OUR BACK YARD

We went for our first big hike in our new back yard yesterday. Yup, we moved into our new house. It's a big nice house with not much in it. I went to a bunch of garage sales and scored - a book case for $1.50, 1 cup, 2 forks, 2 nice framed duck prints, a gold-panning pan. I'm drinking a cup of coffee which is disgusting - microwaved instant coffee. There's one important thing in the a.m. and that's a decent cup of coffee. Anyway, the house backs up to the Tongass Nat'l Forest, if you look at google maps satellite photo, from the back loop road going east, you can go for a billion miles through mountains, forests, glaciers, ice fields, etc. and die of old age before you find civilization. Pretty cool, eh? There's a lot of ponds back there with beavers and beaver-chewed trees everywhere (great source of wood if i ever get a woodstove). We bought a bear-bell and Sadie was throwing it everywhere - acting like she was playing with it, but I know she was trying to make as much noise as possible, and of course it broke. You can get a sense of direction from learning the mountains - McGinnis Mtn to the northwest...Glacier due north... Bullard Mtn to the northeast (In the photo here - I call this one Mountain Goat Mountain because I always see Mountain Goats on it. They are much easier to see now that the snow's mostly gone and their white bodies show up against the dark mountain side. It's amazing the steep slopes they hang out on - I wonder if they ever go tumbling...I'd be a nervous wreck if I was a mother Mountain Goat - talk about survival of the fittest!), and Thunder Mountain to the southeast. At least if I stay in that valley, if I did get lost - I should eventually be able to work my way out. It reminds me of when I lived in NYC and coming out of the subways and looking around for the Twin Towers to see which way was South. I bet a lot of people did this. Now they're gone and what buildings do people use now?