A Stroll around the parking area:

The Kenai River starts at Kenai lake in Cooper Landing and winds for 82 miles before letting out into the Cook Inlet by Kenai, Alaska. Eagle Rock is one of the boat launch/recreation sites along the Kenai River. Here is a small panoramic shot of the river from one of the parking areas.

Larger Image

I am not sure why, but there were very few people there at all, pretty much just one vehicle with boat trailer, and the camp host. It made for a nice peaceful wander. It is summer and that means it is wildflower time as you may have noticed by my last post.

First up is this nice little yellow butter cup type flower, I do not know the names of most of these flowers, so just my descriptive names for them.

I love how bright the yellows can be on these little flowers. I used a small cross section of the yellow petals for the separation bar created above. These little guys are not hard to miss at all. That yellow really stands out with the green grass and leaves of other plants around it. They are pretty low growing flowers, so they need all the advantage they can get to attract pollinators. This next one is a rather different lily.

This is one of those unique type flowers, I am not sure you would really want to poke your nose up close to it and take a nice whiff of it's odor at all. I do know the name of this one, or at least the name that the local natives have for it.

This is known as the Chocolate Outhouse Lily. If you like taking pictures of those giant green eyed flies and other flies, then this is the flower for you. If you highlight and then google search Chocolate Outhouse Lily, take a look at the wiki page, it has many names, none of them real pleasant other than the Chocolate Lily name. I have never seen a bee pollinating this flower, only flies, and we did have a few for several years at one of our homes. The smell really is not that noticable, still I would not want to get my nose to close to it.

This is another of those prolific flowers in Alaska, Yarrow. It comes in three primary colors and each color/plant can have it's own particular shade of one of those colors. basically White, pale Yellow, and a pale Pink. White is the most predominate color, or maybe it is just the one that I notice the most.

Pretty soon the cow parsnips will be in full bloom, I do not have a shot of one yet, but I am sure I will gather one soon. We still have not made our way up to Captain Cook Park yet this year, and that trip is due soon. It is always a very fun, yet long drive for such a relatively short drove of about 80 miles, just so many places to stop and pull into on the way. Okay enough about a possible future post, lets get back to the flowers.

These two I really have no clue about. Some sort of a flowering grass. Once the flowers are gone the grass kind of looks like hay. But I really do not know what these are or if they are indeed the same flower or not.

On this image note the beautiful delicate looking white a hint of purple or maroon and the long thin white strands with the same color on the ends like a knob. you might need to really open the "Larger Image", to really see these features. Also take note of how the bottom portion is devoid of flower buds. I know not exactly the best focus for the lower part of the flower. In this Image, which I think is the same flower but am not sure, This is the first time I think I have noticed these two, like I said I think they are the same, but with no color on the thin white strands, and it being the bottom part of the flower head, I just am not sure. I did find these to be pretty interesting not only for the sameness, but also for the simple fact I think this is the first time I have took notice of them. I like Alaska Wild flowers, and we do have many, some of them only bloom for a very short time, so I may have just never been where there was a few of these in flower blooming stage.

Well I think that is enough for now, I hope you all had as nice a Monday as I did, and if not there is always tomorrow to enjoy.