On my way.. home?

I'm at the airport in Seattle again, waiting for our flight to Phoenix, and then on to Albuquerque. I won't be back in ABQ until 9pm, and we've been up since 5:30am. It's going to be another very long travel day. Good thing I love airports, flying, and people-watching, isn't it?

Yesterday we woke up to a dusting of snow.. Alaskan snow! I guess there's a first for everything up here :) The weather quickly turned back to the light rain we've had for most of our trip. The rain is nothing like what we get in ABQ, where it pours for about 15 minutes and stops completely. It's just a continual mist, nothing that would cause you to be stuck indoors all day or even need an umbrella. And there's no thunder or lightning. That's something I might miss.



We didn't do a whole lot for some reason. I've felt very tired for almost the whole trip. It might be from a lack of exercise, the clouds, or just trying to process all of this new information- sites, sounds, smells, names and places. We drove downtown for breakfast at this delicious bagel place called Silverbow Bagels, and then drove down the road in the other direction, towards a little community called Thane. It's basically a neighborhood about 15 minutes from downtown Juneau. I've read that the residents can become pretty isolated during the winter months due to avalanches basically trapping them in. We passed a two mile stretch on the way that had sign reading "Avalanche zone, DO NOT STOP". Since it seems like avalanches are pretty common in the mountains surrounding Juneau, I picked up a book on avalanche safety at the UAS bookstore. I'm also hoping to take a class on avalanche safety at some point, which is offered through the school.


This is the road you drive on to get to the campus. Gorgeous!



Speaking of the school! We drove around the University of Alaska Southeast campus yesterday. It's so beautiful! Right on Auke lake, nestled in the rainforest. It's a very small school, which I think I'm going to be thankful for. All of the locals we've talked to have commented that it's a great school. I've never been really excited about starting school, but I really can't wait for September!



For dinner we ate at Chan's Thai Kitchen, a hole in the wall recommended by a couple of people, located right across from Auke harbor. "Get there early, or get there late" they told us. We had tried to go the previous day, but there was a 30 minute wait! So we were sure to get there right at 4:30 when they opened, and it worked perfectly. The food was amazing! I hate Thai food, ask anyone in my family that has ever proposed we go to a Thai restaurant, but I really enjoyed the chicken pad thai. Yummm. I can't wait to go there when I have a fridge to store the leftovers in.

I'm not sad to leave Juneau because I know that in a little over a month I'll be back, with an actual house and fridge, and i'll be calling Juneau my home instead of just a place that I am visiting.

Out The Road, Day Two and Three

The phrase "out the road" is used by Juneauites when referring to anywhere outside of the main town limits. The main stretch of road, Glacier Highway, extends the length of the town, and eventually dead-ends in both directions. I think the north end goes for about 30 miles or somewhere along there? And then just stops. So, we decided to drive to the end yesterday!

First though, we had to see the Mendenhall Glacier. This glacier is one of hundreds that flow off of the Juneau Icefield. It's so massive in person! Very cool to see a huge glacier right in front of you. When it snows and the lake freezes (it was frozen but thawing), people snowshoe, ice skate, and xcountry ski right up to the face of it. Can't wait to do that! And in the summer, you can kayak in the lake. There is a very nice visitor center, a few hiking trails around the glacier, and in the summer there is a lot of black bear activity due to the salmon run.





While we were in the parking lot, we got a call from the property manager regarding the apartment we applied for. We got it!!!! My dream Alaskan house! I didn't want to post anything about it too soon to avoid getting my hopes up, but I can do it now. It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath apartment/house. The bottom of the house is a separate 1 bedroom apartment rented out to someone, and the whole top of the house, all 3 bedrooms 2 baths, with a separate entry, is ours. It has a fireplace, a big deck, and the best part is that it looks straight out to the channel, Douglas island and the mountains, and the Aurora Harbor. It is absolutely breathtaking. We figured our budget and made sure that we would be able to afford it if we both got jobs making $2,000 a month. That is the very low end of how much we'll probably actually end up making, so we'll be very comfortable and be able to save a ridiculous amount every month. It's so perfect.
Here it is!



We get the keys when we get in to town on April 5th.



After that lovely news we got lunch and drove. We stopped at a shrine called The Shrine of St. Therese. It's a church built in the trees out on a little bluff. Churches aren't really something I care about seeing, and there was a memorial for "victims of abortion", but this looked like something out of a movie set in another country. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Oh we also saw otters and a pod of Orcas from the bluff!







The weather was very rainy and overcast again, but It was fun to get out of the town and see pure nature without any obstructions.



That night we had dinner at this tiny place called Pilmoni (or something like that). It's been open for years and only serves one thing- Russian dumplings. It was SO AMAZING. We got to talking with the guy working the counter and he recommended a few places to get drinks and where to look for jobs working for tour companies. Everyone is always so welcoming and willing to talk and give us recommendations. It's wonderful! Then we went to the Wild and Scenic film festival, which lasted about 3 hours and featured a bunch of really neat short films all designed to promote environmentalism. SO Juneau haha.


This morning I woke up and the first thing I saw was blue sky!!

