Autumn in Alaska {2013}

It’s pretty neat up here when autumn rolls around.  When some trees turn bright yellow and the mountains turn white, it’s a visual poem in primary colours.

Alaska State Fair 2013

I didn’t take as many pictures as I usually do.
That’s odd.
But I did see some fake egyptian artifacts, and a bunny. So, definitely a good day.

So before we left I saw this smug little snotface. 

Stayed just out of reach too.

Hatcher Pass

     Yesterday Dad, Hanna, several friends of ours who will remain nameless and secret, and myself, visited the magnificent and majestic natural wonder just minutes from where I live; Hatcher Pass.
Now, despite it being named after a person, it is not Hatcher’s Pass, even though that is what everyone everywhere calls it.

     Anyway.

     We parked the car and walked up a mountain to a lake that a friend of mine who will remain secret and nameless knew about, and had been to. As we walked I was struck by how crazy nature is, just the sheer amount of detail in nature blew my mind, the tiny, tiny swirls of plants that grow in hard to access locations.
   
      I have always sort of suspected that nature and the earth is a sort of trick, a simulation provided for the amusement of people, that the only reason anything exists is so that people can go and look at it but you go to a place like hatchers pass and that’s so obviously not the case. You walk up to any rock and you stare it and no matter how long you stare you just keep. Noticing. Details. If I were to recreate this somehow it would take me so much time, and so much energy and would be so. Boring. Our nameless and secret friends are religious and I felt so, sad for them. I mean, I understand. It is so, so easy when presented with something so strange and complex that your mind can’t handle it to just push it aside and say, well of course, God made all this so that I may see it and it is great. But whatever. Isn’t this supernatural being great! God is the amazing thing here.

      That is the wrong thing. You’re still stuck in that mind set of ‘Of course everything exists so that I may see it’ and you are not seeing the thing that is in front of you. Because the world is not a simulation for your benefit it just is there. Lichen will continue to grow on rocks and create the most insane patterns whether you walk past it or not and that is awe inspiring. Rocks can be perfect cubes in nature and that is so weird. There are tiny black flowers and it is all basically pointless and that is amazing. Those flowers and massive forests aren’t growing so that they may be good plants and then go to heaven or something, trees don’t have a concept of anything because they are trees and that is okay.

      The concept that the world is massive and insanely detailed and doesn’t exist just for me is a thought I try to have regularly but it is hard to do that. And when this concept is presented in a way that you cannot ignore and you cannot deny and when this all happens in a very low-oxygen environment it is the craziest thing. Awesome in the true sense of the word.


     So here are some pictures.

As you drive up you notice how intense everything is. How green the ground, how blue the sky. 

Hey, our town’s down there. 

Some Videos on Alaska

What it's REALLY like in Alaska! 

A Walk Around Anthem

Christmas Lights in the Neighborhood

Rainbow

A Tale Of Terror

Merry Halloween, everybody.

Hummingbird

There was a Hummingbird in our yard, and I tried to take a picture of it with my cheap zoom lens, and I learned an important lesson, namely that there’s a very good reason this lens was so cheap.
Caveat Emptor: Canon EF-S 55-250 1:4-5.6 IS.

Not a Hummingbird

“Farmer’s Market”

I was told we were going to a Farmers Market so obviously I expected a proper famers market, out of doors, multiple vendors, weird fruit. 

Instead what I arrived at was an indoors company store for a nearby farm. 

Well, alright. I guess. 

The Amazing Scenery between AK and AZ

Click on any of these pictures and they’ll get real big, in a neat gallery view. 

You can navigate the gallery view using your mouse, or your arrow keys.

1: Palmer AK, Pioneer Peak

2: AK

Frost

Textures of Trees in an Alaskan Yard

Power Outage

Coffee Table

Blue Blazer

What Happened Yesterday

Some Pretty Things

The Only Piece of Furniture in the House

Christmas Eve