The woman and the dog who were too far away for the iPhone photograph I wanted, part two: The dog is brilliant – suddenly they are too far away again

I stopped to chat with the woman and the dog. The dog was quite brilliant and claimed to have read every word Chaucer had ever written and recited a few lines from the Canterbury Tales to prove it. I then got distracted by Instagram for a few minutes and when I looked back towards the hill I saw that the woman and the dog had turned around and would soon be going back up it.

This presented a whole new photographic opportunity, but once again they were far enough away to just be tiny, indiscernible dots to the iPhone. I have made a lot of progress recovering from the minor injuries I suffered a while back but I still can't jog or run. Yet, I had to get close enough to get some kind of photograph before they reached the top of the hill. I discovered that if I kept my feet flat and kind of shuffled quickly the pain was minimal. So I shuffled as quickly as I could and just before it was too late and the silhouette of her head and shoulders blended into the shadows atop the hill, I got close enough to take this picture.

The woman and the dog who were too far away for the iPhone photograph I wanted, part one: too far away

I turned on to Wards Road and started walking towards the hill when I saw this woman and her dog coming down, nearing the bottom. It would've been a really neat photo had I have had my "real" camera and at least a small telephoto lens, but I have carried no camera but my iPhone since I returned home almost three weeks ago. It was beautiful, the way the shiny wet hill rose up behind to cast her and the dog in silhouette. To the iPhone, they were tiny, indiscernible dots on a thin glowing thread of silver running down from the hill. I feared that by the time the distance between us closed enough to render she and the dog discernible, the perspective would have changed and she would no longer be a silhouette against the road, the picture would no longer exist. Still I had to try. I shot this at what I knew would be the last possible moment, and then she took a couple of more steps and and the effect was completely gone.

School bus gets rained on but does not get blown off the road

I am on my coffee break and kids are going home from school. The rain continues and there has still been little wind here to speak of. There have been strong winds, gusting up to 84 mph, on the Anchorage Hillside, Muldoon in east Anchorage and the places I mentioned earlier, plus Eagle River. This is not a scientific analysis, but I believe this is because of the way storms get funneled through all the mountains around here. West Anchorage hardly got any wind at all. Maybe the next storm will hit the mountains from a different angle roar into our neighborhood and threaten to take our roof off.

No wind yet, just rain

It's raining pretty good, but the high winds forecast have not materialized. The branches of the trees are barely swaying. That's here of course – I don't know what is happening in Anchorage, the Hillside, Turnagain Arm or the Knik River. Sometimes, if it's windy one place around here it's windy everywhere. Sometimes, wind can absolutely be tearing in one area, and one mile away be dead calm. Usually, when it's windy we get a pretty good blow here, but not as bad as at Walmart.

Walmart is not far from the Knik River and just gets the hell blown out of it. On a windy day at Walmart, you want to park facing the wind. You might have to struggle and push to get your door open and squeeze out, but if the wind is coming from behind you it will grab your door the moment you open it and slam it against its hinges so hard you can't believe it didn't rip it right off. I wouldn't be surprised to learn the wind has taken a few doors at Walmart. Trucks passing by sometimes get tipped over. Camper canopies get ripped right off the back of pickup trucks.

Anyway, it's hardly blowing at all here – but the day is still young– I just heard high wind warning on the radio, so it could still come.

Will we awake tomorrow and wonder where the yellow went?

A big wind is forecast to hit Anchorage, Turnagain Arm and Knik River with gusts up to 90 mph - depending on location. I don't know how this will play out at our house, where the leaves are now about 60% gone, or down here where a schoolbus rolls over the Schrock Road bridge across the Little Su and golden autumn colors still hold strong. Even if the blow is half that, even one quarter, then these leaves should mostly be gone. #autumm #leaves #schoolbus #littlesu #littlesusitna #wasilla #alaska