Random Pictures From Random Travels

These two pictures were taken downtown at Marine Park beside the cruiseships and Gastineau Channel during the week, while I was walking between meetings.

The sky has been blue, the temperature has been warm, and the mountains have been shining and wonderful for well over a week now, with no apparent end in sight.

And the leaves, in this early part of fall, are beginning to turn.

Fall in Juneau is not the same as fall in Tennessee.

In Tennessee fall is breathtakingly beautiful.  The suffocating heat and humidity of summer gives way to air you can breathe and exercise easily in again. 

The trees turn every imaginable and beautiful color.

I remember doing a race in North Georgia in mid-fall a couple of years ago. 

Daylight was fading quickly, and me and my team still had a very long overnight and next day left to race.

We crested a mountain on our bikes and hit another trail.  It was very windy at the time, and the leaves were falling so heavily from the trees that it was almost like it was snowing. 

A multi-colored and beautiful snowfall of leaves.

I have many very good memories of adventure racing, but that is one of the most memorable.

One microcosm of time in the middle of a tough race.

I also remember being at a conference in Gatlinburg in fall, also a couple of years ago.

Compared to middle Tennessee, Gatlinburg in the mountains in the eastern part of the state was miles ahead in terms of the color changes on the trees.

I was sharing a hotel room with a crazy and wonderful lady that I worked with, and we were staying in a pretty fancy hotel that I would not have been able to afford if I was paying for it myself, so I was enjoying the heck out of the experience.

And I stood on the balconey of our room overlooking the mountains.

The leaves were in full color, the sky was very deep blue in that extraordinary way that Tennessee only sees in the fall.

And I was speechless at the beauty that was right in front of me, so close that I felt I could touch it.

I love all the pine trees in Juneau.  My Mountain Boy makes fun of me because I always just call them Christmas trees.

They are so abundant.  But the hardwoods that complement them are also abundant and fall is turning into a yellow and green season.

Is it beautiful?  Without a doubt.  It always is. 

But truthfully I miss the reds and oranges and browns and golds of Tennessee............

One night after work this week I met my Mountain Boy out at Lena Beach.

The water was higher than I have ever seen it.

People on this beautiful evening, were also there - walking their dogs, bar-b-qing and enjoying these last dog-days of summer..........

And LC has remembered how to become a very good rock skipper again.......

This man and his wife came down to the beach carrying armfuls of buckets and large plastic containers, and began filling them with seaweed.

Curious, we asked them what they had planned for the seaweed.

They use it for mulch - laying it on their gardens early in the fall, and then working it into the soil once it begins to breakdown.

Free mulch...........

A sweet little girl floating sticks in the water..........

Later this week I stopped for a few minutes at Cope Park in downtown Juneau close to work.

This park contains a children's playpark, tennis courts, benches, and a wonderful and wide open dirt trail.

A very lovely and fast moving river runs along one side of the park and close to the trail.

I did not have time that day, but on a previous visit I walked the length of the trail.

It soon crosses the river, picks up on the other side, and continues until you begin to come across wonderful and interesting occasional reminders of Juneau's gold mining history.

Eventually the trail ends at the trailheads of Perservance, Mt Roberts and others..........

The back end of my mutt.

LC was eating popcorn, dropped a piece on the floor, and my dog (who usually ends up sleeping on two-thirds of the couch - which leaves a full one third for the rest of us) reached all the way down from the couch to the floor.

She got the popcorn. 

Stomach like a steel trap..............