The Right Place For Us?

Snow capped mountains off in the far distance.  I zoomed in as far as I could to take this picture, which is why it is a little fuzzy...  ....

And here are some pictures taken from the balconey of my hotel room two evenings ago (at the end of the day and with very little daylight left), looking across the channel at Douglas Island:

I left the hotel this morning around 10am and set out to walk across the bridge to Douglas Island and explore on foot.  Some pictures taken while still on the Juneau side of the channel:

View of the channel - taken from the center of the bridge that connects Juneau with Douglas Island:

Douglas side of the bridge looking back towards Juneau:

Once I crossed over to Douglas Island I decided to head north, away from the highest density areas and the small town of Douglas proper.  I walked along the side of Douglas Highway, which it turns out is a fairly busy road, with high hopes of walking away from residences altogether and making it to wide open space and unobstructed channel and island views.  I regretfully never made it that far, partially because I am easily distracted these days.  While wandering along the road I saw a side trail with wide open gates and no signs, that looked like "off the beaten path" and impulsively decided to take it and see where it went:

Unfortunately I got less than 1/2 mile and saw this, so had to turn back:

Continuing on Douglas Hwy north I eventually came to a mobile home park that I had heard about in various real estate listings, and decided to check it out while I was there.  I actually called about one mobile home while I was at the park (not a bad place as mobile home parks go......), left a message, and then took a few pictures of the mountains and water before moving on again. 

(Somebody's got a problem....)

As I left the mobile home park I was very aware of the fact that had I been in Tennessee right now, I would not even have considered for one moment, the mobile home that I had just called about......Moving on.......

I walked down N Douglas for about 90 minutes in total, and when I realized that I was not even close to getting away from residential and into open channel, I decided to head back the way I had come.  I will have a mountain bike by next weekend and will give it another shot then. 

More pictures of the mountains and water as I headed back to the bridge:

By the time I got back to the bridge I had decided that I was not ready to head back to the hotel yet, and continued straight, walking towards Douglas Island south.  I have been south a couple of times since I arrived in Juneau and knew that the area was filled with still more mountain and channel views, in addition to very high density homes - some pricey water-front houses, but mainly housing of the apartment/duplex/condo variety, and plenty of mom and pop-type restaurants.  Your typical small village.

Douglas is a charming little town, and Douglas Island is a huge and magnificant mountainous region.  But as I was walking, and looking at the homes, and thinking about the mobile homes and the condos and the apartments and the houses on top of each other, yet again I could not picture myself and my mountain boy and my dog living in any of these places and being happy.  And there it is again..........trying to picture us all here.........living here..........it's still difficult to do. 

At the far end of south Douglas (at least as far as is developed) is yet another wharf, and as usual I am deeply attracted to these boats and felt compelled to photograph them.  Those are still Juneau mountains in the background.  I loved the boats, I loved the mountains and water.  And I really loved the houseboats:

 

And finally I made it to the very end of the paved roads on S Douglas and ran into the same beautiful view I enjoyed a few weeks earlier when I went exploring the old Treadwell mining trail with colleagues:

Coffee at one of those mom and pop places in Douglas before heading back, and almost 6 hours after leaving the hotel I returned tired, with the same aggravating sore right-hip I had last weekend, but otherwise feeling good.

When I look back on the pictures I took today I am again reminded that Juneau Alaska has a beauty that is unparalled.  So beautiful it can take your breath away.  So beautiful there are times I try to take a picture but give up before I even click the button on the camera, because I know that there is no way to capture in a picture the stunning scene that I am seeing in front of me.  The camera, and my amateur picture-taking skills could not possibly do it justice.

As overwhelming as the beauty of Juneau is though, the missing of family, the concerns about the job, the inability so far to find a home that I could picture my family living happily in, the concerns about whether or not family will really be happy here in this new, strange, foreign-feeling land consume.  I try to not let them, but sometimes they do anyway.  If my family comes here, they are here because of me, not because of some deep-seated desire to be in Juneau.  Because of my job.  Because I said yes to Juneau.  Is this the right place??  For us??  For all of us??  I still don't know yet.

Society speaks and all men listen, mountains speak and wise men listen....John Muir