a road trip

I love road trips! They put me to sleep though.... It's a good thing we live where we do because our road trips don't take much more than an hour's time. Maybe 1-1/2 hours depending on how much time we spend taking pictures. If you start from one end of Juneau and drive to the other end, it's about 60 miles. Here's some pictures from this week's road trip:

Alaskan cotton. This grows in a marshy, muskeggy environment (soggy) and is sometimes difficult to get to because the ground is so damp. It blooms for a couple weeks and looks like a ball of cotton. This picture was taken at the end of it's cycle and after the wind and rain has been beating on it for days. It's looking a little shabby, but still a beautiful field of cotton. I was hoping to get some cotton picked on this trip but it just wasn't meant to be.


Deer. On the way home, we turned into a driveway of some new houses that just went up 4-Sale. We heard they are low income housing.... overlooking Auke Lake.... Interested, because they're not very nice houses, we wanted a closer look. As we were "critiquing" them, we happened to notice a deer just feet away from us. I was snapping pictures like crazy, knowing the deer would take off at any second. Sadie was barking like crazy, like she wanted to attack this deer. The deer just stood and looked at us for the longest time. As we started backing out of the driveway, my husband noticed a second deer! So we stayed a little longer and appreciated their stillness while I snapped away.

Fireweed. Isn't it gorgeous? Fireweed is one of our most vibrant, and massive, wild flower. The stems can grow up to 5-6 feet high. The flowers start blooming from the bottom of the spike and as the days and weeks go by, more flowers open up until they get to the very tip of the stalk. When they reach the top, the old timers say we have six more weeks until winter.... This gorgeous view is from Brotherhood Bridge with the wild Fireweed in the foreground and the Mendenhall Glacier in the background. This view is about four minutes from our home. How lucky we are to be so close to such beauty.


Cottage. We don't have many cute, cottage-style homes in Juneau except in the downtown historic district. Most new houses are just big, ugly boxes with no class, no individuality to them. This is one of my favorite little homes in Juneau. I think it's just as cute as a bug's ear and I'd love to live here. It's next to the main house and is probably a rental or maybe a grandma apartment unit. I just love it. If I lived there, I'd probably put a different window on the left . It looks like the perfect homestead for my sweetie and me.

Container Van. Most everything that comes to Juneau comes in these container vans, on a barge, towed by a tug boat up through the Inside Passage, along the Alaska coast line. Groceries, clothes, furniture, new vehicles. Most everything. Some perishable items will arrive via Alaska Airlines as freight. We live on the mainland; we're not an island. We just don't have any road systems in or out of Juneau. To get to Juneau you either arrive on Alaska Airlines, the Alaska Marine Highway System, or your personal boat or small plane. The barge arrives on Tuesday of each week. In the 1970s and 80s, you could find yourself in a pickle if you needed milk or eggs on a Monday morning.... only to find the shelves empty and the barge not due for another day.

This was a short road trip but thought you'd enjoy seeing some local pictures of Juneau.