flying out of different airports from different locations, from different times of day, from the same airline round trip, to individual airlines single trip one way fares. Baggage fees? No baggage fees, he explored ALL the angles.

Day I--We arrived at the rental place. We found we were getting a 2015 rig, class C, which was no problem, not a new model that we thought, but it was actually bigger than what we had originally signed for, for no extra charge. It had 15,00 miles on it, so it had been out on the road and we were hoping that the bugs had been worked out it! We told the guy we had been full time RVers, so our orientation was VERY short. He showed us where to find different switches, and we examined the rig for previous damage or wear and tear and documented it with pictures on the phone. The one thing he DIDN'T tell us was that when dumping the black tank, there were TWO valves, one valve where you normally expect it, and one on the OTHER side of the coach that you had to open before dumping. (We found that out when we went to dump the first time on our trip and nothing happened. A few minutes later, when we looked under the rig, wondering why the heck nothing was coming out with the first valve wide open, we discovered a second valve to the dump tank line on the driver's side!)  The rig came with sheets, pillows, plenty of blankets, a small pot and pan and frying pan, a set of silverware for two, some kitchen utensils, a coffee pot, a toaster. It didn't come with soap, or paper towels, or a dish cloth, or anything to wash dishes with, so we had to stock up before heading out on the road.

Back to the paperwork...We had to sign and initial all kinds of warnings...we were responsible for the tires, if something happened to the windshield, we would be responsible for the first 600.00 of the repair or replacement, if we didn't dump the tanks before returning the unit, there was a fine. There were fines if you didn't bring it back gas full, water tank had to be filled, the normal stuff. There were highways that we were NOT allowed to go on, (the rougher, gravel highways) and we were NOT allowed to enter into Canada. There was even a hefty fine for writing and or publishing a review without getting it ok'd first. But we finally were ready to roll!

Before we roll and fill you in on our marvelous trip which is coming in the next few days, day by day, we want to let you know that there are some resources that we found to be invaluable if you are going to RV in Alaska, whether you rent, or take your own RV. The first one is an atlas called Milepost 2016. It's available on Amazon for about 24.00 and you can see it here....

This is a fantastic resource....The main highways in Alaska are marked with mile markers. They are not always accurate as road improvements are going on all the time up there, (frost heave and tough winter damage you know), but for the most part, the mile markers are what you watch for constantly. This atlas covers EVERYTHING you need to know about traveling the Alaskan highways--where the roads are bad, where to find the best chances of seeing wildlife, where gas stations and rest stops are, where the pullouts for viewing and staying overnight are, 30 major routes, 60 side trips, 100+ maps, AND an E-book edition comes with it, also histories of cities, narratives of where to stay, narratives about the areas, the sights to see while you are in the area, they truly cover EVERYTHING!

Sparky sat with this book in her lap most of the trip, calling out cool stuff that was coming up along the highway...where the pullouts were, (and there were TONS of them, many you could stay safely overnight as long as you didn't mind a little road noise) and although we had the e-edition, it was easier to look at and navigate a real book. The only downside to this book is the pages are VERY thin and tear easily. (Ask Sparky how she knows that!)

The second resource we purchased before the trip was this book....Kenai Peninsula Wildlife Viewing Trail Guide, as we knew we were going to be visiting the Kenai Peninsula. It's about 9.00 and was a great little guide.

This book has 65 viewing sites located throughout the Kenai Peninsula. They are all of the Kenai Peninsula's major wildlife habitats. Each site has a notable species list, the key to the site icons located on the back flap, land ownership information (almost all are on public lands), field notes which are background information of the geological features, dominant species there, the habitat, helpful hints (like dress in layers for wind and rain), and a section called "getting there"--the specifics for accessing areas, in some cases only accessible by ferry or plane. In addition, some of the sites have viewing tips such as "park back by the ferry terminal and scan the entrance to the harbor. Bring binoculars or a spotting scope to observe off shore activity." There's also a wonderful chart of the 12 months of the year color coded as to when to see wildlife...Example: caribou can be seen grazing in the Kenai Flats in August.

