Giant Fall Picture Frenzy

So, a couple of posts back I was whining about how it was raining? And how I might go out anyway, but, you know, ew? So the weekend before last I put on my "Alaskan women kick butt" outfit, grabbed my camera and a bucket and went out into the woods to slay some cranberries and take pictures. What a ravishing sight I was with my giant fleece pants, black wellies with the cool red stripe around the top, red raincoat, blue baseball hat with rain-crazed gray hair sticking out over my ears, as I slogged along swinging a bright orange bucket. Anyway, it's been nonstop photos since then. I started with the high bush cranberries leaves above and just kept going!

There's this one:

This is a pond near the ski slope on Eielson Air Force Base. You can't tell from the picture, but I'm standing on squishy ground in about a foot of water, praying that I'm gonna be able to take this picture fast enough not to vanish forever into the bog goop that's sucking at my boots.

This one ...

... was taken out at Chena Lakes Recreation Area at the River Park. I didn't have to worry about sinking into bog goop here, but I did kind of wonder if there were any bears around, hiding behind the trees and sizing me up, thinking about how I might make a fine last minute snack before hibernation.

This one ...

... is a pond at Chena Lakes Recreation Area, River Park. By the time I took this, I was feeling much wiser. I didn't stand in any glop and I was only about 4 feet away from my open car door.

This is also at Chena Lakes Recreation Area, but at the Lake Park. Actually, just a few feet away from the boat launch there. Can you believe the colors of the trees? After I took this one, I actually managed to put the camera down and pick some cranberries.

Then, this last weekend I went even further south:

This is an anonymous hillside somewhere between Salcha and Delta Junction. And, below, is a picture of Munson's Slough, Salcha, Alaska:

So, there you go. You'd think I'd be pretty tired of autumn by now, but no! Now I'm leaving for a week and a half to spend some time in southcentral Alaska, where the fall weather is lingering and, hopefully, so are the leaves. So I won't be posting for a while. Just to let my army of devoted readers know ... all two of them.

P.S. I apologize that you can only click and enlarge some of these pictures. Blogger was experiencing indigestion when I uploaded them, and only some of them are clickable. Curse you, Blogger, curse you!