Worst Blog Writer

As we’ve all learned… I’m apparently a terrible blog writer. While ultimately it comes down to laziness, spring and summer weather is now among us and it’s time that us Alaskans get out and enjoy all this light that we now have! We’ve been really busy the past couple of months, but busy with enjoying things here… not busy because of work. (Thank goodness!)

Now I know I never finished our New Zealand photo/story blog, but uploading photos to this blog can be rather tedious and slow – part of what deters me from writing. So this time, just an update, with maybe only one or two photos. :)

We made it through the hard part (winter of darkness), and in hindsight it really wasn’t that bad. Ask us this again in January and I’m sure we’ll beg to differ. The nice thing is once the end of January hits we significantly gain light, 5 minutes each day (or 35 minutes of light every week) – and that quickly adds up. Once Spring hits (March 21^st) we gain even more. Currently I think we have about 17.5 hours of sunlight, maybe 18, and we’re still 3 weeks from summer solstice.

In March we had a few visitors, Eric’s parents came up in the middle of the month and spent a lot of time cross-country skiing at the glacier. I was stuck at work, but sounded like they had an awesome time. Eric’s Dad, Emil, made a fast friend in Sadie. He would take naps on the couch and she wouldn’t stop licking his face. Unlike him, he misses her now. A few days later, we had a friend get stuck in Juneau for a day while on her way to Sitka, AK for a pharmacy rotation. She was with a friend of hers and so we spent the whole day showing those two around. A few more days after that our friends, Matt and Meagan, were next to come up and visit. Unfortunately they didn’t get the best of weather, and only saw the mountaintops on the drive to the airport. But we had a good time cooking, drinking and laughing. We did not have a good time taking Sadie to the vet – she got porcupined.

Over 200 quills were pulled out of her snout, mouth (yes, in her mouth), front and back paws and legs. We were hiking near the glacier and while still trying to train her off the leash, she got a scent of one and didn’t come back. Eric found her shaking the porcupine in her mouth and then had to drag her back to where we were. We were, unfortunately, 2.5 miles into the trail and had to hike her back to the car to get her to the vet. Funny thing is, the whole way back to the car she kept sniffing around like nothing had happened. Only every once in awhile would she stop and look at us with sad, sad eyes, as if to say, “Ok guys, can you take these things out now?” The vet was done within 2 hours, and outside of sleeping for the rest of the day she was fine.

After they left, we did absolutely nothing! We were so exhausted of hosting guests and cleaning for pretty much 3 weeks straight. For the next three nights I think we just spent the evenings on the couch watching the TV shows we wanted to watch. :)

Then, it was time to get to work. We (Okay I) devoted April to Home Improvement Month. There were tons of projects I wanted to do, that I just got tired of never getting done. We painted the master bedroom, installed some new lighting, painted the kitchen - was going to install a backsplash and then became too scared to do it on our own so returned everything and settled with paint – picked out new carpet, ordered new blinds for the bedroom and found black-out curtains. Then we also did some spring cleaning and CraigsList selling.

In May, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary by attempting to make Chicago pizza (not perfect, but pretty good) and eating the top tier of our wedding cake that we froze and flew up here (in case you were wondering, it was DELICIOUS!).

We also took lots of advantage of Juneau Appreciation Days – weekends where local businesses and tours offer locals very heavily discounted prices. Our first tour was a whale and bird watching boat cruise up to Berners Bay, north, in hopes to catch a fish run that the humpbacks love. Well, we missed it, but saw a few whales and learned a lot about the birds up here. Our next tour was the Taku Lodge, Flight and Feast. We got to take a float plane (or sea plane as my Dad calls it) over the Juneau Icefield, saw tons of glaciers along the way, and landed at a remote lodge that has a pretty stellar view of No Name Glacier. I got to fly co-pilot on the way there which was pretty awesome and the landings were the smoothest we’d ever experienced. Once there we got to explore the area while some staff cooked us a massive salmon lunch. We had glacier water, pink and white salmon, homemade breads, beans and salad. Everything was so delicious! After lunch, Eric met up with a worker who he knew through the Pharmacy. While they were chatting, I was just sitting on a picnic bench enjoying the views and the perfect weather we were having when all of a sudden a very large black bear appeared only about 20 ft away from me. I briefly panicked, slowly stood up and while the dogs ran away the bear kept moving towards me. I should note, that the salmon they cooked us for lunch was cooked on a grill outdoors, only about 8 ft. from where I was sitting. The bears, we were told later, were accustomed to it and would usually stop by for the burnt on pieces. So while I thought the bear was coming towards me, he was actually going straight for the grill and could’ve cared less about me. Once some of the big guys came outside with big sticks I felt safe enough to slowly walk farther away from it and then watch him from a safer distance. When the tour was coming to an end, we were invited by Eric's friend to come spend a weekend there - something we are planning for June.

Our last tour of Juneau was a helicopter ride to a glacier, where we could walk around on it. Fortunately they flew over a different area than we did with the float plane so we only got to see more of the beauty that surrounds us. Being on the glacier was, of course, fantastic, though not as cool as the one in New Zealand. We were fortunate to have had beautiful weather for all trips except the boat tour. Which means we were walking around he glacier surrounded by snow, without any coats on.

That about catches us up I think. We went to Anchorage for the long Memorial Day weekend and had a great time there - we ate good food, shopped, and climbed to our very first peak. I haven't gone through any of my photos from anything mentioned in May so perhaps the next time I will post some. I might look into a new type of blog - one that makes uploading photos easier. Anyone have any suggestions? Or maybe I should just look for a photo gallery that I can create and then link it here.

But now we start our busy summer season of family coming to visit and us going to see family. Tomorrow marks one year since we've been in Chicago and yesterday marked one month until we get to be there again. We cannot wait and hope to see as many of you as possible! Until next time...

New Zealand, Part 1

Well, we're back from Hawaii. The bags are unpacked. Fred has gone home. So, as I promised - a more detailed look into our fantastic honeymoon!

Ok, keep in mind I started writing this on our way back. Some things may sound a little outdated.

After 3 weeks, we are back. Sadly. :) We had so much fun on our honeymoon and even though we were gone for 3 weeks, it barely feels like we were gone for one. I wish we could have stayed longer… and going back to snowy/cold Juneau has been no easy task. I have been dreading the winter here, with it’s no sun, lots of snow, and gloomy days. Spending 3 weeks in perfect weather, while fantastic, just makes returning home all the harder. Normally after two weeks on vacation I get homesick and find myself ready to come home. That didn’t happen this time. Maybe it’s because we’ve been all over the place this year or because it took us three weeks to move to Juneau or maybe because Juneau doesn’t quite yet feel like home. In any regards, I take that to mean that if I’m not homesick after three weeks of travelling, then it’s because I’m having a pretty good time.