So-o-o-o-o-o...the trip of a lifetime began....and by the way, this was Eldy's gift to Sparky--a celebratory triip to celebrate Eldy's full recovery from open heart, quadruple bypass surgery...Yay!

And in the next few days, you will see our itinerary which unfolded day by day. We didn't really have one for this trip till we got there. We knew we had 8 full days to explore, we wanted to go to Denali, and we wanted to see the Kenai Peninsula and we knew we'd be setting off from Anchorage...So off we went.....

A Quick Trip to Houston

Sparky's little grandson had a birthday coming up, it was time to go see him! Sparky's daughter, Kerry, was a contestant in the Galveston Island Beach Review Contest, and Sparky was needed for support and grandson control! She was on it!

Kerry, third from the right

The Galveston Beach Review is a fun contest where the women dress up in vintage bathing suits and forties and fifties outfits during the weekend event and the contest officially sets off the summer season at Galveston Island. It's an annual tradition.  We arrived at Galveston Island the night before some of the contest events and prepared to check in.

What was weird was, the motel room, booked through Hotwire, was through a third party rental, so the hotel could not give us the key. And the hotel was a homeowner's association hotel, meaning lots of individual owners had individual rental agreements with different agencies on the island, which turned out to be problematic. We had to travel down the street to the rental place which was closed by the time we got there. No problem, they had after hours check in procedures, which Kerry had not been given by hotwire, nor had she been told of this different type of arrangement. We called the first number on the door, it was disconnected. We called the second number and got a voicemail message to call a third number. Mama Sparky called the third number and got a gentleman on vacation out in Vegas, wanting to know how we got his number. He was the owner of the rental agency and we were not supposed to have access to his cell number. Apparently, hotwire screwed up on that one. After numerous attempts to explain our situation, and by now it was getting dark and late, and we were getting grouchy and tired, the guy tells us a code number to use on a bike style lock on an old lockbox which contained our room keys to the motel back down the street. Only the code did not work. We tried for half an hour to get it open. No luck. Kerry tried for 15 minutes. Sparky tried for 20. We pulled and tugged on the lock, we tried reversing the digits, we tried turning the lock the other way around and doing the combo backwards. We reset the lock each time by spinning the tumblers. Again we called, we got the number for the rental agency. She said she would come out and help us. But she lived 30 minutes away...That's okay...we needed help!....Thirty minutes later, she pulls up, walks up the steps, looks at the lock, doesn't even touch it and says, "It's open."  "WHA-A-A-A-T?????"  Somehow, the lock had popped open. She drove all that way only to tell us and show us that indeed, the lock had popped open after 45 minutes of yanking and tugging on it. Sparky was mortified! There was NO WAY THAT LOCK WAS ABLE TO BE OPENED AT ANY POINT IN TIME WHILE WE WERE TRYING TO USE THE COMBO. We apologized profusely to the lady and got signed into our room. (more on that later) We stayed at the Casa Del Mar, a wonderful place and our little condo was beautifully decorated in a nautical theme, although the unit was VERY tiny. The Casa Del Mar people were absolutely wonderful in trying to help us with our problems with the rental agency. They were instrumental in getting us what we needed. The unit was wonderful, but didn't have enough toilet paper. The hotel doesn't furnish it for that particular room as it was a private rental through a third party, and the rental agency was supposed to take care those things. If you do book a place to stay on Galveston Island, be sure you know who controls the booking, who owns the booking. We were never told that the entire hotel was full of individual, homeowners association condo units, and so they were not able to take care of our needs as they arose. But they sure came to the rescue on more than one occasion during the weekend when they didn't have the responsibility of having to do so. We highly recommend the Casa Del Mar right across from the beach on Galveston Island and would book directly through them next time and not Hotwire.

