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 21st) 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...
