Light and Shadow

We have now had two and a half weeks straight of very blue skies, sunshine and unseasonable warmth.

According to the forecast this weather will hang on for just another day or so before it becomes what it is actually supposed to become in Juneau in late September.

Colder and wetter.

After work today my Mountain Boy and my dog and I took a drive to, and then a walk on, Eagle Beach.

Things are changing in Juneau.

The cruiseships will be gone by the end of this week. 

Gone for good. 

Or at least gone until next May. 

And Juneau will again board up many of its stores and doors and windows, and downtown will hibernate again for the winter.

Out at Eagle Beach, about 28 miles from downtown Juneau things are also beginning to change.

The weather was warm today, but there was no-one else at the beach while we were there. 

Down in Tennessee the town I lived in had year 'round school, and the kids went back to school after their summer break, at the end of July.

At the end of July in Tennessee the humidity is extremely high and uncomfortable and so is the temperature.

But it doesn't matter.

Because the kids are back in school, and even though there is still much summer left everyone moves into "fall mode" - football, band, cheerleading, track, cross country, year book committees.

People don't go to pools or the lake so much.  They don't picnic or bar-b-q so much.  Fall mode.........

During our walk tonight I realized that the same thing happens here. 

Regardless of the temperature people here are done with going to the beach for the year.

Unless you are LC and Karin and Jamie. 

Because we will still be going to the beach when snow and ice cover the ground.......

Someone here said to me once that you could drop your camera on the gorund in Juneau and still take a beautiful picture.

That is very true.

I have been to Eagle Beach many times, but it is beginning to look different to me now.

The trees are a combination of green and yellow.

The wildflowers, that are so abundant all summer long, and that changed seeminly weekly here, are all now gone.

The bluest sky looks like a different shade of blue than we have seen during this summer season.

There are fewer birds, less people, leaves on the ground, other plants that are beginning to go dormant for the winter.

It all looks different to me, in that way that I have been waiting for for months now - a quieter way.  A quiet way.......

I took all of these pictures within the span of about one hour.

These pictures really stood out to me because the light is so different in each picture depending on where I was standing in relation to the sun.

Pictures full of light and full of shadow.

I never ever get tired of visiting this place.

LC loves it for the same reasons that I love it - because it is wide open, has exciting and never-ending views of the Chilkats, and because the place is so wide open and free.

Jamie also loves this place.  Endless smells to smell.  Endless birds to chase.  Endless waves to bite at.......

After a summer of never-ending and very very beautiful wildflowers, these are the last drying blooms on the beach.........

We arrived at Eagle Beach at about 5:30pm and this bottom picture was taken at an overlook on the way home at 6:45pm.

The days were extraordinarily long through the summer. 

We would go to bed a midnight with light still in the sky.

I can't count how many times I woke up with a start in the middle of the night thinking that I had slept through the alarm clock because it was so light - only to look at the clock and see that it was 3am.

Now we are headed in the opposite direction just as quickly.  Losing daylight very fast with each passing day as we head towards winter.

Sunset overlooking the Gastineau Channel.........