After that snafu, we had a ball...Sparky was only there for three days...so we made the most of it...while Kerry got slammed up for the contest....The meet and greet was first...

While Kerry met the other contestants, Grandma took Barron to the beach across the street....He loved it!

He played and played by himself, imagining the "bad guys" coming in on the waves and jumping over them to avoid them. :-) Grandma made sandcastles with him...He could have stayed there for hours, amusing himself.

He watched his mom come down the steps to the beach for a group photo, all 40 ladies in the contest were dressed in their vintage bathing suits and pink bathrobes....

Here's Kerry slammed up in her bathing suit....

Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate much...by the time the actual bathing suit review paraded each contestant thru the stage, the rain started. :-(   But spirits were high, and Kerry had a lot of fun. As each contestant comes thru the stage, they pose different ways in the forties, flirtatious style of batting their eyelashes, twirling an umbrella or other such prop, smile and blow kisses at the audience, kind of like a Betty Boop style pose. The top ten have to answer questions from the judges. Kerry didn't make the top ten, but she really enjoyed the experience!

a beautiful mosaic tile bench on the beach commemorating the beach review

While Kerry was occupied with the contest and the events, Grandma took Barron to Chick Fil-A at least three times over the weekend, as it was within walking distance of the hotel where the contest was being held. Barron LOVES Chick Fil-A, and since he's a picky eater, that's where we went. Of course, Grandma likes Chick Fil-A too!

And of course, we spent lots of time together making silly faces at each other, which for some reason, Barron just absolutely cracks up laughing so hard at Grandma's faces...

We went to the Strand in Galveston Island, a shopping district of old stores and old streets. The Strand is very dated, the streets are hard to navigate with strollers or wheelchairs, the curbs are high, and they are just not very user friendly for the handicapped or for the elderly. They really need to do something about that. But the shops are great and have some beautiful merchandise. Some are very expensive, some are very touristy, and some are very reasonable. Sparky always finds something she would love to buy, but didn't buy anything while she was there. They also have some great places to eat, but we were conservative while we were there, and ate simply. We will have to explore that option another time, as Sparky LOVES to eat out and try new restaurants! But of course, we had ice cream at one of the cool candy/ice cream shops while we were there!


One of the district's storefronts.....

Here's Barron enjoying himself by a water fountain...He's such a cutie! Well behaved and very smart.

Here's Sparky enjoying a vintage phone booth at the Strand....Reminds me a lot of the phone booth on Dr. Who, only it needs to be blue!

Too soon, the weekend was over....As we went to check out, the rental agency charged us a 50.00 lockout fee. We weren't locked out, we never could get the lock to open and get the key!..Sparky was incensed! She talked to the guy at the desk, and told him the whole story how we couldn't get the lock opened, and then how it popped open just as the lady arrived to assist us, and he says, "Oh, yeah...we had problems with that lock just last night!" AHA! Ammunition...Sparky fought hard to get reimbursed for that charge, and finally, a week after returning home, the charge was reversed. Whew!

At any rate, it was a lovely weekend and too soon it ended....Kerry had fun...Grandma had fun, and Barron had fun....Time to head back home to Florida and get ready for our Alaska trip coming up within a week and a half! See you later......Bye bye, my favorite little guy.....xoxoxoxox

An Encounter with a Gator, the CLOSE Kind!

Sparky said she was going to tell you all about kayaking on the Braden River, so here goes....She's ready to go kayaking...