Our first two weeks on the South Island of New Zealand were absolutely fantastic. Two weeks there is not nearly enough. I don’t even feel like I saw half of the South Island, and that’s only half the country! We could’ve easily spent the entire three weeks there and I probably still would’ve felt the same. New Zealand is just gorgeous! And the people are so friendly! I loved it there. I won’t go into too many details, but I will give you the highlights – which in Jill’s writing terms, means it will probably be a lot. :)

It took four flights and a whopping 28 hours of travelling for us to arrive in Nelson, NZ – right on the north central tip of NZ. I know this may be hard to believe, but it was a lot easier than I expected; probably because I expected it to last forever! NZ Air is voted as one of the top airlines to fly with and I can definitely agree with that.

After spending one night there to catch up on sleep we then headed NW up to Kaiteriteri and Abel Tasman N.P. You can only see the park by boat or by hiking. We did both. We took a boat up the coast of the park, where they dropped us off and we hiked our way back. We got to see a seal colony along the way and some penguins swimming in the water. It was a beautiful day and we had a great hike. From there we headed further NW to visit The Spit. The Spit is a very thin stretch of sand dunes. Thin because it’s surrounded by water on both sides of it. What makes this place interesting is that it is a natural bird sanctuary. We got to see Spoonbill birds, herons, jellyfish, and Black Swans that we didn’t even know existed, along with some other birds. Where we stayed here we had the best lamb either of us have ever eaten.

From there we drove back through Nelson, to head NE to the Marlborough Sounds area. We stumbled upon a hidden B&B that offered us a very heavily discounted rate to get our own apt. on the cliffs of the sound because we just showed up last minute. We were also welcome to join them for dinner, so of course we said Yes! Our stay in Marlborough Sounds was definitely one of the highlights of this trip. We did part of the Marlborough Track hike to see this:

This is a screen shot taken from the photo book that I made, in order to properly share the beauty. Remember - I think you can click on an image and it will enlarge in a new tab.

A wraparound view of the sounds. It was breathtaking. One of my favorite spots. We sat there for hours just looking around. Our hosts were fantastic and we decided to stay a 2nd night because we were having so much fun with them. They had a beautiful home and even though we had our own apartment, they welcomed us to join them whenever we wanted. Our first home cooked meal from them was Whitebait, a very expensive local fish, so small and not much flavor to them on their own… so I don’t really understand the high price for them, but they cooked them nicely for us. Followed by Hoaki – another local fish, which was great. Our 2nd day there we were invited to join Terry on his boat to collect fish for dinner. A free boat ride in the Marlborough Sounds? Sounds awesome to us! So he tells us to hop on his tractor to ride down to the water – I thought we were going to die. The roads in the sounds are steep with very sharp curves and here we are hanging on, essentially, with our own balance. Once in the water, in a very small boat, we got splashed with freezing waves, but motored right next to some penguins! Our first mission was mussels. Look at the size of the mussels up here:

HUGE! This picture was taken at a restaurant, but is necessary to see how large and how green they are. Apparently in NZ they don’t even eat the black shelled ones. Anyways, has anyone ever watched the show “Coastwatch”? It’s a show based on the NZ shores because some people collect too many fish and the police catch them. I’ve only caught the show a couple times and don’t actually know what they are trying to catch. But our experience getting the mussels almost made us feel like we would be appearing on that show. Terri took us to a mussel farm in the water where he told us that individuals were welcome to collect a bucket of them every so often. Yet, once he was filling the bucket he kept looking all around – as if preparing himself for a “Coastwatch” police officer. It took us awhile to get a whole bucket full and my mind started freaking out – foreigners stealing mussels?

We got our bucket safely and then moved on to collect his fishing net. He caught a few Flounders and a Monk Fish. All three items, were then later prepared for our dinner. Once we got back home, utterly freezing, we were guided by Jackie to have a glass of wine or beer and head into the hot tub to warm up. The hot tub’s locale had a gorgeous view of the sounds and was equipped with a TV to also entertain us. The way we were treated there was like Heaven. Despite it being slightly over our budget, frugal Eric was enjoying every minute of it. For dinner that night we were served a thai-coconut mussel soup, pan-fried flounder and monkfish. Breakfasts were just as delicious. All homemade and all fantastic.

Wanting to stay a third night, but figuring we should move on we packed up and drove to Pounakaiki to see the Pancake Rocks.
I think you can see why they are called that. You’re supposed to visit these at High Tide because the water swells up into holes and creates a geyser-like effect with water.

We didn’t stay here too long, as that was the main attraction. Then finally, we headed toward the West Coast to Franz Josef’s Glacier. This was our next highlight, as tomorrow we were going to be hiking the Glacier. I really didn’t expect it to be as cool as it actually was, and I Highly recommend everyone do this once in your life. We had our first bad weather day but the hike continued on. Fortunately, the company we booked the trip with provided you with all sorts of water-resistant clothing and extra warmth layers. It was grey, gloomy, and pouring down rain. Despite the bad weather, we still enjoyed every minute of it. We did a half/day hike, or about 4 hours, with about 2 hours on the actual glacier. First, you have to climb up. Then, you have to climb up some more. Then, you put your cramp-ons on to walk safely on the glacier. Then, you get to the ice caves with the beautiful blue ice shining inside. These were tight little spaces that even I had a hard time getting through, let along Eric. But that was the coolest part. The ice caves were such a blast.

Despite the cold, the rain, and all the ice surrounding you I didn’t even notice I was cold until the bus ride back home. I was also exhausted. They carve steps in some areas on the ice to make it easier to climb up, but the steps are about as high as my knees – I could not properly use my thighs to walk anything but a straight-line for three days afterwards. But as soon as I got off the ice, I was ready to do it all again. It was such a blast. The next morning we woke up to this:

In that valley is the glacier. What a difference, huh?

Next, was Wanaka - my favorite town throughout the whole trip. The drive from Franz Josef to Wanaka is a must do for everyone. Within 20 miles we saw about 15 waterfalls – not measley little ones but large, raging ones! You could hike 5 minutes off the road to stand right in front of some of them. Then the closer you get to Wanaka you see beautiful snow-capped mountains all around you, with a lake and town in the center. There was not a bad view anywhere in that town. We stumbled across another great B&B there that gave us a stellar deal – better than their local campsite and free breakfast because we were on our honeymoon. Here’s one of my favorite shots of the town:

Wanaka had a similar trail to the one in Marlborough Sounds, where you could take a short hike to get a beautiful 360˙ view of the town. We had perfect weather here and the views continued to amaze us.

