Crab Boat Tour Ketchikan AK

One of the tours that many people go on, while in Ketchikan is the crab boat tour. It’s about a 3.5 to 4 hour tour. I have been on it 4 or 5 times, usually taking someone who is visiting us. The ship is the Aleutian Ballad. The crew takes you out, shows you how crab pots work, they have some preset ones that they pull you for you. They show you different types of crab also from small ones to kings. The tour is very informative and the crew is very friendly.

At one point they attract some bald eagles. I have seen over 30 flying around the ship and feeding from the water, but toward the end of the season I have seen less than 10. They give you the opportunity to hold various sea creatures, if you want. This is a rain or shine tour. Best place is on top deck to get some good eagle pictures, on the bottom deck if you want to handle stuff. I believe that there are age restrictions for small kids.

Crazy Talk 7 program

I recently bought the “Crazy Talk 7” program from Reallusion, after watching videos and reviews from Youtube. After installing it I could not get it to work, so I contacted the help desk and they were very patient, friendly and helpful. They got the program working for me. Turns out my video driver was out of date, so some annimations would not play correctly. The program has so many possibilities. It came with another program, “Face filter 3”. This program allows you to add professional makeup to your pictures as an after effect. I haven’t really played with it very much. I wanted to help get the word out on things that I use and believe in. You can get both of these great programs on sale now for $29 at https://www.photowhoa.com/?ap_id=66725167. Hope you like them as much as I do. Please share some of your animations with me, I would love to see what others are doing with Crazytalk.

This is my picture that I made the bear from.

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This is my first clip/animation.

The possibility of annimation is really up to ones imagination.

Shrine of St Therese, Juneau AK

So a year ago my wife and I went to Juneau AK, so that i could take my drone license test and become a certified drone pilot, which I did. While there we went for a drive north of Juneau, and came across “The Shrine of St. Therese”. We are not Catholic but decided to check out the place, especially after we read some reviews of the place on-line. The atmosphere was very peaceful, though there were a lot of birds squawking ,trying to divert of attention away from the peace that God had in store for us.

There was a path that we had to follow to get to the shrine. It was raining lightly, however the tree coverage kept us mostly dry. My wife had hurt her leg and it was hard for her to walk very far. We were impressed and thankful that they had a few free wheelchairs that people could use while they visited. This really helped a lot.

There were several monuments that you could spend time at.

Here also was an interesting rock garden.

This was a very peaceful area, and I believe that you can rent out the area for events, lie maybe weddings. If you get to Juneau Alaska, then stop by here and get relaxed.

Garden of the gods, Colorado Springs, CO

Garden of the gods is a great place to hike around. Some people rock climb there also. They have tours that you can do on a Segway. My family and I have been there many times. The rock formations are interesting to see at different times of the day and year.

If you get a chance, it’s another place to see if your in the Colorado Springs area.

Black Bears

Living in Alaska, on a remote island, in the second largest rain Forrest in the world (I believe), one might expect to see some animals. Well here in Ketchikan, one of those animals is black bears. From spring until fall there are a few locations where you can see bears in the wild, not in a cage or in a zoo. But real live, untrained, sometimes uncaring bears. We have lived here 10 years and it never gets old. We have had them in our front yard, just passing on through several times. Sometimes we just go and watch them fish.

Often about this time you can see mama bear with a cub or two.

if you get a chance to make it to Alaska and see the bears, just remember they are not pets, this isn’t a zoo, they are not trained. Don’t go near them if you have food. A bear will do what a bear will do. Don’t get between mama and her cubs. Enjoy the beauty, thank God that you get a chance to see nature and wild animals, take pictures and memories, just don’t ruin it for those who live here.

Legoland CA

Who hasn’t played with Lego’s at least once ? Most kids in the USA I would guess either have some or know someone who has some. A few years ago I found out that Lego’s aren’t just for kids. We took some of our family to S. CA and one of the stops was Legoland in Carlsbad. SONY DSC

There was so much to see there, especially the miniature section. They had New Orleans, San Francisco, New York, and many other places all made out of Legos.

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They also had a Star Wars Section when we were there.

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It was a place definitely on my must-see-list. They even had their own water park and aquarium.

Mountian Village Alaska

There are several small villages through-out remote Alaska most people never see nor visit if they make it to Alaska. Mountain Village is one of them. Last count of population was about 813. The village is located on the Yukon river near the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. The village is mostly Yupik Eskimo. The people are very friendly and out going. We lived there for a year. There is one road that connects to St. Marys, another village about 18 miles away. The local rely on fish a lot so most have fish camps where they dry the fish.

The winter sunrises are incredible there.

Fireweed is used for many purposes including jam.

And being on the Yukon winter breakup is also something noteworthy.

There are several Youtube videos showing this place and some of the people there. The only way to get there is to fly a bigger plane from Anchorage to Bethel then a small plane from there. Unless you live in the area then you can get there by boat during the summer or by snow machine (snowmobile) or 4 wheeler during the winter.