And because she's saving for a new kayak, she has to rent one. No better place to rent one than down at Jiggs Landing, which is a hop, skip, and a jump behind her subdivision. Jiggs Landing is a marvelous place, a former fishing camp that recently underwent renovations and got a family to run concessions. There are "throw back to the forties" fishing cabins, which are now getting AC to make them more comfortable. There's a new parking lot, a boat ramp, a nifty floatable kayak launch, a nice playground, and a beautiful boardwalk to view the wildlife from the reservoir, which leads out to the Braden River. Kayaks can be rented for 20.00 for four hours, a reasonable rate! They are short, though, only 10 footers, but that's a great size for just lazy day paddling along the river....The staff at Jiggs are very friendly, and keep a close eye on things.  One day Sparky went out with her brother when he came for a visit. We were going to paddle all the way to Linger Lodge, a cool old Florida tavern in an old RV campground with lots of taxidermy stuff, a big screened in porch and live entertainment. It's about a two and a half hour paddle. We stopped there, Charlie had a beer and Sparky had a root beer. As it was getting late in the day, Sparky's better half called Jiggs Landing rental shop and just said we might be a little delayed, since closing time was getting close. They are thinking, ok, drinking at Linger Lodge Tavern, we'd better check on them. We were almost all the way back, when here comes a pontoon boat coming up the river with a park staff member, looking for us. Guess they had some previous experience with drinkers along the river, but it wasn't us! We were fine..."You sure?" as he checked us out very carefully... "Yep! We're fine!"

Back to the paddle today....You never know what you are going to see....Sparky started out slowly up the river, (it's not much of a current), and she soon saw a flash of colors on a duck, it was a WOOD duck, one of the most beautiful ducks in duck world, in her opinion! Woo hoo! She loves these ducks! He was all by himself as far as she could tell.

On she went....There are beautiful plants along the river, sometimes Sparky will only see just one bloom of a certain kind....Sparky doesn't know the names of this one, it could just be a weed, but this one caught her eye....it was gorgeous!

A beautiful red cardinal.....

She saw a banana tree in someone's yard that lives along the river...Wonder if they taste good?

Some more beautiful river plants....

The reflections on the river were so pretty....

And get a load of this! Sparky was floating along and came up along side a tri-colored heron...she snapped the shot with her camera phone, and not till AFTER she got home and posted it did she notice the bird's foot clamped down on top of a turtle! Don't know if the bird was just resting, claiming the turtle for a later lunch, or if the turtle got away....Cool beans! (Doesn't Judy say that, of Travels with Emma fame?)

What else happened on this eventful kayak trip? (Uh, yeah, Sparky...remember your title? reminds E.)

Yep...Getting there....Sparky sees a gator...no big deal...Sparky sees at least one gator every time she goes on the Braden River. This one was about 100 yards in front of her boat. Sparky kept paddling. No worries, the gator will see her coming and slowly submerge to get out of the way before she gets close enough to take a good photo. He doesn't move... Sparky keeps paddling....He doesn't move...He is now directly in front of her kayak bow. Sparky gets out her phone and takes a quick photo. She is not sure what he might do, so she needed both hands on her paddle to be ready....But she's not worried. (Sparky is stubborn and is a little bit of a risk taker, explains Eldo.) Notice he said LITTLE bit of a risk taker. Sparky has seen and photographed LOTS of gators. They are NOT interested in a bright green hard shell kayak, 99.9% of the time. Sparky was NOT worried....He was not a huge gator. So she kept moving forward expecting him to submerge or swim away from her at any moment. He never did. Sparky went RIGHT OVER THE GATOR'S BACK and could feel the bumpy ridges under her seat as she went over him, (at least she would swear she could)..."OMG, I JUST RAN OVER AN ALLIGATOR!!!!!" That was a little bit unnerving to say the least! 

Nothing else can top THAT experience of the day! Only as she was floating by the shoreline (following it fairly closely after that unusual experience), she just casually glanced off to the right and saw another BIG gator sunning himself on a log, that one was less than ten yards from her.

It was a fabulous day on the Braden River today.....and exciting, too! The next time you see Sparky, she will be in Houston visiting her little grandson! Soon to follow that will be Sparky and Eldo heading to Alaska!   See you later!

Bike Rides are NOT Boring in Bradenton!