Later that day we headed to PuzzleWorld – a house of mind games, mazes, and puzzles. And the best part? Most of it is free! We spent hours there until our heads hurt. They have probably close to 40 board game-like puzzles that you just sit at their tables trying to figure out. If you get stumped, an employee will help teach you the trick.

Next post will cover our visit to Fjordland. I loved this area - another memorable part of the trip. And I have so many amazing photos from here, that I thought best to save for the next post. :)

A Short Update before I go into more detail..

Well, I know it may seem that I have completely abandoned this blog, but I haven’t! In actuality, I stare at a computer all day long and when I come home I don’t want to look at the computer screen anymore. Instead of making excuses, perhaps I should just get to the updating.

I think I last left off way back in early October, shortly before leaving on our honeymoon. Gosh – I’m almost hitting 6 months from my last update? Sorry guys. Well, we had a fantastic time on our honeymoon. It may have taken us 28 hours to get there, but we are already discussing going back again. Funny enough I started writing a blog on our way home from our 3 weeks, giving a detailed description of what we did. But I never had a chance to finish it and so I never uploaded it. Perhaps after this one I will put that up. A short recap, then.

We flew from Juneau to Seattle to L.A. to Auckland to Nelson, at the North tip of the South Island. We spent our 2 weeks there road tripping along the Northern coast and then down the West coast. Everywhere we went was absolutely stunning. We had some pretty awesome experiences – stealing mussels from a Mussel Farm with a local and fearing that we might wind up on that show Coastwatch; hiking on a glacier; seeing a 360˙ view of a beautiful Sound; seeing baby sea lions, baby dolphins and penguins; seeing an adult dolphin jump 6 ft. out of the water; spending 2 perfect days on a boat in Fjordland with still waters, clear skies and beautiful scenery. I could go on and on, but I’ll save that for the next post that goes into more length and has photos.

After 2 weeks there, we flew to Raratonga in the Cook Islands for a week of sun and beach fun. While the temperature and relaxation were great, the island and beach were only so-so. Florida has better beaches than Raratonga. We don’t ever feel the need to go back here, except maybe for the bananas. They were the freshest, sweetest bananas we had ever eaten and probably consumed about 20 of them while there. When we first ate one back home, I couldn’t even finish it – it tasted awful. We also rented a scooter and Eric had a blast driving that – he had to get an official Cook Islands driver’s license in order to do so and proudly shows it when at a bar and is asked for an ID. Another highlight was we got inked by a squid and then got to see him swim quickly away – we think we woke up him and he got startled. We did have fun, don’t get me wrong but Florida or Hawaii is closer. J

Once returning home, life was utter chaos. Work consumed my life through the rest of the year. I was working long days every week trying to get everything done. Around Thanksgiving, since we have the holidays off, we had 3 days to get out 6 papers. And of course, normally have 5 days to get out 6 papers. On top of all the daily’s we also had to build our Juneau Guide – the tourism magazine for the year and the Legislative Guide - for the legislative season. On top of all that I had 2 designers leave and finding a replacement even now in February has been a hard task to accomplish. There is a lack of designers in Juneau, and an even harder time finding one with any experience.

Around Thanksgiving, we decided that we would drop into the local animal shelter and see what dogs they had available. I don’t remember if I ever mentioned this, but dogs hardly ever exist in the shelter up here unless they are old or have a serious medical problem. Most people will adopt their dogs in the Lower 48 and fly them home to Juneau. Well, on the one day we stopped in they happened to have a dog they found on the street just go up for adoption that day. Once they find a dog, they give the potential current owners 10 days to claim their dog. If nobody calls asking about them, they go up for adoption. We came in on day 9 or 10, before this dog was ever even listed as an adoption option. After 3 days of them checking our references, we adopted Awesome – of which we have changed her name to Sadie. She’s a 1-1 ½ year old mutt with short black hair and a white chest with glacier blue eyes. The shelter thinks she’s a husky/lab/hound mix. She’s become our baby – totally spoiled.

In other news, I successfully cooked my very first Thanksgiving – not only was everything delicious but everything was ready at the same time. I was impressed with that and how much easier it was than I thought it would be. We had our first big snow storm and found out our car could not handle the hill we live on or really even the roads, so we bought a new 4-wheel drive Subaru Forester. Mom and Dennis came up between Christmas and New Year’s to spend the holidays with us. Unfortunately, they were here during some of our shortest days and didn’t get to explore too much. But they had fun and relaxed and Mom now misses Sadie more than me.

Winter has been tough for us, but now we have about as much sunlight as Chicago does. Our shortest days were about 5.5 hours of daylight. But if it rained and was cloudy – it almost seemed like it was night the whole time. When we have sunny days, even if it was only for 6 hours Juneau covered in snow with the sun shining looks like a Christmas card. It’s just beautiful. Fortunately, we got Sadie just in time because she forces us to go outside to walk and play with her. One of our favorite things to do here in the winter is to go ice-skating on the frozen lake down the street from our house. We’ve started taking Sadie with us and are trying to teach her how to mush. She loves running and she’s got husky in her – so she pulls us on our ice skates and we just glide along. Eric’s training her on the ice in order to get her to go cross-country skiing with him. The glacier lake froze too, so we were able to go walking all over icebergs – that was pretty awesome! And we’ve taken our first snowboarding lesson – it was rough! I was sore for a full week afterwards, but we had a lot of fun. We spend the daylight hours of the weekend taking Sadie on trails and trying to teach her how to walk off the leash. Weather wise, the winter has been great. We’ve had only one really cold day and during the big Chicago blizzard we had 2 days of record high temperatures in the mid-40’s. That is something I love, because we can go out and play outside without freezing our butts off after 20 minutes.

In the New Year, work has calmed down some. It still remains busy, but more so because we are trying to get organize from all the chaos of last year. Eric’s job suddenly got really busy in January, but it’s since calmed down. He still enjoys it all.

As I write this, we are on a plane to Hawaii – my bribe trip of the year. (Eric said if we moved to Alaska he would take me to Hawaii once a year.) We’ll be spending a week on the Big Island of Hawaii, the one with the active volcano. Fred, Eric’s brother, came up to Juneau a couple days ago for 2 weeks and some winter fun with Eric, although now he’s watching Sadie while we’re gone. He was super awesome and brought us some Chicago pizza! And from this point on we have a guest coming through August. We also officially have 2 trips home booked, July and October, and are planning on another one over the holidays.

