The sun's coming up,

there's a smile on my face,
My half empty cup, is half full today.
I Know the right turn is just around the bend,
off in the distance, I see my ship coming in.

Well, nothings for ever on this ol trip around the sun. The glacier damn flood waters are receding, it's rained 2 days in a row now and the fire is not growing and is 27 % contained as I write. For the first time in 10 days the wind is favorable and we can breath clean, cold , normal Alaskan air. 😌 I think the Swan Lake fire with 800 people fighting it is finally going to lose. The impact here has been tremendous and once again I'm reminded that I'm glad I didn't have to guide through it all. The river has been quiet from cancellations and those that did wait through the pilot car escorts to get here have fished through what the government calls ' unhealthy' conditions. We went fishing on Monday and the smoke increased as the morning went on until we quit at 11:00 when it was really bad... caught my fish though.

We've been getting our exercise in the gym because of the air quality but the walks that we love are soooo much more interesting. We only got one hike in last week but still stumbled upon the quirky , weird and unexpected that I look for. ....I always thought that shooting signs with a high powered weapon was a kinda rural Montana deal but no, it's making a comeback right here in downtown Slowdotna.

As we walked down Lingonberry I spotted this is the trees....I got NO idea. But it's exactly what it looks like...and why ?  Maybe some kind of inter space signal to the Forrest travelers kinda like the do, do, do, da  in Close encounters of the Third Kind. And oh, this thing was off the beaten path pretty good, the kind of ya ' gotta want to do it ' deal

Well I got me a bit of writers block so how's about a new song I just worked up for my friends in Mexico ? It's a Cody Jinks song about people that like to get high, I like the way this song swings....It's kind of funny, for all my life people have just expected that I was a pot smoker. In Mexico I routinely have people try to sell it to me and here in Alaska people seem to notice my hair and liberal ways and just assume that I get high...and I don't. Now as a kid I was a pretty good pot smoker for a while but because of my Coast Guard License and my approach to guiding I went for nearly 40 years without smoking any, ever. So as I closed in on retirement I told people that when I was done being in a random drug screening program I was going to role be a big ol hooter and get high, after all it's legal here...and I did...and I didn't like it. I didn't like the way it made me feel. I didn't like the way I'd lose track of my own songs so I guess I won't be doing that again, ever. Funny how life goes eh ?  And ya know what , I feel good about things like that, it's called freedom if you ask me.