Puppies and Rainbows

There is a lady that I work with, who one day a few months after I began working with her, asked me to put a happy face on something that I was not particularly happy about.

I made a sarcastic observation about "puppies and rainbows" and ever since then, whenever the same situation has come up, we have had the inside joke of puppies and rainbows.

Sometimes - OK very often - I think that I am becoming too old and too cynical and too disenchanted to keep handing out puppies and rainbows for much longer.

But this same forthright and upstanding woman, who often has to put a happy face on the unhappy, somehow manages to successfully pull it off day after day.  I admire her ability to do that.

So here, dear lady, are the puppies and the rainbows..........

I stopped at Fred Meyers on the way home from work tonight and picked up chicken and salad, and me, my Mountain Boy and Jamie all took a ride out to Eagle Beach together to eat dinner, on what turned out to be a warm and sunny late afternoon.

We stayed for a long while eating and walking and talking together. 

As we were leaving the beach I saw this partial rainbow shining over the top of the hills.

Dark clouds and heavy rain had been building during our visit to the beach in the mountains behind us, while at the same time the sky was blue and the sun was beginning to set amongst the mountains in front of us.

The rainbow was unexpected and wonderful and beautiful, and in a quiet way it was a lovely end to a week of unsettlement.

The rainbow was somehow settling and familiar and it pleased me greatly to see it........

This dog belongs to the campground manager on one side of Eagle Beach. 

We have never seen the manager, but often run across his friendly and inquisitive pooch, who runs the beach daily and alone as if he owns it.

And why wouldn't he?

Jamie has had more interactions with more dogs in the past few months since moving to Alaska, than she has had in the entire rest of her life combined.

She still does not know what to make of them, but she is also friendly and inquisitive, and seems to enjoy (even briefly) communing with her own.........

Last Saturday, after dropping Chris off at the airport for his return flight to New Jersey, we stopped at an overlook on the way home.

I felt lost.  I missed my child.  I did not want him to leave. 

And I felt very removed all of a sudden from both of my sons, who seemed to be a million miles away from me.

About five or six weeks ago my Mountain Boy and I walked a trail up near John Muir Cabin on a Friday evening after work. 

By the time we got down off the trail and back to our vehicles, we had walked for quite a few hours, it was 9:45pm and still light enough out that we did not need our headlamps.

Now it is late August and it is very dark by 9pm.

So, at this time of year it is becoming easier and easier to take very beautiful pictures of very beautiful sunsets......

Last Saturday we arrived at the airport with Chris early in the evening.

It was very cloudy and pouring with rain to our left (over towards the glacier and Thunder Mountain), and beautiful and sunny over towards the airport and Douglas Island.

Because of these two very strong weather systems there was a huge, well defined and very beautiful rainbow.

I did not take a picture of it when we first saw it, and when we first arrived at the airport.

By the time Chris had checked in, picked up his ticket, and we had taken the escalator up to the second floor to grab a coffee while waiting for his flight, the rainbow was less defined and smaller.

I took this picture on the second floor of the airport, on the outside deck of the restaurant.........

Jamie waiting patiently for a bite of something - anything - that LC may toss her way during our picnic at the beach.

She sits hopefully next to my Mountain Boy instead of me, knowing that he's the soft-hearted one most likely to give her a bite of something tasty.........

Dark and ominous clouds over the mountain behind us, but in front of us was the sun.......

I spent a few minutes after dinner making this........

This was the first picture I took of the rainbow tonight.......

Dark clouds behind us.........

We stopped at one more overlook on the way home to see if we could catch some more pictures of the rainbow.

We did not see the rainbow again, but rather happened upon a different kind of beauty.

The water, the mountains, the pine trees, the shadows, the red clouds...........

While we were standing and enjoying this lovely scene, we also enjoyed watching two small boats - kayakers paddling the very calm, still channel.

And then we saw them..........a female whale travelling together with her youngster.

They came up together a few times while we joyfully watched from afar, and while the kayakers enjoyed the view from very close.

They were not feeding, not in any hurry.  Simply travelling slowly and easily together in the quiet channel waters.

They were all too far away for us to take decent pictures. 

So no pictoral record of the encounter. 

Just a record in our minds forever.........