I think that just about covers everything exciting on our end. We hope everyone enjoyed their Holidays and survived the blizzard. Stay tuned for the next couple blogs for my full detail and pictures from the honeymoon.

So Sorry it's taken me so long!!

Hi! Welcome back to my blog. It has been a long time. I have missed writing here, but things have been beyond crazy here lately. I can't believe it's October already. Lots has happened and since I'm notorious for long blogs, I should get started...

Last I left off, I had just finished my job at the Chiropractor's and started working at the Newspaper. Eric had just returned from Sitka and Eric' parents had come in as our first guests. I'll start with that. Eric's parents came in for a week to visit. Sadly, they didn't get the best weather most of the time. Their first day - it poured. That didn't stop them, but it did me. I sat inside while they went out and explored our neighborhood. It was great seeing friendly faces again and fortunately we were both able to take some time off to spend with them.

We spent the bulk of the time hiking. The town is so small, there's not much to see just by driving, the best way to see is to hike. We explored some of our favorites and got to explore new trails ourselves.
This is Auke Lake. It is surrounded by beautiful homes, float planes, and a great trail. Despite all the rain, the nice thing about Juneau is it has very tall and thick pine trees. A lot of the trails are covered with them, which means that even when it's raining the trees will normally shield you from the raindrops. So you can still enjoy a hike on a lightly raining day.

One day after getting waffles from our favorite breakfast place, we decided to walk in Auke Bay Harbor - the nicer harbor in town. It usually has boats docked from all over the country that are sailing to wherever their heart desires. Plus you can see sea lions, jellyfish and eagles pretty well here. We passed by a fishing boat that looked like it might be selling fish. Eric and I still haven't mastered fishing, nor did we know how to recognize a commercial boat. As we were walking back to the car we noticed that another guy was purchasing a fish from them and they were putting out a sign for sale. So we asked how much..

And there's our fish! And the smallest one they had no less.. 10 lbs of king salmon - the most prime salmon in town. We've learned that there are a variety of salmon that habitat the area, but this is the locals favorite. With Eric's parents in, we figured why not? Can't get it much fresher than this. But... how do we fillet it? Thankfully the fisherman did it all for us and gave us some ideas on how to use up this much fish.

That afternoon fish was served. We just baked it in the oven - no seasonings. Wow was this salmon rich! So fresh, so rich, so flavorful! So rich, in fact, that I don't think the 4 of us even ate much more than 1 lb. of it. But man, was it delicious. We saved up the rest of it and made salmon omelets for breakfast the next morning, a suggestion by the fisherman. They weren't as good as we had hoped. The eggs had covered up too much of the salmon flavor. We ate so much salmon that week, that Eric and I have barely eaten salmon since. Half of that salmon is sitting in our freezer still.

One of the hikes we later explored, which has now become a favorite of all of ours, is the Fish Creek Trail on North Douglas Island. We were completely surrounded by nature. The beauty of the tall trees and the lush greenery that surround you is just amazing. North Douglas is an area not very heavily populated and so usually you'll find yourself alone on trails. As the name suggests, there were tons of fish swimming upstream, to spawn. Eric thought that he'd be able to catch a fish with his hands there were so many. And he almost did! But, gosh, if he had - we had no idea how we were going to carry it back to the car.. we were at least a mile or 2 into the trail and a 15-20 lb salmon walking back would not have been fun to carry with our bare hands.

Eventually the creek got wider and it seemed that the birds were using it as their flight path. An eagle would fly down the stream every couple minutes, not to mention ravens and seagulls.

You can see it was another wet day! But we had fun. We hiked until we came to some freshly killed salmon on the trail - recently caught and eaten by a bear. Since it was then safe to assume a bear might be near, what better time to turn back? :)

We were waiting for a clear day for one of our favorite hikes and finally we got one! Perseverance Trail - tons of waterfalls to see and tons of berries to eat. With Eric's parents we hiked further than we ever had before. My ankle was still a little tender, so I started getting to the point where I wanted to turn back. But we thought we were so close to our next waterfall, so I stayed back and let them check it out so I could rest my ankle. Eric came running back for me and told me it was worth it to go further.
Well, the picture does not do it nearly enough justice. Because this area was gorgeous. There was a river running on 2 sides of you with the waterfall in the distance. We sat there for awhile to take in the views and rest my ankle. I really enjoyed this spot. We watched a guy pan for gold up here. Next summer I think we'll have to explore even further. This trail always seems to keep getting better.

We spent our evenings going to the glacier, because there had been so much bear activity there and we were trying to find bears for Ruth and Emil. Remember in my last post I mentioned our bear sightings got better. One night at the glacier as we're walking along what we call the Bear Trail, we heard some folks say that there was a bear in the tree. I was excited because there were other times we had went where we had just missed bears in a tree and I thought it seemed silly that the Bears would go up there. Well I was right about that...

Ha! I got a kick out of this. The Mama bear and her 3 cubs were ALL in the tree. The Mama just relaxing and the cubs playing around on the branches.

They are SO fricking cute. Oh my goodness. There better never be one cub walking around my house because I may just keep him. These guys just played around in the trees for at least 20 minutes. I must have taken at least 40 pictures of them in the trees.

The little guy on the bottom got stuck on his tummy around a branch. He was rocking back and forth trying to get un-stuck. Too cute. The Mama bear and other 2 cubs headed down the tree for dinner, leaving that little guy behind. The Mama bear started calling for him and he responded with his little cries. She eventually started climbing back up and just then he figured it out. They are just too precious. It was so much fun watching them in the tree and then climb down it.

Once they got down they headed into the woods to catch their dinner. We got to see Mama bear trek through the water while the cubs waited on the edge. She caught one within minutes and brought it back to the cubs to eat.

At one point they disappeared into the forest and I had heard they had come out on the other side of the trail. So I went looking over there for them to not only find the bear, but realize that it was another Mama bear and her 2 cubs! Ironically enough, they also started up in a tree, but it was a very lush pine tree and hard to spot. They took on the same pattern as the first set of bears. They came out of the tree to go eat. And they did so so close to the other set of bears that the Mama and her 3 cubs got nervous and headed deeper into the woods.

