"I'm going to speak my mind because I have nothing to lose."--S.I. Hayakawa
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Wednesday, November 13, 2024

The Fur and Feathers Journal, 2024, Day Three, Entry Six, Tides, Tides, all about Tides.

 Been a while since I visited this site.   I am so easily distracted by my self-imposed projects.    The latest was to accumulate  almost 20,000 photos that were on various thumb drives and memory cards.   Now, they are all in one place where I have sorted them by category.   It's a work in progress and I'm taking a break from it for now.

So, let's get back to the Fur and Feathers Journals.



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When last we saw our intrepid travelers, they were at a remote tent camp under auspices of Silver Salmon Creek Lodge, Ronnie and Karl as hosts.   

Oliver, part owner/manager with his parents of the whole operation, had landed his Maule 3 on a gravel bar in the creek in front of camp, dropped off some supplies, took off and landed a hundred yards away on the shore of Cook Inlet.   There, he had much more "runway" available

First to go was Alicia, along with a lot of baggage.   When Oliver returned, Eddie and I piled in the plane for the very short flight to the lodge.   Eddie landed on a narrow trail that fronts the privately-owned cabins.


Photo by Karl.


Our cabin wasn't quite ready for us to move as the staff was still cleaning it from the guests that were leaving that day.

We took  a short ride around the area, looking for whatever caught our interest.

Our ride was restricted by the high tides. The  creek crossings were flooded and couldn't be crossed by the ATV and the trailer that hauled up around.


The dirt/gravel trail is where Oliver landed his plane.






The ATV trailer that hauled us around the area.


We looked for bears and Eddie spotted several but they were too far away to get a lens on them.   We found a bald eagle taking a bath in Silver Salmon Creek and that was the highlight , and. extent, of our late morning game drive.





And, we flushed some mallards.





After lunch, we moved into our cabin, which is actually a house.   The lower floor, where we were, is a complete house--living room, kitchen and two bedrooms.   Alicia and I paired up to share one room.  


Upstairs is another kitchen and breakfast nook,  two bedroom area where Karen stayed.   She would join our game drives.


Well, we couldn't get to the bears, so a bear came to us.   Just as we finished lunch, we were alerted to a visitor ambling along the trail.    




It paused nicely for photos in front of the blooming yarrow.










And came up the trail to the lodge grounds.





We all grabbed cameras and piled out of the lodge to see the bear.   This, frankly , is a common occurance and is one of the things that makes this place so special


The bear checked around the fish cleaning spot and then showed a special interest in the chef's cabin.






Then it strolled along in front of a bunch of us before turning into the forest.   It gave us all a nice face-on look.



I'm about 25 to 30 feet from this bear.



With that, we returned to our cabin for a break and to get ready for a late game drive when the tide was lower.