We took her swimming at her favorite spot tonight and look what happened :( She cut her "toe" pad on something. We think it was probably a sharp rock or maybe even a broken bottle.

Poor baby!!

So she gets special treatment tonight. This is after Bo carried her downstairs to go to the bathroom.

This is a view of Pillar Mt. when we were flying back from our bear viewing trip. We drove to the top on Saturday. Beautiful views but it wasn't windy enough to move the windmills. We will go back on a windy day to see and hear them in action.

Abby on Pillar Mountain.

One of six windmills on Pillar Mt.

Fun Saturday afternoon at Monashka Beach-Kodiak, AK. Today there is beautiful weather all over the island except over the water where it is completely fogged in.

The ground is alive, literally, at low tide.

Mt. Barometer in the background.

white sand and blue water

Exploring the rocks at Monashka Beach.

We are now at our second house sitting "job". This a really nice place that includes all the luxuries you could ask for: spa tub, hot tub outside, fire pit, a grill, a tv that is too confusing for me to use, fenced in yard and 3 dogs! This is Maggie. She is an 8 yr. old hound dog.

This is Abby but we just call her bird dog.

Bird dog is a lap full!

Precious and Abby - they are big buds

Precious - lab/pit mix
2 years old

 

Jay Wattam, the pilot who took Bo and Zane on the bear hunt, called Bo last night and invited us to take a ride to Katmai National Park for some bear viewing. Of course we did not have to give it any thought at all!! This park is known for its fantastic bear viewing. We joined two ladies who arrived in Kodiak today on a cruise ship. We arrived at Geographic Bay in Katmai National Park after about an hour float plane ride.

 

Float plane dock in Kodiak.

Once we got to Geographic Bay, we flew around a few minutes to find bears and decide where to land. We picked a spot where we could land and walk a little ways to get up close enough to get some good viewing and pictures. Bo and one of the ladies went up the beach first. There was a BIG surprise. There was another bear that we didn't see from the air. It was much, much closer-but still okay. The problem was that it kept coming even when it saw us!! Turns out another plane landed around the corner and was pressuring this bear out of it's comfort zone. We were in it's way. I'm really glad that we just completed our refresher course on bear safety last week. Everyone did great. After several very tense moments, the bear finally went passed us and now we have a great story to tell.

This is what greeted us :)

This bear sat down about 40 yards from us. The bear was acting very nervous so we had to snap pictures quick and then move away and give it some more room. Another plane landed in the area and pushed two other bears towards this one and it was just trying to get some distance between them.

This is a different bear that we are watching from the plane.

Scraping barnacles and eating them. They do this and dig for clams when the tide is low and all these yummy treats are exposed!

Digging for clams

"She" (we think) is looking across the lake. When we turned around we see that there is another bear over there.

This is what she was looking at. It appears to be a male bear based on the smooth, dark fur.

Just out of the picture to the left is another float plane. Jay told us that this is a typical bear viewing in this area of Katmai. We had an unusual encounter.

two bears digging for clams

I'm riding on the float while we taxi around looking for another bear.

Cessna 206 on floats- 5 seater

We stopped on the beautiful beach to have a bite of lunch-Subway! Yum!