Eric's Mom was just smiling from ear to ear with excitement. We all were, but it was fun watching her experience all of it. So, at this point the Mama and her 2 cubs are so close to us eating their fish. Until they hear some tree branches rustling. The cubs, within an instant, grabbed the nearest tree and started climbing up it. I would've never guessed how quickly bears can climb trees, but they climb as fast as a squirrel! They must have received some signal from Mom and quickly went back to eating. Then, the rustling got louder. The cubs bolted up the tree. But this time that tree was right in front of me. I could've reached my hand out and touched the cub I was so close. So close I couldn't even take a picture. The Mama then got on her hind legs.. and this is when I started backing up. She was reacting this way to the moving branches, but knowing that she was getting more aggressive.. I thought backing up couldn't hurt.

Everything quickly calmed down and the little cubs wiggled their butts down the tree. After all that, we shortly noticed that the other group of 3 cubs and their Mom could be found at the top of another tree now. Gone to rest, I suppose. The twin cubs then walked right under the elevated path we were on. Shortly afterwards they retired into the woods as well.

We got a solid hour show and my jaw was probably wide open the entire time. We were able to get up close and personal, more so than ever before and those cubs are just too cute. Never would I have ever imagined seeing as many bears as I have this summer and in the ways that we did. It's just been amazing.

I think, now, we can officially say we will never get a better bear sighting than this.

Amongst our other exploring, we headed out to Auke Bay and stumbled across this great area. Welcome to the new location of Bears & Beers. :) There is a recreation area here that has cabins (not officially, 1 open all since it's a park) for you to use, fully equipped with a fireplace, grill, and 2 fire pits (1 by the cabin, 1 on the beach). There's a nice walking path here and a campground.

Shortly after Eric's parents left, we were invited to a BBQ on the beach at one of these cabins. We saw a group of porpoises swimming in the bay. Now, I also need to tell you of what we learned to be an Alaskan BBQ - crab, smoked salmon, king salmon, shrimp, halibut, brats and homemade everything else. It was pretty cool, we never expected such a spread! I made my famous carrot cake. We came home with only crumbs, but also we have made a nice group of friends. :)

At this point, the fall rainy season of Juneau was quickly approaching. We knew that any nice day we had could be our last. We tried to take advantage of any nice day we could. All summer, Eric had been trying to get me to hike to a peak with him and I was able to use my ankle as an excuse for awhile... but that was over. Eric wanted to use this day to hike to the top of Mt. Roberts. Now, it really isn't as bad as it sounds because we would take a tram halfway up and only have to hike about 2 miles to the top. Doesn't sound bad right? It's 2 miles, but 2,000 feet up. That is a lot of elevation to gain in such a short distance - making the trail super steep.

About halfway up the clouds started covering all of Juneau. This was kind of disheartening.. you want to see everything from the top! I was dying at this point. You can't even see the tram we took up from the above picture.

As we got a little further the clouds let up some. The coolest thing was seeing the mountains beyond the mountains we're used to seeing.
I would like to say that this is the top, but nope. The clouds just started surrounding us completely. I liked the imagery here. I stopped shortly after this. My lungs and legs were burning and I was just completely exhausted. I had packed my book because I expected Eric would want to go further than I. So I told him to go on and I started heading back down. The temperature at this point was close to 40 degrees.

Within 2 minutes of Eric walking further up, I lost sight of him. There were times when the clouds completely surrounded you and it was very surreal and a little scary. I didn't realize that until I found myself all alone surrounded by clouds. Eric didn't make it to the top of Mt. Roberts but he did make it to the top of Gastineau Peak. He said it was pretty awesome up there, but neither of us seemed to realize that he should've taken the camera. Oh well.. that's what next summer is for, right? :)

In other news, Eric spent 2 weeks in D.C. and has completed his Officer's Basic Training course. It was a loooong 2 weeks without him and with a 4 hour time difference between us it was hard to talk. D.C. worked him hard while there, spending 12-14 hours in class and training. But he now has a new ribbon to add to his insignia and is looking more official in his uniform. Mom was awesome and came up for a week while Eric was gone to keep me company. She was lucky and had some of the best weather we had all summer. We even broke record high's. Eric was so upset that he missed almost a full 2 weeks of beautiful, perfect Alaskan weather.

I got to to hike more than I expected to get her too and we tried some new restaurants. We also got invited to a beach BBQ (that's right, we do have a beach) and she was able then to sample all of Alaska's specialties. I swear - people up here know how to BBQ. All on a bon fire - there was steamed crab, brats, burgers, salmon and halibut and some other things. Mom had fun meeting some of our friends, who were also nice enough to invite me over while Eric and Mom weren't here to make sure I wasn't alone.

Unfortunately I had to work - a lot. So she was left to explore the town on her own. I think she's seen almost all of Juneau at this point. Now, to get her to see the sites you can't from the road. She didn't get to see any bears, the salmon run had just stopped. But she loved the eagles and saw a porcupine.

Summer is now over and the rainy season has begun. Apparently the hurricane wind season has also begun. Three days out of the past 2 weeks have had winds over 50 mph - which means the power goes out. Last week the airport recorded 68 mph winds. Describing Juneau's fall, a writer at the paper wrote, "Juneau's fall is the closest you'll ever get to living underwater.." I'm starting to understand this.

The other bit of news that I have is that about a month ago (yes, again I'm sorry it's taken me soooo long to update this post) I got the promotion I was working for! I am now the Creative Services Supervisor at the newspaper. It's funny how much things are different here. Back in Chicago, I had the bare minimum of experience to get a good job. Here that experience is gold. This is huge for my career and with the experience in Newspapers, I shouldn't have a hard time finding a job once we move again. I honestly like what I'm doing. It's busy, but I would rather be busy than not. But this is almost too busy. And lately, it's been killing me. Our whole department is changing and there's all these new tasks we need to learn and start handling. So, it's been tough but I'm constantly getting compliments for the work that I'm doing and everyone seems to be noticing how much I'm working my butt off. I like it because I know I'm doing a good job and I'm making the department better. It's fun seeing the progress and improvements you are making. :) But I am stressed and exhausted right now. Last night I was at work for 12 hours and mostly because of carelessness. But I got a huge compliment when I was almost at my breaking point...

