Disappearing Money and Sturdy People

Something I should not have done today was think about the money.......

How much my Mountain Boy and I have spent over the past five months, living in two separate states, living two separate lives almost 4000 miles apart.

Some of that money will be reimbursable when he gets here through my job. 

Some of it was spent on repairs on the house in Tennessee.  Some of it we will (or could) see again - last months rent on the house here in Juneau and the car I bought.  Some it was spent on things we needed to start our life here in Juneau.  And the rest is just........gone.

I stewed over it for a while today as I am apt to do. 

Counting money in my head, then counting it again. 

It was a useless exercise that accomplished nothing aside from making me feel bad.  And I worked hard to kick the negative-speak out of my head.  There was no point in it.

There were so many things that came into play over the past five months - doubts about Juneau, doubts about the job, questions about what to do with the house, waiting too long to book the ferry......

I wish we had done some things differently, but at the end of the day we did the best we could. 

I was downtown all day today and walked for a while during lunch - taking pictures of cruiseships (there were three of them), tourists (there were thousands of them), and other assorted summer-touristy things in Juneau.

Booths that popped up seemingly overnight, selling whale watching, glacier and city bus tours.......

Native sculpture outside the downtown library.....

More temporary structures that did not exist in this space only a few short months ago, and will not exist in another few short months, selling touristy stuff to touristy people.......

I love the fact that this capital city is very small and surrounded completely by mountains and water. 

I never get tired of seeing downtown buildings sitting so close to these mountains - they just belong together - complementing each other somehow.........

Tacky tourism......

And one sure sign of eclectic Juneau residents.

There are things you see in this town that are reflective of the uniqueness of the people and their lifestyle in this isolated northern town.

Women wearing Xtra Tufs with skirts.  Young men with straggly beards and Harry Potter glasses (also wearing Xtra Tufs of course).  Old people riding tiny bicycles.  Little children being carted around by their parents in back packs and front packs and running strollers.   Everyone walking with their huge happy joyful Alaskan dogs.  Everyone walking around carrying cups of coffee from the Heritage Coffee Shop and wearing jackets and sweaters from Mountain Hard Wear.

They are all very interesting and sturdy and unique.