Howard's back from Alaska

Sorry I missed the match, but I understand my crew did an excellent job in my absence. I would have expected nothing less. Alaska was everything I thought it would be, but a lot wetter. It rained everyday except the day we were leaving. Still we got a lot done and covered a a big part of our largest state. With the exception of Mt. McKinley we saw everything we went to see. The mountain was behind clouds and we were unable to see it from the ground, and the rain, clouds, and winds, caused our flightseeing tour with glacier landing to be cancelled. They say that you only have a 20% chance of seeing it. One guide told us she had seen it 3 times all summer. The scenery is amazing. This kind of thing is typical. You may notice a glacier in this picture. The things are everywhere.
This is a grizzly bear sow and cub we saw in Denali. Note that this picture was taken from the safety and comfort of our tour bus a long way away. I was unarmed the whole time we were there. We saw several Grizzlies, several moose, dozens of caribou and Dall sheep, a few golden eagles, a few bald eagles, a humpback wale, several beluga whales, some killer whales, and lots of sea lions and seals. I'll post some of those pictures later.
We sucessfully panned for gold. If you look real carefully you can see some flakes in the top left part of the pan. I think between the four of us we got about $40 worth, so we came home. It's not as easy as it looks in the movies. If we had struck it rich Gary might be your full time match director.