Skaters Cabin

When I was living in Ontario Canada and the boys were young, I remember going to the lake with them in the dead of winter.  I was single at the time, the boys were quite young, and we went on the spur of the moment one weekend day when the weather was calm, it was cold and there was a ton of snow on the ground.

The three of us walked along the shore, built a snowman, climbed some snow hills, and took a lot of pictures before heading to a petting zoo at the lake, where the boys happily fed the goats with food they got out of a small vending machine - handfuls of goat food for a quarter.

At one point while still walking in the snow my camera fell out of my jacket pocket, and the three of us spent more than an hour searching in that snow for my camera.  Surprisingly we did end up finding it.

When I look back on that time and place, I realize now how much I have always loved going to outdoor spaces at times that are quiet, and that usually do not draw a lot of people.

Like to the lake in Canada in the middle of winter.

Like running on trails in Tennessee when the sky is full of freezing rain and I joyfully know that I have the woods and the entire trail system to myself because no-one else wants to be outside in such crappy weather........

It has rained hard and non-stop in Juneau for the past 48 hours - more continuous and hard rain than I have seen in all of the five and a half months that I have been in Alaska.

I have changed my routine in the past couple of days - going straight home after work and not stopping......somewhere.......to do something outside. 

I have decided that I like my regular routine better.

I have found through experience over these past months that being outside centers me and slows down (or at least helps to slow down) my speeding brain.

After work this afternoon I met my Mountain Boy in the Valley for pizza at Bullwinkles.  Cheap pizza - OK pizza - but I am finding that after living on cereal and sandwiches for so many months I just cannot bring myself to eat a lot of "real" food anymore. 

Part of the problem is that I am not used to eating so much food, and part of the problem is that I have not worked out in almost three weeks.  I am feeling heavy, weighed down and out of shape right now.  I need to do something with that..........

After we finished dinner we began to head home in the pouring rain, and (of course) on the spur of the moment I pulled off Glacier Highway in Auke Bay and onto the Back Loop towards Montana Creek and the Skaters' Cabin.  My Mountain Boy followed me in his truck.

Skaters' Cabin is a stone park cabin located along Mendenhall Lake, close to the West Glacier Trail.

It is right on the water, and overlooks the lake, the glacier, small icebergs that have calved from the glacier, and is surrounded by beautiful mountains.

It was cold.  It was pouring with rain.  And it was just great.

After we left the Skaters' Cabin we headed further Out the Road, and made one more stop at Auke Village Recreation Area before heading home. 

There are a couple of small three-sided wood and stone enclosures at this place, but the one I wanted to show LC was occupied, and we sat on a picnic table overlooking the water under the second enclosure instead.

The first one has a huge fireplace along the entire length of one wall, and everytime I have seen it over the past few months I have pictured me and LC sitting there enjoying a huge fire on a cool night.  I hope that we get to do that one night soon. 

The one that we occupied for a short time today contains a smaller fireplace, as well as a firepit outside.

We sat and watched the ducks, the lone otter who playfully appeared then disappeared regularly during our visit, and all of the small and large/fast and slow boats that were still on the water today regardless of the weather.

A good part of the trail at Auke Village Rec Area is an open and easy gravel walkway, which eventually turns into a moss-covered easy-on-the-joints dirt and root covered trail.  All of this eventually leads to this point jutting further out into the channel.

I walked out to that point the second day that I was in Juneau.  It was very early in January, some of the trail was covered in ice, and it was very windy and cold. 

By the time I wandered aimlessly out to the point and looked around me to see stunning mountains and seemingly endless channel, I remember standing in the cold and wind wondering what the hell I was doing so unexpectedly in Juneau Alaska.

My Mountain Boy was in Tennessee.  I was in Alaska.  I had no idea how this was all going to work out.....how I was going to like Juneau or my new job......whether or not LC would come on board for the ride.....wondering what we were going to do with our house down there......overwhelmed by questions, doubts, homesickness, the logistics of moving so far to such an isolated place.  Not really sure if this was truly the right thing to do.

Much has been resolved since that day in early January.  Some of it still has not.  But I am still "Living the Adventure".