Hi, folks...Sparky's on vacation...NOT! Not really, just going to blog today in first person...Me, Jeannie Sparks, a.k.a. "Sparky." Well, time to post a collage or two of nature's beauty that I have seen in the last several months on my 12-15 mile bike rides a couple times a week in the residential areas of Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch, a beautiful master planned community adjacent to where we live.....These are some of my favorite photos..Got lots more...But thought it would be nice to collage a set, although you can't see all the details that way. The bee in the middle is having a "bath" in a magnolia blossom. He was just diving in and out and all around in the fallen pistols (?) stamens (?) or whatever that magnolia "stuff" is. Then, when he realized there was a great big HUMAN photographing him, he started doing a wild and crazy warning dance to another bee who had alighted on the same blossom, who didn't pay him much attention. Down on the bottom right, a young heron with an itch....

I have been really lucky in all the nature and wildlife sightings that have graced my bike rides. Most of the time I use my iPhone 6S for the closeup nature and flower shots, and for the longer distance sightings, I have used my little point and shoot Canon camera that has 30X zoom for quite some time now.  I'm not very happy with it because often the birds' feathers are washed out, but I'm sure that's the amateur in me, not knowing how to fix that...I know that time of day is very important, so I try to take photos early in the morning and near sunset in the evening, as those are prime times, but my photos still look overexposed many times.

I've tried experimenting with different settings on the point and shoot, but I can't seem to figure out how to get improved visibility of bird feathers with this type of camera. Years ago, I thought a Nikon SLR camera would be more to my liking, but it wasn't portable enough and I found that it was taking so much time to switch out lenses and get the right settings that I gave up. I'm not a very patient person on things like that. I needed something a lot more simpler to grab and go, so I'm back to the Canon SX500 IS that I use, and my iPhone 6S, which takes amazing landscape and amazing close up photos. Some day I will upgrade my point and shoot again, and hope for a little better quality of detail on my photos when using that kind of camera. But I am REALLY happy with the iPhone 6S. Twice now, my iPhone photos that I submitted to a local newspaper were chosen to be featured as the photo of the week. Here's my latest chosen photo, a bee on a bristlecone flower, taken with the iPhone 6S, and published in the Observer, our local weekly newspaper.

When you are retired, you can stop and look at the darnedest things that capture your interest, just because you can. Sometimes, it's the bees on the flowers that captivate me....

Sometimes, it's the patterns on water or leaves that interest me.....

At any and ALL times, it's roseate spoonbills! (Yep, can't tell you how many times Sparky has yelled, "STOP! There's a spoonbill! Stop the car!" laughs E.) Just today, I happened upon a flock of seven spoonbills at a local park here in Sarasota. I have not seen a flock of spoonbills in over a year, maybe two. Just one here or there, but today, there were SEVEN of them! They were in a ditch over at Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota, by UTC mall, having a feeding frenzy, not seeming to mind that people were walking by not too far from them. Usually, spoonbills are quite the elusive bird, and skittish around people. Not these....Here are three out of the seven....

Captured this spoonbill shot at a marsh that I ride by at least three times a week. It's on River Club road, in and around Lakewood Ranch, part of my 12-15 mile ride that I do about three times a week.
This is with my Canon point and shoot, 30X zoom...No doctoring at all of the photo...natural light, that's the bird's actual colors, everything just came together on this one.

I always see tricolored herons on my ride....

And a new batch of sandhill crane babies with their mom and dad....In case you missed them, they are at the bottom right of the photo....

The one day I was watching these little cuties late in the afternoon......

A small herd of deer passed directly to the right of me and crossed over the road to the other side...I have never seen a herd of deer, not even one or two deer in this residential area in the three years I've lived in Bradenton!

Saw this egret and spoonbill together in the same big marsh one day, that I pass by every time on my bike..It's a big marsh on River Club Road in Bradenton in Lakewood Ranch. Usually WONDERFUL sightings there, but not always...

A wonderful place to observe wildlife, Bradenton really has it all......You just have to keep your eyes open to see it and take your time....Until next time, when Sparky gets out on the Braden River to kayak!  See you later!