Bonus Bone: The Colors (Etc.) of Alaska

Seward Harbor

Mama Cardboard just returned from a two-week vacation in Alaska. Here are the inspirational highlights:

Denali (aka Mt. McKinley)

1. The Locals:

"We saw lots of great animals - mama grizzly chasing a ground squirrel while her two cubs played, foxes and wolves right on the road, two beautiful big caribou - with huge white furry chests and big antlers - walking single file through the tundra parallel to the road, bald eagles everywhere...red salmon swimming upstream as we crossed the river, beluga whales in the gulf...a walk along the water, watching the sea otters float by on their backs."

Aialik Glacier

2. The Sound:

"Then we went to the edge of a glacier and sat for 20 - 30 minutes with the boat turned off and everyone silent - and just listened to the glacier. So cool. Glaciers move 7 - 8 feet a day! You can hear the ice cracking (sounds like thunder) and watch the ice blocks falling off (called calving - sounds like an explosion as the ice hits the water). The glacial ice is a beautiful turquoise blue."

3. The Color:

When Mama Cardboard first told me she was taking a two-week vacation to Alaska, I pictured nothing but a bunch of snow, of ice, of white, white, and white. One might not be able to bring a caribou home or simulate an adequate calving in the freezer but the non-white shades of Alaska are easy to bring on home.

Denali Red Tundra

For these reasons, I, Cardboard, declare this a Design Boner.

Photos by Mama Cardboard