What to do? What to do?

In about a month from now Justin will be leaving me...to go to watch his younger brother graduate from high school! Yeah Austin! This trip will serve three purposes: 1. Obvious: to go to Austin's graduation. 2. To pack what's left in our storage. 3. To bring our storage unit stuff and the rest of his family out here to Skagway! Unfortunately it will not be a permanent move for my in-laws, but we will have them here for a week and a half! We are SOOOOO excited, we've been planning for a couple of months of what we want to do when they get here. Here are a few ideas:

Ride one of these to the Laughton Glacier trail head.

Hike to this cabin and set up camp

Then we'll keep hiking so we can look at this!

After that we will hike back to the cabin and spend the night and then ride the train back home.

Another idea that we have is:

Ride one of these...

...and land on something similar to this!

We'll probably try to do both! Of course we plan on eating lots o' halibut and salmon, beholding the majesty of the landscape and no getting eaten by bears!

Life in Skagway...part one

First things first. When you are in Alaska or the Yukon (most people that come to Skagway end up traveling to the Yukon Territory since it is our neighbor) it is very important to have some type of camera with you at all times. Amazing landscape photo opportunities occur at such an overwhelming rate that it can be frustrating at times when you are without a camera. It is common to come across scenes such as these:

Which way is up and which way is down?

Yakutania Point. A great place to watch for seals and whales.

Flying from Juneau to Skagway.

Road trip to Anchorage

Skagway isn't what you would call a fishing village. We cater mostly to the cruise ship companies. However, some of the families here do fish for a living and when you live here and you are in the loop of when the next fishing boat will make a special stop in Skagway...it's quite the event:

The boat finally arrives.

We've all been waiting patiently...it was too gorgeous of a day to be impatient!

Getting ready to start selling!

The big one!

Our fish! 31 lb beauty!

We paid this guy on the dock 50 cents per lb to fillet our fish for us. Not a bad deal since we didn't know how!

The best cut! Halibut cheeks are usually eaten right away. The rest is vacuum packed and put in the freezer.

Local fishing licenses are cheap and many people, especially in the winter, will buy crab pots and shrimp pots and tether them to the dock railing. There's nothing better than fresh sea food! Here is my friend Brooke pulling out her shrimp pot:

Dumping shrimp into the bucket.

"I am NOT a shrimp! I am a KING PRAWN!" Ha ha!

It's easiest to pop their heads off right away.

Justin's favorite is to make shrimp etouffee. He fell in love with Cajun cooking while living in Texas for two years. Have I mentioned that he is a great cook?? Well, he is!

Skagway brings out the outdoor enthusiast. I got into the habit of taking a walk every morning before work. This is what I often saw walking across the Skagway river bridge in early spring:

While enjoying the outdoors you always have to be on the look out for these:

Don't try to pet them. They're not nice.

If you do try to pet them and they suddenly see you as food or baby bear assassin, don't run! Use this:

No, this doesn't work like mosquito repellent. It works like pepper spray...because that's what it is. This particular model has the ability to hit a target 30 ft away!

Lunch break on a slow ship day. If you were to look at this street mid week it would be literally flooded with people.

That's all for now! There's more to come!

Arctic Bell Heather and Blueberry Blossoms

Another hike to Laughten Glacier. This time I thought I would post some of the beautiful vegetation growing along side the trail. It's a sparse representation, but this is what I had on my memory card and wanted to share them!

Fungus!

Blueberry blossoms!

Arctic Bell Heather

More blueberry blossoms! In late August/ early September these will be ready to eat!

Happy.

Home of the north wind

I never heard of Skagway until Justin and I met. He told me he was going to be a tour bus driver in Skagway, AK for the summer. I had been to Alaska once on a family trip. We flew into Anchorage and rented an RV and drove to such towns and areas as: Talkeetna (We ate the best sourdough pancakes there), Seward (Incredible landscape! We took a day cruise there and saw the most amazing wild life!), Homer (went out to the spit and watched as they brought in the day's halibut catch), Denali (beautiful country and more amazing wildlife!). It was an amazing trip and I thought that nothing could be as beautiful as Alaska. Skagway didn't let me down.

The view looking south from downtown.

Is that the star of Bethlehem, you wonder? No, it's the full moon over Skagway.

Only us winter folk get to see it. It never gets this dark in the summer!

The view looking north from our back porch.

I loved Skagway so much when I first came and Justin and I got engaged that I had to come back. We figured it would be a good idea to come for two summers and pay off some debt then go back home. This summer will be number three.

Justin

You know, I've never been good at keeping journals. The day to day life of me isn't inspiring enough, in my opinion, to put it down on paper. But I find that when I'm alone with my own thoughts, which is my common state of being these days, my thoughts threaten to riot and cause me to word vomit on the first person I see. It's not a pretty sight...or sound. So I guess this blog has to turn into something that is meant to keep my sanity in check until summer rolls around and brings the tidal wave of tourists that end up taking away my ability to think at all! So here goes:

That's my husband, Justin. He's a man, not a boy pretending to be a man. And he's my man. He's not afraid of responsibility. He's not afraid to cry. He's not afraid to say it like it is. He's not afraid to open his heart to anyone who is in need of a friend. He has a booming voice that can be heard over crowds in basketball games. He is a master of accents. He has a dream of being a sports announcer or voice talent for animated films (and he would be amazing at either of these). But for now he's a computer technician at our local railroad company. It's not his dream job, but like many other people, does it because it pays the bills.

He's good at his job because he is extremely smart. He never worked with computers before he got this job, but because he figured things out on his own while working at the local Radio Shack, the rail company had enough Justin fans to get him hired on. He's a master story teller. Anyone who knows Justin knows that this is true. When we first met he was a bus driver, first as a school bus driver, then as a tour driver in Alaska. I love listening to his bus stories. I think in the next post I'll write down one of his bus stories. He has red hair. I love his red hair. I hope we have red headed children. He hopes we don't. Apparently life isn't easy for red heads.

He tells me I'm beautiful everyday, several times a day, often at times when I'm not really all that beautiful (i.e. in the morning, no make up, bad breath, hair that could easily be mistaken for some kind of rodent nest). He is one of the most interesting people that I know. I always wonder what's going through his head. I love him.