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Journal
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007 Would you like some salmon?  Awwwwww 
Comments Sunday, July 22, 2007 What? You were expecting this? Different bears have different fishing methods. At the falls, some stand at the top and wait for the jumping salmon while other sit at the bottom and prey on the salmon about to jump. Down river, bears seemed to switch between two common methods - the "jump wildly into the river and hope you get something" approach seen in the last post and this method that the rangers called "snorkeling". Snorkeling was usually followed by "jump wildly and hope you get something".  
Comments Thursday, July 19, 2007 These bad boys can move as fast as 40 miles per hour, and the water doesn't seem to slow them down too much. You don't want to be on the receiving end of this charge.   
Comments Tuesday, July 17, 2007 Bush fashion  This picture reminds me of astronauts or something :) but that's us heading out for a morning at Hallo Bay. Check out the monster tripod on the left ! Remember those head nets I mentioned?  And the ultra slimming rain suit and rubber boots? Note that we are standing in the mud and I'm smiling. 
Comments Monday, July 16, 2007 I had a half hour or so to kill on a flight today so I plowed through about 500 more images. Lots of out of focus bears, lots of bear behinds, but they are still awesome none the less. The flight attendant actually stopped by for a while and asked if 1) I was a bear researcher and 2) if I was a professional photographer. No, I'm just a freak traveling with dvd's of a few thousand brown bear photos.   (check - out - the - claws !!) She asked the question that I know my mom wants to ask, "How close were you??" To photographers, the answer is "somewhere between a 70mm and a 400mm lens". A 600mm lens would have produced some great closeups. Here is out of focus me with a big bear bottom in the background  And here's another one that is a little more representative of the experience. 
Comments Sunday, July 15, 2007 One of the first things we noticed in Alaska was the colorful blue lupins. These dainty little flowers escorted us everywhere - from the roadside to the trails when we went hiking. And no, they are not the state flower, which is the forget-me-not.  
Comments Friday, July 13, 2007 As I mentioned in one of my Twitters from Alaska, during our free day in Homer we hired a water taxi and took a hike to see the Grewingk Glacier.  The hike to the lake took about an hour and a half, and though the lush green forest was amazingly beautiful it was difficult to enjoy due to the voracious Alaskan mosquitos. While we were at the lake, the iceberg calved, launching an almost iridescent blue chunk of ice into the lake. When we returned home, Andy did some googling and learned that the color was because larger grain sizes of bubbly ice allow deeper penetration of incident light, and the reflected hue can vary from blue-green to blue depending on the color of the surface which underlies the ice. Huh. 
Comments Monday, July 09, 2007 I can't resist posting this one... 
Comments Sunday, July 08, 2007 We're back from bearfest 2007 and MAN was I happy to see it get dark out tonight :) I kid you not, it looked like 5pm when our plane took off at 11:30 last night! We arrived home this morning around 8am, realized we were actually sunburned, took much needed showers, and spent most of the day napping. We always joke that we need vacations after vacations, and this one is no exception.  More in a few days when the 8 gig of images are backed up... Comments Wednesday, July 04, 2007 Once again, the travel gods were with us and we made it to King Salmon. If you were following the Twitter feed (and could parse my random updates) you would know that the bush plane we chartered to take us from Hallo Bay to King Salmon this morning didn't fly (bad pun) due to weather in King Salmon. We were instead flown to Homer where we did some Amazing Race-type plotting and wound up flying back to Anchorage and THEN on to King Salmon. The irony is that this day was in our itinerary as a weather buffer :) So now the update on Hallo Bay...I won't even try to describe it with words so here are a few pictures.       Tomorrow morning at 9, weather willing, we board a float plane for Brooks Lodge. Rumor has it that the salmon have started running there so we are hopeful for at least one "bear in the river" photo which was the inspiration for this entire excursion. I am also hoping for calamine and a hair dryer while Andy is hoping for beer :) Happy Fourth! Comments
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 A picture every few days or so... 
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