IFC Finals - First Round tie breaker - - - An Epic Alaskan Hunt - - -

IFC Finals - First Round Tie Breakers

          Yep, we all tied. Kind of like the first couple of rounds to kick the IFC off way way back in January. Time has certainly flown by. I must say that I have enjoyed these Photo Scavenger Hunts, @kryptocek's name will live on in the Scavenger Hunts, and his name should be attached to them for all eternity, (well, all of IFC's eternity, and that could be a long long time, I mean we still call them Olympics after all). So without much further ado about nothing lets get on with the show and tell portion of our post.

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Flowers

          You would think this would be an easy peasy one to do. Wouldn't you, I mean it's just flowers. Yes but what flowers do we choose, which ones do we pick out of the crowd of all the photos. This really was not as easy as it looked. So here I offer up two of the many I took with sign in hand. First up is the backyard Lupin. I call it backyard Lupin because it was a Lupin, and it was in my backyard so to speak. The second selection if from a local catch-all type store, man I could spend hours and hours in that store, so much stuff to look at. I think the picture speaks for itself, it is ready to fly down the road.    

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Swimming pool

          Yeah, the last couple of days people are wishing they had a swimming pool. We do have an indoor public swimming pool in Nikiski, but I did not think the parents there would be comfortable with someone taking pictures to post on line when their kids may be seen, so that got scratched off the list immediately. Then I remembered a kiddy pool by a work zone area, so I pulled in to take a snap of it. It has been really hot the last few days did I mention that? It was that hot. I know that does not seem like a big number to some people, but when you are lucky if you get five days a year in the mid seventies that number there is HOT, just look at what it did to the workmans boot washing station.               So not an easy find, but a pool none the less, filled with a bunch of dried mud, next to a busy intersection where they are upgrading the traffic lights so they can spy on us all the better. Rumor has it that they are installing facial recognition camera, voice analyzers, and those new speakers that can make you think you are hearing voices from the sky, (a pretty cool album if you haven't heard it). Next Up on the list a cave.

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The Cave

          This one had me worried. I don't know of any accessible cave in the area. I am sure there probably are some, but not along the road within an easy walk for me. So I asked @apolymask about it, he said I could dig a small one or find like the last time a picture of a representation, pretty much like all the other entries, use what you have or find. So we have this giant ice cream cone park of a tourist trap place,(but it is pretty cool), that has a wood carver, he is really good. As we came up on it on our way back from a local greenhouse, (we were on a fresh veggie hunt), I remembered he had a bear den. So here is the cave, and a few of his other pieces.

Mr and Miss carved moose, and their really big chair.

   

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Twin Pillars

          Not a lot of them to be found around here, I am not even sure if Anchorage has a set of twin pillars, but I did find representations of them. (Boaz and Jachin), yep had to look up the spelling. I know they mean different things to different people. So I found the natural side of these pillars, one set for the soul, the other set for the mind. The birch trees I thought mad a very nice natural pair of pillars. I know you can not really gt the full view effect from the picture, but the surrounding area is framed nicely by these two majestic specimens of birch. I had to step back quite aways to get the effect of pillarage, (yeah likely not a real word, but represents my thought), I wanted, so I have a close up of my little sign next to the image. It is there in the first image, just hard to see. The second set of Pillars, the set for the mind. The gold and the silver standing by close to each other yet apart from each other. I know the picture is not that large, it is still a sensitive issue in parts of the world. I could have taken a picture of the weathered post holding a weathered cross beam up, (the squirrels little jungle gym) from my deck, but they are just post I do not see them as pillars, not like the trees I found, not the two little plastic tubes in a special store. It is up to each of us to find our own pillars, and not rely so much on other peoples pillars of society.

