Had my normal breakfast and had to open a new 2.2-lb bag of LavAzza whole bean Gran Filtro Dark Roast coffee. Did some online banking. J called my mother, and my mother had an abnormal mole on her arm removed today, not the squamous cell carcinoma from her leg. That will be taken off in two weeks. I loaded up the RV fresh water tank and J took some pictures of RA and Tootie (their golden retriever). Then J took some pictures of me and Tootie. We prepped the RV to move, then went inside to say our final goodbyes to RA and Tootie. We left around 12:10 with me in the RV and J following in the Jeep.

I went to the Holiday gas station in Wasilla to dump the gray and black tanks and load up the propane tank while J went to WalMart to pick up a few more things for our trip to the lower 48.

I filled up the RV at a nearby Chevron because that's the cheapest gas in town.

I parked in a large lot next door and had lunch. J joined me in the RV, then I went and filled up the Jeep with gas. Hooked up the Jeep to tow, then left at 1:40.

We started heading east on the Glenn Highway, and the weather was looking good to photograph waterfalls (bright overcast), so we decided to go to Pioneer Falls, a place that J hadn't shown me yet on this trip. We stopped part way down the Old Glenn Highway near the Matanuska River to unhook the Jeep because parking at the falls was limited and there was no sense driving the RV there and back. We left in the Jeep.

We got to Pioneer Falls around 3:30. I stopped to photograph several mushrooms on the way to the falls. This one (below left) was growing atop of a downed tree trunk, and the nice green moss was a wonderful environment. Then I started to photograph the falls. There were many areas to photograph along the cascades and small falls below the main falls. I used a polarizer to enhance the reflections off the water, and about 7 stops of neutral density (ND) to increase the exposure time. As I was photographing this image below right, J, who was upstream just beyond my composition, started yelling and pointing at something downstream. At first I thought it might be a dipper, and when she became even more emphatic I thought it might be a weasel. Then she yelled, "My cap!," and I started looking for something in the water heading downstream. I saw the hood of her 100-400 floating down, so I ran to the far shore and picked it up. J was much relieved. We finished photographing, and left around 4:55 in the Jeep.


We stopped at the RV to hook up the Jeep, then left around 5:20.

As we were heading out the Matanuska valley, we were amazed by the hillsides covered with yellow fall color. The light was too flat to photograph it, but we enjoyed looking at it.

We stopped at 5:58 to photograph a rainbow just east of the King Mountain State Recreation Area and Chickaloon. The rainbow lasted for a long time, and we were able to capture it with many different compositions. I particularly like the image to the left because the rainbow is large in the frame, and the golden hillside and mountain peaks in the background make a nice resting place for the rainbow. The rainbow was finally starting to dissipate by 6:40, so we ...

Returned to the RV and had dinner of J's vegetable beef soup. We left at 7:12.

We stopped at a pullout for the Purinton Creek Trailhead at 7:40 so we could have the option of going back down the road in the morning to photograph some really nice fall color in case the weather was good. I downloaded the images I took today, then edited them. Worked up a blog entry.