Tongas Forest, in Alaska

One of the other places we went in Alaska was the Tongas Forest.  We had to take a small boat about 20 minutes from Sitka to where we were going to see the wilderness of Alaska.

Our guide who has lived in this area all his life greeted us and instructed us how to drive the ATV’s we were going to use to drive into the forest.  There were only six of us I think, and two per vehicle, so it was a nice, small group.  After his instructing us on the proper way to drive…or NOT to drive haha, he then proceeded to tell us the disappointing news.  They had not seen bears there for about 3-4 weeks.  😦   I was pretty bummed at first but it didn’t last long because once we got in our ATVs and headed into the forest, I felt like I was on an adventure!

We stopped along the way and our guide explained the environment and we found it quite interesting and beautiful.  At the mid-point, we stopped for a snack, taking all the beauty in and looking at the salmon in the stream below a bridge when all of a sudden I looked down the river and said, “Is that a bear??”  Sure enough!  Three bears came out from behind a rock and we were all so excited!  They were quite far away and even with my 300mm zoom, it was still a distance, but I captured a few pics of them.  (A 300mm zoom is NOT sufficient for wildlife photography!  That I learned.)

Here’s some of our adventure.

Heading off into the Tongas Forest!

We saw eagles soar…

…and bears roam…

…and sit…

and saw the salmon they were trying to catch!

We headed back…

to beautiful Sitka once again and our floating home away from home.

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On top of the world!

As promised, here are some more pics from our Alaskan Adventure!  I’m putting captions underneath for your viewing and reading pleasure.  😀

Dave (warm) me (cold)….something is definitely wrong here!  lol

Ummm…Kayakers in the middle of the ice?  Helloooooo!!!!

Sawyer Glacier up close in the Tracy Arm

Sawyer Glacier in the distance in the Tracy Arm

Salmon running (and you’ll see why they’re running in my next post….let’s just say momma, pappa and baby bear were nearby!)

Intermission

I know you all love seeing my pics from Alaska, but I thought I’d insert a little break here.  Last night we went to see the amazing Keiko Matsui at Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Yoshi’s, we’ve been going here for years and it’s a great little jazz club for seeing the greats!

http://www.yoshis.com/oakland

Last night was a fabulous performance by Keiko and her band was incredible!  Before she performed each song, she would give us a little background in such a demure Japanese way, and then she’d sit down at the piano and blow us away.  The band was incredible too!  Total musicianship.  I’ve always loved her and didn’t realize that she’s put out 25 albums!

Anyway, I took some poor photos with my iphone and pasted them here for you to oogle at.  I got Keiko’s autograph on her newest CD Soul Quest and had my hubby take an impromptu picture of us.  Yeah, yeah, I look totally goofy.  But hey, what else is new?  🙂

Evening at Yoshi’s Jazz Club