Tomorrow, Eric and I leave for our honeymoon! We'll be gone for 3 weeks and after the past couple at work I cannot tell you how much I need it. When I started this job, I informed them of this trip - a lot of bosses, I was afraid, would not allow that much time off. They said it was ok, and that I would be taking it unpaid - no problem! But the compliment I received.. was that the Publisher is going to pay me for a week of my vacation as a Thank You for all the hard work I've been putting in. I cannot tell you how good that made me feel. I would've never expected that, but it really made me feel like a valued employee and assured me that as nuts as it's been I have been doing good. :)

While I'm gone - the paper may fall to pieces. Sadly to say. My right hand man is also on vacation for almost the entire 3 weeks that we will be gone. Us 2 are huge components in the smoothness of the daily paper going out - so we'll see what happens when I get back...I'm almost already not looking forward to my first day back - but let's not think of that. :)

We've made some good friends over the time too and they seem to throw a different potluck party every weekend. They are awesome because everybody makes things from scratch out here. You know you will always eat something amazing whenever you go to one of these parties. And our Margarita Machine - one of the best wedding gifts we've received - it is the hit of the party! People love this thing!

We've also been busy trying to plan all our trips next year because the PFD (oil money) sale is going on with the airlines. And coordinating with friends and family to come up.

Ok. I don't even know how long this thing is now. All I know is I've been working on it for about a week to update everyone before we go. The snow has started falling on all the mountain tops here which is a constant reminder that winter is quickly approaching. Once we get back from our honeymoon, the days will only be about 7-8 hours long. Darkness is coming. We'll see how winter treats us...

Nice weather + 2 visitors = a busy Jill & Eric

Things have been busy out here in Alaska! Lots has been going on.

To start, I've gotten another job to start once the Chiropractic gig ended. It's actually exactly as Eric and I had planned. I am the newest Graphic Designer at the local newspaper, the Juneau Empire! Probably 1 of 10 Graphic Design jobs in this whole city, so I'm ecstatic that I got it AND that it opened up exactly when I needed it to! But I have to tell you of the story of how I got it, because it's kind of weird and a little funny. First, I should mention that I applied for the Graphic Design Supervisor position. They had asked for 5-10 years of experience, which I don't have, but also all the tasks and skills required I had. So, I figured there's slim pickings in Juneau and why not? The next day I got a call from the boss asking me to call him back. So, I thought, fantastic I've got an interview! I gave him a call and he asked if I could come in that day. Well, fortunately my job at the chiropractor's closes for 2 hours for lunch. So I said sure - thinking this would just be a quick meeting to go over my portfolio and skills. Three minutes into the 'interview' he starts telling me about all the benefits and salary. My reaction is, Why is he telling me this? Then he says, Well it was great to meet you, follow me. Thinking I would be going on a tour of the place, he then brought me to the front desk and asked the receptionist for a new hire packet. He then asked me to fill out all sorts of paperwork and bring it back to him as soon as possible - he wanted me to start in 4 days. So, I took the papers, looked at him, and said, "So... I got the job?" His response, "Yeah! I figure you'll do great, but if you don't we'll just let you go. You're from Chicago, you can't be that bad." LOL. I should mention he's from Detroit. :) I actually didn't believe I got the job, since it was a Supervisor position and he barely asked me anything, so I only told my Mom and Dad that weekend and waited until I got further confirmation before telling anyone else.

So upon leaving the building, I promptly sprained my ankle in excitement. It was raining and I was trying to walk quickly to my car to prevent my portfolio from getting too wet. My heel caught a rock the wrong way - my shoe went one way and my heel the other. Fortunately, I don't think anyone in my new workplace caught my wipe-out. I hobbled into the car, took my shoe off to stretch my ankle and immediately called Eric to tell him I got the job! Then.. the sprained ankle. I had never sprained it so bad in my life. It was my right foot, a.k.a. the driving foot, and I was concerned I wouldn't be able to get myself back to work. Slowly but surely, I made it back there and hobbled into the office, as I could no longer fit my foot into my shoe. On the bright side, I was working in a chiropractor's office - as soon as I told him what happened he immediately began caring for me. He taped up my ankle, gave me ice, and told me to stay seated the rest of the afternoon. Luckily, for me, the rest of our appointments that day were regulars so when they came in, they knew the whole drill without me having to worry. At this point, I could no longer walk, so Dr. B gave me crutches and I called Eric to pick me up.

I felt so useless. It sucked. I spent the rest of that night on the couch with my foot up and on ice. Thankfully, the next day I woke up and I didn't need the crutches anymore! I could walk on it, but I was slow and limping. Still.. better than crutches. Luckily that weekend was also rainy, so I didn't feel so bad spending most of it inside.

I was fortunate how quickly I became mobile again because on Monday morning Eric was leaving for Sitka, Alaska to fill in at the Pharmacy there. He would only be there 5 days. The original plan was for me to go with him, but then I got this receptionist job and since I would be working through the week I couldn't. I'll make it there another time.

The immobile weekend gave me a bunch of time, though, to fill out this giant stack of paperwork I was given and to write up all the questions I had for this new boss. I didn't even know my hours! Plus I also had to drop the bomb that I need 3 weeks off for our honeymoon. So, during Monday's lunch I headed over there to return the paperwork and ask my questions. Everything went well and he answered everything the way I wanted. Honeymoon got approved! The only downside, even though I don't really consider it one, is I wasn't hired to be the Supervisor - just another designer because I have no newspaper experience. However, he just wanted to see how quickly I picked up on things and then we could later discuss the promotion. With only 2 years of experience, sounds great to me! It was now official! Wooohoooo!!!

I was to start the next day. So the week that Eric was in Sitka, I was going to be working 2 jobs. As I teased him, I never thought by marrying a Doctor would I have to work 2 jobs. :) The chiropractor's office is only open for half days on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I was going to work the opposite shifts at the newspaper in order to hit the ground running on my first full day. That next day, I got a new boss. The company was merging 2 departments and so oddly enough the guy who hired me 4 days prior was no longer my boss. My new boss had not even seen my resumé. A little weird... maybe there's just a lot going on. He was excited to have me and so I wasn't concerned, just with everything else that happened.. it was just strange.

Eric didn't so much enjoy his week in Sitka. For those of you who aren't too familiar, Sitka is about 90 miles west of Juneau, but only plane or ferry can get you there. We've heard from people here that Sitka is the most beautiful city in Alaska. He said work was boring and the weather was rainy. He got out to hike a little, but was happy to come home. I still haven't seen the pictures he took.

The weekend he came home we had the most perfect weather we've had here all summer. 75 and sunny for 6 days straight. Lovely! We tried to spend every minute we could outside, but Eric's parents were coming up 3 days later and we still have stuff on our spare bed that we needed to find a place for. Well.. we figured we could do it all at night and went out during the day. :)

There were about 30 of these bright yellow birds flying outside our window. Since I keep my camera on the windowsill, I got some good shots. I don't know what this bird is, but I had fun watching them all.