       

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Dream Catcher and Spider

          I don't know how many of have seen the Movie Dreamkeeper, if you haven't I would recommend it, I thought it was a great story. The dreamcatcher is my wife's, i do not know where it was made, or where it was purchased, I am pretty sure it was mad in Alaska, by an Alaskan, and purchased in Alaska, but I am not 100% positive. I am 1005 Positive that that is an Alaskan Spider, and that it was in Alaska and that I did take it's picture on 7-5-2018, at a local greenhouse in Sterling Alaska. I was kind of concerned about finding a real live spider to take a picture of, we have them in the house, and I see them every now and then, but we also have a cat. Loki does not like spiders. But I know Alaskan greenhouses, they all have spiders. So I asked the woman tending the sales area if she had a spider I could take a picture of. She did not even look at me funny, because of an earlier question I asked her, which we will get to later. Sure enough, yep a spider. A live spider. My little sign came out sharper than the spider, but he is their with all of his spidey senses on full alert, (one of the best mosquito controllers going).    

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Shield and Lightning and a calendar round Mayan Style

          So kind of back at the greenhouse in Sterling. I needed shield picture. Well there was this Harley Motorcycle in the parking lot, and I have always liked the harley Davidson Shield on the back of the seat. So i asked the attendant at the greenhouse if she knew who owned the bike, since I wanted to take a picture of the shield on the back of the seat. (It was a Harley, and well you just do not mess around anothers guys bike without specific permission). So I explained to her why I wanted the picture, thus why she thought nothing about me asking if she had a spider. She thought that it would be okay.

          So there I am all crouched down, and this big big guy comes around the corner and is making a beeline to the motorcycle. Shit I think, and I am not as able as I used to be getting up from the ground. I hear "What the hell you think you doin by me bike bubs. ya's lookin to get a whipen"? he hollars - - - Okay, no that did not happen, he was actually a very nice guy and did not mind if I took the picture.

          I was unhappy with the lightning representation I found, and as you may have noticed on the dreamcatcher, i mad a new tag when I got home, A Shield tag with a lightning bolt in gold, I am not the best at using scissors. But I think it came out pretty cool. Killing a couple things in one go if you don't like harley badges. For the Calendar, no real museum replicas around, so I had to kype a picture from out of one of her books. The shield badge shows up nice on it though. So here are a those pictures. Almost done, I forgot to get the Graffitti picture when we were out earlier today, so will save this post and finish it tomorrow evening.

   

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With the exception of graffiti all that remains is the Power spots.

Power Spots

          In today's busy and hectic world, a place to recharge is a very real necessity. So I will share a couple of Power Spots that I like. The first one is a Power Spot for the mind, and I honestly wish I could partake, but I can not. They have an awesome interior, and one day I may do a full review write up of their little store for visitors to Alaska. The Pillars, both of those pictures were taken at this place of business.

          The second Power Spot is to recharge the soul, to find inner peace to let the soul be free to wander, to gaze upon the beauty all around. The reflections and the changing conditions throughout the year make this a wonderful spot to visit. The yellow water lilies are just coming into bloom, and the ducks love their little home in the lily pads. Being down in a low spot the water surface is almost always calm, un like Stormy lake just across the road and up a little ways with an ever present breeze or outright wind. Suneva Lake a nice quite calming peaceful place to relax and enjoy a commune with nature and the soul.

   

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Graffiti

          After an unsuccessful trip to a real touristy spot, (Homer), and finding no graffiti there, it was time to check the one and only known place to me that had graffiti. Homer has some very nice and well done artistic Murals on a few retaining wall, but I hardly think they are graffiti, after all the artist was paid to do the paintings. I guess I have a rather narrow definition of graffiti, to me it is the old style artistic gang type tagging, or just some scribbling or ranting on a wall, or a short kilroy was here kind of thing. This is the only place I knew that had some graffiti. If we were in California, or anywhere in the lower 48 graffiti can be found on just about every train car, or c-van. Graffiti is just not a thing in this part of Alaska.           Just in case I could not find any real graffiti I did have a back-up plan. "Beach" graffiti, fleeting messages of love and hope and BFF message written in the sands of the beach, the messages of love and hope lasting as long as the tide, mirroring the ebb and flow of life in general, today, BFF, and lovers, tomorrow, we will see.    

          I do wish Zoey and Adlis, all the best, even though I do not know who they are, they left a message in the sand, to be erased by the tide, and viewed by the visitors before the erasure. Their own little message of hope and life, left to the whims of nature and mankind.

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          This was, like all the rounds very fun. Two days of picture hunts, then the formatting, and uploading and the Entry.

IFC Finals - First Round results and tie breakers.