Yesterday I walked a lot. I walked to campus from home (about 5 miles) since Kate got called to babysit at 1:30 in the morning and had to take the car. It was a gorgeous morning and the air felt great.
Ballaine Lake on another beautiful day in Fairbanks.
I’ve been walking and running pretty frequently lately since I decided I’m going to “run” (walk) the equinox marathon on September 17th. It’s kind of like a normal marathon, only with a 2000 foot climb up Ester Dome. There is ten hours to finish from the start of the race until the finish line is closed, so I hope I can do it in under 10 hours.
Anyway, later in the afternoon I saw a facebook post from the Alaska Bird Observatory that said, “On the refuge today: 2520 Sandhill Cranes, 1405 Canada Geese, 12 White-fronted Geese, 350 ducks!! A great day for a walk!”. So naturally Jason and I took off to walk around and take some pictures. Joe came with us and another TA from last year, Robin was there too. We took a walk around the Boreal Trail and I took more pictures of leaves and mushrooms than I did of birds. It was a pretty nice day.
Sandhill Crane family at Creamer’s field.
Mushroom stack on a tree at Creamer’s Field. There are lots of mushrooms all over Alaska this time of year.
Very still water with some film on the surface with fallen birch leaves disrupting the surface. So far the changing seasons in Fairbanks has been very pretty, with nice weather.
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Fallen, yellow birch leaf rests on mushrooms off the Boreal Trail.