On Saturday, the weather was so nice that we had to get out. But to safely test my ankle we went on a flat and short hike. We headed to the glacier to hike the Nugget Falls Trail. The skies were so blue and clear!


The hike to Nugget Falls was easy, but with such a great day it was filled with tourists! Not a big deal, I mean look at what we saw!


It really was super easy to get there, especially with how close you were able to get to the falls. As you can see by the other tourists. They're also good to see how large this waterfall was. It was just beautiful and the glacier was just right next to it. Surrounded by a full circle of beauty.

We've been watching a lot of the travel channel lately and have been surprised at how much Alaska is on there. Hey, we're new to cable. :) But where we didn't expect Alaska was on the country's 10 Most Extreme Beaches. Mendenhall Lake beach makes that list. Why? Because that is the lake with the glacier in it. Which means you can swim with icebergs and the water never gets warmer than 40 degrees. Apparently, though, on the hot days this is what the locals do. Some even on the cold days and they bring hot chocolate in thermos' to warm up. After the hike, Eric was pretty hot so he considered going in. First, he tested with his hands - not bad. Then he took of his shoes and tested with his feet and calves - a bit chilly, but he still thought he could handle it. After 30 minutes of contemplating...


He finally went in!! He told me to take a bunch of pictures because he wasn't posing and he wasn't going this alone again. He walked in to his waist, dove all the way in and promptly walked right back out.


But you can see - he had a good time. :)

The glacier has been a popular place for bear sightings, if you remember in my last post or two. We were still on the hunt for the Mama and her 3 cubs, but had slowed down on search with the ankle sprain. We decided to walk the popular trail for bears just to see if we'd see any. Too our surprise we got to see the Mama and her 3 cubs!!!!!! They were hiding under a tree, eating their freshly caught salmon. Look, I got one peeking out!


There was a small open space next to the tree and the Mama was out checking out the area and if we were any threat. The humans were the caged animals in this park, but this bear could easily hop over the fence if she wanted to. Fortunately, there was a ranger making sure nobody got too close. This was good because a lot of tourists can be dumb. Most people know to never get between a Mama and her cubs, yet these tourists were sticking their hands through the fence just to get a good picture. The Mama was even popping her jaw as a sign of anxiety.


But look at how cute these little guys are!!!!!!! Gosh, I just want to grab one and take them home with me. I can't get over how cute they are! They walked into the open path and we were fortunate to see them just going about their day for about an hour.


We even got to see the cubs wrestling and playing around with each other. One cub even went up to the fence and poked his head through. But I had my camera on manual focus and I couldn't focus it fast enough. They are just too dang cute!!


This was by far the best bear experience we've had!! And as Eric put it - probably the best experience we'll ever have. (Well, stay tuned for the next post because it DID get better.)

On Sunday, we decided to do another somewhat relaxed hike. The ankle felt fine yesterday, I just walked slow. This trail we decided to do a trail with a little incline. With Eric's parents coming in just a couple days, I didn't want to be sitting on the couch while they went out and explored. So we headed out to Douglas Island for this trail. To our surprise it was a wide open meadow. Not something we've seen out here before. With no trees it was super hot, but it was nice to feel the warmth. Eric will disagree with that statement. :)

The rest of the weekend we tried to sit outside, read and fly the super kite Eric's Mom bought us years ago. Soaking up the sun. I even got a little color! It was a perfect weekend.

Remember how I said we'd clean. Nope - the house was a disaster by Sunday evening. Luckily, my last day at the chiropractor's I only needed to work a few hours. I happily said goodbye and went home to clean! I knew what it was going into it and while I didn't like the job I did get to meet a lot of new people and learn more about Juneau. However, the weather was perfect again Monday and so I spent the better part of the afternoon outside. Which meant we were up late that night cleaning for his parents arrival the following day.

On my way home that day, I stumbled across an eagle walking in the brush outside our stairs. It scared me a little, as I thought it was a bear, but it was neat to see him so close. It is scary how large they actually are, they're HUGE! This was a young one - not bald yet. You can see him sitting on the branch.


Eric's parents arrived last Tuesday and they leave shortly. We've been so busy showing them around town that I started writing this blog a week ago. I thought, in order to keep this short and so I actually get this posted, I will make a new post for their stay. It's been nice having family up here, but it's also been busy! Until next time...!

I'm really starting to love this place

Of course, we still haven't experienced the fall's heavy rain or the winter's short days, but my goodness the summer is just amazing up here. I know I had my doubts and frustration a few weeks ago, but we've had some fantastic weather here lately that has completely shifted my views. With sunny days and temperatures in the high 60's we've really been getting the opportunity to go out and further explore our town. With every new trail there's always a new beauty to be found. With every new area of town explored, a spectacular new view is awaiting to be seen. With every new experience there are fond memories that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

I know I skipped my usual posting last week, so one would think that we've been busy, but mostly just lazy. This new job has lied to me. The 30-hour supposed weeks have turned into 37 hour weeks with 10 hour days. The weird thing is that the office is only open for 30 hours each week, but the Dr. likes to overbook himself and then run slow and I'm stuck there until the last patient leaves. Not what I signed up for. Sadly I haven't been able to do the things I had hoped while working this job, like look for new jobs and write my blog. I hate this job. There are only me and him on a daily basis who work there and when he keeps me there an hour later than I'm supposed to be there it would be nice if he could at least turn off the bulk of the lights while he rushes out the door just to help me out a little, but no. It is so slow and so boring there that I now look at it as getting paid to read my book and become a master at Solitaire. I have 9 days left and I cannot wait to be done.

On the bright side I am meeting some new people and making some new friends. I'm getting my design background publicized and getting some great tips on things to do here - clubs to join, trails to hike, art studios and classes to sign up for, etc. And you can't beat the commute, a 7-10 minute highway ride with no traffic ever! I even met a guy from Juneau who went to Columbia College in Chicago for film and lived in Logan Square! :)

In other news, we were finally able to find our crab source two Saturdays ago. But the mistake we made was fall for the deal - we came home that day with 7, yes 7, crabs - probably about 20 lbs. I had wanted 4, but the deal saved us a few bucks and I thought, 'What the hell I'll find recipes for all this meat!' Part of the reason too was because crab season (and maybe just Dungeness crab season) ends August 15th. So we thought if we could freeze some it would last a little longer. Afterwards we tried going to some of the grocery stores looking for a larger steamer pot so that we wouldn't just have to cook one at a time. No luck. So we headed home and started cooking. From cooking, to cleaning, to cracking, I think it took us a solid 5-6 hours. It was exhausting! You can see below the bowl on my left is just filled with crab meat, to the right the plate with the crab that still needed cracking and there was still a full crab in the sink.