We had an appointment to sign the lease paperwork at noon, so we headed downtown a little early to sightsee. We hung out on the dock where the cruise ships stop in the summer, watched the fog roll down the channel, admired the mountains we were seeing for the first time. We met with Marna's broker to sign the lease, and he was also very helpful, pointing us in the direction of some good restaurants, a nice hiking trail, and the Juneau equivalent to REI, Foggy Mountain Shop. He recommended that we get some grippers for our hiking shoes since these trails can be icy into early spring, so we both got a pair of "snow tires for your feet". We also checked out Rainbow Foods, the heath food store in Juneau that has things like Larabars etc. and is the Juneau equivalent to Trader Joes or Wild Oats. The food prices looked a little hgher, but I didn't notice a huge difference.








This is Mt. Juneau, the mountain that is directly behind our house. The broker had a map of the avalanche zone and luckily our house is not in it :) but plenty of others are!

Lunch was at a Mexican Restaurant, El Sombrero. Mexican in Alaska is something of a joke, and a plate of 3 enchiladas that tasted like the Hungry Man Dinner enchilada meal was 16 bucks. I don't think we'll be going back there..



We made another stop at the glacier to see it in the sunlight, and it looked even more impressive with mountains behind and around it.





Steph and I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon "out the road" to watch the sun set on a little beach we found called "sunshine cove". You could see the huge, never ending string of snowy peaks across the water and my god, it was magic. The beach was perfect for beachcombing, and the tide was low so we found sea urchins, crabs, and starfish by the water. It was probably the most spectacular sunset i've ever seen.. and i've seen some pretty impressive sunsets in my time.

Pictures!!!!



































LOOK AT THAT COLOR.


Juneau's second oldest totem pole!


That water!




Capitol Building


Soaring Bald Eagles!


Mountains!


Our House from Egan rd

Perfection. Day 1

Smell. It's such a powerful sense! The first thing I commented on when stepping out from the small airport and into the chilly Juneau breeze last night was how amazing the air smelled. It is the most organic, fresh, green, sweet smell I've ever smelled. It is the smell that laundry softeners wish they could copy.

We woke up at about 8 am "Alaska time" (10 in NM). Everything is Alaska time up here. The news channel announced something happening at 7pm ALASKA TIME. It's so weird hearing that.



******NOTE!! Just click the pictures to enlarge :)

The view out our window was not as mind blowing as I had hoped, overcast gray with a light drizzle, until the fog parted a bit to reveal a tiny bit of snowy mountain peak. AH!! Those little glimpses of peaks throughout the day were fantastic, and I can't wait to see them without cloud cover. Even behind the fog, you can tell that these snow-capped mountains are far more incredible in person than in photographs. Their proximity to the town is so comforting. Despite how isolated Juneau is, these mountains are a playground and I am so excited to get out and explore them.



We had the motel shuttle us to the airport so that we could pick up our rental car, and then we started driving. We were just anxious to see Juneau. It was surreal drive through areas I had seen dozens of pictures of. Downtown, Douglas Island, the Valley. I saw two Bald Eagles perched on a buoy. The water in the channel is an amazing dark teal color. The harbors are so picturesque. Juneau is simply beautiful.



We had lunch at the Capitol Cafe downtown (sourdough pancakes and reindeer sausage WHAT!), picked up a couple of sandwiches and a paper from a little deli/bakery/grocery for lunch, and came back to the room to call on some prospective rentals. We left messages for a couple and ended up with 4 appointments.



Unfortunately, we've already found THE ONE. It's a property we've had our eye on for months, and the first one we looked at. It meets every one of our stips, and more, and is in our budget. The woman showing the property, Marna, seemed a bit flighty when I spoke with her on the phone and was 30 minutes late to the apartment showing, but she redeemed herself when we finally met with her to look at the dream house. She gave us tips on moving our stuff up from the lower 48, on finding jobs in our respective fields (she called a friend of hers who is an EMT and asked what Steph should do to get her foot in the door), and even gave us the Juneau phonebook she kept in her car. She seemed genuinely excited for us and for what we were doing, and she mentioned that she made the move up from Utah. That's another thing I forgot to mention- everyone we have come in contact with here so far has been SO friendly.

We looked at another condo in West Juneau, but ruled it out due to a strange odor and a generally run-down appearance. We have two more appointments set for Friday, but we've already submitted our application for the dream house. We may not find out if we got it until Monday, but Marna said things looked pretty good, and that she was already in contact with the owner of the property regarding our applications. She has to run a credit check and needs a prior rental history form filled out from the last apartment Stephanie and I lived in. She is also conveniently going on vacation tomorrow. Grr. I'm so impatient! I don't really want to look at any more, but I want to at least have an idea of what the other two are like in case this one doesn't work out. It's too bad my hopes are already up.





Lots of driving around today, which is why my pictures are pretty unimpressive. I promise they'll be better tomorrow! We had to go to the library to print out bank statements for the application, and then drop the applications off at an office downtown. We had dinner at a hole in the wall restaurant called The Broiler. It was alright. I have a feeling that I won't be eating out too much when I live here hah. I will fish for my own Alaskan Salmon and brew my own Alaskan beer, dammit!

Steph tripped and sprained her ankle four days ago, and consequently is stuck wearing a boot-brace and icing her ankle every night, so we won't be as adventurous on this trip as I had hoped we could be. If I get restless I might find a neat trail and go on a little hike by myself in the rainforest. RAINFOREST!