For quite some time Wally has talked about redoing the driveway. It is a big project but today seems to be the day... good bye to the old asphalt. It will be replaced with concrete. It may take a while to get the whole driveway poured (a few days, likely) but it will sure be a wonderful improvement! What a hard working guy!
Hauling it away - I think it was about 10 loads they had to haul away. 
Many thanks to my sister-in-law Martha for picking some chokecherries for us while we were in Alaska. They are small dark berries that are not good at all to eat unless you turn them into chokecherry syrup! Wow, with the addition of sugar (I won't tell you how much..) it makes the most wonderful syrup for pancakes and waffles! I'm not all that fond of the canning work, but I did get a nice 1/2 dozen pint jars. Delicious!
My own personal labels generated from my computer. I think they are cute.
A quick picture of some recent garden produce. The cherry tomatoes are especially tasty!
It was a perfect day to get the pontoon on the lake. I hate to admit this but this was the first day this summer that we did so! It was warm, sunny and relaxing. 
We weren't the only ones enjoying this beautiful day. Can you see Mr. Bald Eagle up there soaring around? We saw some in Alaska but how great to see the ones that share our town! The next picture shows him up close..
Ah, a great day to soar!
Here are a few more wide pictures from my camera using "stitch a picture". The first two are taken while we were on our ATV ride adventure near Copper River, Alaska. You really have to double click on them to get the full benefit. There are mountains in the distance in the top picture.
This was the view of the river - and we rode down quite a fun trail to reach the river.
This is NOT Alaska. I took this last year but never had it merged into this long picture. Do you know where it is??
This was so much fun and much better then I expected! We signed up for a river adventure - not a very rough one, but the guide could see the men (Wally, Dan and Richard) were really game for some rougher water and, I think, he realized that Denise and I were not as wimpy as we looked.... so he guided us into some great spashes! What a riot! We were all bundled up in some awkward wet suits (and, of course, our life jackets). It was tons of fun. (The two people in the back of the boat were folks we didn't know.) We rafted about 12 miles down the Nenana River near Denali and enjoyed some fresh early morning air and clear skies. Very picturesque but it wasn't prudent to bring our good cameras! Dan and Denise each brought a disposable camera that can get wet, so I hope we got a few good pictures from them. I wish we had done this kind of thing when our sons were boys. It would have been a great memory! Sorry guys...
At 6 a.m. we boarded a bus to spend 8 hours driving into Denali National Park looking for wildlife and other views. (You have to go via an official denali bus as they tightly control any cars going into the park. I think we saw one car.) It was an overcast wet day so we did not see the blue sky and majestic mountains that we hoped to photograph. However we did see wildlife. You might need to double click on the pictures... the above picture is a moose with a HUGH rack.
This was one large eagle.
Can you spot the caribou?
The most interesting and exciting were the many sightings of grizzly bears. This one was mama bear and her cubs. We watched them for quite some time (sitting in the safety of the bus, of course!). Mama bear was digging for something and I loved the little cub trying to do something in that bush. Like Winnie the Pooh looking for honey? 
Okay, don't just think this is a boring picture - double click it to see the flock of dall sheep. Did you find them?
Here we are on our first formal night. This vacation had a little bit of everything - fancy and rugged. 
Richard & Denise
Paul & JoAnn
Dean & Deb
Howard & Dan (Dan's wife Pam had to cancel at the last minute due to her father's grave illness. Sadly, he passed away. Pam, we missed you but were glad that you were with your dad and family.)
There were two evenings on the ship that were designated formal. Here we are posing for a picture on the beautiful staircase. 
There are two panoramic elevators that were quite dramatic. The area was open for about 3 floors - the elevators, a fancy staircase and some upscale shops on each floor.
Another view
Looking down
Yup, that's me with the thumbs up! I'm ready to drive my first ATV - and what a place to do it! I just wish there were some pictures of me riding through the water - and all the other places that I never thought I'd be driving an ATV. (I'm not known for being too risky...) I LOVED it!
We had this great view - and then we rode down to this river and back. A fun adventure!
Here we are checking out some scenery.
Okay, look closely. This is a FRESH grizzly bear track. You can even see the claws in the mud. The guide said those tracks were not there 2 1/2 hours earlier when they had been here. There was a grizzly in the area that folks were trying to capture. That's as close as I hope to ever be to a grizzly, huh?
That's me with my arms up. My machine was the smaller red one in the fore ground. Check out the mountains in the distance. 
Our first lodge was in Copper River, Alaska and we loved it. It wasn't very large and the views of the Wrangell - St. Elias mountains were spectacular. And the Copper River salmon was delicious!!
The chairs in the lodges were positioned facing the windows and the views...
These are the windows that face the mountains. Can you see the mountains in the reflection?
I think this is Mt. Drum.
Here is our group at dinner at Copper River. We were much more casual than our attire on the ship. That was quite fancy and very proper!
All of us on the trip (there were 10 of us) agreed that seeing the glaciers, hearing them breaking off and seeing them fall into the bay, was probably the highlight of the trip. One day we cruised Glacier Bay and another day we cruised College Fjord where many glaciers bear the names of major colleges. The ship spent a fair amount of time broadside to the huge Harvard glacier. It was 3 1/2 miles wide and 200 feet high. Here Wally is on our balcony looking for seals, otters and whales as we were nearing the glaciers. . We saw seals and otters and only one quick sighting of a whale. 
This is college fjord. Those white "rivers of snow" are glaciers that end into the fjord.
This is the grand Harvard glacier. It is hard to comprehend the size; we felt like we were right up near it - until we realized how long it took just for the sound to reach us after we saw the glacier "calve" - and note the boat in the water there - it was not a small boat and perhaps it can help you understand the size of this glacier. It was much wider then this picture - this photo perhaps captures 1/3 of the width of the glacier.
Here we went out on deck to view the glacier.
If you look closely you can see some of the ice streaming into the water. Even that little bit made a loud sound. But when larger chunks broke off and fell, it was amazing! We saw that and you could hear everyone watching ohhh and ahhh in awe. The falling ice would also send out significant waves on the water.
We have returned from a wonderful vacation to Alaska. It is hard to describe and hard to choose which pictures to post. I don't want to overdo it so I will try to be somewhat concise. Above is a picture of our room. Rooms on cruise ships are not know for being large and we chose a room with a balcony. We were very pleased with that decision. 
Our first port was Ketchikan. A fine little town. It was wet but didn't dampen our explorer spirit!
The next port was the capital, Juneau. On the walk towards the very nice governor's mansion, JoAnn and I saw a bear! No kidding! This is a close-up with my zoom lens. Apparently the authorities were trying to capture him as there had been other sightings of this 1 year old but he is still enjoying life on the lam. 
Our favorite port was Skagway - really cozy, rustic town. Very clean, very friendly. 
Here is a view of our ship while docked in Skagway. The wide section high in the front is the "bridge" where the captain and others guide the ship. 
