High Alert

I really like this picture.

It was taken on a cool and cloudy day one evening last week, when I stopped at Lena Beach on the way home Out the Road.

Lena Beach is a small protected cove, with a rocky shoreline, picnic shelters/benches/campfire areas, beautiful overpriced waterfront homes, mountains and usually calm water, and what I think may be a nesting area for eagles.

I see eagles (many times couples now) in the trees.  And this is where I watched an eagle swim food to shore one cold and cloudy day a few months ago, while I was walking the beach alone early in the morning. 

I see these small "shrines" everywhere I go.  So many beaches in Juneau are rocky, and that just seems to compel visitors to build towers small and large made of this so-readily available natural resource. 

One more stop on the same drive home was to the pier immediately adjacent to the ferry terminal.

I can't begin to tell you how many times I have stopped here over the past almost six months since I arrived in Juneau.

And I have taken probably hundreds of pictures of this place. 

When it is sunny and clear here, you are drawn to sweeping and very beautiful snow-capped mountains off in the distance, endless sky and endless water.

When it is overcast (as it was that day last week when I stopped) the jagged snow-capped mountains disappear

completely.

And when that happens your focus is forced closer to home - you see pine trees, you see the fishing vessels and the hard-working guys who man these vessels regardless of the weather.

You see the textures and colors and beauty and flaws of the pier.

When the weather is gorgeous you can look out and see forever.

When the weather closes in you can't see forever.

But sometimes you can see yourself.......

Two hardy young fishermen laughing and easily joking with each other, while sitting and repairing their fishing nets........

Late yesterday afternoon Juneauites were out enjoying a sunny day.  The weather was forecasting this to be the last sunny day in a while - but I take those forecasts with a very large grain of salt.  I'm a sucker for every sucker patch the weather gods throw our way..........

These pictures were taken downtown while I was waiting for an evening meeting to begin.  I am an unwilling  participant in evening meetings because they move into "my time". 

A necessary evil unfortunately, but with a good 45 minutes to kill before it started, I took the time to walk leisurely downtown with my Mountain Boy - walking the boardwalk, watching the float planes, weaving between the multitude of tourists....

When the sun is shining the sky in Juneau is beyond blue.  It is bluer than blue......it is breathtakingly blue.

Downtown Juneau is a beautiful, enclosed, well-maintained, picturesque small city, that rests comfortably and snugly beside wonderful wonderful mountains.

A middle aged native Alaskan woman, accompanied by who I assume was her mother crossed paths with me downtown three times yesterday, and asked me each time if I could give her some money.....

My meeting did not finish until after 9pm last night, and while I was walking back to my car that was parked at  Centennial Hall, I noticed a middle aged native Alaskan man (who was walking with three other badly dressed men) stop walking, stand in one place and stare at me from the sidewalk and across the street.

I looked away for a minute, and when I looked back he was still standing in the same place staring at me.  It was not a good look.  It was a look of malice.  Something was badly out of place.

He stared at me, and I stared deliberately back at him.

My Mountain Boy was with me, he noticed the man, recognized the malice also and instantly went into high alert. 

The stares from all sides continued for another minute, until we eventually moved out of what I would consider the "danger zone". 

I love this city, but it comes with some of the same dangers and concerns that all cities come with..... 

My fragile lobster trap made it all the way from middle Tennessee to Juneau Alaska.  Good deal.

Very good deal.