Eric is officially a master of cooking these now and I got pretty good at the cracking. We filled, to the rim, an entire 1.5 quart bowl of crab meat or, roughly, a 2 liter. So let the recipe experiments and week of crab begin!

- Saturday night we just had fresh crab.
- Sunday lunch was a crab and artichoke dip. Sunday dinner was a red pepper and tomato pasta sauce (also known as Fancy Pasta) with fresh spinach and crab tossed over pasta.
- Monday lunch was the crab artichoke dip again. Monday dinner was crab cakes. My second attempt at those, with a new recipe. These were better but still lacking something. I will continue to perfect.
- Tuesday dinner was crab and artichoke pizza. This was my favorite. It was so flavorful and delicious!
- Wednesday, we froze the rest of the crab. lol. We were officially sick of it and needed a break.

Over the weekend we also finally bought hiking boots! They have become our trusty trail companions and I wonder how we did without before. Maybe we just turned around at the sight of mud before? :) Now we just tromp through it! So in order to break in our new shoes we decided to do the airport trail, which was not even 2 miles (one way) and mostly flat. Below is one of the views - a new mountain view we hadn't seen before. There were sea lions swimming in the water here.

Below if you look closely, you can see the airport runway with the glacier behind it. What a cool airport, don't you think? This was one of my favorite views on the trail. I just found it entertaining and awesome.

The trail wasn't much but it's a nice walk and it was the perfect length because my shoes started bothering me. We got high shoes for their ankle support and I can't remember the last time I wore gym shoes with ankle support - so I just wasn't used to it and my ankles wanted to breath. Although, this trail did remind me a little of Savannah because it was marshy with little waterways going through it.

During the week, we got invited by Eric's boss to join her and her dog, Cooper, on a trail on North Douglas. Douglas is the island across the channel from Juneau. We had yet to go anywhere on North Douglas and so we happily accepted. This has become my new favorite place. The trails in this area are just beautiful and the views you find are just stunning.

You can hear waves crashing, which is always relaxing, along with eagles singing and the views are completely uninhabited - no houses, no bridges, just beauty. There's not even hardly any people there either, making this the perfect peaceful place.

This past Friday evening we decided to head out to Mendenhall Glacier because the newspaper had printed a photograph of a Sow (Mama bear) and her 3 cubs walking across the road to get to the glacier. The article also said that because the Sockeye salmon are spawning in creeks off the glacier, that bear activity in the area has increased. So we went out to see what we could see! Once we got there we hiked the most common tourist trail, but also the one that follows the creek, with no luck. However, we did see something we never have before...

Can you tell what it is? It's a porcupine! In a tree! Who knew they could climb trees? Because I sure as heck would've never looked for them there. Another man on the trail pointed it out to us. I need to research this more. Do they fall out of trees? Because if so, we're going to have to start looking up..

We ran into a student that was working in Eric's Pharmacy who told us we missed a bear and a glacier calving (when parts of the ice break off of it) by about 40 minutes. Argh! So close! But apparently, it was one or the other - they both happened around the same time. We would've probably been in bear territory, but I would've rather seen the calving. The glacier was a beautiful deep blue when we got to it, where the ice broke off.

This past weekend was supposed to be nice weather and Eric was trying to drag me to the top of Mt. Roberts. Now, it was going to be a cheater hike, because we were going to take the Tram half-way up. But what remains was 2-3 miles with a 2000 ft. elevation gain. I can feel my lungs tightening in my chest just thinking about it! Luckily for me, the weather was cloudy and rainy. Since we had hyped ourselves up for a hike, we decided to do the Lemon Creek trail because it is covered with high evergreens and so can be used as protection from the rain. This is where our hiking boots came in handy! The trail was filled with mud, muck and muddy puddles. We had hiked a bit of this trail before, but hiked a lot further that day. It looked like a rain forest in there. Okay, so Juneau is a rain forest. But when I think rain forest I think of the Amazon. This trail made me feel like I was in the Amazon with all it's plants, trees, streams, falls, and puddles. It eventually started raining harder and our makeshift tree umbrellas were no longer being useful, so we headed back home.

Sunday was cleaning day. Another bad weather day but we had a lot to do around the house. Eric's parents are coming 2 weeks from today and our spare bed still has stuff on it that we need to find a place for. Plus with me working and us hiking in mud, we needed to clean. Later in the afternoon the rain stopped, so we decided to go out to North Douglas, where we heard there was good fishing, and continued to attempt this new skill.

As you can see, Eric caught one! But with our limited knowledge as to what fish is edible or not, we put him back. You see we have a little book that has the most commonly caught fish - mostly salmon - and this guy wasn't in there. While walking out to our fishing spot we met some other fishers and asked if they were having any luck. They told us they only caught a few 'double-uglies'. Well... this guy is pretty ugly.. so we assumed that's what it was. This spot was a good location, Eric got a nibble just about every other cast. He then got a fighter on the line and that fighter ate Eric's lure. We lost that one. While Eric was putting a new lure on, I realized that the tide had come in a lot - almost to the point where we were going to lose our only path back to our car. He tried a few more casts with no more luck (bad lure?) and then we headed home.

After another great day in Juneau we decided after dinner to head back out to Mendenhall Glacier in search of the Sow and 3 cubs. Most of the activity was happening around 8pm at the Glacier so we got there at 7:45 just to make sure we wouldn't miss anything. The activity was almost non-existent when we got there. We saw another porcupine up in a tree and heard that the cubs were in that same tree Sunday night. (Almost!) So we walked around that same creek trail, amid way too many tourists, and finally got our bear. Not just a sighting, but a 30 minute show of this little guy eating his dinner!!

Then going to get a drink of water...


I love this picture, he's just so cute! We were hoping when he went to the water that he was going to catch another salmon (even though he had 2 large ones already), but he was just thirsty.

What a show! And we were only about 6 ft. away from him, behind a fence at least, but had he wanted to attack the fence would not have even slowed him down. He was not at all phased by everyone watching him, nor their constant camera clicking and flash. He was just happily eating away. I have about 60 photos from this 30 min. dinner - it's almost like a still-motion film. Eric and I both had fun taking pictures. What a show! What a place! We found it interesting that he didn't even eat the meat we eat on a salmon. He mostly ate the skin and the fins, the fattiest areas on a fish.
It's just amazing how close you can get to the wildlife here. We watched until he headed into the woods and then headed back home on cloud nine.

And this is the reason I'm really starting to love this place. :)