REDnesday - Merry Kringle

I decided to add a border of small (two rounds) solid color granny squares around my base of 36 larger granny squares.  I'm thisclose to finishing this round.   It's a work in progress (WIP).

My colors of red, green, blue and yellow repeated around in solid colors granny squares.  I'm making up my edging as I go - no pattern here.  I planned to block this when I completed it but I read that only natural fibers can be blocked.  Darn...this is acrylic yarn.

I made a mistake and had to frog three solid color squares to get to one of the large squares where I missed a space with the red round.  I just cut into the round and added the double crochets in red where needed.  So glad that worked.

Do you make boo-boos too?

I also joined a knitting and crocheting community on line called Ravelry (here).   It's a fantastic FREE website where I can download my photos from Flickr easily to post about my crochet projects.   It's so neat now I can track my crochet/knitting projects (when started, finished, yarn used, hook used etc.).  Now I can look back to see what yarn was used and if the item is washable.   Now if I could just figure out how to put a Ravelry button on my blog...tried it and it didn't work.  May have to get an appointment with the "Tech Guy" (i.e., hubby) for a consultation.   LOL!

Blog over to our sweet host, Sue, at It's A Very Cherry World (here) for more REDnesday!  You will be delighted with wonderful REDs in blogland.

Today we are in Billings, MT.  It's a housekeeping day...laundry and groceries and errand running.  I have a small cold so I'm resting as much as I can.  We just spent two travel days of over 400 miles each day to get here from Seattle, WA.  Today is so beautiful.  MT is known as the "Big Sky Country" and it is today....all blue and no clouds.  It's warm enough we turned on the RV A/C - first time in months we have had to use it on our Alaska trip.

Sandy at Teacup Lane

Denali National Park - Alaska

July 3rd, our first evening at Denali National Park, we drove the park road (private vehicles are only allowed to drive the first 15 miles into the park).

We were surprised to see the top of Mt. McKinley (Denali) at one of the overviews.  Mind you... Mt. McKinley is over 75 miles away... hubby got this shot with his long distance lens.  Mt. McKinley is over 20,000 feet high and is the tallest mountain in North America.  Unfortunately, this will be our last view of any mountain top during our stay at Denali.

We signed up to take a bus tour (it's not free or cheap either) the next day.  This is the only way you can go further into the park without hiking or biking in.   We got on the bus at 7:00 AM and returned at 3:30 PM.  There were longer tours but this one was long enough for us.  

The day started out overcast and gray.  You couldn't see the tops of any of the mountains.  The good news...the guide advised that the animals were most likely to be out and about when the sun isn't shining.   The buses were piling up when wildlife appeared.  We saw one moose at the beginning of the tour but couldn't get a photo.  We also saw some wolves and bald eagles but not able to get photos of them either.  

At least it wasn't raining during the morning hours.  Only the first 15 miles of the road into the park is paved.  

Two caribou on the road.

I liked this photo of them feeding on the ridge.

Cute arctic squirrel on the side of the road.

Off in the distance a Momma Grizzly and one of her cubs.

Another photo of Momma Grizzly's two cubs playing off in the distance.

As the day went on it got misty, rainy and visibility worstened.  

On the drive out of the park the bus driver had to stop and clean the windows twice because we couldn't see out of them.  Boy, were we glad we didn't sign up for an afternoon bus tour.   We went 63 miles into the park and never saw any of the mountains because of the low clouds.  

The next day we went to the park's sled dog demonstration where we got to pet some of the sled dogs.  This is Muddy, a 7 year old Alaskan Husky.  She was so sweet and her coat was beautiful.  The Alaskan Huskies are small dogs, 35 to 40 pounds, and bred to love to run.  They are not to be confused with the Siberian Husky which is a much larger husky bred to pull heavy loads.  

The sled dogs are used in the park by the rangers especially during the winter when the one road into the park is closed due to snow.  The ranger said that they run the sleds by the creeks not on the roads.

We were allowed to have our picture taken with the resting sled dog team.  

So long from Denali National Park.   Lots more on Alaska coming down the pike. 

Sandy at Teacup Lane

Discovery River Cruise - Fairbanks, Alaska

On June 28th we boarded the Discovery River Boat for a river cruise on the Chena River in Fairbanks, Alaska.   

Our boat the Discovery...there weren't any "bad" seats on this trip. 

Just as we left the dock a seaplane took off and landed in the river right by the boat (part of the tour).  

The Chena village had several log homes (with grass roofs) to walk through.   Young native girls gave several interesting presentations on Alaska life. 

One of the cute college girls showing us this beautiful traditional native fur coat.

A view of the back too.

Reindeer up close and personal.

A baby reindeer.  So cute!

A home along the Chena River.  The tour guide said you can tell how successful a person is by the amount of "stuff" in his yard.  Apparently the individual who lives here is very well off but chooses to have tires holding down a covering on his roof and lots of "stuff" on his property. 

 

Just to prove we are in the Land of The Midnight Sun!   

Sandy at Teacup Lane