A Sunny Saturday Walk

Yesterday we went exploring on North Douglas (the island where we live) and found a nice, easy, beautiful loop to wander around, Fish Creek Trail.  We have been planning our upcoming roadtrip to Banff, AB and this was our break from looking at laptops, maps and travel guides.

Mendenhall Glacier in the background (and two really nice houses!)

An old, washed up boat of some sort...

Evidence of an old boat dock, with the glacier in the background

A great "Brian" shot :)

Two bald eagles perched and posed for my camera :)

We're guessing someone built this as a platform to jump into the water, and of course Brian had to check it out.  I was content just looking, but he wanted to see how sturdy it still was.

Gettin' Touristy

Cruise ships are coming through Juneau on a regular basis now, sometimes with 4 or 5 docked all at once.  Here are some shots from this past Wednesday while walking across the bridge down to the docks to have dinner.

Mt. Roberts Tramway

The Twisted Fish restaurant.  A tourist trap!  We ate there and now we know...

Lots o' visitors roaming the streets of downtown.

We watched the guys pull these ropes off the dock and they look soooo heavy.  I'd love to know how much they weigh; I could see how they'd carry someone right over into the water if they weren't careful!

This is a statue of Patsy Ann....read on and see why she's so cool :)

A float plane landing!  These are a really common sight these days, too.  They go right past our kitchen windows.

Brian On Ice

During our last stint of sunshine, Brian got to get up close and personal with the Mendenhall Glacier.  If you've seen the documentary, Chasing Ice, it's glacier #10, and you can also see it listed here as a super cool place to visit.

He's befriended a fellow faculty member who studies these kinds of things and was invited to go along with a couple guys for some sort of sample-finding trip.  They told him he was a natural!  Needless to say, he was pretty darn stoked about the whole thing.

He got some great pictures on his iPhone:

Girls Picnic: Out the Road

A couple weeks ago we had a string of nice sunny days.  It was so nice!  My friends Megan (math professor) and Lora (sociology professor) took a picnic out the road, about 40 minutes away.  All I can say is sunshine and friends are good for the attitude and whales don't hurt either :)

Here are some glimpses from our "only-in-Juneau" afternoon:

As soon as we scoped out our spot, we saw whales and I whipped out the camera.

Megan excitedly pointing out that there are indeed three(!) humpbacks out there.

whale tail!

Even when we couldn't see the whale, we could hear their sprays.  

Lora is happy about sunshine and whales...and the semester being over!

Lora and I relaxed in the sunshine...

...while Megan tried her hand at fishing for herring.  No luck catching anything, but got this good shot of her attempt.

Saturday Stroll in Thane

From Juneau, the main road runs north-south.  If you go north, you're going "out the road."  If you go south, you're going "out the road to Thane."  We'd never driven south, so this past Saturday we checked it out.

There is a 2-mile stretch on the road to Thane that is an avalanche zone (no houses there), so by living in Thane people run the risk of being cut off from the rest of Juneau if a slide happens.  There hasn't been one this year, which is good news for everyone.  From downtown Juneau, Thane is just about 5-6 miles away, so the road doesn't go too far.  We found some really pretty stretches of beach (during low tide) and also some nice hiking trails.  

Brian ran from downtown to Thane and back earlier in the day for his marathon training.  (He's doing the training, but not yet sure if he'll actually run the marathon, as it's the day before we leave for Ohio.)

And, this weekend happened to be two consecutive days of sunshine which proved for some nice views. 

    

We're not sure whose house this is, but it's enormous and gorgeous.  I can't imagine who can afford this kind of place in Juneau, but it's got to be someone with loads of moolah.

All these sticks are bare now, but come summer time they'll be covered with Devil's Club.  

This is around 8pm...we're getting lots of day light these days.

I don't care how common they are around here; seeing Bald Eagles never gets old.

The Blood of Christ (from Costco!)

Back in Missoula, we started a tradition of bringing "The Blood of Christ" (in the form of red wine) to whatever Easter get-together we attended.  We've continued this fun bottle-labeling spoof ever since, and this year we think we created our best one yet!  We think it would make Jesus laugh :)