Oh dear.

It's a sure sign of back to school month when I suddenly abandon my summer hobbies. Case in point: my blog!

How terrible. If it's any consolation though, little blog, I am in a web design course and will be making you a newer, fancier, custom home complete with a separate photo gallery by the end of the semester!

I have had a few adventures and lovely autumn walks since I last wrote.
First, a few things happening in Juneau right now:

fallen leaves line the sidewalks and cemetery path, making a very satisfying crunching sound during my daily walk. A chill is now in the air, and this morning, when I left for work, it was 32 degrees outside! The tops of the mountains are turning to fall colors. Brown bear hunting season has opened, and the men in my office share tales of duck hunting and weatherization. The sun has been shining for two weeks straight. That's right, two. weeks. straight. It's the talk of the town, I tell you.

And with me:
I am trying to learn xhtml and css, and that's pretty much all I do at work. A few projects that take about 15 minutes of my time here and there, but for the most part I sit and read and try to absorb information. And they pay me for it! It's a riot. What's even more of a riot is the fact that in October, I get to fly to Denver for a week to take a Dreamweaver training class. No, I will not be learning how to weave your dreams, but rather how to build web sites using a specific kind of software. And what else will I be doing in Denver? Visiting with my mom and sister!!! Albuquerque is a convenient 1 hour flight from Denver, so they are going to come up for a few days, and it is going to be an awesome time. And I won't have to pay a dime for the trip! Even my meals will be paid for by the State. I'm so excited.

Stephanie and I have scared ourselves smart by watching Food Inc. and The Beautiful Truth, two movies about how nasty the food most Americans eat is, so we have decided to radically alter our diets. Don't worry, we aren't going to become vegans, but we are going to stop eating all animal meats that aren't natural and free-ranging, and most processed foods. Unfortunately, having standards for what you eat isn't an easy thing in Alaska. We had previously been eating costco lunchmeat and pre-packaged chicken breasts almost daily. Now our freezer and pantry is filled with fresh fish, Boca burgers, Morningstar chicken patties, organic and humanely raised Italian chicken sausage, Adam's natural peanut butter, and so on. And lots of veggies! Produce here is a nightmare; seeing moldy fruit and slimy lettuce on display at the store is commonplace, but costco sells huge bags of organic frozen vegetables. It might cost more, but I think a more pure diet will be worth it in the long run.

Apparently the fillings in our teeth release mercury gas, too, but I can't do anything about that right now :o

On Sunday we went boating with our new friend Joleen, her husband and their 3 year old son. It was a beautiful day, but the wind was bad and the water was a little choppy. Because of this, Steph and I bounced up and down like a couple of ping pong balls at the bow of the small, open hull boat as we cruised across the channel to Admiralty, and then back around a few smaller islands. It was fun being on the water, sipping beer, bouncing about. Unfortunately, my body didn't find it very amusing, and I have a big bruise on my butt to prove it. My back has been sore, too. Ow! Hopefully next time we go out it will be a little more calm. We may go fishing after work this week, which will be exciting!


Starfish!


The inexperienced boaters got to wear these really fashionable orange life jackets..


Steph's looked particularly hysterical ballooned up from the wind :D






The famed Admiralty Island, home to the largest number of brown bears in the world. We wanted to see if we could spot any from the boat but didn't see anything.


The Fairweather, one of the ferries that services SE Alaska


Before we got to the harbor, some guy gave Joleen a bunch of crab he had just picked from his pots(?) So we went over to their house and boiled fresh dungeness crab at the end of the day.


Steph trying to psych herself up to eat it, ha!


Fresh as it gets.


Joleen and Jessie!

Here are some backlogged photos!




4 cruise ships hogging the port downtown




The wonders of nature :)


Creepy old house we passed on a semi-hike last week. I say semi because I was feeling extremely bear-phobic that day, so I made us turn around a few minutes in..


Same hike, same water source!


Here I am on a boat standing next to a map of this fine state on a recent whale watching cruise supporting the Juneau Symphony. Hoity-toity!


Awesome.


Herbert Glacier, the glacier we hiked to in the last post.


Whalespotting

Signs of Fall

Last Saturday we went on a megahike.

Well, mega by our standards, which isn't saying much. You see, Steph's ankles have been a problem for her all summer, and my immense fear of running in to a hungry bear, have both been contributing factors to our sparse and limited Alaskan hike repertoire.

I know.. excuses, excuses.

We picked a trail out of our trail book that morning, one that we had seen pictures of, so we knew that it took you pretty close to the Herbert Glacier, another flow of ice "pouring" from the Juneau Ice Field. After getting sandwiches and munching them in the car at the trailhead around noon, we rubbed Bounce dryer sheets up and down our arms to protect against mosquitos and those "no-see-ums" that probably guard the gates of hell, tightened our boot laces, secured the bear bell onto the pack, and set off down the 10 mile trail.


Applying the laundry-fresh bug repellant.


I spotted signs of fall before we even got started. Devil's Club looking beautiful in fall colors.

*jingle jingle* went the bear bell.


Rusty old car on the side of the trail.


Slowly returning to dust.


And another on the bank of Herbert River.


The trail was mostly flat, and will be perfect for cross-country skiing this winter.

*jingle*




After a while, the pines became shorter. Proof that the glacier once reached much farther than it does now.

*jingle jingle*


The land has been carved and shaped by the ice!


More signs of fall can be seen across the river, as Birch trees don their golden hues.






As the wind swept down the glacier and through the trees surrounding us, leaves began to fall softly all around us. I find so much warmth in fall; there is a warmth in the colors, sounds, smells, and traditions that I feel so far away from this year. But the smell and crunch of the leaves on this trail reminded me that it hasn't gone anywhere.


First sight of the glacier.

*jingle*




You can get close enough to pretty much touch the glacier. But we stopped at this point, because to do that we would have had to bushwhack through all of those bushes and climb up and over that hill. And by this point, our feet were killing us.


Someone decided to give this boulder a little character.

*jingle jingle jingle*

The last 3 miles to the car were torturous. Our feet felt like bloody stumps, with pins and needles and rocks in our socks.

Evidently we should have purchased expensive insoles for our already expensive hiking boots.

Hindsight!


We discovered that it was easier to jog than it was to hobble along, so the last few hundred yards we sprinted madly toward the car.

What a day.

*jingle*